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BURT EDWARD BURROUGHS 
 
 AMONG THE EARLIEST OF THE WHITE CHILDREN BORN IN 
 THE DOMAIN OF THE POTTAWATTOMIE, AT "SUGAR ISLAND," 
 ON THE IROQUOIS RIVER, JUST OVER THE LINE IN KANKA- 
 KEE COUNTY 
 
LEGENDS 
 
 AND 
 
 TALES OF HOMELAND 
 
 ON 
 
 The KANKAKEE 
 
 BY 
 BURT E. BURROUGHS 
 
 REGAN PRINTING HOUSE 
 Chicago : : : : : 1923 
 
Copyright, 1923, by 
 
 BURT E. BURROUGHS 
 
 Kankakee, 111. 
 
JH 
 
 oo 
 
 <HT363 
 
 (j— To the Memory of 
 
 The Pioneer Men and Women 
 6 of Kankakee County, 
 
 Among Whom Were Numbered 
 
 Mv Jfatfcer anb Jflotijer 
 
 This Volume is Reverently Dedicated 
 By the Author 
 
 v 
 
 i 
 
 Tn 
 % 
 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://archive.org/details/legendstalesofhoOOburr 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Every book has a preface — at least, it should have. 
 It is recognized as a sort of sanctuary wherein an author 
 welcomes the world at large in the spirit of friendly 
 intimacy, to confide to them something of his hopes and 
 longings, to confess shortcomings and deficiencies, and, 
 incidentally, to give a reason, if such a thing is possible, 
 for doing it at all. In these luxurious times the Pioneer of 
 the old days looms as a commanding, outstanding figure 
 in our National history. Though he sometimes lacked in 
 "polish," yet he towered in manly strength and the 
 quality of his fiber none may gainsay. A few years 
 more and a century will have elapsed since the first white 
 man settled in Kankakee county. Our yesterdays have 
 trickled from the hand of Father Time even as the sands 
 fall from the hour-glass and these unrecorded days have 
 carried with them into the realm of "time that was," 
 memories of many an incident, many a legend and tale 
 of pioneer days beyond all possibility of recall, which 
 we cannot but deeply deplore. To preserve some small 
 part of this inheritance of our pioneer ancestors for 
 future generations while yet the opportunity remains, 
 seems to me a worthy task, one that might well enlist 
 the efforts of any citizen with the inclination and the 
 leisure to devote to it. 
 
 Frankly, this is not a volume of biographical sketches. 
 I have tried faithfully to make it just what the title im- 
 plies, a volume of Legends and Tales of life in the early 
 days of our fathers and mothers in the Valley of the 
 Kankakee, touching upon many things curious, unusual 
 and out of the ordinary, that are truly worth preserving. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 In carrying out this work, during the greater part of one 
 summer I have prowled in by-ways and out-of-the-way 
 places and ransacked, as opportunity offered, the re- 
 cesses of many a memory, always to find some charming 
 bit of "forgotten lore," much after the manner of the 
 seeker of antiques, who invades the cob-webbed, dust- 
 enshrouded sanctity of some old-time attic to find, al- 
 ways, some odd, rare thing on which Time has placed his 
 seal, which gives one a thrill, a shock most delightful, 
 and which makes it all worth while. 
 
 More than once have I had occasion to regret the evi- 
 dent apathy and indifference whereby the life stories of 
 early settlers such as Noel LeVasseur, Dominick Bray, 
 of Bourbonnais, A. S. Vail, of Momence, John B. Hay- 
 hurst, of Yellowhead, Henry Lowe, of Aroma, and many 
 other of our citizens, were lost to the generation of today. 
 What a heritage of fact, legend and story of the old days 
 these men could have bequeathed to us — these men who 
 lived neighbors to the P Ottawa ttomies ! The past is not 
 wholly lost; thanks to the conscientious efforts of those 
 who recorded the salient features of that time. But 
 much of the legend, gossip and small talk that passed 
 current at the firesides of our pioneer ancestors, tales 
 of social life and of acts inspired by the rugged hardi- 
 hood of the backwoodsman of that day, acts savoring of 
 both good and ill, are only to be encountered today in 
 the event that kindly fortune directs you to someone 
 whose recollection lights up with memories, shadowy and 
 elusive, like the pale, wan flame of burned out fires. 
 
 It is with pleasure that I acknowledge herein the aid, 
 encouragement and unfailing kindliness of our last re- 
 maining nonagenarian, Mr. Judson Nichols, who re- 
 sponded most graciously to the call for help in preserving 
 the memory of old days. To Mr. Nichols I owe an 
 
PREFACE 
 
 especial debt of gratitude and appreciation. At the age 
 of ninety-five years, having spent eighty-one years in 
 Kankakee county, his marvelous memory, keen, alert and 
 unimpaired, has supplied many an interesting detail of 
 early pioneer life. He, alone, has made possible fully 
 one-third of the sketches contained herein besides supply- 
 ing a resume of pioneer life in general of the times of 
 the early forties, which the reader will find abounding 
 in interesting detail. I have felt in a marked degree the 
 stimulus of his kindly interest and whole-souled co-opera- 
 tion and, in return, I can only wish that, for him, still 
 other years may fall to his lot, years tempered with quiet 
 content and happiness such as characterize life for him 
 today. 
 
 "Legends," as applied to some of the tales contained 
 herein, seems happily suited to the purpose, perhaps for 
 the reason that it is a term of generous adaptability, a 
 token by which we recognize that the past conveys to us 
 something of the dread secrets it holds — of love and 
 tragedy, pleasure and disappointment, success and fail- 
 ure, all of which are elements entering into the sum 
 total of human life — without holding the narrator thereof 
 to too strict accountability. I believe it is Amy Lowell 
 who has said most truly: "A legend is something that 
 nobody has written and which everybody has written, 
 and which anybody is at liberty to rewrite." This much 
 may be said of the legends contained herein; they have, 
 at least, the substance of fact to commend them, whether 
 you may happen to approve of the manner in which 
 they have been presented or not. Sometimes, when mem- 
 ory wavered, and was not quite sure of certain things, 
 other memories were consulted. Memory has been 
 checked against memory, and the limited historical data, 
 such as Kankakee county has that is available, invoked to 
 
PREFACE 
 
 establish, where possible, a multitude of vexatious "little 
 things" quite indispensable to the text of certain stories. 
 
 I have deemed it fitting to preface the matter herein 
 with brief sketches of the discovery of the great middle 
 west by the French. It is a wonderful story, this story 
 of the early-day French, having its beginning in the first 
 days of the 17th century, and about which play all the 
 roseate hues of medievalism, the glamour of romance of 
 the brilliant court of that most dazzling of monarchs, 
 Louis XIV, the whole touched by the somber shadow of 
 the missionary, "The Black-Robed Father." 
 
 No small part of the ancient glory that was rests upon 
 the Valley of the Kankakee and the Kankakee river, 
 which was an important integral part of the great water- 
 way which stretched across the continent. We have been 
 tardy, perhaps, in our recognition and appreciation of 
 the value of this great historical inheritance of ours which, 
 like a rare painting, preserves to us, amid its high-lights 
 and shadows, visions of toiling processions made up of 
 the picturesque voyageur, the roystering coureur de bois, 
 the stately presence of the King's emissary, and the ever- 
 present "Black-Robe," whose ghostly campfires, when 
 we dream, still seem to light the cavernous depths of the 
 forests, and whose voices still speak to us in a patois 
 more or less familiar, from queer, ancient tomes of that 
 far-off day. 
 
 Burt E. Burroughs. 
 
 Kankakee, III., June 10, 1923. 
 
APPRECIATION 
 
 In the preparation of this volume many sources have 
 been drawn upon and many individuals consulted. Dr. 
 Benjamin F. Uran, a Native son of Kankakee county, 
 than whom, I know of none more widely or deeply versed 
 in the lore of the pioneer of County and State, has placed 
 at my disposal the vast resources at his command, and 
 that without reserve. Born of parents whose pioneership 
 in Kankakee county was contemporary with that of the 
 earliest settlers, Dr. Uran has observed closely and, by 
 means of a remarkably retentive memory, accumulated 
 an unusual store of local historical data, traditions, 
 legends and tales of the early days, among which I have 
 fairly reveled. He has been helpful, generously so for 
 a busy man, a sort of help that has proven of incalcu- 
 lable value in preparing a work of this description. To 
 Dr. Uran I feel deeply grateful for many a tip and 
 pointer; for many a helpful suggestion and criticism; 
 and, not least of all, for a friendly word of encourage- 
 ment now and then, and a kindly pat on the back. As the 
 President of the Kankakee County Historical Society, 
 Dr. Uran has rendered to the City and the County a most 
 unique and valuable service. 
 
 To Mr. Charles Tebeault, of West Station Street, I 
 am indebted for information regarding the personnel of 
 that unique French settlement, of the LeVia reserva- 
 tion, which was known for many years as "Little Can- 
 ada." This, happily, he supplied from memory, together 
 with other data whereby it was made possible to give 
 something of the intimate touch, something of the at- 
 mosphere of "Habitant" life, reflecting as it did in that 
 
APPRECIATION 
 
 early day, evidences of that paternalism with which the 
 good Louis XIV surrounded his Canadian subjects. 
 
 It is with pleasure that I acknowledge, herewith, the 
 kindly interest and helpfulness of Mr. Elias Powell, Mr. 
 Eugene Enos, Mr. Worth Bird, Mr. R. A. Hewitt, Mr. 
 Frank Chapman, of Kankakee; Mrs. Kendall, Mr. Ross 
 Beebe, Mr. Thomas Sharkey, of Momence; Mrs. Lyons, 
 of Sherburnville ; Mr. Peter B. Strickler, of Iroquois, 
 now deceased; Mr. Martin VanderKarr, Mr. Byrns and 
 Mr. Henry Y. Swan, of Aroma Park. Many there are 
 who, in one way or another, have contributed their mite 
 to the sum total of this work and to all such I extend 
 sincere thanks and the assurance of grateful appreciation. 
 
 Burt E. Burroughs. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 The Trail of the King's Highway 1 
 
 The Coming of the French to the Valley of the Kankakee. . 12 
 
 Pioneer Life on the Kankakee Eighty Years Ago 23 
 
 Mark Beaubien's Story of the Man Who Burned Up 35 
 
 The First Threshing Machine Brought to Kankakee County 40 
 
 "Shaw-wa-na-see's" Village of Little Rock 43 
 
 An Old-Time "Turkey Shoot," on the Kankakee 49 
 
 Hunting the Wolf on Horseback 55 
 
 A Double Wedding at Limestone in the Year 1842 58 
 
 The Forge on the Prairie 64 
 
 Early-Day Dances at the Davis Home 68 
 
 The Old Rinosa Postoffice 78 
 
 Taxation a Burden on the Early Settler 81 
 
 The "Bogus Island" Horse Thief Ring 83 
 
 Limestone Votes Bonds for War Bounties 95 
 
 The Cholera Epidemic of 1851 101 
 
 The County-Seat Election of 1853 104 
 
 The Letter That Never Came 113 
 
 Removing a Kiss with Soft Soap 117 
 
 The Eccentric Dan Parmlee 119 
 
 A Notable War-Time Dance and Oyster Supper 121 
 
 The First Shopper on Court Street 125 
 
 When the First Locomotive Came to Kankakee 129 
 
 Billy Caldwell, "The Sau-ga-nash" 133 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Chief "Shaub-e-nee," The Grand Old Man 137 
 
 The Exodus of the Pottawattomie Nation 142 
 
 The Old Hubbard Trail 148 
 
 Kankakee County's First Fourth of July Celebration 157 
 
 A Death and Burial at "Leggtown" 160 
 
 Kankakee's First Sunday School Excursion 166 
 
 Dominick Bray, Voyageur, Trader, Citizen 170 
 
 The Story of "Little Canada" 183 
 
 When Young Folks Danced Over in Little Canada 188 
 
 Walking as a Lost Art 195 
 
 The Papoose's Cradle 200 
 
 The Coming Together of the 76th Regiment and Tommy 
 Gorman 205 
 
 When the First Buggy Came to Kankakee County 209 
 
 "For They Were Jolly Good Fellows" 216 
 
 A Tale of Old Kankakee 219 
 
 Outliving a Shroud 224 
 
 In the Good Old Days of the Ox Team 228 
 
 Hubbard's Fight with Chief Yellow Head 234 
 
 "Watch-e-kee's" Prophecy 239 
 
 "As It Was in the Beginning" 256 
 
 Pioneers Three and a Horse Trade 260 
 
 A Unique Pioneer Character 265 
 
 The Recollections of a Nonagenarian 269 
 
 Historical Flotsam and Jetsam 272 
 
The Trail of the King's Highway 
 
 O'er the water, floating, flying, 
 Something in the hazy distance, 
 Something in the mists of morning, 
 Loomed and lifted from the water, 
 Now seemed floating, now seemed flying, 
 Coming nearer, nearer, nearer. 
 
 Was it Shingebis, the diver? 
 Or the pelican, the Shada ? 
 Or the Heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah ? 
 Or the White Goose, Waw-be-wawa, 
 With the water dripping, flashing, 
 From its glossy neck and feathers ? 
 
 It was neither goose nor diver, 
 Neither pelican nor heron, 
 O'er the water floating, flying, 
 Through the shining mist of morning, 
 But a birch canoe with paddles, 
 Rising, sinking on the water, 
 Dripping, flashing in the sunshine; 
 And within it came a people 
 From the distant land of Wau-bun, 
 From the farthest realms of morning 
 Came the Black-Robe Chief, the Prophet, 
 He the Priest of Prayer, the Pale-face, 
 With his guides and his companions. 
 
 — Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha. 
 
 Deep in the heart of the North American 
 continent, fashioned and moulded by those 
 titanic forces of the universe, of which we have 
 
LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 but faint knowledge or conception, an all-wise 
 providence ordered, apparently, as if by spe- 
 cific plan and direction, a system of lakes and 
 mighty rivers, connected, for the most part, 
 and forming a continuous waterway (with the 
 exception of several short portages), from the 
 Gulf of the St. Lawrence southwest across 
 the United States to the Gulf of Mexico. 
 From the earliest times this vast water system 
 was regarded by the simple-minded aborigines 
 as evidence that the Great Spirit, or "Mani- 
 tou," by whom it was created, looked upon 
 his children with especial favor. By them it 
 was alluded to as "the great mystery," through 
 which the beneficence of the Great Spirit was 
 constantly shown towards them. By means of 
 its far-flung ramifications their light birch- 
 bark canoes were borne easily many, many 
 suns distant, into beautiful lands where the 
 rigors of winter were unknown, where wild 
 fruits grew abundantly in the forests, and 
 where, on the limitless prairies, roamed at will 
 vast herds of the buffalo, elk and deer. As if 
 in acknowledgment of added benefactions of 
 the Great Spirit, there were times when the 
 Indian patriarch, addressing the white man, 
 assured him in language simple, direct, elo- 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 3 
 
 quent, "From out the far-off land of morning 
 the shining water has brought you, our Brother 
 of the Black-Robe." 
 
 This inland waterway has borne a stupend- 
 ous part in the development of the country 
 since the early days of the 17th century, when 
 the first white men, the French coureurs de 
 bois, moved by the irresistible charm of the 
 virgin wilderness, and the love of adventure 
 and life among the aborigines, threaded its 
 ways and penetrated deeper and deeper into 
 the mysteries of the land. Thus it was that this 
 great inland waterway or "King's Highway," 
 became intimately associated with the move- 
 ments of the early-day discoverers, the white 
 men, who first set foot in the great valley of 
 the Kankakee. 
 
 This old, much-traveled land and water trail, 
 which connects the frozen reaches of Canada, 
 the wonderful region of the Mississippi, and 
 the balmy clime of the south, is rich in the 
 legendary lore of the Indian, abounding in 
 tales of hardihood and adventure on the part 
 of the coureurs de bois, and of heroic self- 
 sacrifices and martyrdoms on the part of the 
 "Paleface of the Black-Robe," the Jesuit 
 Fathers, who, first of all, brought to the sav- 
 
LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 age dwellers of the wilderness the light of 
 Christianity. The gray-robed Franciscans were 
 the first to undertake the work, but were soon 
 followed by the Jesuits, who, during a period 
 of nearly one hundred years, prosecuted their 
 conquest of the evil spirits of the wilderness, 
 until their outposts dotted finally the country 
 of the Illinois, and the lower stretches of the 
 Mississippi to the Gulf. 
 
 A peculiar fascination attaches to this great 
 highway and the movements of the coureur de 
 bois, the voyageur and the Jesuit who came 
 in and possessed the land. Launching their 
 light birch-bark canoes in the waters of the 
 St. Lawrence, at the base of the towering rock 
 at Quebec, they proceeded thence to Lake 
 Ontario, skirting its eastern and southern 
 shores until the Niagara river was reached; 
 passing up the river, they made a portage 
 around the great falls of Niagara, and con- 
 tinued on to Lake Erie, following its northern 
 shore west to the Detroit river, by the river 
 to Lake St. Clair, the St. Clair river to Lake 
 Huron, and thence north until Michillimack- 
 inac, at the apex of the Michigan peninsula, 
 was reached. Michillimackinac, in the early 
 days of the French and the fur trade, was a 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 5 
 
 most important place. Here the trail divided. 
 Those headed for the "Country of the Illinois," 
 followed the eastern shore line of Lake 
 Michigan, until coming to where St. Joseph, 
 Michigan, is today located, they entered the 
 St. Joseph river and, continuing to where the 
 present city of South Bend, Indiana, is located, 
 disembarked and made a portage of nearly 
 five miles to the Kankakee swamps, wherein 
 the Kankakee river takes its rise. At the con- 
 fluence of the Kankakee and the DesPlaines, 
 which unite and form the river of the Illinois, 
 the traveler found himself in the famed 
 "Country of the Illinois," with its vast fertile 
 areas teeming with buffalo, wild game of all 
 kinds, wild fruits, a country fair and most 
 pleasing to look upon, if we may trust the 
 written testimony of many a travel-worn 
 "Father of the Black-Robe." Once launched 
 upon the waters of the Illinois, there was no 
 impediment to travel to the "Great Father of 
 Waters," the Mississippi, and thence to the 
 Gulf of Mexico. 
 
 The other route from Michillimackinac to 
 the Mississippi lay to the southwest, across 
 Lake Michigan, the objective being Green 
 
LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 Bay, Wisconsin, and thence south to its south- 
 ernmost point where, for many years, a mis- 
 sion was maintained. From Green Bay, by 
 means of the Fox river and a portage of nine 
 miles, the Wisconsin river was reached, and 
 by means of it the Mississippi. 
 
 There was still another route which was 
 largely used by those coming into the country 
 of the Illinois. Passing the St. Joseph river, 
 on the eastern side of Lake Michigan, and 
 continuing around the southern bend of the 
 lake and up the western shore, the voyageur 
 came upon the Chicago river, by means of 
 which and its south branch, and a portage of 
 a few miles, he was enabled to reach the Des- 
 Plaines river, which, uniting with the Kanka- 
 kee, forms the Illinois. This route was much 
 used by parties making the return trip, either 
 to Green Bay or Quebec. Father Marquette, 
 returning from a visit to the mission of La 
 Conception, which he had located a few years 
 before among the Illinois, at or near the junc- 
 tion of the Kankakee and the DesPlaines, was 
 taken seriously ill on the Chicago portage and 
 was obliged to spend the greater part of the 
 winter of 1674-5 there. The rude hut which 
 his men provided for him was the first white 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 7 
 
 habitation erected on the site of the City of 
 Chicago. 
 
 This highway, during the period of occupa- 
 tion by the Jesuits, extending from about 1625 
 to 1725, principally under the reign of the 
 brilliant Louis XIV of France, never held 
 anything in the way of mission buildings except 
 of a most primitive character, which have long 
 since passed out of existence. But one thing 
 the Jesuit Fathers did do. They kept diaries 
 and wrote profusely of their work among the 
 Indians, to which they had consecrated their 
 lives with an enthusiasm and white-hot zeal 
 which excites the profoundest admiration in 
 this day. These written records of the various 
 Fathers stationed along the line of this great 
 waterway were yearly transmitted to the 
 Superior of the order, at Quebec. It was a 
 great event in the life of the priest when he 
 was permitted to bear these records in person 
 to headquarters at Quebec, for, in addition to 
 the respite from the arduous duties he was 
 obliged to observe toward his dusky charges, 
 there was the opportunity to meet other work- 
 ers, fresh from the fields of the wilderness, and 
 compare notes. For others, farther out along 
 the way, it was a rare privilege, indeed, to get 
 
LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 to make the coveted trip, and often the precious 
 diary which told the story of the quest of souls 
 in the wilderness, for lack of paper was com- 
 mitted to thin sheets of birch-bark, by means 
 of ink made from gunpowder. This diary was 
 wrapped securely in a portion of the Father's 
 cassock, or sewed in a covering of hide, and 
 given into the hands of an Indian runner who, 
 following the great inland highway of river, 
 lake and portage, threading by day the dark 
 aisles of the primeval forests, arrived at last 
 in the shadow of the great rock on the St. 
 Lawrence. 
 
 These field notes, from the many missionaries 
 scattered throughout the length of this internal 
 highway, were carefully edited, and, where 
 necessary, re- written and made readable by the 
 Superior of the order, and then by him trans- 
 mitted to the Superior-General of the order in 
 Paris, France. There, during a continuous 
 period extending over forty years, these notes, 
 detailing the work and experiences of the 
 Fathers, laboriously collated on the trail, and 
 in Indian wigwams amid the squalor and con- 
 fusion so often encountered there, were pub- 
 lished under the title of "The Jesuit Relations." 
 These volumes were issued from the press of 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 9 
 
 Sebastian Cramoisy, Paris, under a patent of 
 authority from Louis XIV, and comprise, in 
 their entirety, forty small volumes in all. 
 
 The first of this remarkable series of "Rela- 
 tions" was issued in 1632, and the last in 1672. 
 This was an era of the imagination, to which 
 was added a religious enthusiasm of surpass- 
 ing depth and volume. In certain quarters it 
 was an age of materialism as well, for France, 
 under "Louis the Magnificent," had made 
 marvelous strides in material prosperity, and 
 the addition of a new world to the domain of 
 France, with its unlimited wealth and possi- 
 bilities, tended to make every scrap of infor- 
 mation, even to the stories of the missionaries, 
 of their work in Christianizing the aborigines, 
 to be seized upon and devoured with avidity 
 by all classes, from the Court down. Thus, the 
 "Relations," or narratives of the Fathers, in 
 that far-away field of the new world, served 
 to enlighten the populace and bring comfort 
 to the hearts of the zealous, until changing con- 
 ditions and varying fortunes of France in the 
 years following, caused increasing restrictions 
 to be placed upon the operations of the Jesuits, 
 resulting, finally, in the elimination of the order 
 
10 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 from the field in which they had so long labored. 
 Strange to say, the publications known as "The 
 Relations," lapsed into complete oblivion that 
 lasted for nearly two hundred years. 
 
 But these unique records, written in the 
 blood of martyrs, were nevertheless destined to 
 stand as a monument to their memory. Some- 
 thing over half a century ago, Dr. John Gil- 
 mary Shea and James O'Callaghan, who were 
 engaged in securing data bearing on the early 
 history of the state of New York, while explor- 
 ing the archives of the old Jesuit Mission at 
 Quebec, brought to light several copies of "The 
 Jesuit Relations," products of the Cramoisy 
 press of Paris. The great historical value of 
 these works was at once apparent, for, while 
 the Fathers dwelt at great length, and gave 
 in minute detail the facts concerning the con- 
 version and subsequent conduct of their dusky 
 neophytes, as well as detailing some of the 
 hardships that fell to their lot, and of life in 
 the Indian wigwam, there was an occasional 
 digression, to record some of the wonders of 
 the wilderness, the plains, the lakes, the rivers, 
 and the leading physical characteristics of the 
 country in which they operated. These digres- 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 11 
 
 sions were often brief, in many cases only a 
 bare mention of most interesting things. 
 
 Dr. Shea, with the enthusiasm of the true 
 bibliophile, brought to the attention of the 
 founder of the great Lenox library, of New 
 York, his wonderful discovery of these works 
 of antiquity, which touched so vitally the early 
 history of the United States. The work of 
 collecting the complete set of forty volumes 
 was immediately undertaken, but it required 
 years of unremitting labor and the expenditure 
 of thousands of dollars ere the task was accom- 
 plished. Today, Lenox library has the only 
 complete set of "The Relations," in the orig- 
 inal of the Cramoisy press, to be found in the 
 United States. These books bear mute evi- 
 dence of the great interest they inspired in 
 that far-off day in France, for, in many in- 
 stances, the text is so thumbed and worn as 
 to be scarcely legible. 
 
 In this manner was much of the history of 
 the early- day discoverers and pioneers of the 
 middle west preserved to us. The romantic 
 part of it all is that, years after all hope had 
 been abandoned of ever securing reliable data 
 on the French discoveries, and subsequent 
 occupation of this great territory, this incident 
 
12 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 of the accidental discovery of the "Jesuit 
 Relations" came like a voice speaking out of 
 the past. 
 
 The Coming of the French to the Valley 
 of the Kankakee 
 
 Two years spent under the sunny skies of 
 southern California, hemmed in by the moun- 
 tains and the waste places of the desert, with 
 the great Pacific for a back-yard, on all of 
 which rests the charm of romance of old Span- 
 ish days with their care-free indolence and free- 
 handed hospitality, awakened within us some- 
 thing akin to regret that a land so favored as 
 our own Valley of the Kankakee should, 
 apparently, be so lacking in monuments of 
 historic interest, around which cluster legends 
 with their romance and tragedy of the old days 
 when the Frenchman came. It is true we have 
 much authenticated history of "The Country 
 of the Illinois," in its early days, and it is also 
 true that much which, in this day, would prove 
 of very great value and interest is hopelessly, 
 irretrievably lost. Starved Rock is one notable 
 point towards which we may turn and say with 
 certainty that its limited area was trod by 
 La Salle, Tonty, the Jesuit missionaries, and 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 13 
 
 many other notables in French history. Kas- 
 kaskia and Cahokia, where the King's Court 
 sat, and for years, up until 1764, administered 
 the affairs of the domain of "New France," 
 enjoy a similar distinction. But the Valley of 
 the Kankakee, though rich in historical lore 
 and brave tales^ of that unique character, the 
 "Coureur de Bois," is, sad to say, almost wholly 
 lacking in historical monuments that may be 
 visualized or venerated by reason of their asso- 
 ciation with the early French discoverers. 
 
 In December of the year 1679, LaSalle, 
 Tonty, Father Hennepin and a considerable 
 party, coming by way of the St. Joseph por- 
 tage and the Kankakee river, first bore the 
 "Lilies of France" into the great prairie para- 
 dise where we live today. Many years prior to 
 this epochal event, every "coureur de bois," or 
 rover of the woods, from the St. Lawrence, 
 who drifted into the heart of the country of 
 the Illinois, found a land so spacious and invit- 
 ing, so beautiful, so teeming with fatness, so 
 ideal with respect to its climate — being neither 
 too cold in winter nor too hot in summer — that 
 he chose to remain, forgetting, as the years 
 passed on, that there was such a place as Can- 
 ada. Close on the heels of these rovers of the 
 
14 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 woods and prairies came the black-robed Jes- 
 uits, and with their coming the light of history 
 dawned on the solitude, for they, first of all, 
 wrote of what they saw. Franquelin, Marest, 
 Marquette, Dablon, Charlevoix, Hennepin, 
 and many others, have written of the beautiful 
 country of that early day. The broad, fertile 
 areas that unfolded before their astonished 
 vision, disclosing rivers, woods, plains with 
 their herds of buffalo and deer, held also the 
 promise of a vast inland empire made readily 
 accessible by almost continuous waterways 
 from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. 
 DeSoto, the Spaniard, was the first to discover 
 the Mississippi, but LaSalle was the first to 
 navigate its waters from the Illinois to its 
 mouth, while the adventurous Hennepin pro- 
 ceeded north as far as the Falls of St. Anthony. 
 Father Hennepin has preserved for us, in 
 interesting narrative, the details of the transfer 
 from the St. Joseph river, at a point about 
 where South Bend, Indiana, stands today, over 
 a three-mile portage to the great Kankakee 
 swamps, wherein the Kankakee river takes its 
 rise. For many miles, he says, the stream was 
 so narrow that the canoes of the expedition, 
 viewed from a distance, appeared as though 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 15 
 
 moving on dry land. Late one afternoon in 
 December, 1679, while LaSalle was out recon- 
 noitering in territory which may not have been 
 far from the present state line, east or west, 
 he got lost. Night came on and he was alone 
 in the great woods. As he proceeded, he beheld 
 the light of a camp-fire gleaming through the 
 timber, and towards it he made his way. He 
 had surprised some Indian in lonely bivouac 
 for the night, for there, under a tree, was his 
 bed of leaves with the impress of his body dis- 
 cernible therein. LaSalle announced in a loud 
 voice, repeating in the various Indian dialects 
 at his command, that he was a friend and 
 meant only to share the comforts of the humble 
 home in the wilderness with its owner. But no 
 one appeared, and, accordingly, LaSalle laid 
 him down in the Indian's bed of leaves and 
 slept the sleep of the just until the break of 
 day. It must be admitted that it took nerve to 
 sleep thus in a strange bed in an enemy coun- 
 try. A searching party under the command 
 of Tonty found him the following day. An 
 incident of their travel down the Kankakee 
 was the finding of a mammoth buffalo bull, 
 helplessly mired in the mud of the river bank 
 which had, somehow, escaped visitation by the 
 
16 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 wolves. The monster was dispatched and, from 
 the carcass, the party supplied themselves with 
 an abundance of buffalo steaks, which, how- 
 ever, proved to be so tough that no use could 
 be made of them. 
 
 LaSalle was a man of vision and, as they 
 pushed on to the mouth of the Mississippi, his 
 active brain readily comprehended the tre- 
 mendous possibilities of this great, fertile basin, 
 then untouched, as well as the strategic value 
 of its far-reaching plains and rivers, located as 
 they were in the heart of the continent. It is 
 all a matter of history how, in 1682, LaSalle 
 and his party unfurled the banner of France 
 at the mouth of the Mississippi and, as a part 
 of the ceremony observed while taking this 
 great country in the name of Louis XIV, a 
 leaden plate was buried somewhere in the 
 unstable sands of the river's mouth inscribed 
 with the name, "Louisiana," the baptismal 
 name of the great region of the Mississippi 
 basin. LaSalle, fired by an ambition to found 
 an empire in this wonderful country, made 
 several trips to France and urged upon the 
 sovereign, Louis XIV, the adoption of a 
 project to plant a colony at the mouth of the 
 Mississippi. It gives one a thrill to recall that 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 17 
 
 this land of ours was, for a time, the all- 
 engrossing topic of the most brilliant court in 
 the world. The narratives of this strange new 
 world were hung upon by court beauties and 
 courtiers with all the artless credulity of chil- 
 dren listening to fairy tales. The great Louis 
 was impressed with the utility and magnitude 
 of it all, and the minister, Seignelay, was at 
 last instructed to draw on the King's treasure 
 chest for sufficient gold to finance a colony of 
 respectable proportions and, accordingly, it 
 was sent out. But the expedition failed. Sail- 
 ing past the mouth of the Mississippi, the 
 colony was finally landed on the east coast of 
 Texas, and from this point LaSalle set out to 
 re-discover the Mississippi. On one of these 
 trips his men mutinied, LaSalle was assassi- 
 nated, and sleeps today in a grave unknown. 
 The loyal Tonty, he of "the Iron Hand and 
 the Courageous Heart," died disappointed and 
 broken in spirit, and his ashes rest in the Valley 
 of the Illinois in a spot unknown of men. Fate 
 frowned on their efforts and mocked the decree 
 of a king. 
 
 There is something of interest that attaches 
 to the fact that this land of ours has been a 
 land much talked of ever since that far-off day 
 
18 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 when the first white man set foot in it. Then, 
 as now, it was an Eldorado of richness, invested 
 with a scenic charm that simply defied the 
 power of man to adequately describe. The 
 spell of the great out-of-doors fell upon the 
 rude, unlettered coureur de bois, who, with his 
 savage consort, made his home at will beneath 
 leafy shade of virgin forests, and by moving 
 stream, with none to deny him his share of 
 the abounding plenitude set in the wilderness. 
 There were rare occasions when he journeyed 
 to the far distant trading posts on the great 
 lakes, with pelts and furs to exchange for 
 certain necessities, and on these trips he came 
 in contact with others of his kind, to whom he 
 told the story of "Le Bonne Terre," of the 
 "Beautiful Land of the Illinois." The hardy 
 French-Canadian voyageur, who first pro- 
 pelled the heavy batteaux on the Kankakee, 
 the Iroquois, the DesPlaines and the Illinois 
 rivers, carried afar wonderful stories of the 
 country. The Jesuits, during their hundred 
 years' occupation of the land, wrote much con- 
 cerning it, as we have seen. Father Marquette, 
 in his journal of 1673, has given us a charming 
 picture of the land, written with something of 
 the style and appreciation of the subject such 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 19 
 
 as characterize the work of the modern corre- 
 spondent. Joutel, a French boy of barely 
 twenty years, one of the few survivors of 
 LaSalle's ill-fated colony, who succeeded in 
 reaching Fort St. Louis, or Starved Rock, on 
 the Illinois, in a work published in London in 
 1714, speaks of the glories of the Valley of 
 the Illinois, as viewed from the top of the rock 
 in late October. 
 
 In the successive steps by which the devel- 
 opment of the land has been accomplished, 
 we have, first, the French, who, after many 
 years of occupation, established the King's 
 Court at Fort de Chartres in 1672, continuing 
 until 1764. 
 
 The English period follows, from 1764 to 
 1778. The Virginia period followed when, on 
 July 4th, 1778, that intrepid backwoods war- 
 rior, George Rogers Clark, entered Kaskaskia 
 and took the territory in the name of Virginia. 
 
 In October, 1778, the Virginia Assembly 
 erected this territory into the "County of Illi- 
 nois," and on March 1, 1784, ceded the terri- 
 tory to the United States, which marks the 
 beginning of the Federal era. 
 
 May 7, 1800, "the Northwest Territory," as 
 this was then designated, was divided and the 
 
20 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 western portion, consisting of what is now 
 Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin, was consti- 
 tuted "the Indiana Territory." In 1809, this 
 Indiana Territory was divided and the western 
 part became Illinois. 
 
 In 1814, the Astor enterprise, "the American 
 Fur Company," began operations in the Coun- 
 try of the Illinois, trafficking with the various 
 Indian tribes that occupied the land. Naturally 
 this enterprise attracted large numbers of those 
 who depended upon hunting and trapping for 
 a living, and for many years, it is said, two- 
 thirds of the fine furs handled by the Astor 
 Company came from the Country of the Illi- 
 nois. In addition to life in the open, care-free 
 and without restraint, there was the charm of 
 the virgin wilderness, beautifully diversified 
 with prairie, woods and streams, that appealed 
 irresistibly to the fancy of the frontiersman. 
 From the north-east, the east and the south- 
 east they came in increasing numbers, these 
 hardy, rugged, self-reliant types of men, who, 
 bred in the open, resented, in a degree, the lim- 
 itations of growing civilization. Once in the 
 land of the Illinois, glowing accounts of the 
 country and its opportunities percolated back 
 east, sometimes by means of a letter, but more 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 21 
 
 often by means of a messenger, and in the 
 decades following is to be noted three distinct 
 lines of movement of immigration — from the 
 region of the St. Lawrence, from the eastern 
 states, and from Virginia, West Virginia, 
 Kentucky, Tennessee and others of the south- 
 ern states, into that part of the Mississippi 
 Basin known as the "Northwest Territory," 
 out of which, at later intervals, were carved the 
 commonwealths of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and 
 Wisconsin. The Astor enterprise attracted 
 such vigorous, forceful types of men as Gurdon 
 S. Hubbard and Noel LeVasseur, whose names 
 stand out in the annals of pioneer history of 
 the Valley of the Kankakee as having been 
 most potent factors in effecting the change 
 from primitive wilderness to the civilization of 
 today. During the twenties and the thirties 
 there was a noticeable immigration from such 
 states as Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan, 
 where the innovations of civilization were 
 becoming irksome to the pioneer settler. 
 
 These early pioneers were the foundation of 
 the commonwealth. Hardy, self-reliant, versed 
 in the rude arts of woodcraft and the farm, the 
 women of that day equally skilled in all that 
 pertained to their domain, not forgetting that 
 
LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 they spun and wove and supplied the family 
 needs in the way of clothing by their own skill 
 and industry, they battled long, and endured 
 much, and became strong thereby. Living in 
 the open, boundless spaces of the new land 
 begat a sense of freedom and independence as 
 essential to their being as air, besides inspiring 
 a friendliness, deep and genuine, that per- 
 meated thoroughly the social fabric of that day. 
 And as for hospitality, they gave to the world 
 the only slogan it ever had that really typifies 
 the spirit of hospitality, in the quaint phrase: 
 "the latch-string hangs out." And you, who 
 happen to read this, rejoice and be glad if, so 
 be it, your forebears were of the stock of the old 
 pioneer settler. 
 
 So rapid has been the transition from pioneer 
 days, with their limited means and consequent 
 hardships, so astounding the achievements of 
 science by which we, in this day, are enabled to 
 simplify the tasks of every-day life, that tales 
 of wilderness life seem unreal and exaggerated, 
 on the order of extravaganzas such as beguiled 
 the Arabian Nights. 
 
JUDSON D. NICHOLS 
 
 WHOSE EIGHTY-ONE YEARS OF ACTIVE RESIDENCE IN 
 KANKAKEE COUNTY COVERS THE MARVELOUS PERIOD OF 
 EVOLUTION FROM PRIMITIVE PIONEER DAYS, AND WHO, AT 
 THE AGE OF NINETY-SIX, RECALLS ITS STORY AND LEGEND, 
 TOGETHER WITH INTERESTING GLIMPSES OF THE SOCIAL 
 LIFE OF THAT FAR-OFF DAY 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 23 
 
 Pioneer Life on the Kankakee Eighty 
 Years Ago 
 
 "Tell me a tale of the timber lands — 
 Of the old-time pioneers; 
 Somepin' a pore man understands 
 
 With his feelin's, as well as ears. 
 Tell of the old log house — about 
 
 The loft and the puncheon flore — 
 The old fi-er-place with its crane swung out, 
 And the latch-string through the door." 
 
 — James Whitcomb Riley. 
 
 Mr. Judson Nichols tells us that the life of 
 the average pioneer in Kankakee County, 
 around ahout the year 1842, was pretty much 
 the same in its essential details. Financially, 
 all were about on an equality, one with the 
 other, except that here and there was one who 
 brought with him into the then new land a 
 meager capital of cash, with which he bought 
 his land outright. Of course, it was an advan- 
 tage to own your own land and not be obliged 
 to pay an interest rate of ten to twelve per 
 cent. But, looking back over the trail of the 
 years, it is to be readily discerned that a man's 
 real capital, after all, was his brain and brawn 
 and industry. Scarcity of money, lack of roads 
 and the great distance from markets, naturally 
 compelled the pioneer resident of the wilder- 
 
LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 ness to continually draw upon his ingenuity 
 to meet the need of the hour, and that 
 which ingenuity inspired, industry brought into 
 being, as many a rude article of home manu- 
 facture that remains to us in this day amply 
 attests. Our forebears were a hardy, virile, 
 courageous people, as may be said of any peo- 
 ple schooled in the hard school of adversity, 
 with necessity for a master. 
 
 Upon the arrival of Roswell Nichols and 
 family at their farm on the south bank of the 
 Kankakee, opposite Rock Creek, the first thing 
 to which they devoted their attention was the 
 repairing of the three log cabins, which were 
 in a state of advanced dilapidation, requiring 
 much work to make them habitable. Trees were 
 felled and sawed into lengths of about three 
 feet, and from them "shakes" were riven for 
 the roofs of the cabins. These "shakes" were 
 split to a thickness of one-half to three-fourths 
 of an inch in thickness, the width of the timber, 
 and placed side by side on the roof and held in 
 position by heavy timbers which, in turn, were 
 held by wooden pins, driven through holes 
 bored through these timbers into the logs of 
 the cabin. Nails were nails in that day, and 
 hard to get, even though one had the money. 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 25 
 
 But anybody could bore a hole with an auger, 
 anybody could whittle out a wooden pin and 
 drive it into place, and, in the end, it was just 
 as good and all it cost was labor. 
 
 These "shakes" on the roof did not fit up 
 exactly, and thereby the Nichols boys, who 
 occupied the "loft" directly under them, had 
 the advantage of an unlimited supply of fresh 
 air in their apartment, and a wonderful oppor- 
 tunity to observe certain of the heavenly con- 
 stellations as a preliminary to sleep. Not only 
 that, many a morning the boys were awakened 
 by a heavy thud on the roof, and thereby they 
 knew a prairie chicken had alighted, and oft- 
 times there was a scramble among them to try 
 to catch it by the foot through the opening. 
 
 That might be termed one of their "indoor 
 sports." The rain often ran through on them, 
 and winter's snows sifted in on the coverlid in 
 drifts, while all about them, while they slept, 
 was the crash of the wintry winds in the forest. 
 There were times when it was pretty "dog- 
 gone" cold, when the cracks in the puncheon 
 floor of the cabin were plentifully decorated 
 with fantastic frost crystals, and draughts of 
 ice-cold air all but congealed the blood while 
 the boys got into their clothing of a morning 
 
26 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 and scuttled down the ladder from the loft to 
 break the ice on the water pail, preliminary to 
 their morning ablutions. But, oh, what joy, 
 after the stock had been cared for and the 
 morning chores done up, to feel the genial heat 
 of the blazing logs in the fireplace while they 
 waited for breakfast, the senses suffused, mean- 
 while, by the delicious aroma of steaming cof- 
 fee and salt pork, to which were added still 
 other odors, tantalizing in their elusiveness, as 
 though one could not quite make sure whether 
 they portended "flapjacks" or "johnny-cake," 
 or some other delectable compound for which 
 "Ma" was famous. After eighty years these 
 are some of the memories that still beckon from 
 pioneer-land down the long vista of the years 
 to the present and thrill one with a touch of 
 vain regret. 
 
 The produce raised on the limited areas of 
 that day was hauled to Chicago, often by ox- 
 team, generally by the way of Wilmington and 
 Joliet. Thirty-five bushels of wheat made a 
 load, and 35 cents per bushel therefor was rated 
 good. Dressed hogs brought $1.75 per hundred 
 in the Chicago market, and Mr. Nichols recalled 
 that on one occasion ten fine dressed hogs sold 
 for thirty dollars in specie. The payment in 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 27 
 
 specie, however, made the deal look good, for 
 when one journeyed to Middleport, Iroquois 
 county, to pay taxes, specie, and not "wild-cat" 
 money, was one of the indispensable requisites. 
 The main standby of the settler in pioneer 
 days was cattle, which thrived on the sweet, 
 succulent, upland prairie grass which abounded 
 on every side. The increase in the herd was 
 rapid and the ease with which they were cared 
 for made them most desirable. Again, cattle 
 were used advantageously in the work of the 
 farm, more especially when it came to heavy 
 hauling. They were slow, it is true, but they 
 required no grain and, whether on the road or 
 in the field, an hour's browsing on the prairie 
 grass, a mouthful of water, and they were 
 ready to go on. Dealing in cattle back in the 
 early forties was quite a business. A man from 
 southern Ohio used to make regular yearly 
 trips to the Kankakee for that purpose as far 
 back as 1844. A good steer, at that time, 
 brought $6.00, and a good, fat ox weighing 
 around fifteen hundred pounds brought ten to 
 twelve dollars. Cattle purchased in this man- 
 ner were rounded up at points on or near the 
 "Hubbard Trail" and were then driven in one 
 herd through to southern Ohio. There, during 
 
28 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 the winter, they were fed on corn. Later, they 
 were driven east, to the Baltimore market, 
 hundreds of miles on foot. Feed was every- 
 where abundant along the road, and cattle thus 
 driven invariably did well and reached their 
 destination in good condition. 
 
 The fences of the early pioneer farmers were 
 what was termed "ditch fences," consisting of 
 a shallow trench, made by plowing the ground 
 and piling up the prairie sod in a sort of em- 
 bankment around ten or fifteen acre patches 
 that had been sown to small grain. The best 
 feature of the "ditch fence" was that it aided 
 somewhat in the matter of surface drainage 
 and was, at times, of small aid when it came 
 to fighting fire. Roswell Nichols devoted his 
 attention to getting out rails for fencing, the 
 "Barrens," close by, furnishing an unlimited 
 supply of this material. These rails had to be 
 hauled a distance of three miles, but the ground 
 was so soft and springy that little headway 
 could be made by team and wagon. He devised 
 a way out of the difficulty by felling a big 
 white oak tree, whose trunk was fully two feet 
 through, and round, and from this he cut four 
 sections nine inches thick, for wheels. Heavy 
 axles and bolsters were prepared, a "split" 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 29 
 
 tongue was attached, and with five to seven 
 yoke of cattle hooked thereto, enormous loads 
 of rails were transported with little difficulty. 
 There were times when the wheels of this prim- 
 itive transport sank into the soft, springy turf 
 until the axles fairly rested on the ground. But 
 the cattle laid to it, took their time, and some- 
 how floundered through. It is recalled that 
 they never had to take a load off while using 
 the cattle for motive power. Mr. Nichols says 
 that the trail of that early-day juggernaut was 
 clearly visible in the turf of the woods as long 
 as thirty years afterwards. 
 
 Although Roswell Nichols was a tanner by 
 trade, the cowhides that accumulated at the 
 farm he took to Joliet, to the tannery. From 
 the leather thus obtained he made boots and 
 shoes for the family. He made lasts from the 
 wood of the basswood, and really became quite 
 skillful in fashioning footgear. His products, 
 more practical than elegant, nevertheless served 
 admirably to protect the feet from the tough, 
 cutting prairie grass. The boys of the family 
 busied themselves of a winter's evening getting 
 out supplies of hickory shoe-pegs, to the end 
 that the shoe industry might not languish or the 
 supply fall below normal. 
 
SO LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 Along in the fall, shortly after the arrival 
 of the first frosts, began the season of the 
 prairie fires that inspired the pioneer settler 
 with a wholesome dread. Day after day and 
 night after night the heavens were lighted by 
 leaping tongues of flame from fires that raged 
 far out on the broad expanse of Grand Prairie, 
 traveling oft-times with the speed of an express 
 train. Viewed at night, the sight was most spec- 
 tacular, great curling, leaping mountains of 
 flame giving to the universe something of the 
 appearance of a seething volcano or inferno. 
 Persons caught in the pathway of the advancing 
 flames saved themselves by back-firing. At- 
 tempts to break through the wall of fire were 
 sometimes attended with fatal results. Game 
 generally made its escape before the approach- 
 ing wall of fire, their wild natures sensing dan- 
 ger long enough in advance to make safety 
 possible, but snakes and other creeping things 
 fared disastrously. The grain fields of the 
 settlers often fell a prey to the flames, for a 
 fire under full headway would easily jump the 
 interval of plowed ground provided as a pro- 
 tection. In the fall of 1844 the Nichols corn 
 field was thus swept and the cornstalks looked 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 31 
 
 like rows of charred sticks on which hung the 
 ears of corn with their husks burned off. 
 
 With the first frosts also developed that 
 dread malady, which was the bane of pioneer 
 life, the ague, or, in the vernacular of that 
 day, "the ager." They were few, indeed, who 
 escaped this yearly visitation, with its accom- 
 paniment of "chills and fever." Mrs. Nichols, 
 a frail, delicate woman, was providentially 
 spared the miseries of "ager." She was of a 
 type, of which there were very few, who proved 
 to be immune to this wilderness plague. There 
 was the "one-day, two-day and three-day ager," 
 during which the victim had brief respites from 
 chills and the fever that followed. Mostly, 
 however, it was just plain "ager" that a fellow 
 had almost daily and with no letup from aching 
 bones, creepy chills and "shakes," followed by 
 fever. Whole families were thus afflicted and 
 the misery endured by reason of it has never 
 been adequately set forth by those attempting 
 to describe it. The various remedies employed 
 in that day were of a nature and variety calcu- 
 lated to make one smile. The list embraced 
 lobelia, boneset, smart-weed tea and quinine, to 
 which, later, was added "Indian Queen Vege- 
 table Sugar Coated Pills." Everyone swore by 
 
32 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 (and sometimes at) his particular remedy, very 
 much as they do in this day, but, as a matter 
 of fact, quinine easily took the lead as a rem- 
 edy. Nine members of the Nichols family were 
 affected with this malady at the same time, 
 and a favorite practice, when the premonitory 
 symptoms of chills were felt, was to line up in 
 some bright, sunshiny nook, where the sun 
 shone in hot against the cabin, and sit and 
 "quake" and "bake" until the fever came on. 
 Dr. Todd, of Rockville, used to come over and 
 administer to the afflicted ones doses of lobelia 
 emetic and copious rounds of quinine. Science 
 long ago established the fact that ague was the 
 result of the sting of a species of mosquito, bred 
 from the "wiggler" of rainwater barrels and 
 stagnant pools. 
 
 The early settler, of necessity, sought the 
 timber, the streams and the high land whereon 
 to rear his habitation. Timber, for many rea- 
 sons, was indispensable to the settler. It was 
 necessary to raise crops on which to subsist and 
 the high land in that day, though not of the 
 best, had the advantage of drainage in wet 
 seasons. That is why the old-time farm was 
 often not so good a farm as was later developed 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 33 
 
 in the low lands when sub-drainage came into 
 effect. 
 
 The home cabin of the Nichols, across the 
 river from Rock Creek, was a spacious affair 
 and boasted an innovation quite overshadowing 
 the rest of the community, namely — a guest 
 chamber. This guest chamber was furnished 
 with real furniture, brought from New York. 
 In it there was a real "cord bed," whose sheets 
 and pillow cases were of linen, hand-spun and 
 woven in the old-fashioned hand-loom. This 
 guest chamber was a tribute to happy memories 
 of civilization the family had enjoyed back in 
 New York, and was maintained as scrupu- 
 lously as though the need for it in the wilder- 
 ness were just as great. So excellent was the 
 quality of hand-woven linen that dressed this 
 particular bed that it is in existence today. An 
 added luxury permitted for the guest chamber 
 was tallow candles. Lights for family use were 
 such as were made by gathering a piece of cloth 
 about a big copper cent, such as we used to 
 have. This was immersed in a shallow dish of 
 lard oil, the copper cent acting as a base to 
 hold the cloth erect as it was lighted. It made a 
 fairly good light. 
 
 The first school taught in the Hawkins 
 
34 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 neighborhood, south of the river, in what was 
 then Iroquois county, was by Miss Ludelia 
 Arnold, who came west from New York with 
 her people, driving all the way in a covered 
 wagon, or "prairie schooner." The school was 
 held where is now located the Limestone Cem- 
 etery. She started in here in 1846 with eight 
 or ten pupils in attendance. For her services 
 as teacher she received the munificent sum of 
 $1.25 per week and board, and "boarded 
 'round," as was the custom of that day. Several 
 years later, in the town of Aroma, a school was 
 organized, and the teacher's salary was $1.50 
 per week and board. Later the salary was 
 raised to $2.00 per week and occasioned no end 
 of criticism at the waste of public funds in 
 exorbitant salaries. 
 
 There were no corn shellers in the early days 
 on the Kankakee, consequently the pioneer, for 
 his immediate needs, shelled the corn by hand 
 and ran it through the coffee-mill, thus con- 
 verting it into meal for family use. Ear corn 
 in that day was very cheap, but for the shelled 
 product a better price was paid. At Dr. Todd's 
 place, at Rock Creek, a high knob in the field 
 was leveled off and the hard clay subsoil made 
 a good floor on which the ear corn was shelled 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 35 
 
 out by being trampled under the feet of horses. 
 A barricade was built about the cleared spot 
 and the horses were kept constantly in motion 
 tramping the corn. Considerable corn could be 
 shelled out by this primitive process in the 
 course of a day. By the process of shoveling 
 in and out of the wagon much of the dirt was 
 eliminated. The corn thus shelled was sold 
 generally to the distilleries at Peoria. 
 
 Mark Beaubien's Story of the Man Who 
 Took Fire and Burned Up 
 
 Roswell Nichols, of Palmyra, New York, 
 made his advent into the country of the Kan- 
 kakee Valley in 1841. At that time he pur- 
 chased three abandoned claims on the south 
 bank of the river, opposite Rock Creek, whose 
 total frontage on the stream was three-quarters 
 of a mile. Very early in the spring of 1842, he 
 removed with his family of nine children to 
 the new home, which was, at that time, em- 
 braced within the confines of Iroquois county. 
 The family effects were loaded aboard of a 
 boat on the Erie canal and taken to Buffalo, 
 where they were transferred to a vessel plying 
 the great lakes, and transported to Chicago. 
 There were nine days of travel in all from 
 
36 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 Palmyra, N. Y., to Chicago, of which two days 
 were spent on the Erie canal, and seven days 
 on the lakes to Chicago. On arriving at Chi- 
 cago, the family were domiciled at the famous 
 tavern run by Mark Beaubien, "The Sauga- 
 nash," where they remained for two days, Mr. 
 Nichols, in the meantime, hiring seven teams at 
 the rate of seven dollars per team, to transport 
 the household effects and the family from Chi- 
 cago to the new home on the Kankakee. The 
 trip was made in two days by way of Joliet and 
 Wilmington. 
 
 Life, during the interim at the Beaubien tav- 
 ern, was filled with unusual interest for the 
 older boys of the Nichols family, more espe- 
 cially the nights spent in the capacious bar- 
 room of this backwoods hostelry. At the bar, 
 which occupied one side of the room, the man 
 of business, the traveler and the homesteader 
 jostled elbows with the hardy French-Canadian 
 voyageur, the trapper, the hunter, the "squaw- 
 man," half-breeds, and an occasional Indian, 
 all of whom imbibed quantities of the "corn" 
 whiskey of that day as they would so much 
 water. It was a phase of life entirely new, and 
 interesting beyond all expression, especially as 
 one listened to the various tales of hardships 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 37 
 
 and encounters in the vast, outlying wilderness. 
 Beaubien, himself a Canadian, inured to the 
 hardships of the country, was an ideal host, big 
 of stature, genial, and with a voice heavy and 
 far-reaching, a fitting complement for one of 
 his proportions. He moved amid the throng 
 with here and there a word, a quip or a joke, or 
 laughed in his big, hearty way, as the circum- 
 stance seemed to require. The Nichols boys 
 were quite taken by the genial Beaubien, and 
 long afterwards, as the years intervened, mem- 
 ory often reverted to the likable quality of his 
 personality, as well as his story-telling propen- 
 sity, which invariably enlisted the interest of 
 all. One story especially stuck in the memory 
 of the youthful Judson Nichols and made a 
 very deep impression upon him. The story is 
 related as follows: 
 
 The conversation that evening had to do with 
 the liquor question ; not that liquor had become 
 a question in that day, except insofar as it re- 
 lated to quality, quantity and capacity. Beau- 
 bien told of Pierre LaFromboise, a Canadian, 
 or coureur de bois, whom he once employed as 
 a man of all work about the tavern. LaFrom- 
 boise (which means the raspberry) was a heavy 
 drinker, yet one upon whom the effects of 
 
38 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 liquor rarely ever showed. He never missed 
 an opportunity when some stranger, purchas- 
 ing a drink for himself, called on the house to 
 join him. Every atom of his being was so sat- 
 urated with spirits that he seemed to leave the 
 taint of it in the air whenever he passed. One 
 night, when it was late and the last bar-room 
 guest had taken his departure, Beaubien said 
 he looked about for Pierre and beheld him sit- 
 ting on a wooden stool in his favorite corner, 
 his arms folded and his hat slouched down over 
 his eyes as though he might be sleeping. It 
 made him mad "like gee," he said, to behold 
 the servant sleeping in public like that and, 
 walking up to the huddled figure, he seized him 
 by the coat collar. Great was his consternation 
 to find there nothing but empty clothes. Pierre 
 was gone ; burned up ! While lighting his pipe, 
 he said, Pierre's spirit-laden system had taken 
 fire and he had been consumed while the bar- 
 room guests drank each other's health and made 
 merry. And thirteen-year-old Jud Nichols, 
 who heard Beaubien relate the tale of the sad 
 end of LaFromboise, took it all in, wide-eyed 
 and serious, and was filled with a deepening 
 resolve that he would always be very, v-e-r-y 
 careful how he toyed with strong drink. 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 39 
 
 Something like forty years later, when Mr. 
 Nichols had left the farm and was engaged in 
 business in Kankakee, one cold winter's night, 
 when a company of friends had drawn about 
 the cheerful, red-hot stove in the Graveline 
 building, where Legris Brothers' Bank is today, 
 the front door opened and a swarthy, power- 
 fully built individual entered and sauntered 
 leisurely back to where they sat by the stove. 
 Mr. Nichols arose and welcomed the stranger 
 and gave him his seat by the fire. There was 
 something in the stranger's bearing and the 
 quality of his voice that suggested familiarity 
 to Mr. Nichols. All at once it came to him. 
 
 "Say, I think I know who you are," said our 
 host. "Thas' so?" replied the stranger. "Yes," 
 said Mr. Nichols, "you kept tavern in Chicago 
 in 1842." "Bah oui; I run one tavern like hell, 
 me," said he with a chuckle. Continuing, Mr. 
 Nichols said, "I know well enough who you 
 are now; you are Mark Beaubien, and in my 
 youthful days I heard you tell a story in the 
 bar-room of that old tavern that made my eyes 
 bug-out and gave me the willies generally. It 
 was some time later that it dawned on me that 
 the tale was a lie, but it was a good one." 
 
40 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 "What, me tell a lie?" boomed the voice of the 
 stranger. "What was it 'bout?" 
 
 "It was about Pierre LaFromboise, who took 
 fire and burned up," replied Mr. Nichols. At 
 the mention of the name LaFromboise, the big 
 stranger (who was none other than Mark 
 Beaubien) , expanded and fairly exploded with 
 laughter, and after the story had been told once 
 more for the edification of the company about 
 the stove, they all joined in, and in the years 
 that have followed the old room on the corner 
 where the bank is has never had its echoes 
 aroused to such a pitch, for Beaubien himself, 
 when it came to noise, could make a teamster's 
 row seem like a deaf and dumb quilting party, 
 to say nothing of the help he got from the 
 others. 
 
 The First Threshing Machine Brought to 
 Kankakee County 
 
 The first grain threshing machine ever oper- 
 ated in Kankakee county was that which Bos- 
 well Nichols brought from New York to the 
 new home in the wilderness in 1842. It was not 
 of the type of thresher with which we are 
 familiar in this day, as may be readily supposed. 
 It was so diminutive and modest in its propor- 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 41 
 
 tions, so lacking in the essential parts which go 
 to make the thresher of today, that one could 
 hardly call it a thresher, except by courtesy, 
 although the pioneer folk of that day got along 
 very nicely with it and regarded it as among the 
 most valuable of their possessions. It was so 
 small that four men could lift it readily and 
 move it into any position on the field. Its work- 
 ing parts consisted mainly of a cylinder and 
 concave, set with teeth, but there was no sepa- 
 rator attachment, as at present, whereby the 
 grain is separated from the chaff. The straw, 
 as it passed through the cylinder, was cleared 
 away immediately as it fell on the ground by 
 men stationed at the back of the machine. The 
 grain, as fast as it accumulated, was removed 
 together with the chaff, and was cleaned later 
 by running it through a f anning-mill, or by the 
 more primitive process of "winnowing." The 
 machine was operated by horsepower, the 
 power being communicated by the old-fash- 
 ioned "tumbling-rod" system. 
 
 In the primitive days of eighty years ago on 
 the river, this machine was easily the tre- 
 mendous achievement of the age, and for the 
 youth and the middle-aged for miles around, 
 whenever the word went out that the Nichols 
 
42 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 thresher was in operation, it meant that they 
 were going to have a mighty interesting time 
 watching it. The machine was operated for 
 several seasons on the Nichols farm and at last 
 came to grief in a prairie fire that burned its 
 way through the heart of a slough, jumped the 
 fifty or sixty feet of plowed ground surround- 
 ing the wheat field and set fire to the wheat and 
 consumed it, along with the machine. It was 
 hard to lose the machine, at least so thought the 
 populace, who had come to regard it as one of 
 their chief diversions. For the Nichols it was 
 harder still to lose the wheat, for a fellow had 
 to live first of all. 
 
 Many years later Henry S. Bloom, who as 
 a boy lived in the Rock Creek settlement in the 
 early forties, told Mr. Nichols one day how he 
 set fire to a piece of prairie to find, if possible, 
 the carcass of a deer he had shot. So deeply 
 engrossed did he become in his search that he 
 forgot all about the fire, and it got away from 
 him and burned over a large area. "So that is 
 how we came to lose our wheat and threshing 
 machine," said Mr. Nichols. Continuing, he 
 said: "If we had known forty years ago who 
 set that fire, and could have laid hands on him, 
 we would have been tempted to string him up 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 43 
 
 to a shag-bark hickory." Said Mr. Bloom, 
 naively, in reply: "I don't think I ever men- 
 tioned the incident before until today." 
 
 The law of that day was that whoever set 
 fires on the prairies within five miles of a habita- 
 tion could be held for all damage resulting 
 therefrom. 
 
 "Shaw-wa-na-see's Village" of Little Rock 
 
 For years prior to the coming of the white 
 man to the country of the Kankakee, a popu- 
 lous village of the Pottawattomies, that of 
 Chief Shaw-wa-na-see, existed at Rock Creek. 
 By the treaty of 1833, however, they agreed 
 to relinquish the territory along the Kankakee 
 river, and by the time of the arrival of the first 
 white settlers, which occurred in '34 and '35, 
 the village had been practically abandoned, 
 except for remnants of the band that lingered 
 still as if loath to break the ties of home. There 
 were other villages along the Kankakee, nota- 
 bly those of Me-she-ke-te-no, in the Cooper 
 woods; She-mor-gar, at Soldier Creek, in 
 Kankakee; Wais-us-kucks, near the old Day 
 ford, above Waldron, besides the villages at 
 Momence, Indian Town and Yellow-Head 
 Point, where old MKn-e-ma-ung held forth. 
 
M LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 They were all bound by treaty, however, to 
 vacate the land and remove to western Iowa, 
 but several years elapsed ere this was ac- 
 complished, and for years afterwards they 
 returned in somewhat diminishing numbers to 
 hunt and fish in the old domain of their fathers. 
 These returning parties are vividly recalled by 
 every old settler on the river. 
 
 In the year 1842, when the Nichols family 
 settled on the Kankakee, Mr. Judson Nichols 
 recalls that Rock Creek, which was directly op- 
 posite their place, was a wondrously beautiful 
 and picturesque spot. The mouth of the creek 
 and the limestone ledge on the west were cov- 
 ered with a heavy growth of red cedar, of which 
 there are few remaining in this day. The 
 beauty of the wilderness, at that time un- 
 touched by the hand of man, with its groves 
 and intervals of prairie studded with flowers 
 of gorgeous coloring, was most fair to look 
 upon. As a boy, the Rock Creek region held 
 for him a peculiar charm, and he recalls that 
 shortly after they had settled in their new home 
 he crossed the river and, alone with his trusty 
 rifle, he spent hours traversing the ancient 
 Indian trails that ran hither and thither be- 
 neath the leafy canopy of the woods and out 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 45 
 
 into the open. Progressing some distance up 
 the creek, the youthful explorer came unex- 
 pectedly upon the primitive mausoleum of the 
 old Pottawattomie head chief, "Shaw-wa-na- 
 see," whose death is reputed to have taken place 
 about the year 1834. This structure was a 
 miniature log cabin about three feet wide, four 
 feet long and four or five feet high, made of 
 split logs and notched at the corners. The roof 
 was made of "shakes," held in place by large, 
 flat stones laid thereon. On the western side 
 of this queer structure was a small, square aper- 
 ture cut in the logs, so that during the cere- 
 monial feasts held for the dead the old chief's 
 portion might be set there. "Shaw-wa-na- 
 see's" body was first placed in this receptacle 
 in a sitting posture, in which position it re- 
 mained for years, wrapped in his blankets, and 
 showing little change. When viewed by Mr. 
 Nichols in 1842 the body had fallen over, the 
 blankets had rotted to tatters, showing the 
 skeleton, and the few remaining articles that 
 had been placed there with him were in an ad- 
 vanced state of dilapidation. The old chief's 
 rifle, tomahawk, pipes and tobacco that were 
 buried with him, were stolen some time later by 
 one Joseph Shabonier, a voyageur and a 
 
46 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 "squatter" in the neighborhood. Later the 
 skeleton of Chief "Shaw-wa-na-see" disap- 
 peared entirely, and the legend is that Dr. 
 Daniel Barnard, of Rush Medical College, Chi- 
 cago, became the possessor thereof, through the 
 instrumentality of Shabonier. At all events, 
 the old chief's remains disappeared mys- 
 teriously and rest elsewhere than under the 
 stone recently erected to mark the place of the 
 first interment. 
 
 At that time, eighty years ago, on the slope 
 of the creek, there still remained the skeleton 
 framework of the Indian habitations, and from 
 the edge of the timber where the open ground 
 stretches down to the present Rock Creek road, 
 the old corn rows and hills were still discerni- 
 ble where the inhabitants of "Shaw-wa-na- 
 see's" village had raised their crops of Indian 
 corn. On the Dickinson farm, on the slope of 
 the hill and lying partly in the timber, was an 
 extensive burial ground. In a good many in- 
 stances the graves were marked by little log 
 pens, not more than one foot high, fitted with a 
 puncheon roof with heavy rocks laid thereon. 
 These may have indicated the resting places of 
 subchiefs, or individuals of importance. Most 
 of the graves, however, were simply mounds of 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 47 
 
 earth, in the heads of which were planted stakes 
 painted with vermilion. These stakes, in many 
 instances, were notched, these notches being a 
 record of the scalps taken by the warrior lying 
 there. There were cases where as many as fif- 
 teen notches appeared on the vermilion-painted 
 stake in the head of the grave. 
 
 Many of these graves were dug open later 
 on, but aside from a skeleton and remnants of 
 a rotted blanket, the rusted remains of a gun, 
 or knife, or iron kettle, nothing of any value 
 was ever found, except now and then a brace- 
 let, sometimes of silver, but more often of cop- 
 per. These bracelets showed primitive work- 
 manship, and rude etchings of peculiar design 
 sometimes appeared on them. 
 
 Mr. Nichols here related an amusing incident 
 of his later years, after he had married and 
 raised a family. His son Ott, as a youth, moved 
 by the all-absorbing passion of the anthropol- 
 ogist, repaired at frequent intervals to the Pot- 
 tawattomie graveyard in the Dickinson field, 
 and, as a result of his persistent industry, his 
 room at home was littered with all sorts of 
 aboriginal trumpery. Prominent among the 
 finds he made in the Indian graves, which he 
 bore home in triumph to his room, were several 
 
48 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 well preserved Indian skulls, a variety of cop- 
 per bracelets, stone axes, arrowheads and rem- 
 nants of iron kettles. 
 
 In the course of time, as his interest waned, 
 the grinning Indian skulls were quietly rele- 
 gated to a less conspicuous position in the en- 
 virons of the home. As a result of the first 
 move they landed in the woodshed at the rear of 
 the kitchen, and from there in time they gravi- 
 tated to the back garden, where one of them, 
 for a long time, was conspicuously displayed in 
 the crotch of a cherry tree. 
 
 One fine summer's day, in haying time, a Jew 
 peddler, with a pack on his back, stopped at the 
 house for dinner. After dinner he asked per- 
 mission to remain all night, which permission 
 was somewhat reluctantly granted. Several 
 hours later the Jew appeared in the barnyard, 
 where Mr. Nichols and the boys were engaged 
 in stacking hay and, all a-tremble with sup- 
 pressed excitement, his face blanched white 
 with terror, he made known to Mr. Nichols that 
 he had discovered a human skull while saunter- 
 ing in the back garden. Enjoying his discom- 
 fiture, Mr. Nichols replied, "There are several 
 skulls about this place. Just where did you see 
 the one you speak of?" But the Jew was too 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 49 
 
 terrified for words and could only point with 
 more or less uncertainty in the direction of the 
 cherry tree. "Oh, yes," replied Mr. Nichols 
 indifferently, "you mean the one over there in 
 the cherry tree? Yes, yes, I remember now; 
 that is the skull of the last Jew peddler who 
 stayed all night with us." 
 
 Terror evidently had robbed the peddler of 
 all senses of humor until he was not only 
 speechless, but aghast at the statement of his 
 host, and, turning quickly away, he made for 
 the house, from which he emerged a moment 
 later with his pack on his back. He did not 
 stop to say good-by or even wave farewell; he 
 beat it down the road from that modern Gol- 
 gotha just as though his poor, tired feet and 
 aching legs had been equipped with the fabled 
 winged sandals wherewith Minerva endowed 
 Perseus when he went forth to secure the head 
 of Medusa. 
 
 An Old-Time "Turkey Shoot," on the 
 Kankakee 
 
 Seventy-eight years ago, in the year of our 
 Lord 1844, and on a Christmas day, an old- 
 fashioned "turkey shoot" was held where 
 Kankakee stands today, in the lee of the heav- 
 
50 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 ily wooded ridge where, ten years later, Court 
 street was cut through. The place is easy to 
 locate approximately, though not exactly. It 
 was at a point not far from the intersection of 
 Harrison avenue and Hickory street, where, in 
 that day, existed an interval of slough and open 
 prairie extending for some distance to the 
 northeast, and which was entirely hemmed in 
 by the forest primeval, at that time untouched 
 by the hand of man. News of the "shoot" was 
 brought to the Nichols settlement, down the 
 river, by an itinerant preacher who, in addition 
 to his duties as minister, was also purveyor of 
 the news of the wilderness neighborhood. Now, 
 the winter of 1844 was the coldest and stormiest 
 recorded in pioneer annals for many a year. 
 The cold was intense, and snow covered the 
 ground to a depth of nearly two feet. But the 
 Nichols boys, Argale, Bailey and Jud, their 
 youthful spirits aflame with excitement at pros- 
 pect of the "shoot," polished up their rifles and 
 made ready to attend. 
 
 They set out Christmas morning with a team 
 and bob-sled, traveling the south bank of the 
 river until they came to a point very near where 
 the Radeke brewery stands today, when they 
 crossed the river on the ice and made their way 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 51 
 
 up the bank and into the timber, from which 
 issued a pillar of pale blue smoke which tow- 
 ered skyward in the frosty air, indicating that 
 the place of the "shoot" was not far off. On 
 emerging into the opening in the timber, they 
 found a roaring fire of logs whose flames leaped 
 high, radiating a most grateful heat, besides 
 sundry jugs whose contents were depended 
 upon to add a certain mellowness to the spirit 
 and additional warmth to the inner man as the 
 day progressed. It was a typical pioneer 
 crowd, such as the woods and prairies at that 
 time held. The crowd may have numbered as 
 many as twenty-five, and among them was a 
 sprinkling of half-breeds and an Indian or two, 
 and nearly all of that motley company were 
 accompanied by that indispensable article of 
 pioneer life — the rifle. 
 
 The rules governing the shoot prescribed that 
 the marksman, on payment of sixpence (some- 
 times called a picayune), whose money value 
 represented six and one-quarter cents, was en- 
 titled to one shot at a turkey bound to a rail, the 
 marksman to shoot "offhand" at a distance of 
 thirty-five rods. "Offhand" in that case meant 
 to draw, and sight and pull, without dwelling 
 too long on the object. It was also permitted 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
52 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 to "rest" the rifle and draw as fine a bead as 
 possible on the turkey, only the person thus 
 availing himself of the privilege was penalized 
 by being moved back to forty rods. A good, 
 full-grown turkey, in that day, was rated at 
 about fifty cents (Oh, boy, that we might live 
 to see that day again) , and at that there were 
 those, doubtless, who thought the tariff too 
 high. There was one man in attendance at the 
 "party" that day whose prowess with the rifle 
 went unchallenged. That man was Gus Wiley, 
 from down the river. He was a typical 
 frontiersman, dark and swarthy, and carried an 
 old flint-lock rifle almost as tall as himself. He 
 was so good with that old rifle that, had he been 
 permitted to continue, he would have utterly 
 ruined the enterprising promoters of the 
 "shoot." Four shots had netted him four birds 
 at sixpence apiece, six and a fourth cents, mak- 
 ing a grand total of "two-bits," or twenty-five 
 cents. He was finally ruled out of the sport 
 and, with his four turkeys lying in the snow at 
 his feet, he stood with his back to the fire, im- 
 mersed in gloom, a "Gloomy Gus" for fair, 
 watching the rest. 
 
 In the course of the day a white turkey was 
 bound to the rail, but so perfectly did it blend 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 53 
 
 with the wintry surroundings that, at thirty- 
 five rods, man after man shot at it with no other 
 result than to get a few feathers. It was a 
 "hoodoo" sure enough, and, as six and a quar- 
 ter cents did not grow on every bush in those 
 days, the sport dragged. Wiley was finally 
 appealed to to take a crack at it. He responded 
 with alacrity, even though the management 
 doubled the price, making it a shilling for the 
 chance, but allowing him to shoot "offhand' ' or 
 "rest," as he chose. He proceeded to load his 
 rifle with extreme care, and seventeen-year-old 
 Jud Nichols hung upon his every move with all 
 the absorption of interested youth, so that sev- 
 enty-eight years later, at the wonderful age of 
 ninety-five, he is enabled to recall the scene per- 
 fectly. 
 
 First, he took the ramrod and wrapped about 
 the end a small patch of cloth greased with lard 
 and thoroughly cleaned the barrel of the rifle. 
 He then raised the old-fashioned powder-horn, 
 grasped the wooden plug firmly in his teeth and 
 withdrew it with a twist, filled the cavity in the 
 little deer-horn tip, which was attached to the 
 powder-horn by a buckskin thong, and which 
 served to measure the proper amount of powder 
 for the charge, and poured it carefully into the 
 
54 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 barrel of the riile. From his pocket he took 
 another small square of cotton cloth greased 
 with lard, and from a buckskin pouch took a 
 home-made bullet, which he enveloped in the 
 patch of cloth and rammed down on the charge 
 of powder. With a pinch of powder in the pan 
 of the old flint-lock he was ready. Now, Wiley 
 was an enthusiastic chewer of tobacco. There 
 was scarcely a moment of his waking hours that 
 his cheek did not bulge under stress of an enor- 
 mous chew of the weed and from the corners 
 of his mouth there dribbled tobacco-stained 
 streams of saliva that ran well down onto his 
 neck. As a preliminary to drawing a bead on 
 the turkey he spat copiously, and by a most 
 curious sidewise movement of his lower jaw, 
 aided by his tongue, shifted his enormous 
 "chew" from the right to the left side as he 
 brought the gun to his shoulder. For a moment 
 his body was tense and rigid, his eye gleamed 
 along the barrel of the rifle, and then suddenly 
 above the roar of the winter winds in the sur- 
 rounding forest rang out the short, wicked 
 "bark" of the gun. He had fired "offhand," 
 disdaining the privilege accorded him to "rest" 
 the weapon, and from that instant the white 
 turkey ceased to figure in subsequent proceed- 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 55 
 
 ings, for it was dead, dead as "Old Marley," of 
 whom it was said that "he was dead as a door- 
 nail." Among those present that day were Case 
 and Vet Wadley, several of the Beebes, Wil- 
 liam and George Legg, and several of the Case 
 boys from over on the Iroquois river, and of the 
 party that made merry that day in the woods 
 only one survives, who, at the age of ninety-five, 
 recalls with much pleasure and with great gusto 
 its varied and interesting events. 
 
 Hunting the Wolf on Horseback 
 
 One of the chief joys of the pioneer boys 
 during the forties was hunting. The forests and 
 vast prairie vistas abounded with game of 
 various kinds, and in addition to the sport the 
 game was a most important element in the fam- 
 ily living. Every family of the pioneer settle- 
 ment had its ancient flint-lock or percussion- 
 cap rifle, and it was a rare thing to find a boy 
 who was not an expert in the use of it. The 
 large, gray prairie wolf was numerous in that 
 early day, and proved a most wily and trouble- 
 some foe to the settler, whose sheep-pens and 
 chicken-yards he raided at will and with most 
 disastrous results for the occupants thereof. 
 The cunning of the animal was so acute that it 
 
56 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 was next to impossible to lay in wait for him in 
 the hope of getting a shot, but with a good fleet 
 horse and a dog the hunter had better than an 
 even chance, besides the exhilaration of a chase 
 in the open that made the blood leap and 
 tingle. Often while the Nichols boys were at 
 work in the fields they would unhook one of the 
 horses from the plow and set out in pursuit of 
 one of these gray marauders and, with the as- 
 sistance of the dog, often succeeded in riding 
 it down and trampling it with the horse's hoofs, 
 in which event the dog easily dispatched it. The 
 plodding farm horses, after a race or two in pur- 
 suit of the wolf, got to enjoy it as much as the 
 boys, and often, while being taken from the har- 
 ness, they seemed to sense that there was a race 
 on, and their eagerness and enthusiasm to be 
 off made them difficult to handle. 
 
 There was one horse that Roswell Nichols 
 owned which was the especial pride of the boys. 
 His name was "Stargazer," and was reputed to 
 have come from pedigreed sires. Whether that 
 was true or not doesn't matter. One thing they 
 were sure of — he could run, and many a gray 
 bandit of the prairies had come to grief beneath 
 his hoofs. One spring in the early forties, while 
 the snow was still on and ice lingered in the 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 57 
 
 marshes, Judson Nichols went out on the trail 
 of a wolf with "Stargazer." Boy and horse 
 both lost their heads in the excitement and en- 
 thusiasm of the chase as they gradually gained 
 on the fleeting quarry, and gave no thought to 
 the dangers of the treacherous trail they fol- 
 lowed. On they came with the speed of the 
 wind, little heeding that the trail headed into a 
 slough whose waters were obscured by a cover- 
 ing of ice and snow. All they knew was that 
 the wolf was but a few feet ahead of them and 
 in a few seconds more would be under "Star- 
 gazer's" feet. At the first lunge of the horse 
 into the slough, the ice broke under his feet and 
 down he went, while the rider hurtled over his 
 head and by the momentum was carried on his 
 stomach on the ice almost up to where the dog 
 had momentarily halted the wolf. Jud made 
 one wild, despairing grab at the bushy tail of 
 the wolf and missed it by something like an 
 inch, and the dog, retreating, the wolf made his 
 getaway. But for "Stargazer," he had come 
 to the trail's end. His neck had been broken 
 by the terrific impact of the fall through the ice. 
 Sorrowfully, and not without misgivings as 
 the many prophecies and warnings of the fam- 
 ily concerning what might happen, on account 
 
58 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 of the recklessness of horse and boy, came to 
 him as he removed the bridle and trudged for 
 miles across the prairie in the direction of home. 
 The news of "Stargazer's" tragic death was a 
 shock to the family, of course, but only "Ma" 
 seemed to realize how providential had been 
 the escape of her son. Later, when the brothers 
 had been made familiar with all the details of 
 the chase, which included the sad particulars 
 concerning "Stargazer," Argale, the elder 
 brother, said, "I always knew you'd get your 
 d — m fool neck broke riding that way." And 
 Judson, after thoughtful contemplation of the 
 brother's remark, observed timidly, "Yes, but 
 it wasn't me at all; it was 'Stargazer.' ' 
 
 A Double Wedding at Limestone in the 
 Year 1842 
 
 In the early fall of the year 1842, something 
 like eighty years ago, the sparse settlement 
 down the river opposite Rock Creek was 
 thrilled from center to circumference by the 
 announcement of a double wedding which was 
 to be solemnized at the log school house, which, 
 in that day, stood near the Hawkins ceme- 
 tery. The ceremony was held on a Sunday, 
 following the arrival of the itinerant preacher 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 59 
 
 who visited the community. The historical 
 annals of that time, unfortunately, do not con- 
 tain the name of the minister who officiated, 
 and it is also to be regretted that a similar neg- 
 ligence was observed towards one of the high 
 contracting parties, to- wit : the groom, who, on 
 that particular occasion, took to wife a Miss 
 Rounceville. But oblivion often follows as a 
 result of the marital relation. The other couple 
 were Almon Hawkins and Miss Thompson, 
 daughter of Elijah Thompson, a settler. No 
 invitations were required for this social event 
 of the frontier, for, in the struggle to live and 
 get along, families were interdependent, one on 
 the other, and the community spirit prevailed 
 to the complete exclusion of many of the recog- 
 nized social customs of a later day. 
 
 The young people of the Roswell Nichols 
 family decided to attend this function. Among 
 the treasured possessions of the Nichols family 
 were a double-seated carriage and a set of sil- 
 ver-mounted harness, taken in exchange for a 
 certain piece of property on leaving New York, 
 and with this startling equipage Argale, Bailey 
 and Judson and the two sisters proceeded in 
 state to the wedding. It was, indeed, a brave 
 showing they made, with the carriage all spark- 
 
60 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 ling with its coat of varnish and the sun's rays 
 flashing from the silver-mountings of the har- 
 ness, to which was added a certain refinement 
 of apparel on the part of the occupants thereof, 
 for the boys wore white-starched shirts and calf- 
 skin boots, and the sisters wore habits of satin, 
 in comparison with which the "linsey-woolsey" 
 bridal gowns of the principals at the wedding 
 looked weak, spiritless and tame. The cere- 
 mony was in progress on their arrival at the 
 school house and a goodly company of the set- 
 tlers filled nearly every available seat of the lit- 
 tle room. The threshold of the doorway was a 
 log of considerable size, which necessitated a 
 step up and a step down as you passed in. 
 Here is where the youthful Judson came to 
 grief, for with mouth open and eyes agog at 
 sight of so many people, he forgot about the 
 step down and in consequence went sprawling 
 on the floor and piled up limply on the feet of 
 one of the brides, bringing the ceremony to a 
 sudden termination the while he extricated him- 
 self from his embarrassing position. 
 
 At the conclusion of the ceremony the min- 
 ister proceeded to preach a sermon. His ser- 
 mon occupied a full hour or more, and as the 
 seating facilities of the little log school house 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 61 
 
 were limited, the boys brought in rails from 
 the outside and fastened them in the interstices 
 of the logs in the corners of the room and sat 
 down. There are times when it is hard to listen 
 to a short sermon interestedly, and this particu- 
 lar instance of which we speak was one of them. 
 The glory of a perfect September day lay on 
 the world outside, and the brilliant sunshine 
 streaming in at one of the openings wrought 
 fantastic patterns of gold on floor and seats 
 and wall. And mingled with the droning voice 
 of the minister as he preached his sermon was 
 the hum of vagrant bees and other insects that 
 dodged in at the open door, sailed lazily about 
 and out again, all of which reacted on the senses 
 like a mild opiate, evidenced here and there 
 among the audience by limp forms, nodding 
 heads and closed eyes. Presently a young man, 
 seated on the rail in the corner, arose and 
 peered interestedly through the log opening 
 that served as a window, after which he left the 
 room. Another and still another did the same 
 thing — peered from the window and then 
 passed to the outside. One after another the 
 brothers, Argale, Bailey and Judson, arose and 
 looked out of the window and went outside, not 
 without some small perturbation of mind, for 
 
62 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 there was quite a crowd gathered about their 
 carriage. The reason for this general exodus 
 on the part of the younger element of the 
 audience was the interest aroused by the un- 
 usual elegance of the Nichols equipage, which, 
 arriving late at the wedding while the people 
 were inside, had thus been spotted during the 
 progress of the service. 
 
 So great was the interest and curiosity of 
 these backwoods youth that they crowded about 
 the rig, running their hands over the A^arnished 
 surface of the carriage body, the leather of 
 the harness and the silver-mountings, marvel- 
 ing in open-eyed wonder, speechless and 
 quite overwhelmed at sight of so much luxury. 
 You may, perhaps, recall something of the awe 
 you experienced on beholding the first auto- 
 mobile only a few years ago, which was in a way, 
 as great an innovation in transportation as was 
 the two-seated carriage in that day of the "Vir- 
 ginia" wagon and the ox-cart. Mr. Nichols 
 avers that there was not a spot on either car- 
 riage and harness as big as a copper cent that 
 the curious, eager throng, did not feel of, 
 although little was said that would give a clue 
 as to just what their thoughts and opinions 
 were. 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 63 
 
 At the conclusion of the service Elijah 
 Thompson, tall and raw-boned, father of one 
 of the brides, by dint of many "gees" and 
 "haws," engineered the ox-team and the "Vir- 
 ginia" wagon out into the open, let down the 
 tall, slanting tailboard, took one of the four 
 splint-bottomed chairs provided for the wed- 
 ding party and placed it on the ground, by 
 means of which the gallant grooms assisted the 
 blushing brides into the wagon. With the party 
 "all set," the tailboard was pulled into place 
 and Thompson, his lanky frame made gro- 
 tesque by faded trousers of "butternut" and 
 wearing a coat rescued from "innocuous desue- 
 tude" by the application of at least forty 
 patches, crawled under the yoke between the 
 cattle and made his way back to a position on 
 the wagon-tongue under the projecting peak 
 of the box, and under his guidance the strange 
 equipage moved out into the road and in the 
 direction of home. There were other "Vir- 
 ginia" wagons, other ox-carts and men and 
 boys on horseback, but never before in the his- 
 tory of the Kankakee Valley had a bridal pro- 
 cession been so signally honored as when the 
 Nichols boys fell in with the double-seated car- 
 
64 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 riage, drawn by a team resplendent with silver- 
 plated harness. 
 
 For months afterwards the principal topic 
 of conversation in the pioneer homes along the 
 river was the famous two- seated carriage and 
 the gorgeous harness. One rugged character 
 of that time expressed his disapproval of it all 
 in vigorous terms, and gave it as his conviction 
 that folks of that stripe were altogether too 
 "finicky" and would not long remain as dwell- 
 ers in the wilderness. But the Nichols are here 
 yet, and it is now "nigh onto" eighty years since 
 the prophecy was made. 
 
 The Forge on the Prairie 
 
 Those were brave old days, hard old days, 
 dear old days, too, for that matter, back in the 
 early forties. Then "Uncle Billy" Rantz con- 
 ducted his forge out on the prairie on the edge 
 of the timber, away beyond Davis creek. There 
 he sharpened plowshares and fashioned wooden 
 mould-boards (as only he knew how) , and built 
 breaking plows for that sturdy race of pioneers 
 by whose persistent efforts the prairie wilder- 
 ness was at last subdued. Time has immortal- 
 ized the tale of "The Forge in the Forest," 
 and the Armorer's lusty song has added the 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 65 
 
 glamour of romance to it, and why should not 
 we, at this late day, preserve, at least, the 
 memory of "The Forge on the Prairie," dedi- 
 cated as it was to the arts of peace, leaving to 
 generations yet to come the song, if song 
 there be? 
 
 "Uncle Billy" was a genial, accommodating 
 soul, whose all-around skill at the anvil helped 
 the settler of that day over many a serious dif- 
 ficulty. His services were often sought when 
 a shoe needed to be set, or a link welded, or the 
 share of the breaking plow sharpened. When- 
 ever an emergency arose, especially if it were 
 something concerning the cumbersome wooden 
 breaking plow and its primitive mould-board 
 of wood, "Uncle Billy" was invariably sought 
 by the settlers from far and near. Mr. Judson 
 Nichols, at the age of ninety- five, has related to 
 us how, as a boy of seventeen, he has stood 
 beside this prairie forge and watched the opera- 
 tions of this old-time disciple of Vulcan with 
 an interest amounting almost to veneration. 
 When it came to building a breaking plow, 
 "Uncle Billy" Rantz had few equals. He 
 would go out into the sugar bush that skirted 
 the river and, with practiced eye, select such 
 trees as had a twist in the grain. He would cut 
 
66 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 the tree, invariably a hard maple, and then saw 
 out the section best adapted to his purpose. 
 From this section he would sometimes be able 
 to split out two, and sometimes three pieces, 
 with the proper curvature for a mould-board 
 and of a sufficient thickness to be worked down 
 to proper form. These wooden mould-boards 
 on a plow, equipped with a coulter for cutting 
 the tough prairie sod, worked admirably except 
 in loose soil, when frequent cleaning of the 
 mould-board became necessary. Mr. Nichols 
 says that frequently, as he watched "Uncle 
 Billy" at his work, the thought came to him, 
 "What in the world would we do for our break- 
 ing plows if 'Uncle Billy' were to die?" And 
 with such a vast country to subdue and such a 
 dearth of artisans of the class of "Uncle Billy," 
 the question did, indeed, seem most vital. 
 
 Some time in 1847 or 1848 the David Brad- 
 ley "Diamond Breaker," with mould-board of 
 steel, came into the market, and on its advent 
 many of the troubles of the prairie settler van- 
 ished. This plow was called the "Diamond," 
 because of the shape of the mould-board and 
 also because of the fact that the steel of which 
 it was constructed scoured in any soil and shone 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 67 
 
 with all the brightness of a gem. "Uncle 
 Billy," after a life of unremitting service to his 
 fellowmen, has gone to his reward, lo, these 
 many years ; so long ago is it that not only the 
 forge on the prairie has been forgotten, but the 
 log cabin has disappeared, and only a few in 
 this day know of the site thereof. The prairie 
 has vanished along with the wooden plow, and 
 the wilderness that was is now a vast garden of 
 productiveness and a thing of beauty — so 
 beautiful, indeed, that in all the country wide 
 there is nothing that surpasses the panorama of 
 golden harvests which the autumn brings to the 
 Valley of the Kankakee. "Uncle Billy" today, 
 were he to stand in the doorway of his humble 
 log shop, looking eastward, would behold, not 
 more than three miles distant, in a straight line, 
 smoke rising lazily from a huge brick stack and, 
 silhouetted against the sky, the hulks of great 
 buildings, the home of the David Bradley plow, 
 that has been such a tremendous factor in the 
 development of the land. "Uncle Billy" Rantz 
 may have dreamed of something like this as he 
 worked the tough sugar-maple mould-board 
 from day to day, but, if so, it was merely a 
 dream by which the day's work was beguiled. 
 But, just the same, "Uncle Billy," sturdy old 
 
68 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 scion of a race that met and overcame diffi- 
 culties, 
 
 "Give me a cup; I would drink to you." 
 
 Early-Day Dances at the Davis Home 
 
 No one seems to know exactly when Samuel 
 Davis, a big, raw-boned West Virginian, first 
 settled in Bourbonnais township, or, to express 
 it more definitely, in territory which, many 
 years later, when Kankakee county was organ- 
 ized, became Bourbonnais township. The first 
 settlers in this territory, Noel LeVasseur and 
 Dominick Bray, were here in 1832 and '33, and 
 Davis was here in 1838, for in that year, during 
 the month of September, his two-year-old son, 
 George W., died and was laid away in the old 
 VanMeter cemetery on the Goodwin farm. 
 Sickness may have had something to do with 
 arresting the flight of the family to regions 
 farther west, for, scarcely six weeks later, Mrs. 
 Davis died and her body was laid beside that 
 of the infant. One thing is certain — for years 
 afterwards he made his home in the nook 
 formed by the intersection of the "Indian 
 Trail" and a creek which flowed south into the 
 Kankakee river. This creek today is known as 
 Davis creek, and the "Indian Trail," which in- 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 69 
 
 tersected it, as the well-known "Bourbonnais 
 Road." This nook where Davis chose to build 
 his home lies to the northeast in the angle 
 formed by creek and road across the way from 
 the Cooper home of today. 
 
 The house built by Davis has long since 
 passed out of existence and nothing remains 
 but the remnants of its stone foundation. But 
 if these stones could talk, what tales might they 
 not tell of youthful goings-on, of pioneer sports 
 and pleasures that smacked of "Old Virginia," 
 not forgetting the dances, which were almost 
 of weekly occurrence and which attracted from 
 far and wide the youth of the wilderness com- 
 munity on pleasure bent. 
 
 Tradition had it (tradition conveyed by that 
 mysterious early- day system, the "grapevine 
 telegraph") that Davis back in West Virginia 
 had at one time killed a man, not through 
 wanton disregard of human life, but as the out- 
 growth of a quarrel with his neighbor over a 
 boundary line. Regarding matters that cannot 
 be arbitrated and thus settled amicably, the 
 equation was simple, at least as viewed by the 
 mountaineer; it was either Davis or the other 
 fellow, and in this case the other fellow "lost 
 out." 
 
70 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 Davis was a typical pioneer who loved noth- 
 ing better than to live on the outskirts where 
 civilization and the wilderness met. In this 
 nook, formed by creek and trail, he built a com- 
 modious house for that day, a story-and-a-half 
 structure 24x36, which, in time, became the 
 rendezvous for many of the young people of 
 the countryside who, after the manner of young 
 people whose diversions were few, found great 
 pleasure in the dance. The Nichols boys, 
 Argale, Bailey and Judson, together with other 
 boys from down the river, made frequent trips 
 to the Davis home. Sometimes they would 
 gather up a bevy of the neighborhood girls and 
 enjoy a regular old-fashioned "hay-rack" 
 party, and what with the trip over and back, to 
 say nothing of hours spent in "tripping the 
 light fantastic," it was rated as "some swell 
 time," with the emphasis impartially dis- 
 tributed on all three words. In the course of 
 time Davis took the Nichols boys to task and 
 asked them pointedly why it was they never 
 brought their sisters along. They jollied him 
 for a considerable time with excuses, trumped- 
 up on the spur of the moment, until at last, so 
 insistent was he on this point, that they were 
 put to it to fabricate a story that would "hold 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 71 
 
 water," as the saying goes. The truth was that 
 Mrs. Nichols positively would not allow her 
 daughters to go. To cap the climax, Davis one 
 night put up an ultimatum to the boys, the gist 
 of which was: "Bring your sisters, or somebody 
 else's sisters, or you don't dance in this house!" 
 This was a poser, sure enough. But pleasure 
 weighs heavily in the scale, and youth is buoyed 
 up with optimism, by means of which pros- 
 pective trouble is minimized and becomes only 
 a remote possibility. The only disquieting 
 thing was the darkly hinted tale spread abroad 
 by "grapevine telegraph" that Davis had killed 
 a man ; but even the deterrent effect of whisper- 
 ings so sinister could not last forever, and some 
 weeks later a number of the boys set out for the 
 Davis home to attend a dance and without 
 partners. Judson Nichols tells us that on this 
 particular occasion he rode a dapple-gray mare 
 with fine flowing mane and tail, and that on 
 nearing the Davis home he, as well as his 
 two brothers, by some providential direction, 
 secreted their horses in the woods instead of 
 tying them to the "worm" fence in front of the 
 house, as had been their custom in times past. 
 As they entered the house, conveniently located 
 near the stairs which led to the upper story was 
 
72 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 a barrel of whisky turned on its side, with a 
 tincup of ample dimensions slung by its handle 
 to the spigot, and between cotillions the fiddler, 
 none other than the famed Eloi Marcotte, made 
 brief excursions downstairs, presumably as far 
 as the barrel, where he interviewed the spigot 
 and the tincup and embraced, in the brief inter- 
 val measured by his absence, spirits more or less 
 congenial. 
 
 The entire upstairs was devoted to a dancing 
 floor and was lighted with tallow candles that 
 glimmered feebly over a varied company of 
 young people from the country and the town. 
 Watching his chance at the end of a cotillion, 
 Mr. Nichols says, he got a little French girl for 
 a partner. The set filled rapidly, the music 
 started with the dulcet strains of "Turkey-in- 
 the- Straw," the dance got under way, and he 
 was congratulating himself that Davis had for- 
 gotten all about the harsh terms he had im- 
 posed, when lo, here he loomed, stern and for- 
 bidding and with a baleful glitter in his eye. 
 With a wave of his hand he stopped the fiddler 
 and warned Mr. Nichols to get off the floor. 
 The brothers, Argale and Bailey, were simi- 
 larly warned. During the interval while this 
 was going on three young men, Alex Berchem, 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 73 
 
 Harris Durham and he, who years later was 
 known as "Colonel" Wooster, of Momence, 
 plied the boys with questions as to the trouble. 
 All three advised the boys not to weaken, but 
 remain at the dance, for, said they, "If you boys 
 cannot dance, neither can we." Thus encour- 
 aged, the boys got into the fun again, and again 
 did Davis, after rinding that his orders had been 
 disregarded, order the boys from the floor and 
 from the house. At this the friendly trio, 
 Berchem, Durham and Wooster, made it 
 known to Davis in no uncertain manner that, if 
 the boys went, they, too, and their friends would 
 go. This was more than Davis had bargained 
 for and, considerably upset at this failure to 
 enforce the law he had laid down, he left the 
 floor and spent the balance of the evening 
 downstairs in close company with the barrel, 
 the spigot and the tincup. 
 
 Dances in that day, at least, and more espe- 
 cially those held at the Davis home, were not 
 hedged about by conventionalities or the ob- 
 servance of the niceties of etiquette such as one 
 found in the ball-rooms of a later day. Every- 
 thing was of the rough-and-ready style. The 
 all-absorbing thought of seventy-five years ago 
 was to have a good time. The youth of that 
 
74 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 day, all unmindful of the fact that their cloth- 
 ing was of the most primitive cut and of coarse, 
 "homespun" texture, their footgear fashioned 
 of heavy, inelegant, though serviceable cow- 
 hide, readily condoned any action that con- 
 tributed to comfort or greater freedom of ac- 
 tion on the part of the individual as he gleefully 
 "cut the pigeon- wing" or threw in an extra 
 "double-shuffle" for good measure. Hence, 
 says Mr. Nichols, it was no unusual thing for 
 the boys to remove the "wamus," worn as a cov- 
 ering for the "hickory" shirt. And, as a means 
 of expediting their movements through the 
 "mazes of the dance," at the same time insuring 
 the least possible encroachment on the domain 
 of the young ladies' pedal extremities, the 
 young men frequently hauled off their cumber- 
 some cowhide boots and danced in their stock- 
 ing feet. And the quaint, straight-lined, calico- 
 clad fairies of seventy-five years ago, so far 
 from being shocked at this strange proceeding 
 on the part of their youthful cavaliers, actually 
 beamed upon them with approval. 
 
 A unique and outstanding figure at these 
 backwoods functions was he who did the "call- 
 ing." Some of the "calls" for the square dances 
 were the products of the frontier wits of that 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 75 
 
 day, and every community had at least one who 
 aspired to a position of such marked promi- 
 nence. This manner of calling was not original 
 with the early settlers of the Illinois prairies, 
 but rather the survival of customs and practices 
 brought to us by the pioneer settler who had 
 come from across the line in Indiana or Ken- 
 tucky. There is a charm in their very crudity 
 which makes them worthy of preservation. On 
 this particular evening, with the couples "all 
 set," after Eloi Marcotte, all mellow from 
 numerous bibulous trips down below, got the 
 signal to proceed, the listener would have been 
 regaled with something like this: 
 
 "Balance one and balance eight, 
 
 Swing 'em on the corner like you swing 'em on the gate 
 
 Bow to your lady and then promenade, 
 
 First couple out, to the couple on the right, 
 
 Lady round the lady and the gent solo, 
 
 And the lady round the gent and the gent don't go. 
 
 Ladies do-ce-do and the gents, you know, 
 
 Chicken in a bread-pan, pickin' up dough. 
 
 Turn 'em roun' and roun', as pretty as you can, 
 
 And why in the world don't you left alaman. 
 
 Right hand to partner and grand right and left, 
 
 And a big, big swing, an' a little hug too, 
 
 Swing your honey and she'll swing you, 
 
 Promenade eight, when you get all straight. 
 
 First couple out to the right — 
 Cage the bird, three hands round — 
 
76 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 Birdie hop out and crow hop in, 
 
 Three hands round and go it agin ; 
 
 Alaman left, back to partner, and grand right and left, 
 
 Come to your partner once and a half, 
 
 Yeller canary right, and jay-bird left, 
 
 Next to your partner and all chaw hay, 
 
 You know where an' I don't care, 
 
 Seat your partner in the old arm-chair." 
 
 It was getting late, the fun was fast and 
 furious, and the boys, in the excitement and 
 pleasure of it all, had about forgotten Davis 
 and the disagreeable interruptions of the early 
 evening, when all of a sudden a human figure 
 bounded up from below to the head of the stairs 
 and let out a yell that would have made a Pot- 
 tawattomie brave look foolish. Mr. Nichols 
 says his first thought was of Davis and a gun 
 and a possible shot. But it wasn't Davis ; Davis 
 was in the grip of congenial spirits down below. 
 The noise was made by a young man, a neigh- 
 borhood fellow by the name of Eaton, who was 
 trying to make known, in a wild and incoherent 
 way, that his horse, which he had tied to the 
 "worm" fence outside, had been mutilated. The 
 one desire that consumed the young man at that 
 time was to get his hands on the neck of the fel- 
 low who did it. The crowd surged down the 
 stairway and on out to the fence where the 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE TT 
 
 horse was tied and, behold, there stood a beauti- 
 ful dapple-gray mare shorn of her mane, and 
 tail, which littered the ground beneath her and 
 which she quietly tramped with her feet into the 
 soft earth. It was a sight to make one's blood 
 run cold for an instant and then boil. Mr. 
 Nichols says that, on beholding the animal thus 
 shorn of her beauty, he was transfixed with an 
 icy chill and his heart went "chugg" into his 
 throat. He sensed instantly that this evidence 
 of hostility was not intended for Eaton, but 
 for himself alone. The brothers during the ex- 
 citement slipped on down the road unobserved 
 and made their way to a clump of sumac, from 
 which came the friendly "nicker" of their 
 horses. The dapple-gray that Mr. Nichols had 
 ridden was unharmed, and so great was his joy 
 thereat that he put his arms around her neck 
 and hugged her while he murmured, "Oh, little 
 hoss, how glad I am they did not get you!" 
 
 It was a long, long time before any of the 
 boys from down the river "forgot" sufficiently 
 to be again beguiled by dances over at the 
 Davis home. But, by the selfsame "grapevine 
 telegraph" by which this dark deed was broad- 
 casted, it also became known that apologies 
 were extended to Eaton by the head of the 
 
78 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 house and that a purse of $25, which went with 
 them, helped somewhat to repair the state of 
 Eaton's feelings, though it did not help the 
 looks of the little dapple-gray a cent's worth. 
 
 The Old "Rinosa" Postoffice 
 
 On June 15, 1849, four years before the 
 building of the Illinois Central railroad, the 
 United States government commissioned the 
 second postoffice to be established south of the 
 Kankakee river, in Iroquois county, in terri- 
 tory now included within the boundaries of 
 Kankakee. It was established at the Roswell 
 Nichols home, opposite Rock Creek, with Ros- 
 well Nichols as postmaster. This office was 
 given the name of "Rinosa," a modification of 
 the Spanish name "Rinoca," adopted on the 
 suggestion of one Charles Whipple, a young 
 man and a newspaper writer for the Chicago 
 Journal, who happened to be spending some 
 time in the neighborhood and who had, some 
 time previously, spent several months in Mex- 
 ico, in a town of that name. There was just 
 enough euphony and mystery in the title to 
 make it readily acceptable as a name for the 
 new postoffice, and it was accordingly adopted. 
 It cost in that day twenty-five cents to send a 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 79 
 
 letter by mail, and the letter, in lieu of an en- 
 velope, was written on one side of the paper so 
 that it could be folded, sealed and addressed. 
 
 On the death of Roswell Nichols, his son, 
 Frank Nichols, succeeded as the postmaster at 
 Rinosa. The office was maintained b}^ the gov- 
 ernment up to 1875 and was discontinued Sep- 
 tember 17 of that year. Mount Langham, as 
 the sightly eminence to the southeast of Aroma 
 Park is known, had a postoffice eighty-one 
 years ago. The office was established by the 
 government August 26, 1842, and S. C. Dilley 
 was the first postmaster. Thomas Sammons 
 was appointed as his successor on July 29, 
 1846, and James W. Byrns, the third post- 
 master, was appointed on June 29, 1847. The 
 office was discontinued December 23, 1858. It 
 is interesting to note, with regard to the name 
 "Mount Langham," that by the government it 
 was known as "Mount Langum." A query 
 submitted to the postoffice department, request- 
 ing data on the establishment of the Mount 
 Langham postoffice, brought the startling in- 
 formation that " in all the state of Illinois there 
 was not, and never had been, a postoffice of the 
 name of Mount Langham, but there had been 
 one named "Mount Langum," situated in Iro- 
 
80 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 quois County. Mr. William Byrns, for many 
 years a resident of the town of Aroma, is 
 authority for the statement that in the very 
 early forties a young man, a government sur- 
 veyor by the name of Langham, or Langum, 
 had his camp over on the east side of the hill 
 and that his name was used as a name for the 
 new postoffice established in 1842, and that his 
 Grandfather Byrns was responsible for the 
 term "Mount" used as a prefix to the surveyor's 
 name, making the name of the office "Mount 
 Langum." And thus the name of a young 
 man, otherwise unknown, has been perpetuated 
 throughout the years. 
 
 The mail was brought out weekly from Joliet 
 by a carrier who went on horseback, stopping at 
 Dr. Todd's office at Rockville, crossing the 
 river to Binosa and thence to Mount Langum 
 and the other inland offices of "Democrat," on 
 Beaver Creek, Iroquois, Plato, Courtright's 
 Mills, Middleport, Milford and on down to 
 Danville. 
 
 Kankakee's first postoffice was known as 
 Clarksville. It was established September 6, 
 1853, with Samuel L. Knight as postmaster. 
 It was discontinued on December 8, 1853. The 
 office at "Kankakee Depot" was established on 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 81 
 
 October 3, 1853, with George M. Stowell as 
 postmaster. The name of the office was 
 changed to Kankakee on June 7, 1866. 
 
 Taxation a Burden on the Early Settler 
 
 Taxation has always proved more or less of 
 a bugbear and burden to mankind, and in this 
 respect the early settlers on the Kankakee river 
 were no exception. In the spring of 1851 
 Sheriff Sammons, of Iroquois county, rode up 
 to the Judson Nichols home and made the 
 rather disquieting announcement that he had 
 come to collect a bill. Mr. Nichols had married 
 something over a year before, and was living 
 on a piece of land his father had given him out 
 of the estate. He did not have much of any- 
 thing and, so far as he knew, did not owe any- 
 body, consequently the sheriff's statement that 
 he had come to collect a bill bowled him over 
 completely. Who could he owe? And what 
 for? And how much? All these were ques- 
 tions that formulated instantly and passed 
 through his mind with the rapidity of lightning. 
 He finally collected his scattered senses suffi- 
 ciently to remark, "Mr. Sheriff, there must be 
 some mistake about this." 
 
82 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 "Are you Judson Nichols?" queried the 
 Sheriff. 
 
 "Yes," reluctantly admitted Mr. Nichols. 
 
 "Well, then, I've got a bill for you, and I've 
 come to collect it." 
 
 With that Sheriff Sammons placed a slip of 
 paper in his hands and, to his great astonish- 
 ment, found that it was a bill for his personal 
 taxes, due to the county of Iroquois, for the 
 year 1850. His taxes aggregated the enormous 
 sum of thirty-two cents, to which sum was 
 added two cents per mile, amounting to sev- 
 enty-five cents, which was the sheriff's fee for 
 collecting it, making a grand total of one dollar 
 and seventeen cents he had to pay. Of the 
 thirty-two cents levied as taxes, seventeen cents 
 were for State tax and fifteen cents for county 
 tax. 
 
 Mr. Nichols has kept this receipt all these 
 years as a souvenir of his elevation to the dig- 
 nity of a tax-paying citizen. There is an old 
 saying that the two unavoidable things are 
 "Death and Taxes." Mr. Nichols says that by 
 right living and temperate habits it is possible 
 to cheat the grim reaper for a considerable time, 
 but that in all his long experience he has never 
 been able to put off the tax man. 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 83 
 
 The Days of the "Bogus Island" Horse 
 Thief Ring 
 
 In the early days of the Kankakee Valley, 
 as far back as 1838, and perhaps earlier than 
 that, the settlers were subjected to frequent 
 raids by a highly organized band of horse 
 thieves who, safely intrenched on "Bogus Is- 
 land," over the line in Indiana, a spot of land 
 surrounded by an almost impassable morass 
 known as Beaver Lake, were aided further in 
 their operations by an "underground system," 
 or stations, extending into Iowa, on the west, 
 and into Ohio, on the east. These "stations" 
 were simply individuals who, with a knowledge 
 of what was going on, were in the pay of the 
 gang and rendered every possible service in 
 expediting the flight of the thief with his stolen 
 booty, east or west, as the case might be, and in 
 instances where pursuit pressed hard on the 
 trail, it was their business to give asylum to 
 both thief and horse. So nicely adjusted was 
 this "underground system," that for years 
 horses from eastern Iowa and from western 
 Ohio were run through and successfully dis- 
 posed of in the intervening territory. The suc- 
 cess of these operations made the thieves in- 
 creasingly bold, and finally it got so that they 
 
84 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 did not hesitate to pick up a likely looking piece 
 of horse-flesh anywhere on the line. The sta- 
 tion-keepers aided very materially in this, for 
 they were enabled to get a line on many of the 
 local horses, which they tipped off to headquar- 
 ters. 
 
 It was not until the traffic had reached con- 
 siderable proportions and many had suffered 
 loss thereby, that the settlers decided that dras- 
 tic measures must be adopted. In the spring 
 of 1844, according to Mr. Nichols, a meeting of 
 the settlers was held at the home of "Uncle 
 Tommy" Durham which was attended by near- 
 ly all the settlers on the river. The subject was 
 gone over thoroughly and opinion was unani- 
 mous, or nearly so, that heroic measures must 
 be employed, and, as a result, a Vigilance Com- 
 mittee was organized, then and there, the said 
 committee embracing in its roster the name of 
 every man present. It was the opinion of the 
 committee that a hanging or two of individuals 
 engaged in the nefarious business of stealing 
 horses would have a most salutary effect, and 
 they went forth from this meeting with that 
 idea firmly fixed in their minds. A few days 
 after the organization of the Vigilance Com- 
 mittee, Sheriff Sammons, of Iroquois county, 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 85 
 
 who happened to be traveling the Limestone 
 settlement, told of meeting a suspicious looking 
 individual on horseback whom he suspected of 
 being a horse thief. "Lant" and Baldwin 
 Hawkins, being thus advised, mounted their 
 horses and rode out and intercepted the stran- 
 ger. They questioned him closely, but his an- 
 swers were generally evasive, and far from sat- 
 isfactory, and the sheriff's opinion, that he was 
 bent on no good mission, was more than con- 
 firmed. As he passed on down the river the 
 Hawkins boys followed by a circuitous route, 
 keeping well out of sight. They trailed him 
 until he disappeared into the scrub oak of the 
 "Barrens," and while they were consulting as 
 to what course to pursue he reappeared with 
 two horses. They needed no further proof 
 now as to his calling, and immediately the two 
 charged upon him, whereupon the thief (for 
 such he evidently was), wheeled his horse in 
 the direction of the river and made all possible 
 speed. Baldwin Hawkins was mounted on a 
 handsome black stallion and gave chase to in- 
 tercept him, if possible, before he could reach 
 the river. He rode a speedy horse, but the 
 stranger's was speedier still and, without hesi- 
 tating for a second as he neared the river, over 
 
86 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 the bank he plunged into the water, with Haw- 
 kins close behind him. Hawkins called re- 
 peatedly to the stranger to surrender, to all of 
 which he paid no heed, but urged his horse the 
 faster. He might have made good his escape 
 had not his horse stumbled when about two- 
 thirds of the way across the river. But before 
 he could recover, Baldwin Hawkins was up to 
 him and had his hand on his collar. Together 
 they rode out of the river and up the bank, 
 where they were joined by Alanson Hawkins. 
 Now, the latter was a justice-of-the-peace, 
 and it was decided to try the stranger instanter 
 for the crime of horse-stealing. One thing we 
 can commend that backwoods court for and 
 that was promptness and the absence of un- 
 necessary frills. Although the evidence was cir- 
 cumstantial and somewhat damaging in char- 
 acter, it was insufficient, but, notwithstanding, 
 the court being "all het up" on account of the 
 chase, and remembering, probably, the newly 
 taken oath of the Vigilance Committee, had 
 just about decided to hang the prisoner when 
 Roswell Nichols appeared. Mr. Nichols hap- 
 pened along just in the nick of time. Realizing 
 what was in the wind, he urged moderation on 
 the part of the court. Accordingly, the pris- 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 87 
 
 oner, instead of being hung then and there, was 
 bound over to the Iroquois County Circuit 
 Court at Middleport, and the sheriff, being on 
 hand, took him into custody. 
 
 Subsequent events tended to show conclu- 
 sively that the prisoner was the especial protege 
 of a kindly fate, for, having escaped hanging by 
 the timely intervention of Mr. Nichols, the same 
 kindly fate aided him in eluding the sheriff's 
 watchful eye while on the way to Middleport. 
 He got away and they never did get him. 
 
 The story goes that there was only one man 
 who, in the palmy days of the horse-thief ring, 
 operating from "Bogus Island," ever pene- 
 trated the island fastnesses and succeeded in 
 outwitting the outlaws sufficiently to recover 
 his property, and that man was none other than 
 Capt. Francois Seguin, of Kankakee. Seguin 
 was a lover of fine horses, as some of the older 
 residents who knew him well can testify, and 
 among those he possessed was a trim, fast- 
 stepping little mare, which was his especial 
 pride. The mare disappeared one da}^, just as 
 other people's horses disappeared, and Seguin 
 was much disturbed thereat. He did not say 
 anything about it, but set to work quietly on 
 
88 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 his own account. This was in the early fifties, 
 and at that time Momence, which was a con- 
 siderable town for that day, had a tavern which 
 was the rendezvous for those of the country- 
 side who enjoyed a glass of "corn" whisky, a 
 hand at the national game of poker, a wrestling 
 match, a foot race or a fight. Seguin shrewdly 
 suspected that here was a place likely to be 
 frequented at times by those operating from 
 "Bogus Island," and thither he turned his steps 
 in the hope of picking up some clue. He 
 lounged about for several days, keeping his 
 eyes and ears open, and after awhile got into a 
 poker game. The game went on for hours, and 
 in the conversation that ensued one of the play- 
 ers constantly plied Seguin with questions as 
 to where he was from, his business and the like, 
 to all of which Seguin in rough-and-ready style 
 made answer that his home was where he hung 
 up his hat, and as for business, he turned his 
 hand to anything and was not squeamish or 
 over particular, just so it paid something and 
 was sufficiently exciting to keep him interested. 
 Evidently Seguin was to the fellow's liking, 
 for, on leaving, he arranged to meet him at a 
 point on the Kankakee river over the state line 
 in Indiana. Seguin made his way to the place 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 89 
 
 on foot, where, in the course of several hours, his 
 newly- found friend joined him. He was well 
 mounted and led another horse, which Seguin 
 was invited to mount. Together they set off 
 in the direction of Beaver Lake, the stranger, 
 in the meantime, leading up to the matter of the 
 business in hand by easy stages and in a 
 guarded manner, but making the inference 
 clear that dealing in horses was the industry 
 which was to occupy their attention. Seguin 
 accepted the proposition enthusiastically and 
 expressed his regret at not having been able to 
 connect himself long before with an enterprise 
 so much to his liking and which held the prom- 
 ise of rich returns. 
 
 The "Bogus Island" of that day, towards 
 which they directed their steps, was a patch of 
 land several acres in extent, well covered with 
 scrub-oak and with a sand-dune or two, en- 
 tirely surrounded by waters of Beaver Lake, 
 as the vast, marshy tract was known. The way 
 in and out from this island stronghold was hard 
 to negotiate, except by one familiar with its 
 idevious ways, and, as ill-luck would have it, 
 Seguin's conductor chose to go in after dark. 
 They passed through water that came well 
 up on the horses' sides, and Seguin's heart 
 
90 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 thumped with suppressed excitement as his 
 guide led on and up the well-beaten pathway 
 that wound its serpentine way among the 
 brush, stopping finally at a log house, the 
 rendezvous and headquarters of the thieves 
 who operated the great "underground system." 
 They found four or five men there on their 
 arrival, members of the gang, who were en- 
 gaged in celebrating a successful raid by in- 
 dulging in a game of poker, interspersed with 
 frequent drinks. Seguin, realizing his danger, 
 kept a level head, entered spiritedly into the 
 poker game, but was chary of the whisky. He 
 soon became on good terms with the men, who 
 readily accepted him, since he came well recom- 
 mended by one of their number, and they 
 talked unreservedly, meanwhile, of their opera- 
 tions in the horse-stealing line. Among the 
 number was a Frenchman, whom Seguin cul- 
 tivated assiduously and not without results, for 
 they soon established friendly relations and by 
 reason of a similarity of nationality, got on 
 amazingly. From him Seguin gathered many 
 things which, otherwise, would have required 
 much time. Two days after his arrival on the 
 island, Seguin's newly-found friend took him 
 to view the horses, and his heart fairly jumped 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 91 
 
 into his throat on beholding among the number 
 his favorite mare, for which he had risked so 
 much. The horses were kept in a cleverly con- 
 structed "hillside stable," dug out of the side 
 of a sand-dune, the open side of which was well 
 concealed with brush. 
 
 How to get out of the place with his prop- 
 erty was the all-engrossing question for 
 Seguin. He knew the general direction by 
 which he had come into the place, and he knew 
 also that plans had been formulated by which 
 a party was to move eastward with the horses 
 in an effort to dispose of them. If he rescued 
 his horse from the hands of the thieves he would 
 have to act speedily. The pathway made use 
 of by the robbers in gaining access to the island 
 lay pretty well to the south side of it, and 
 Seguin conceived the idea of going in a direc- 
 tion directly opposite, even though much deep 
 water intervened between the island and terra 
 flrma to the northwest. In the dead of night he 
 made his way stealthily to the hillside stable, 
 secured his horse and, approaching the lake, 
 plunged boldly in. Both man and horse had to 
 swim for it, and it was a long, hard pull, but 
 fortune's favors are more often granted to 
 those who take the risk, and the Captain's lucky 
 
LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 star was in the ascendant. The next day he 
 appeared in Kankakee with his favorite mare, 
 and the joy he experienced in having her back 
 was only exceeded by the satisfaction he felt 
 in having outwitted the robbers themselves by 
 going into their stronghold. 
 
 In the early dusk of a summer's day in the 
 year 1857, a stranger on horseback rode up 
 to the Murray House, in Kankakee. This 
 hotel, a three-story brick structure, built by 
 "Uncle" Jimmie Lamb, was located on the 
 south-east corner of Court Street and Dear- 
 born Avenue, and did real justice to Kanka- 
 kee's budding aspirations as a metropolis. The 
 stranger put up for the night and was assigned 
 to a room on the second floor. Citizen William 
 A. Ott was at that time the city marshal, and 
 the sparse mail that came addressed to him in 
 that day consisted mainly of notices of horses 
 stolen, together with descriptions thereof, and 
 the invariable reward for the apprehension of 
 the thief and the return of the property. On 
 that particular evening, as horse and rider 
 passed by on Court Street, Marshal Ott's sub- 
 conscious processes were suddenly quickened 
 and set in motion by beholding certain marks 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 93 
 
 on the horse that had at some time been enumer- 
 ated in an identification circular. He hastily 
 consulted his files and, sure enough, there they 
 were, especially mention of the white fore- 
 leg. Very much excited, he sought the stable 
 where the horse had been put up for the night, 
 and a further examination revealed other 
 marks that served to identify the animal beyond 
 the question of a doubt. He lost no time in 
 notifying Landlord Morrow of his discovery 
 and that he proposed to arrest the stranger. 
 One of the party who passed up to the second 
 floor with the crowd to witness the fun was 
 Roger Sherman. Marshal Ott pounded loudly 
 on the door of the room, announcing in a loud 
 voice that the occupant thereof was under ar- 
 rest and that he should come forth and give 
 himself up to an officer of the law. The only 
 response was an ominous clicking from within, 
 as of someone cocking a pistol. The marshal, 
 somewhat abashed at this turn of affairs and 
 with ardor noticeably cooled at the possibility 
 of a shot through the door, again demanded 
 that he come forth and give himself up. The 
 silence was ominous. The marshal hesitated. 
 About this time Roger Sherman, who in his 
 younger days liked something "snapp}^" in the 
 
94 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 way of entertainment, called out, "Say, Ott, 
 I'll get 'im — do you want 'im?" 
 
 "Yeah," replied Ott, rather weakly. 
 
 Immediately Sherman attacked the panels 
 of the door with his heavy boots and in a very 
 short time had kicked it in, despite the remon- 
 strances of the crowd, who feared that he might 
 be shot. With the door kicked to pieces it was 
 only the work of a moment to make sure of the 
 man therein. The stranger had a gun of the 
 old-fashioned powder-and-ball variety, but it 
 was unloaded, and for weeks afterwards con- 
 troversy was rife among those who witnessed 
 the incident as to whether the fellow would have 
 shot Sherman if it had been loaded! Evi- 
 dence far more incriminating than the horse 
 was brought to light when the saddle-bags be- 
 longing to the stranger were searched. A diary 
 was discovered in which was recorded certain 
 points or "stations" such as Momence, Mt. 
 Langham, Aroma, Sugar Island, on the Iro- 
 quois river, Kankakee, together with places 
 down the river as far as Wilmington. Ac- 
 companying the list of "stations" were the 
 names of individuals who might be called upon 
 for assistance in cases of emergency. As it 
 turned out, it was the most important capture 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 95 
 
 in all the history of the "underground system." 
 Captain Seguin, on hearing of what had 
 taken place, hurried over to the hotel to view 
 the prisoner. Wonder of wonders ! The pris- 
 oner was none other than the man with whom 
 he had played cards at Momence and later ac- 
 companied to "Bogus Island." If the thief 
 recognized Seguin, he betrayed not the slight- 
 est evidence of it. "You don't seem to know 
 me," said Seguin. The fellow made no reply. 
 "I spent several days with you at Bogus 
 Island," continued Seguin, "and brought back 
 with me the little mare you fellows stole. If 
 you were going to stay there I might call on 
 you again ; but you are now headed for a place 
 much harder to get out of." Seguin spoke 
 truly. He was sentenced to a term in the peni- 
 tentiary and died within a year. 
 
 Limestone Votes Bonds for War Bounties 
 
 In the early days of the civil war the first 
 regiments that were sent out were composed 
 wholly of volunteers, who came from all parts 
 of the country. Three days after the Presi- 
 dent's call for seventy-five thousand men, one 
 hundred thousand had responded. Mott Lamb 
 was the first to volunteer from the town of 
 
96 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 Limestone. Later, when it was seen that we 
 were in for a long drawn out conflict that 
 would tax the resources of the country, came 
 the dread enactment of the draft. Five men in 
 each township in Kankakee county were thus 
 ^drafted for service, but a man so drafted had 
 the privilege, under the act, of hiring a substi- 
 tute if, for any reason, he could not or did not 
 want to go himself. 
 
 In the town of Limestone men were drafted 
 who were the heads of families dependent on 
 their labor for a living, men who had not the 
 wherewithal to provide a substitute, in which 
 case the burden of the care and support of their 
 families fell, naturally, upon the town. At a 
 meeting of the citizens of the town of Lime- 
 stone the sentiment was unanimous that the 
 town should issue bonds and meet the emer- 
 gency in a broad and liberal way, to wit : That 
 to such as were drafted should be given the sum 
 of $500 to purchase a substitute where neces- 
 sary, or to be retained as a bounty by those who 
 saw their way clear to go. A special election 
 was accordingly held and the citizens voted 
 almost unanimously in favor of a bond issue of 
 $3,000, $2,500 of which was for bounties and 
 $500 to cover incidental expenses and insure 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 97 
 
 a surplus sufficient to meet the possible con- 
 tingency of the bonds selling considerably 
 below par. 
 
 The bonds were duly issued and placed in 
 the hands of Mr. Judson Nichols to be mar- 
 keted. At this juncture it became evident that 
 certain powerful influences in the city of 
 Kankakee were exerting every effort to check- 
 mate the bond scheme of the Limestone citizens. 
 The claim was openly made that the act of the 
 town of Limestone in issuing bonds for a mat- 
 ter of this kind was unconstitutional and, there- 
 fore, illegal. Accordingly, Mr. Nichols was 
 cited before the bar of the Circuit Court, Judge 
 Starr presiding, where a restraining order was 
 sought by the opposition which would prevent 
 him disposing of the bonds. To the eternal 
 credit of Judge Starr, be it said, no time was 
 wasted in preliminaries. Said he, "Mr. Nich- 
 ols, you go ahead and sell the bonds. There 
 will never be any restraining order issued from 
 this court so long as I am here." 
 
 That day was a lucky one all around, says 
 Mr. Nichols, for on the way home that after- 
 noon he stopped at the home of Mr. David 
 Denny, an old-time Limestone resident, and 
 while telling him all about what had happened, 
 
98 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 suddenly Mr. Denny interrupted him with the 
 query, "Say, Jud, why shouldn't I buy those 
 bonds ? I've got the money !" Mr. Nichols was 
 astounded, for three thousand dollars in cash in 
 that day was a very large sum for anyone to 
 have, except that he happened to be a banker. 
 The deal for the bonds was closed then and there 
 and they brought par. As Mr. Nichols turned 
 over the bonds, Mr. Denny handed him three 
 one-thousand-dollar bills, which he brought 
 forth from the murky recesses of a bureau 
 drawer. The bills had been received as Mrs. 
 Denny's share of her father's estate. Her 
 father was Isaac Nichols, who had a large 
 estate on the Mississippi river. Mr. Nichols 
 says another bit of good fortune awaited them. 
 In that day of unstable and fluctuating cur- 
 rency these bills Mr. Denny had given him 
 were so good that they brought their full face 
 value. And the bonds thus issued for soldiers' 
 bounties by the town of Limestone were, in the 
 course of time and when they became due, duly 
 redeemed, just as the Union was redeemed by 
 the many acts of courageous self-sacrifice and 
 daring on the part of the loyal citizenry 
 throughout the land. 
 
 The opposition did not stop at this rebuff, 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 99 
 
 however, but invoked the aid of one of the Chi- 
 cago courts to further embarrass and make 
 futile, if possible, the efforts of the citizens of 
 Limestone. Mr. Nichols was delegated to 
 accompany the boys selected under the draft to 
 the government office at Joliet. They had 
 heard of the efforts of the opposition and, to 
 forestall delay and long drawn out controversy, 
 Mr. Nichols and his five charges, on their ar- 
 rival at Matteson, the junction of the Illinois 
 Central and the road to Joliet, on the appear- 
 ance of a south-bound Illinois Central passen- 
 ger train, discreetly took refuge behind a coal 
 car on the "Y" until the train pulled out. It 
 was well they did, for it was afterwards learned 
 that the ring-leaders of the opposition were on 
 board that train. Thus outwitting their op- 
 ponents, the little party arrived in Joliet, and 
 by the time the opposition made their appear- 
 ance, which was late the following day, it was 
 "Uncle Sam" and not Mr. Nichols they had to 
 deal with. 
 
 That night, in the court house square in 
 Joliet, the "secessionist" sympathizers (and 
 their numbers were formidable) held a meeting. 
 A big bonfire was lighted, an empty dry-goods 
 box was rolled out into the square and became 
 
100 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 the platform from which many an individual 
 expressed himself in impromptu speech, de- 
 nouncing the government as exceeding its con- 
 stitutional powers. Some there were who spoke 
 in a mild, self-contained manner, but their 
 numbers were few. Others, in the rising heat 
 of passion, lost themselves completely in whole- 
 sale denunciation and vituperation until, in the 
 end, the meeting lost all semblance of an 
 orderly affair, and applauded to the echo vapid 
 utterances of the lurid, red- fire, hell and dyna- 
 mite speakers. Mr. Nichols and Judge Loomis 
 mingled with the crowd that evening, and both 
 were not only deeply impressed with the dem- 
 onstration, but greatly distressed and ill at ease 
 over the appalling spectacle of a house divided 
 against itself. For hours after he had retired 
 that night Mr. Nichols says that he laid awake, 
 while his mind dwelt on the scenes of the early 
 evening, recalling again and again the seditious 
 utterances of the speakers. And the state- 
 ments of some of the more rabid of these im- 
 promptu orators from the ranks of northern 
 citizens seemed more terrible, more charged 
 with menace to the government than did the 
 fact of armed resistance on the part of the 
 South. 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 10T_ 
 
 The Cholera Epidemic of 1851 
 
 The scourge of "ague," with its accompani- 
 ment of chills and shakes and fever, that beset 
 the settler in the new country of the Illinois, 
 bad as it was and disagreeable as it was to bear, 
 was as nothing in comparison with the more 
 dreadful scourge of cholera that appeared sud- 
 denly in June of 1851 in the little community 
 of Bourbonnais. Asiatic cholera was first de- 
 scribed by a Portuguese physician in 1560. It 
 is said to be always present in Hindoostan. In 
 1817 it began moving westward from Bengal 
 until it overran Persia, and in the year 1823 
 touched the borders of Russia. It lay dormant 
 for seven years, when it moved forward again, 
 always in the direction of the great human 
 migrations. It swept Russia in 1830 and Eng- 
 land in 1832, leaving a record of 900,000 dead 
 on the continent. Cholera first appeared in 
 Quebec in June, 1832, appearing fourteen days 
 later in New York and, following the lines of 
 commerce and travel, was diffused throughout 
 the interior of the country by October of that 
 year, appearing at St. Louis and New Orleans. 
 
 The next appearance of the dread disease 
 was in 1851. In the memories of some of the 
 older settlers on the Kankakee, it is recalled 
 
102 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 that a party of twenty or thirty French immi- 
 grants from Canada came to Bourbonnais in 
 June, bringing with them the body of a child 
 that had died the day before at Joliet. The 
 next morning one of the number was stricken 
 down by the terrible scourge. The weather 
 being very warm, these immigrants lodged in 
 Mr. Noel Vasseur's barn. By eleven o'clock 
 the same day eight or ten more were taken ill, 
 and before ten o'clock that night fifteen of the 
 number had been seized and all died. The 
 panic created was such that, when a member of 
 a family was stricken down, the rest fled in ter- 
 ror and left the helpless victim to perish alone. 
 Travelers passing to and fro between Joliet 
 and the Wabash valley went twenty to thirty 
 miles out of their direct course to avoid the 
 cholera district at Bourbonnais. 
 
 The family of Samuel Davis, who lived sev- 
 eral miles on beyond Bourbonnais on what is 
 still known as Davis creek, was stricken by 
 the malady in July, Mr. Davis dying on the 
 21st. A daughter, Virginia, and a son, 
 Nathaniel, died July 28, and on the day follow- 
 ing a son, Henry D. C. Davis, died. These 
 bodies were interred in the Van Meter ceme- 
 tery, on the present Goodwin farm. It is re- 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 103 
 
 lated that the daughter, Virginia, who at that 
 time was working at old Middleport, then the 
 county-seat of Iroquois county, made a trip 
 home the day of her father's funeral. It so hap- 
 pened that on her way out to the home beyond 
 Bourbonnais she met the funeral party on its 
 way to the Van Meter cemetery with the body 
 of her father. In a frenzy of grief at this sud- 
 den denouement, she insisted that the coffin be 
 opened so that she might look again upon her 
 father's face. It was a hazardous thing to do 
 and those in charge remonstrated with her, but 
 without avail. On arriving at the cemetery, 
 before the body was laid away the coffin was 
 opened, and Virginia looked upon the remains 
 of her father. One week later, on the 28th 
 of July, Virginia and a younger brother, 
 Nathaniel, succumbed to the dread disease, and 
 on the day following Henry D. C. Davis 
 passed away. Opinion among the settlers, who 
 recall the deaths in the Davis family, is divided 
 to this day as to the real cause. By some it is 
 maintained that Davis had put out a lot of 
 strychnine for rats, with which the place was 
 infested, and that the rats made their way into 
 the well for water and died, thereby polluting 
 the water supply of which the Davis family 
 
104 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 made use. Others are equally positive that 
 they fell victims to the scourge of cholera 
 brought to the neighborhood by the French 
 immigrants who came to Bourbonnais. Cholera 
 was more or less prevalent in the neighborhood 
 of Bourbonnais for three years, and it is said 
 that Dr. C. W. Knott was the only physician 
 in attendance upon cholera patients. 
 
 The County-Seat Election of 1853 
 
 The city of Kankakee owes a debt of grati- 
 tude to the valiant voters of the town of Lime- 
 stone, incurred something like seventy years 
 ago, come next June, which has never been 
 fully and completely liquidated and, maybe, 
 never will be. The enormous import of this 
 friendly service on the part of the town of 
 Limestone grows with the mounting years, and 
 were the total of this friendly debt to be ex- 
 pressed in cold, hard, matter-of-fact dollars 
 and cents, why, friends, the city would have 
 been hopelessly, irreparably bankrupt years 
 and years ago. There is no obligation like that 
 imposed by an act of downright, whole-souled 
 friendship. You have heard, probably, of the 
 story of Damon and Pythias ; listen to this — it 
 is different. 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 105 
 
 In 1853 Kankakee County was organized, 
 the territory for the new county being taken 
 from Will on the north and Iroquois on the 
 south. To begin with, there were six town- 
 ships — Yellowhead, Momence, Bourbonnais, 
 Rockville, Aroma and Limestone. Momence, 
 in the eastern part of the county, in 1853 was a 
 considerable village, while Kankakee was in 
 embryo, at that time hardly a name. But if 
 Momence enjoyed the distinction of being a 
 town in that day, so the Kankakee that was to 
 be felt the impulse of that mighty force by 
 which the wilderness has since been converted 
 into an empire — the coming of the railroad. 
 June 21, 1853, was the day set on which an elec- 
 tion was to be held to decide the location of 
 the county-seat. Momence was an active candi- 
 date that day for the honor, as was likewise the 
 newly born City of Kankakee. On the face of 
 things the odds apparently favored the se- 
 lection of Momence. It was an old town, 
 and the eastern part of the county being 
 more thickly settled, had, therefore, that most 
 desirable of elements in a fight like this, legally 
 qualified voters in sufficient numbers to carry 
 the proposition. The Illinois Central officials 
 and their townsite company, Messrs. Ketchum 
 
106 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 & Gray, after a careful poll of the voting 
 strength of the county, were ready to concede 
 that Momence had voting strength and to 
 spare, but that was all. They redoubled their 
 efforts to influence public sentiment and make 
 clear that the county-seat of a great sovereign 
 county like Kankakee should be located on a 
 railroad. Further, the townsite company do- 
 nated the present magnificent square as a site 
 for the court-house and later agreed to con- 
 tribute the sum of $5,000 for the construction 
 of the building. Liberality could not do more. 
 These offers were vociferously received by the 
 scattered population in the western part of the 
 county, and were even generously commented 
 upon by those residing in the east end, but to 
 put the proposition over required votes, and a 
 final analysis of the situation showed conclu- 
 sively that Momence had the votes and a com- 
 fortable majority. 
 
 At this time, down the river in the town of 
 Limestone, a little community had built up 
 around the Powell school, a little stone struc- 
 ture 12x12, whose proportions have since ex- 
 panded to 12x24, and which stands today as 
 one of the old landmarks. Here was located 
 also a blacksmith shop, a cooper shop and a 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 107 
 
 modest country store that supplied, among 
 other things, liquor for the thirsty, all of which, 
 having served their day, have long since passed 
 out of existence. In our capacity as historian 
 we may record here that "Boney" Arthur was 
 the blacksmith, Eph Reynolds was the cooper 
 and wagonmaker, and Windt Martin and 
 Charley Vaughn presided over the store. In 
 the fall of 1852 the Illinois Central railroad 
 opened the first stone quarry on the south bank 
 of the river, only a few hundred feet distant 
 from the little settlement, and here was quar- 
 ried a fine quality of heavy dimension stone 
 used in constructing the piers for the bridge 
 at Kankakee, the old Court Street viaduct, as 
 well as for all the culverts on the road for a 
 great distance north and south of Kankakee. 
 A considerable force was employed here in the 
 work of quarrying, a hardy, devil-may-care 
 type of individual, who with a drink or two 
 beneath his "wamus" often came into conflict 
 with the real, dyed-in-the-wool settler, for 
 whom the settlement was the Mecca of his 
 leisure hours (which were all too many) and 
 where he absorbed the juice of the corn as well 
 as something of the gossip that went the 
 rounds. The early settlers of the town of 
 
108 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 Limestone were remarkable for their tenacity 
 of opinion, and force was often resorted to to 
 maintain the dignity of a statement once made 
 and also to convince the other fellow, when 
 reasonable argument failed. So frequent were 
 the set-tos that occurred that the settlement 
 came to be known as "Bang-All," and the 
 green, that extended from the road down to the 
 river, as "Bang- All Green." Now, "Bang- All" 
 is suggestive of muscular force, called into ac- 
 tion on the spur of the moment, through heat of 
 anger, or just for fun, and which sometimes 
 went so far as to include the innocent by- 
 stander. If that is the idea you get of the term 
 "Bang- All" it is correct. 
 
 On this 21st of June, 1853, the day of the 
 election, which was to settle the momentous 
 question of the location of the county-seat, the 
 polls had been duly opened in the little stone 
 school house and the meager voting populace 
 of the town of Limestone having voted zeal- 
 ously for "Kankakee Depot," stood around in 
 anxious expectancy as if sensing that some- 
 thing unusual was in the wind. They did not 
 have to wait for long. Up from the river 
 came the quarry gang headed by a well-known 
 Limestoner, Mr. Byrns, and Mr. Lindsley, the 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 109 
 
 Illinois Central contractor. They charged 
 peacefully and decorously on the little school 
 house, where they were received by the elec- 
 tion board with sundry unmistakable evidences 
 of cordiality and affability, which increased, 
 perceptibly, as the boys plugged for "Kanka- 
 kee Depot." It was then that the news ran 
 from one to another, with the rapidity of a 
 prairie fire, that the Central was going to vote 
 every man employed on the work. Heartened 
 by this cheering intelligence the Limestone 
 denizen voted again, only this time he walked 
 by an open window, outside the building, his 
 body ducked low, and only the hand with the 
 ballot visible above the window-ledge and, 
 strange as it may seem, the fictitious name that 
 he gave was perfectly familiar to the judges, 
 and the ballot was accepted without question. 
 Up the road, in the direction of Sacramento 
 City, appeared a cloud of dust no larger than 
 a man's hand. This cloud grew larger as it 
 drew nearer, and finally, from it, emerged 
 "Uncle" John VanWert with four yoke of 
 cattle hitched to a low-swung platform wagon, 
 or "stone-boat." He had brought to the scene 
 of the fray a bunch of twenty as jolly devils 
 as ever cut a throat or scuttled a ship, all by 
 
110 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 "fast bull express." Shortly after, there were 
 other arrivals by wagon, north of the river, 
 and these were brought over in boats. From 
 down around Chebanse, where the graders 
 were at work, Milo June, a down-east Yankee, 
 an old stage driver, who had charge of the 
 horses on the work, brought still other loads of 
 men. The little school house was crowded to 
 suffocation and the voting went merrily on. 
 Liquor was not taboo in that day, and the little 
 store that contained the supply and the old 
 stone school house, where the voting was going 
 on, were the two principal points of interest, 
 indicated by a more or less wavering line of 
 humanity that extended between them. 
 
 About the time the voting was at its height, 
 a well dressed stranger with a burly body- 
 guard, drove up to the polling place. His 
 faultless attire was rendered all the more con- 
 spicuous by a silk hat, something unusual, at 
 least, as viewed by the citizens of Limestone. 
 The stranger plunged without hesitation into 
 the school room and wormed his way through 
 the crowd until he got to where the judges of 
 election were sitting, when he exclaimed in a 
 loud voice: 
 
 "There is fraudulent voting going on here. 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 111 
 
 I challenge that man," pointing with a men- 
 acing finger towards a culprit, built like an 
 ice-box, who was in the act of depositing his 
 ballot. But the challenge went unheeded. It 
 was annoying, of course, to have the regular 
 program interfered with, especially by a stran- 
 ger and a member of the opposition. The chal- 
 lenges were repeated as fast as a voter came 
 up until finally Mina Vining reached over 
 through the crowd and punched the stranger in 
 the back with his walking stick, with the re- 
 mark : 
 
 "Say, what the hell business you got comin' 
 down here a-hornin' into the affairs of respec- 
 table people? You just challenge another man 
 and I'll mash that purty plug hat o' yours 
 with this stick." 
 
 There was an answering murmur of ap- 
 proval from the crowd which the stranger 
 would have done well to heed. But he didn't. 
 On the next challenge, crash! came Vining's 
 stick on top of the hat, smashing it flat. He 
 kept his word gloriously. The next instant the 
 crowd had him and out of the school house he 
 went, borne aloft over the heads of the throng. 
 
 "Throw him in the river," yelled the crowd, 
 and, as it was all the same to the jolly bunch 
 
112 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 whether they strung him up. or threw him in the 
 river, off they started for the river. The burly 
 individual who had accompanied the stranger 
 was nowhere to be seen ; he had discreetly taken 
 to the woods, not figuratively, but literally. 
 Left alone in such dire straits, the challenger 
 of voters begged his captors not to throw him 
 in the river. Some wag in the crowd remarked : 
 
 "Say, fellers, it would be too bad to get them 
 nice clothes wet. What would his Ma say? 
 If he'll promise to go on home and 'tend to his 
 own d n business, why, I say, let 'im go." 
 
 The stranger was only too glad to acquiesce, 
 whereupon the crowd let him down, conducted 
 him to the buggy, helped him in, put the lines 
 in his hands and admonished him in one soli- 
 tary word— GIT! And he GOT. 
 
 Limestone that day polled a total of nearly 
 260 votes and was the deciding factor in locat- 
 ing the county-seat at "Kankakee Depot." The 
 vote did not admit of any analysis because it 
 was unanimous. For some years afterwards 
 the Limestone citizen continued to "point with 
 pride" at the results of that day, though others 
 may have "viewed with alarm." It is not the 
 purpose of this story to enlarge on the trials 
 and tribulations, the bickerings and wran- 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 113 
 
 glings, the woes and heart-burnings that fol- 
 lowed as an aftermath of this particular elec- 
 tion. The feeling was so intense that, for a 
 time, it seemed as though Momence might se- 
 cede. And who can blame her? But there 
 was no good place to secede to, except over the 
 line in Indiana, and wisely they concluded that 
 
 " 'Twere better to bear the ills we have, 
 
 Than to fly to others that we know not of." 
 
 It is only now, in the time of the third and 
 fourth generations, that they can smile when 
 this particular occasion is mentioned. Our 
 ancient fathers at the bridge at Concord 
 
 "Fired the shot heard 'round the world." 
 
 But the horny-handed settler down in the town 
 of Limestone, together with that swashbuck- 
 ling crew of buccaneers from the works of the 
 Illinois Central, directed by fate and aided by 
 luck, nailed down the county-seat that 21st 
 of June, in the year of our Lord 1853, so hard 
 and tight that no one has been able to budge it 
 since. 
 
 The Letter That Never Came 
 
 A good many years ago, in fact, some time 
 after the apportioning of territory which took 
 a part off Iroquois and a part off Will coun- 
 
1U LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 ties to form the present county of Kankakee, 
 there lived out on the prairie, beyond the Iro- 
 quois river, in the "Sugar Island" district, just 
 over the line in Kankakee county, a French- 
 man by the name of Esab Giroux. Esab, who 
 was pretty well up in years, had a bosom friend 
 and boon companion, with whom he had shared 
 the privations and hard fare of prairie life for 
 many years, and great was his consternation 
 when, one day, the friend announced his deter- 
 mination to pull out for California. It was 
 with deep and genuine regret that Esab parted 
 with his pal and friend, but the friend prom- 
 ised faithfully to write (as friends are wont 
 to do), and, though Esab could neither read 
 nor write, nevertheless that promise took the 
 keen edge off his sorrow, buoyed his drooping 
 spirits and made life endurable, because the 
 future held something to look forward to. 
 
 That pioneer Congressman, "Long John" 
 Wentworth, of Chicago, whose congressional 
 district in 1844, was made up of twenty- two 
 counties, among other valuable services ren- 
 dered on behalf of the citizens of the wilder- 
 ness community, established now and then an 
 inland postoffice, notably, one on Beaver 
 Creek, called "Democrat," with Jacob Rake- 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 115 
 
 straw as postmaster; one on the south bank of 
 the Kankakee river, opposite Rock Creek, 
 named "Rinosa," with Roswell Nichols as 
 postmaster. Later, in 1853, largely through 
 his instrumentality, came the IllirTbis Central 
 railroad, bringing to the struggling settlers not 
 only increased transportation facilities, but 
 greatly improved postal facilities, following 
 the location of the towns of Kankakee, Che- 
 banse, Clifton, Askum, Danforth and Gilman. 
 Chebanse was the Mecca of Esab's hopes 
 and longings for the promised letter, and 
 thither he wended his way many, many times. 
 He looked upon the postmaster reverently 
 and addressed him with bared head and in lan- 
 guage most respectful. "Messieur po'mas- 
 taire, you have one letter for E-sab Gi-roux?" 
 And the postmaster would put on his most se- 
 rious official countenance and proceed to paw 
 over the scanty mail, just as though he did not 
 know what the mass contained, and even pre- 
 tended to scan certain missives as though he 
 was not quite sure of the address, only to shake 
 his head at last and say, "Nothing for you to- 
 day." At last it got so that these words of 
 the postmaster were, to Esab, like the sentence 
 of death pronounced by the court on the pris- 
 
116 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 oner at the bar — like the thrust of a knife in 
 a vital spot. And always, after a visit to the 
 Chebanse postoffice, it was a sad, weary, crum- 
 pled looking figure that took its way back 
 slowly over the lonely trail to the still more 
 lonely shack on the prairie. 
 
 Very, very many times the quest was re- 
 peated (for Esab had confidence in the prom- 
 ise of a friend, even as you and me), and, 
 though disappointment was keen and the 
 clouds at times dark and forbidding, yet, 
 through them, shone the lodestar of hope that 
 held a promise for still another day. One 
 day he appeared at the postoffice with his face 
 beaming with an unusual glow, as though he 
 had, at last, fathomed the mystery of the long- 
 sought letter. He got down close until his 
 countenance was fairly framed in the little 
 window of the general delivery, when he whis- 
 pered this query to the one within: "Messieur 
 po'mastaire, sir, excus-a moi; but, mebbe, you 
 got one letter for SAB! Sometam m' fren' 
 he call me SAB, jes' lak dat!" But Messieur, 
 le po'mastaire, without going through the for- 
 mality of looking through the half-dozen let- 
 ters in the office, told him regretfully, almost 
 tearfully, "Nothing doing." 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 117 
 
 Removing a Kiss with Soft Soap 
 Mrs. Lyons, daughter of that pioneer of pio- 
 neers, Dr. W. M. Hayhurst, who settled in the 
 very early days at Sherburnville, Kankakee 
 county, was born in Yellowhead township, not 
 far from where her home is today, in the year 
 1842. The home she occupies today in the vil- 
 lage of Sherburnville, she says, is about the cen- 
 ter where stood a very populous Indian village 
 of the Pottawattomies that was maintained 
 there for a great many years, and which she 
 remembers perfectly during her girlhood days. 
 Among the old-time chiefs she recalls were 
 White Pigeon, Turkey-Foot and Tah-Way, 
 the latter a giant in stature, measuring nearly 
 seven feet in height and whose feet were re- 
 puted to be eighteen inches in length. She had 
 good reason to remember the giant Tah-Way 
 for, one day, while she was a little girl, he 
 grabbed her up and in playful mood implanted 
 a hearty kiss on her cheek. He then held her 
 firmly and laughed heartily as she beat him on 
 the head and in the face, in futile, childish rage. 
 On setting her down, she immediately made for 
 the house and sought her mother's soft-soap jar 
 and, scooping up a handful of the liquid, she 
 smeared the spot on her face where Tah- Way's 
 
118 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 fierce kiss seemed still to burn, piling it on good 
 and thick. Fortunately for her, her mother 
 discovered what she had done in time to remove 
 the soap before the lye in the mixture removed 
 the skin on her cheek, and with it, all traces 
 of Tah- Way's kiss. Always, after that, she 
 looked upon Tah- Way in open and undis- 
 guised hostility, and for him she had no word 
 or friendly smile. Between them there could 
 be no "burying of the hatchet," no resumption 
 of friendly relations. And Tah- Way's rage 
 was expressed in smiles and immoderate laugh- 
 ter every time he laid eyes on her. 
 
 The people who first settled in and around 
 Sherburnville came from the country of the 
 Wabash, in Indiana. In the palmy days of the 
 village there were thirty- two houses. For 
 years there were two stores, a blacksmith shop, 
 a wagon shop, and other industries such as the 
 community required. The country of eastern 
 Kankakee county about Sherburnville, was 
 beautifully diversified in that early day with 
 woods and intervals of wonderfully rich farm- 
 ing lands. Mr. Hayhurst, on his advent into 
 the country, brought with him from the Wa- 
 bash nine people, among them one Bateese 
 Pastania, a Frenchman, who remained with the 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 119 
 
 family for a great many years. The grounds 
 in and about the village yield a great many 
 interesting relics of the days of the aborigines, 
 and Mrs. Lyons has an interesting collection. 
 
 The Eccentric Dan Parmlee 
 Dan Parmlee, an old-time hunter, trapper 
 and fisherman on the Kankakee, was, for many 
 years, a familiar figure to those living in Yel- 
 lowhead township and in the country east of 
 Momence on the river. For years he camped 
 and fished on the Kankakee from Yellow 
 Banks to and beyond the state line in Indiana, 
 living the simple life of the pioneer and re- 
 ligiously avoiding the innovations of civiliza- 
 tion. At his death, some years ago, he was 
 buried in the Sherburnville cemetery. His 
 principal abode on the river he called "The 
 Garden of Eden." It was a most beautiful 
 spot naturally, and here he assembled, in the 
 course of the years, a wonderful collection of 
 Indian implements, arrowheads, curios and the 
 like, which the river trails had yielded up to 
 this later-day nomad. 
 
 But, for all that, it was an "Eve-less" Eden, 
 notwithstanding that now and then the old 
 man would hint broadly and make it plain by 
 
120 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 inference that he was not averse to doubling in 
 matrimonial harness. The occasion for these 
 "broad hints" and pointed allusions fell most 
 generally at such times when he happened to 
 be within easy speaking distance of some fe- 
 male not as yet appropriated. It should not 
 be understood that he "played favorites" par- 
 ticularly. As a matter of fact they all "looked 
 good." His announcements as to his matri- 
 monial inclinations were always couched in 
 terms vaguely impersonal yet all-inclusive. 
 Where he fell down in the matrimonial game, 
 apparently, was by simply resting content on 
 making it known that "Barkis was willin'," and 
 letting it go at that. 
 
 It is related of him that, on returning from 
 one of his protracted tours afoot, down in Mis- 
 souri, he landed in Momence one year in the 
 early spring, making his way to the Thomas 
 Nichols home. The roadside ditches that had 
 been full of water earlier in the season had 
 frozen over, and the water had run out leaving 
 a stretch of rather unstable ice. The Nichols 
 boys saw the old man coming and went out to 
 meet him when, to their great surprise, he sud- 
 denly disappeared. He had stepped on the 
 rotten ice and broken through into the ditch. 
 
DR. BENJAMIN F. URAN 
 
 A KANKAKEE COUNTY PRODUCT, STILL A PRACTICING PHY- 
 SICIAN WITH MANY YEARS OF SUCCESSFUL SERVICE TO 
 HIS CREDIT; PRESIDENT OF THE KANKAKEE COUNTY HIS- 
 TORICAL SOCIETY, AND THROUGH WHOSE UNFLAGGING 
 ZEAL AND ENTHUSIASM INTEREST IN THE AFFAIRS OF 
 PIONEER DAYS HAS BEEN KEPT ALIVE 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 121 
 
 When he emerged he was so plastered with 
 soft mud as to be wholly unrecognizable, a most 
 grotesque and ludicrous figure. He worked to 
 get the mud out of his eyes, while the boys, 
 convulsed with laughter at the odd spectacle, 
 exclaimed: "Why, Dan, is that you?" With- 
 out deigning reply to the question as to his 
 identity, the old man came back like a flash 
 with the inquiry: "Say, Tom, is yer sister 
 married yet?" 
 
 That incident furnished a good deal of mer- 
 riment for those living up in the northeast part 
 of the county who knew something of old 
 Dan's matrimonial longings, and even the lady 
 who was the object of Dan's solicitous query, 
 laughed and had as much out of it as the rest 
 of them. 
 
 A Notable War-Time Dance and Oyster 
 Supper 
 
 Those were dark, dark days and trying times 
 back in the early days of the rebellion. It 
 seemed as though the nation had received a 
 blow from which it could not possibly recover. 
 With the youth of the land going out from the 
 homes to the battlefields, with increasing cas- 
 ualty lists coming in accompanied by the dis- 
 
U2 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 spiriting news of still another defeat for the 
 Union cause, the loyal citizenry at home were 
 weighed down and all but overwhelmed by sor- 
 row and doubt and anxiety. Naturally, under 
 conditions such as these, the social life of the 
 community languished, for how could anyone 
 be merry, or even think of being joyful, with 
 the heart bowed down by the great burden so 
 suddenly thrust upon it? An all- wise Provi- 
 dence, however, has endowed youth with a 
 lightsomeness of spirit and a resiliency that 
 tempers the shock of disaster and, after two 
 years of disastrous, discouraging war, this ele- 
 ment in the young people of Kankakee asserted 
 itself and a dance and oyster supper, the first 
 in many and many a dreary month, were held 
 at the home of Gurdon Durham. 
 
 Gurdon Durham was the son of "Uncle 
 Tommy" Durham, and his home stood very 
 close to where, in this day, is located the big 
 front door of the east building of the Bradley 
 factory. The dance was held in the month of 
 November, 1862. The music for the occasion 
 was furnished by Signor Evans, or Ole Bull, 
 as he sometimes styled himself, and his pupil, 
 Amos Cole, who, under the careful tutorship 
 of Evans, for many years afterwards held a 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 123 
 
 foremost position among the violinists of the 
 United States. The following is a complete 
 list (with a possible exception or two) , of those 
 in attendance that night : 
 
 First of all was Gabriel Durham, who, some- 
 thing over a year later, was destined to be the 
 first to fall on that great field of Gettysburg, 
 William Gougar and his sister Margaret, or 
 "Maggie," as she was known, Rennick Van- 
 Meter, Alfred VanMeter, Hazzard Worrell, 
 William Worrell, Osborne VanMeter, Freem 
 Denny, Jennie Worrell, Marietta Sasseen, 
 Mary and Mattie Perry, Libbie and Frances 
 Denny, Net Markle, Delia Stratton, Lindy 
 Jaquish, Miss Morrison, Miss Raines, Carrie 
 Scobey, Hat Durham, Mary Berchem, Alice 
 Woodruff, Thomas Buntain, Ike Dixon, 
 Chauncey Payne, Gus Worden, Dr. Benjamin 
 F. Uran, Leroy Payne, Belle Mosier, Carrie 
 Huckins, Monroe Swift. 
 
 Under the stimulus of the music, which was 
 wonderful, the young people gave themselves 
 up unreservedly to the joy of the evening with 
 all their old-time zest and enthusiasm. It was 
 good to invade the realm of joyousness again 
 after so many months of gloom. At twelve 
 o'clock a halt was called and the young ladies 
 
124 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 of the party busied themselves with prepara- 
 tions for the supper. It was near one o'clock 
 and most of the party were still at supper when 
 there came a rap on the door. Our old-time 
 friends, moved by a mild curiosity to know who 
 thus interrupted their gaiety at such an hour, 
 looked up as the door was opened, and great 
 was their wonder and surprise to behold two 
 well known Kankakeeans, Dave Vaughan and 
 Dave Wickens, members of McClellan's dra- 
 goons. The boys had arrived in town that 
 night by a late Illinois Central train, some- 
 where around twelve o'clock, and, on being told 
 that there was a dance on at the Gurdon Dur- 
 ham home, they set out on foot up the railroad 
 track to the house. Dave Vaughan's feet were 
 so badly swollen and sore that he could hardly 
 stand the rough walking on the railroad track, 
 but he stuck to it gamely and came through. 
 
 There was no more dancing for that night 
 for, after the shock of this unexpected meet- 
 ing, and the greetings that followed, while the 
 boys satisfied the demands of hunger by con- 
 suming the tag ends of the banquet, the com- 
 pany hung with breathless interest on stories 
 from the front as related by the two. So 
 great was the anguish caused by his swollen 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 125 
 
 feet that Dave Vaughan finally asked permis- 
 sion of the company to remove his boots, where- 
 with the ladies, like true ministering angels, in- 
 sisted that his socks be also removed while they 
 heated water and bathed his feet. It was after 
 four o'clock that morning when the party broke 
 up and the all-absorbing topic that engrossed 
 them as they left for their homes that morning, 
 was not the dance, which was one of the most 
 enjoyable they ever had; not the supper, which 
 was perfectly delicious; not the music, which 
 was heavenly, produced by two rare artists; 
 not the gracious kindliness of host and hostess, 
 which, in itself, would make an occasion long 
 to be remembered. None of these things were 
 recalled on the way home. The pleasures of 
 that night paled into insignificance and, for the 
 time, were lost sight of as they talked of the two 
 home boys who had come, miraculously, so it 
 seemed, out of the zone where death lurked, 
 to tell them something of that hated thing- 
 war. 
 
 The First Shopper on Court Street 
 
 Only recently, by the merest chance, we ran 
 across the man who made the first purchase in 
 the first retail store ever located on Court 
 
126 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 street, away back in 1853. Court street of 
 today is rather an important thoroughfare 
 whose daily aggregate of business mounts up 
 into the thousands of dollars, and it is hard to 
 realize the fact that the beginnings of things on 
 the street is still alive and active in the memory 
 of a Kankakee citizen, but such is the case. 
 Mr. Phillip Bacon, of 767 O shorn avenue, is 
 the man who, some time in the fall of 1853, 
 bought a jack-knife of Clark & Roberts, who 
 opened up the first general merchandising 
 business in a small, unpretentious wooden 
 building on the south side of Court street, 
 where now is located the Rondy book store. 
 Mr. Bacon had been breaking prairie sod with 
 a yoke of oxen out somewhere this side of 
 Bourbonnais Grove and was transferring to 
 another job, driving his oxen along the trail 
 that wound in and out among the stumps, when 
 he came upon the new place of business. The 
 firm had just completed their building and 
 had gotten in the most of their stock, which 
 was still piled in the middle of the floor un- 
 packed, when the first customer, in the person 
 of Mr. Bacon, walked in. Phil wanted a jack- 
 knife badly, and the new firm, having the 
 article in stock, were more than anxious to ac- 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 127 
 
 commodate him if he would just be patient 
 while they went over the jumbled mass of 
 merchandise in search of the package contain- 
 ing it. 
 
 The knives were produced in due time, and 
 of the number contained in their stock Mr. 
 Bacon made a selection, paying seventy-five 
 cents for it. He purchased also a pair of 
 wooden combs, such as were quite generally 
 used in that day. There were congratulations 
 and mutual felicitations on the part of the 
 buyer and seller, and while no libations were 
 quaffed in honor of the event (this all happen- 
 ing before the days of Radeke), yet, on the 
 whole, it was looked upon in the light of an 
 auspicious happening, the new firm achieving 
 its first sale and Mr. Bacon enjoying the glory 
 of being the first customer. 
 
 The Court street of that far-off day, with its 
 one business house, did not suggest much of the 
 aspect or activity of the street of today, as you 
 may know. Man had but recently laid his hand 
 on the heavy forest that enveloped the country- 
 side, and in consequence Court street of that 
 day was merely a channel in the timber. Just 
 shut your eyes and give rein to your fancy, and 
 see how near you can come to visualizing the 
 
128 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 old wagon trail that wound in and out among 
 the stumps in an easy-going way, with now and 
 then an ox-team and its creaking wagon mov- 
 ing ever so slowly, the way dotted here and 
 there by a lone elm or basswood, or a stately 
 oak that had somehow escaped the woodman's 
 axe, the air vibrant with the screams of the 
 blue jay, the woodpecker and the yellow-ham- 
 mer, and the lugubrious croak of the crow — 
 voices of the forest primeval. 
 
 It will be a hard thing to do, in all proba- 
 bility, to close your eyes to brick pavements 
 and buildings and all the things time and man 
 have wrought in seventy years, and much 
 harder still to close your ears to the din of loco- 
 motives and street cars, the piercing sirens of 
 hundreds of automobiles and the babble of 
 human voices. In the event that you are dis- 
 posed to go so far as to actually close your eyes 
 while you dream, take heed and be very, very 
 careful and watch your step. The night time 
 would, perhaps, be the better time in which to 
 indulge your reveries, when all is still and the 
 moon rides high in the heavens in all her glory, 
 when only the mild voices of the katydid and 
 the cricket will tend to distract your powers of 
 concentration. The autos that infest our lives 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 129 
 
 by day generally pull for the country at night. 
 By ten o'clock the picture shows are over; by 
 ten-thirty the police are resting quietly, as a 
 rule, and it is then you can go your own sweet 
 way, when your reveries will suffer the least 
 interruption in your efforts to picture old days 
 on Court street. 
 
 N. B. — We almost forgot to warn you to be 
 careful and watch out for the milkman. Don't 
 let him run over you ! 
 
 When the First Locomotive Came to 
 Kankakee 
 
 Nearly three-fourths of a century ago, just 
 seventy years this coming Fourth of July, to 
 be exact, a thin, keen, wiry youth living down 
 the river in the Hawkins settlement, after help- 
 ing the modest celebration to get under way by 
 shinning up a tree and planting a flagstaff 
 bearing the Stars and Stripes in a hollow limb 
 thereof, stole quietly away on horseback to 
 where the Illinois Central was building into 
 Kankakee. This youth of seventy years ago 
 was none other than our well-known towns- 
 man of today, Mr. Elias Powell. While on a 
 trip with supplies for the construction camps 
 the day before, he had heard mentioned, in a 
 
130 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 casual way, that a real locomotive, the first to 
 enter Kankakee over the newly laid roadbed, 
 was expected July 4, in the year of our Lord, 
 1853. He was on the qui vive with interest 
 and excitement. Instinctively he felt that he 
 was to witness a mighty innovation in the trans- 
 portation problems of man, and in this he was 
 not mistaken. 
 
 The locomotive appeared as per rumor some 
 time between eleven and twelve o'clock. Nat- 
 urally, in appearance it did not much resemble 
 the monsters of today. On the contrary, it was 
 diminutive, almost infantile in size. It was a 
 wood-burner, with small drivers, and the old- 
 fashioned "diamond" smokestack. If you 
 think our hero's eyes did not bug-out on be- 
 holding this old-time leviathan, then you are 
 entitled to another guess. It could make 
 twenty-five miles an hour readily and under 
 stress might be pushed to thirty miles an hour 
 plus, something unthinkable, surpassing belief, 
 when one recalls that it was the day of the ox- 
 team, whose best speed was about thirty miles 
 in ten hours. He was all atremble with sup- 
 pressed excitement; he was conscious now and 
 then of a thrill beneath the "homespun" on his 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 131 
 
 back as this hissing, steaming, pulsing thing 
 moved majestically along the newly-laid track. 
 
 He guided his horse along a precarious trail 
 that ran in and out among the stumps along the 
 right-of-way (for this all happened in the days 
 before Kankakee was born), keeping pace 
 easily with the machine, a sort of reception 
 committee all by his lonesome, albeit he was 
 anything but lonesome. The first locomotive 
 that ever came to Kankakee proceeded thus, 
 escorted by a youth on horseback, to what is 
 now the Hickory street crossing of the Central, 
 where it stopped with its pilot almost over- 
 hanging the end of the rails. Little by little he 
 maneuvered his horse up to within an easy dis- 
 tance of the machine and feasted his eyes on 
 this strange new creation, little dreaming, per- 
 haps, that he would one day be a builder of rail- 
 roads himself whereon steam would be passe, 
 giving way to the more subtle electric power. 
 
 As he sat astride the horse, silently con- 
 templating the wonderful spectacle before him, 
 suddenly the air was rent by a piercing screech 
 of the locomotive's whistle that awakened the 
 clamorous echoes of the woods and country- 
 side and sent them reverberating far out onto 
 the distant reaches of the prairie. It was like 
 
lgg LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 some sudden, terrific challenge to the sanctity 
 and repose of the silent places of the wilder- 
 ness. It was terrifying, appalling ! The horse, 
 terrified by the suddenness of it all, made a 
 spring to one side, and the rider, taken thus 
 unawares, awoke to a realization that he had 
 suddenly shifted from a position astride the 
 horse's back to a position dangerously near the 
 animal's belly, with both hands entwined in 
 the mane and the heel of one foot hooked over 
 its backbone. But he was young and wiry and 
 clung to that horse like a woodtick, although he 
 acknowledges that he would be all to the bad 
 were he to attempt a similar stunt in this day. 
 He succeeded in regaining his position astride 
 the horse, but after that "dirty Irish trick" he 
 found that his interest had evaporated consid- 
 erably. The way that engineer held his sides 
 and laughed did not help him in the least, and 
 for many years afterwards, he says, he cher- 
 ished an animosity and deep distrust of loco- 
 motive engineers generally. 
 
 "Tall oaks from little acorns grow," and in- 
 dustrial enterprises, awe-inspiring in their im- 
 mensity, have, for the most part, been evolved 
 from modest beginnings. It's a long trail and 
 an interesting one that connects the happen- 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 133 
 
 ings of that far-off Fourth of July in 1853 with 
 the tremendous developments of the twentieth 
 century in and about Kankakee, and they are 
 few indeed who, having lived through so inter- 
 esting a period, can recall so accurately and 
 entertainingly the salient points of history as 
 can Mr. Powell. 
 
 Billy Caldwell, "The Sau-ga-nash" 
 
 Prominent among the head chiefs of the 
 Pottawattomie Nation was the half-breed, 
 Billy Caldwell, who termed himself "The Sau- 
 ga-nash," or The White Man. Although he 
 and his band were not residents of the territory 
 along the Kankakee river, yet they were fre- 
 quent visitors here, spending many months at 
 a time encamped on the river in the eastern 
 part of the county, near the village of Chief 
 Yellow Head, where they put in their time 
 hunting and fishing. Billy Caldwell was a 
 brother-in-law of old Chief Yellow-Head, 
 and the close proximity of their camps on the 
 Kankakee and the terms of peace and amity on 
 which they lived may have been influenced 
 largely by this relationship. This chief was 
 well and favorably known by Hubbard, Vas- 
 
134 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 seur and Bray, the first white men in Kankakee 
 county. 
 
 Billy Caldwell, from the time of the battle 
 of Tippecanoe, at which time he, with Chab- 
 bona, was allied with Chief Tecumseh, was 
 always a staunch friend of the whites and of 
 the United States Government. A notable 
 example of his influence and friendliness is 
 shown in the days following the Fort Dearborn 
 massacre. The remnants of the garrison that 
 had escaped the tomahawk at the first on- 
 slaught had been gathered in the Kinzie and 
 Ouilmette homes, and Black Partridge and 
 other Pottawattomie chiefs had about ex- 
 hausted their resources in their efforts to hold 
 back the savage horde that thirsted for their 
 blood, when Billy Caldwell suddenly appeared. 
 Black Partridge with much trepidation in- 
 quired, "Who are you?" To which Caldwell 
 replied, "A man. Who are you?" 
 
 "A man, like yourself; but tell me who you 
 are," spoke Black Partridge, meaning by that, 
 "Which side are you for?" And the reply came, 
 "I am a Sau-ga-nash !" There was life in 
 that answer for the terror-stricken whites, for 
 that answer meant, "I am a white man, pre- 
 pared to go to any lengths to save my friends." 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 135 
 
 Through his persuasive powers and uncom- 
 promising attitude, he finally prevailed on the 
 savages to accept a few presents and leave the 
 place. 
 
 The United States Government, in conse- 
 quence of these evidences of Caldwell's friend- 
 ship and helpful services towards the whites, 
 rewarded him substantially in almost every 
 treaty entered into subsequently with the Pot- 
 tawattomie Nation. By the treaty concluded 
 July 29, 1829, ratified January 2, 1830, Billy 
 Caldwell was given two and one-half sections of 
 land lying on the Chicago river. By the treaty 
 concluded October 20, 1832, and ratified Jan- 
 uary 21, 1833, he was to be paid annually dur- 
 ing his lifetime $600 per year. By the treaty 
 of 1835 he was granted an additional annuity 
 of $400 per year. By certain other treaties fol- 
 lowing in the course of years he was awarded 
 additional small annuities that brought the 
 total thus paid him by the government, up to a 
 very respectable figure. He was worthy in 
 every sense of the liberal dispensations 
 awarded him by the Government, and it is 
 pleasing to know that in this case, at least, full 
 justice was done. 
 
 It is recorded that at the Fort Dearborn 
 
136 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 massacre at Chicago, Captain Heald was taken 
 prisoner by a Pottawattomie from the Kanka- 
 kee river, who had a very strong personal re- 
 gard for him and who, on beholding the distress 
 and enfeebled condition of Mrs. Heald, re- 
 leased him that he might accompany her to a 
 place of safety on the St. Joseph river. Great 
 was his mortification, however, on reaching his 
 village on the Kankakee river, to find that his 
 people were greatly displeased with his action. 
 So insistent was the clamor that he produce the 
 prisoner that, accordingly, he set out for St. 
 Joseph river to recover him. In the meantime 
 Mr. and Mrs. Heald made their escape to 
 Mackinac, being delivered into the hands of the 
 British as prisoners of war. 
 
 Tradition has not preserved to us the name 
 of this magnanimous chief, neither is there the 
 slightest information available as to the par- 
 ticular village he belonged to here on the 
 Kankakee river. But this we do know con- 
 cerning him, and that is, following the incident 
 of the prisoner's release, the Pottawattomie 
 chief forsook his own name and adopted in 
 place that of Captain Heald, and signed to the 
 treaty of 1833 is the name "Captain Heald" 
 by his mark. We who abide in the Valley of 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 137 
 
 the Kankakee today should get much satisfac- 
 tion and pleasure from the knowledge that men 
 of the distinctive type and rugged character of 
 Billy Caldwell, "The Sau-ga-nash," and "Cap- 
 tain Heald," aborigines though they were, 
 pitched their tepees under our wide- spreading 
 oaks and followed the winding trails of woods 
 and streams where our homes are in a day when 
 its primeval beauty and bounteousness rivaled 
 the Indian dream of "The Happy Hunting 
 Ground." 
 
 Chief "Chabbona," The Grand Old Man 
 
 According to Indian tradition, the Potta- 
 wattomie Chief Chabbona, or "Shaub-e-nee," 
 as designated by Gurdon S. Hubbard, was 
 born about the year 1775 at a point somewhere 
 in the Kankakee Valley on the river. By some 
 it is contended that his birthplace was in the 
 territory now incorporated within the western 
 bounds of Kankakee county and not far from 
 the "Rock Village" of old Chief "Shaw-wa-na- 
 see," in Rockville. This may or may not be 
 the case. The writer has industriously scanned 
 the various treaties entered into by the United 
 States and the Nation of the Pottawattomies 
 where "Shaub-e-nee" appears as a signatory, 
 
138 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 hoping thereby to uncover some data that 
 would serve as a clue in solving the mystery of 
 his birthplace. Nothing was found in these 
 records, however, that would throw any light 
 on the subject, and the probabilities are that 
 the assumption of his birth in Kankakee county 
 is based altogether on hearsay evidence (for 
 Shaub-e-nee lived much in Kankakee county 
 ^during his long lifetime and was known by 
 many of the early settlers), and necessary 
 allowance must be made for all the defects and 
 deficiencies so characteristic of statements 
 handed down verbally from generation to gen- 
 eration. 
 
 All accounts agree that Shaub-e-nee was a 
 magnificent specimen of physical development, 
 standing something over six feet in height, with 
 massive head, an impressive countenance and a 
 benign and friendly disposition that served the 
 white settlers in the wilderness many and many 
 a friendly turn. In the early 30's he rode for 
 days and nights among the white settlers, warn- 
 ing them of a contemplated massacre of the 
 whites and which later came to pass, being 
 known as the "Indian Creek Massacre." By 
 reason of "Shaub-e-nee's" friendly warning the 
 fatalities were very few. Shaub-e-nee's keen 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 139 
 
 perception and active intellect long foresaw 
 the absorption of the domain of the red man 
 by the white race, and in the councils of his 
 people he urged moderation and general ac- 
 quiescence to the system by which the Indian 
 fell back as the white wave rolled on, as if 
 realizing the utter futility of resistance. By 
 the treaty of 1835, Shaub-e-nee was granted 
 two sections of land at Paw-Paw Grove, in 
 Lee county, and by later treaties small an- 
 nuities of cash. When his people agreed to 
 remove west of the Mississippi river, at the 
 time of the exodus he went along with them. 
 For many years, after their removal to the west, 
 on the approach of spring, large bands of the 
 Pottawattomies of the Kankakee Valley re- 
 turned to their old familiar haunts amid the 
 oaks and hard maples, pitching their camps as 
 of old, spending their time hunting and fishing, 
 a privilege they enjoyed under the treaty. 
 
 Mrs. Mary Baltazor, daughter of the pio- 
 neer, Dominick Bray, born seventy-seven years 
 ago at the home in Bourbonnais township, 
 knew Shaub-e-nee well. He was a frequent 
 visitor at their home in the old log-house and 
 often sat down to a meal with them. As a child 
 she understood the Pottawattomie tongue and 
 
140 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 often conversed with him. Their camp was not 
 far away, over in the Cooper woods, and she 
 gives an amusing instance of how, on one occa- 
 sion, when asked to partake of a meal with the 
 family, he sat himself down and, after piling 
 his plate high with food, proceeded to shovel a 
 goodly portion of it into a wooden pail he had 
 brought along, evidently for that purpose, 
 which he later carried back to camp, but 
 whether for himself or his squaw she does not 
 know. 
 
 Mr. Elias Powell tells us that in the spring 
 and summer of 1849, Shaub-e-nee's village, 
 containing something over one hundred war- 
 riors and squaws and children, was pitched in 
 the maple grove on the Hawkins farm, across 
 the river from their place. They had been hunt- 
 ing out on Grand Prairie, away to the south- 
 west, where herds of deer abounded in that day. 
 On the way back the water in the river was very 
 high, but the warriors, undaunted, urged their 
 ponies into the flood near to where Wiley 
 creek flows into the river and started across, 
 one after another. Chief Shaub-e-nee and his 
 daughter, a rather comely young woman, had 
 in charge a number of ponies which were heav- 
 ily laden with venison secured on the hunt, and 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 141 
 
 the former arranged with Mr. Powell to carry 
 it across the river for him in his boat. The old 
 chief stood in the boat and superintended the 
 loading of the venison, which was a vile, un- 
 savory mess that smelled to heaven. He stood 
 amidship and balanced the light craft from 
 time to time, motioning for more and still more 
 cargo until the sides of the boat were scarcely 
 three inches above the water. Two loads were 
 thus safely ferried across the river and de- 
 posited on the shore opposite their camp, but 
 the young boatman was all but asphyxiated by 
 the awful stench of meat days old and in an 
 advanced state of decomposition. For this 
 service Mr. Powell received the munificent sum 
 of twenty- five cents a load. The ponies, re- 
 lieved of their burdens, took to the water and 
 swam across to the opposite side and made their 
 way to camp. 
 
 Mr. Powell recalls that Shaub-e-nee was 
 towering in stature, and of a mien and dignity 
 most impressive. He at that time must have 
 been close to seventy-five years of age. 
 
 For many years the old chief and his people 
 came back from western Iowa, and during the 
 spring and summer until early fall frequented 
 the old haunts on the Kankakee. But their 
 
142 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 numbers grew less as time passed on, until 
 finally the pilgrimages ceased altogether. But 
 for Shaub-e-nee and his squaw, memory could 
 not quite relinquish the old-time traditions and 
 the call of the land of their birth stirred their 
 wild natures too deeply to go unheeded, and 
 they finally came back to Morris, 111., where 
 the citizens, aided in a small way by the gov- 
 ernment, provided them with a small piece of 
 ground and a home. Here Shaub-e-nee died 
 on July 17, 1859, having attained the age of 
 eighty-four years. His wife, "Pok-a-no-ka," 
 a woman of enormous proportions and so fleshy 
 as to be almost helpless, was drowned at Pine 
 Bluff, in Mazon creek, in 1864. They lie side 
 by side in a little burial plat in the Morris ceme- 
 tery, and a citizen, Jim Jones, caused a huge 
 boulder to be placed at their graves which bears 
 their names. 
 
 The Exodus of the Pottawattomie Nation 
 
 The passing of the Nation of the Pottawat- 
 tomies from the lands so long occupied by them 
 in the Valley of the Kankakee might properly 
 constitute the theme of an epic strong, colorful, 
 vibrant with that appeal to human interest and 
 sympathy such as, in a measure, characterized 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 143 
 
 the wanderings of Ulysses. It is to be re- 
 gretted that the masterful genius of a Reming- 
 ton could not have been employed to preserve 
 for us in this day the shadow of a passing race, 
 moving onward — ever onward — before the 
 white man. His art would have made clear 
 many details concerning this primitive people, 
 whose inheritance was the woods, the streams, 
 the plains and all therein contained, besides 
 depicting something of the grief and helpless- 
 ness and utter despair that encompassed them 
 when the dread hour struck and the word was 
 given to abandon the empire of their fathers. 
 The government in the various treaties en- 
 acted with the Pottawattomies dealt on a basis 
 of broad liberality with them, as a matter of 
 fact, and at no time imposed drastic conditions. 
 The clause in the treaties by which they agreed 
 to vacate the land, allowed them generally three 
 years, ere the transfer was made. This three- 
 year interval was granted at the request of the 
 Indians themselves, who urged that the re- 
 movals could thus be accomplished gradually 
 and the minds of the older ones be made more 
 settled and at ease over the prospect of change 
 of habitation. For the Indian youth the re- 
 moval to lands west of the Mississippi was an 
 
144 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 adventure that met with the unqualified ap- 
 proval of their youthful natures. For the older 
 warriors and chiefs, however, there was no such 
 happy outlook. Home for them, with its asso- 
 ciations and traditions, was what it is in this 
 day for you. To many the impending change 
 was a thing little understood, a something de- 
 creed by a mysterious higher power against 
 which it were futile to even protest. The Great 
 Father at Washington so willed, and his will 
 must be obeyed. 
 
 During the time between 1832 and 1850 
 various bands and villages of the Pottawat- 
 tomies were transferred to west of the Missis- 
 sippi, in the region of Council Bluffs. Noel 
 LeVasseur and Alexis Bergeron, of Bourbon- 
 nais, and A. S. Vail, of Momence, were em- 
 ployed as government agents in charge of the 
 removals, together with Dominick Bray and 
 others. Only fragmentary accounts have come 
 down to us in this day touching upon the 
 exodus of this people, and these accounts in 
 the main, unfortunately, are most prosaic and 
 uninteresting, generally a summary of dry 
 detail such as is best expressed in figures. Of 
 those actively engaged in conducting the 
 Indians to their new home, "Uncle Sid" Vail, 
 of Momence, apparently, was the only one 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 145 
 
 whose sensibilities were touched by the tragedy, 
 the sorrow and distress involved in this "break- 
 ing of home ties." Many of the Indians were 
 well known to the white families residing along 
 the river, and prior to their departure they 
 called upon these settlers and bade them good- 
 by with manifestations of sorrow and deep 
 regret. Mr. Vail was a man to catch the spirit 
 and significance of these unique processions of 
 the aborigines, with their primitive household 
 effects, moving in somber, picturesque line over 
 the prairies, afoot and horseback, with lodge- 
 poles dragging at the horses' sides, the whole 
 forming a picture, etched on the wilderness 
 background, that for color and detail surpassed 
 the conjurings of the imagination. 
 
 He has told how, in the year 1843, a village 
 of the Pottawattomies away to the east of 
 Momence started on the long pilgrimage to the 
 west under the guidance of Alexis Bergeron. 
 It was late in the afternoon of a summer's day 
 when the savage cavalcade reached the Kanka- 
 kee river and at a point just at the south ap- 
 proach to the bridge that now spans the river 
 at Momence, proceeded to cross. Those on 
 horseback started into the river first, followed 
 by braves and squaws on foot. Many of the 
 
146 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 ponies had the lodge-poles fastened to their 
 sides, the ends of which dragged on the ground, 
 and platforms were constructed on these, 
 whereon the younger children rode. They 
 angled across the south channel in the direction 
 of the northwest and up over the spit of land 
 of the island and then across the north channel, 
 and as they did so the moving throng was sud- 
 denly enveloped in a purple mist that seemed 
 to rise from the surface of the water, the effects 
 of sun and cloud and refracted light, until the 
 motley procession seemed as though suddenly 
 transformed into some strange, colorful phan- 
 tasy of moving forms and equipage, a mirage 
 that seemed likely to dissolve before one's eyes 
 and vanish in thin air. Last in this procession 
 came an aged blind squaw. With her left hand 
 she clutched the blanket of an Indian girl 
 who strode before her. Her head was thrown 
 back in the characteristic attitude of the blind, 
 as though her sightless orbs beheld something 
 of the transient beauty that lay on river and 
 woods. Her hair, long and unkempt, was 
 blown hither and yon by the winds, and her 
 right arm was extended as though fearful of 
 some unseen object that barred the way. She 
 who led the way and whose blanket she 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 147 
 
 clutched paid not the slightest heed, except to 
 show impatience when her tottering steps fal- 
 tered on the declivity that led down to the 
 water's edge. Into the water they plunged 
 unhesitatingly, following the host that moved 
 ahead, and she who preceded her spoke no word 
 of cheer, or encouragement, nor slackened her 
 pace, nor even once looked back. It is the 
 Indian creed that misfortune bears the burden 
 of its misery alone. The purple dusk fell upon 
 her streaming hair, and the tattered blanket 
 that floated on the surface of the stream about 
 her was, for the moment, transformed into a 
 vestment of royal hue. But there was abject 
 terror and helplessness depicted in the uplifted 
 bronze face of her who toiled alone, waist deep 
 in the stream, a purple wraith in the wake of 
 the savage pageant. This incident of the pass- 
 ing of the Pottawattomies was registered in the 
 memory of Mr. Vail with all the sharpness of 
 detail of a snapshot, and during the long inter- 
 val in which he lived and on those numerous 
 occasions during which he entertained those 
 about him with stories of the primeval wilder- 
 ness and its people, it was often alluded to. 
 
148 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 The Old Hubbard Trail 
 
 There is something interesting ahout an old 
 trail, something fascinating when one recalls 
 that there was a first time when the primeval 
 turf was touched by the foot of man, to be fol- 
 lowed by a second and a third until, in the 
 course of the years, the restless feet of those 
 who traversed the wilderness wore down the 
 tough prairie sod until the way became a trail, 
 later to be dignified by a name such as was the 
 "Hubbard Trail." Over one hundred years 
 ago the "Hubbard Trail" operated between 
 Danville and Chicago, and that branch of the 
 trail which extended from old Middleport, in 
 Iroquois county, up through the present site of 
 the City of Kankakee and on out through 
 iBourbonnais Grove traversed, without doubt, 
 certain well-worn Indian trails that lay within 
 the general course and which, from time im- 
 memorial, had been used as such by the Indian, 
 his father and his father's father. 
 
 It is interesting to note, in this connection, 
 that the very first trails the country over were 
 not those which, generally, we ascribe to the 
 Indian and the white man. The very first en- 
 gineers to operate in the vast wilderness of the 
 middle west were the buffalo, elk and deer. 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 149 
 
 Moved by that strange, unfailing instinct so 
 characteristic of the wild animal, these trails 
 were projected along ways of easy grade and 
 comparative safety, leading to feeding grounds 
 or to water, and where the trail crossed a stream, 
 there, also, in later years, came the Indian, and 
 after him the white man, who profited thus by 
 the unerring instinct of nature's first engineers, 
 who picked invariably a safe and convenient 
 ford. During a later day, in extending our 
 transcontinental lines west from the Missis- 
 sippi river, the levels of the engineers were run 
 along the old buffalo trails for many, many 
 miles. 
 
 The rivers were the first highways of com- 
 merce and travel, and away back in the shad- 
 owy days of 1679, LaSalle, Tonty and Father 
 Hennepin, as well as other parties of the early 
 French, were borne on the bosom of the Kanka- 
 kee to the Illinois and thence to the Mississippi. 
 In the first days of 1814, when the American 
 Fur Company came into the country of the 
 Illinois, their heavy batteaux were propelled 
 along the Kankakee and the Iroquois rivers 
 under the lusty strokes of the French- Canadian 
 voyageur, while they kept time with their oars 
 to the old-time song of "En Roulant, Ma 
 
150 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 Boule, En Roulant," punctuated at times by 
 the voice of the Bourgeois, or leader, who sang 
 out, "Whoopla! a terre, a terre — pour la pipe !" 
 This cryptic utterance on the part of the leader 
 was always met with a storm of approval on 
 the part of the men, for it meant the landing of 
 the boat and a rest and a pipeful of tobacco. 
 The day's journey was reckoned not so much 
 by miles as by "pipes," the interval between 
 pipes being generally five or six miles. 
 
 In such a manner and in the company of 
 these old-time voyageurs, came Gurdon S. 
 Hubbard, a youth of sixteen years, into the 
 country of the Illinois in the year 1818. Five 
 years later, in 1823, he was placed by the com- 
 pany in charge of the Illinois posts, coming by 
 way of the St. Joseph- Kankakee portage to 
 the company post at Middleport, on the Iro- 
 quois, in Iroquois county. As a means of ex- 
 pediting the delivery of furs at headquarters in 
 Chicago, Hubbard instituted the pack-horse, 
 thus avoiding the hardships of water travel and 
 the nerve-racking experiences consequent on 
 negotiating the Chicago-DesPlaines portage 
 during its seasons of high or low water, which 
 made frequent unloading and carrying of the 
 cargoes necessary. By this more direct method 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 151 
 
 of the pack-horse and the "Trail," much time 
 and a vast amount of labor were saved. 
 
 The "Hubbard Trail," or "Trace," as it is 
 sometimes indicated on the maps, was inaugu- 
 rated in the year 1824. It ran from Danville 
 to Chicago, crossing the Kankakee river one 
 mile east of the town of Momence and passing 
 through the towns of Grant, Crete, Bloom and 
 Chicago Heights. Concerning it, Hubbard 
 himself has this to say: "The legislature of 
 Illinois caused a road to be laid out in 1834 and 
 designated by mile-stones from Vincennes to 
 Chicago. The commissioners who located it 
 and planted the stones tried hard, so they in- 
 formed me, to get a straighter line and better 
 ground than the 'Hubbard Trail,' but were 
 forced to follow, with slight deviation, my old 
 track, which was on the dividing ridge between 
 the waters flowing into the Wabash on the east 
 and the Illinois on the west. Though mile- 
 stones were planted, yet 'Hubbard's Trail' 
 kept the principal travel until both it and the 
 state road were abandoned and fenced in, new 
 county roads being laid out to take their place." 
 
 For many years thereafter this "Trace" be- 
 came the highway of the prairie schooner of the 
 settler, the ox-cart of the habitant, for the man 
 
152 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 driving hogs or cattle to the backwoods market 
 at Chicago, the hardy half-breed trapper with 
 his pack of furs, the Indian party with its 
 throng of wiry ponies with lodge-poles drag- 
 ging travail- fashion on the ground, with its en- 
 tourage of noisy squaws, children and dogs, a 
 motley procession of unique wilderness types 
 the like of which will never be witnessed again. 
 Down in Iroquois county, somewhere east of 
 Sugar Island, an old, deeply- worn Indian trail 
 branched from the "Hubbard Trail" and wan- 
 dered aimlessly to the northwest, crossing the 
 Kankakee river at Aroma Park and continuing 
 on to Kankakee, Bourbonnais and Twelve- 
 Mile Grove. Here also the Indian ponies were 
 to be met with, piled high with venison that 
 came from somewhere out of the vast reaches 
 of plains and timber to the east where the 
 Indian hunters were. Unaccompanied they 
 made their way home, whether home was at 
 "Wais-us-kuck's" village at Aroma Park, at 
 "She-mor-gar's," at Soldier Creek, "Me-she- 
 ke-te-no's" in the Cooper woods, or at old 
 "Shaw-wa-na-see's," down on Rock Creek. 
 The Indian pony had an unerring sense of di- 
 rection when it came to locating home and 
 rarely ever went amiss. And these ponies were 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 153 
 
 speeded on the way by Indians located on the 
 trail, who gave them a cut with a rawhide whip 
 as they passed along, more particularly such 
 ponies as loitered. 
 
 This Indian trail, which passed through 
 Kankakee, swung around the eastern side of 
 Mt. Langham and crossed the Kankakee river 
 at Schobar's ford, at Aroma Park, the ford 
 starting at a point a little ways east of the rail- 
 road bridge, angling under the south span and 
 coming out on the north side a hundred feet or 
 more to the west of the bridge. The trail fol- 
 lowed along the ridge of timber, which, in that 
 day, extended in almost an unbroken line from 
 Aroma Park up to the present site of Kanka- 
 kee. At a point west of the old quarries, on 
 Fifth avenue, it turned sharply to the north, 
 continuing on to Bourbonnais Grove and 
 thence to Twelve-Mile Grove. 
 
 Time and mother nature work ceaselessly 
 to eradicate the scars man has made, and so 
 effectively has the work been done that, of the 
 old Indian trail in Kankakee, scarcely a trace 
 remains today. It is only in the memory of 
 some of the older inhabitants of the city that 
 the trail lives at all, and with many of them the 
 gossamer web of oblivion has so enshrouded the 
 
154 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 recollection that they are not quite sure as to 
 its course. A few years ago the late H. O. 
 VanMeter, born near Kankakee in her pioneer 
 days and rated as an authority in matters con- 
 cerning the city's early history, took us over the 
 old trail and indicated its course by landmarks 
 that stand today. The trail touched the 
 grounds of the T. P. Bonfield residence, in the 
 east part of town, crossing various intervening 
 properties up to the H. E. Taylor home, on 
 Harrison avenue. It angled across the back 
 of this lot, through the lot of the Masonic Tem- 
 ple and the southwest corner of the Y. M. C. A. 
 property, and barely missed the corner of the 
 court house square as it emerged into Court 
 street. With a general trend of west by north- 
 west the trail crossed the street, cutting through 
 the properties of the county jail, the Baptist 
 church, the Presbyterian church, the south side 
 of the Spencer lots, and continuing almost due 
 west along the backs of the buildings between 
 Dearborn and Schuyler avenues, veered 
 slightly to the northwest and passed in close 
 proximity to the northeast corner of the ancient 
 lime-kilns of the old Kankakee Stone & Lime 
 Company, thence across the quarry area, turn- 
 ing into Fifth avenue. Only a few feet east of 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 155 
 
 the old lime-kilns there is a slight declivity, 
 worn to a depth of six or eight inches and 
 about the width of a wagon track, to which Mr. 
 VanMeter called our attention, with the state- 
 ment that this was the only remaining portion 
 of the ancient Indian trail (at times erro- 
 neously called "Hubbard Trail") existing in 
 Kankakee today. 
 
 At Crete, 111., public spirited citizens have 
 enclosed, with a suitable fence, a portion of the 
 old Chicago- Vincennes road, also called "Hub- 
 bard Trail," together with one of its ancient 
 mile-stones, preserving for the generation of 
 this day the interesting remnant of pioneer 
 days long gone. The public spirited citizens of 
 Kankakee would do well to perpetuate the 
 memory of early days by erecting a memorial 
 at the northeast corner of the court house 
 square where the aboriginal traffic of old days, 
 long dead and forgotten, flowed by before the 
 Kankakee of today was even dreamed of. 
 
 The evolution of the "Hubbard Trace" pre- 
 sents some interesting phases for the thought- 
 ful observer of today. First laid out as an aid 
 to the primitive fur traders of a century ago, 
 the legislature of Illinois responded, in a later 
 day, to an urgent call of the public for a prac- 
 
156 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 tical highway from Chicago to the southeast 
 by adopting, with but slight variations, the 
 "Hubbard Trace," which was later called the 
 Chicago- Vincennes road and marked with mile- 
 stones. In this twentieth century we have the 
 "Dixie Highway," a twenty-foot roadway of 
 cement built at the cost of millions, practically 
 paralleling this old-time route of the trader, 
 trapper, Indian and coureur de bois, and 
 where, in a later day, the "prairie schooner," 
 the "Conestoga" wagon and the ox-cart of the 
 settler of the prairies creaked by in lonely pro- 
 cession. As we pause to envision the mighty de- 
 velopments of a century it is to picture, though 
 dimly, perhaps, the surprise and consternation 
 of the "shades" of these old-time, slow-moving 
 caravansaries of primitive days, on beholding 
 the speed of the twentieth century. And we 
 leave it to you to say which would impress 
 them most — -the stately movement of the mod- 
 ern passenger train, the bird-like flight of the 
 aeroplane overhead, or the youth of a jazz- 
 crazed age, who crowd the "Dixie Highway" 
 on a holiday with high-powered machines that 
 outrival the locomotive for speed. 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 157 
 
 Kankakee County's First Fourth of July 
 Celebration 
 
 July Fourth, 1840, was a memorable day 
 over in the east end of the territory now em- 
 braced in Kankakee County for, on that day, 
 was held the first regularly constituted Fourth 
 of July celebration ever attempted in Kankakee 
 County. The affair was held on the island in the 
 Kankakee river at Momence, since known as 
 "Island Park," and its sponsors were none 
 other than A. S. Vail and Judge Orson Beebe, 
 Momence's first citizens. This celebration 
 was not of the flamboyant, red-fire, noisy type 
 which later characterized gatherings of this 
 kind. In fact, it was quite the reverse. In 
 that day there were no newspapers, no air- 
 planes, no telegraph or telephones, no noth- 
 ing, excepting the broad, illimitable prairie, 
 like a sea of waving green, with its occasional 
 trail, and in whose all-enveloping vastness the 
 settler seemed hopelessly, irretrievably lost. 
 
 This enterprising committee of early citi- 
 zens, undaunted by the difficulties attending 
 matters of publicity, besides writing out no- 
 tices calling attention to the proposed celebra- 
 tion and posting them along the old Chicago- 
 Vincennes Road, as well as other trails some- 
 
158 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 times frequented by the lonely traveler, made 
 use of the settler, thrown in their way now and 
 then by chance, to spread the news, having first 
 impressed him with the great importance of 
 attending the celebration himself. One thing 
 that committee had in abundance, and that was 
 faith — faith in the successful outcome of the 
 undertaking. The brush and undergrowth on 
 the island were cut and the place cleaned up 
 and gotten in readiness. There was no speak- 
 er's stand provided for the very good reason 
 that there was to be no speaker. There was 
 no brass band engaged for the reason that, in 
 the whole state of Illinois, there was no such 
 thing, not even a "sheepskin band." If there 
 had been a band available the committee could 
 not have made use of it, for there was not 
 enough of despised "wild-cat" money in the 
 community to pay for it. But with the dawn- 
 ing of the Fourth came the crowd from far 
 and near until, by ten o'clock, there was a total 
 of fifty-one souls in attendance. FIFTY- 
 ONE ! Think of it ! It was some crowd for 
 that day, though, brethren. They came from 
 Crete and Beecher and over the line in Indiana 
 and down on the Iroquois and out of the misty 
 depths of Grand Prairie, American citizens 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 159 
 
 who came for miles in slow-moving ox-carts to 
 celebrate the Nation's birthday and get ac- 
 quainted, one with the other, and enjoy, if only 
 for a brief season, the opportunity thus af- 
 forded for sociability. There is nothing in the 
 traditionary lore that has come down to us in 
 this day, regarding the celebration of eighty 
 years ago, that would indicate that the occasion 
 was graced by a solitary flag, or that the Dec- 
 laration of Independence was read. But there 
 was a grand, old-fashioned dinner. Table cloths 
 were placed end to end on the ground and the 
 contents of capacious baskets were deposited 
 thereon, and the entire company of fifty-one, 
 instead of separating into little groups, came 
 together at one table like one huge family. 
 
 The celebration was a tremendous success. 
 It was wonderful to get somewhere out of the 
 prairie home and away from its monotonous 
 grind, to enjoy a moment of relaxation and 
 gossip with someone other than a member of 
 your own family. There were friendships 
 formed that day that have lasted through all 
 the intervening years, and so important did 
 this event become in the estimation of the set- 
 tlers that, as time passed on, important events 
 along life's highway were invariably reckoned 
 as so long before or after that memorable 
 
160 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 Fourth at Island Park. The citizens of Mo- 
 mence, with rare good sense and judgment, 
 have purchased Island Park for their heirs and 
 assigns to have and hold forever. They should 
 go a step farther and erect a monument in 
 recognition of that old-time celebration, which 
 was Kankakee county's first; and, before it is 
 too late, the names of those old-time celebrants 
 should be gathered, so far as is now possible, 
 and these should be cut into imperishable stone. 
 
 A Death and Burial at "Leggtown" 
 
 Somewhere within the limited area of the 
 little plat known as the "Leggtown" cemetery, 
 situated close in by the settlement of that name 
 in the town of Aroma, something over sixty 
 years ago, was deposited the remains of one 
 Mrs. Blodgett, an overland traveler, who was 
 taken ill of smallpox and died shortly after 
 reaching the settlement. 
 
 The circumstances attending this death and 
 burial present some phases unusual and out of 
 the ordinary even for those primitive days. Mr. 
 and Mrs. Blodgett had been permitted to oc- 
 cupy an old log cabin belonging to Lorenzo 
 Legg, for she was ill, and at that time the 
 deadly nature of the disease with which she was 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 161 
 
 afflicted was not suspected. Great was the 
 consternation of the little community when, at 
 last, the fact became known that they harbored 
 in their midst a smallpox patient, and, several 
 days later, when she died, fear gave way to 
 panic at thought of the possible spread of the 
 disease in the neighborhood. So wrought up 
 and obsessed with fear at the outlook were the 
 members of the community, that the ordinary 
 courtesies and attentions so freely accorded to 
 strangers in distress by the settlers of that day, 
 were denied, save that food was prepared and 
 such articles as Mr. Blodgett needed for her, 
 such as the community had, were taken and 
 deposited in a certain place where he could get 
 them. No one seems to recall whether Mrs. 
 Blodgett was given medical attention at that 
 time or not, and certainly the only one to min- 
 ister to her wants was the grief-stricken hus- 
 band, who was powerless when it came to re- 
 lieving her distress. This case was of a most 
 virulent type and, when death finally inter- 
 vened, the terror-stricken husband appealed to 
 the neighbors for assistance in disposing of her 
 remains. No one dared go near. Even the 
 husband, aghast at the terrible ravages of the 
 
162 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 dread malady, could not bring himself to per- 
 form the last sad offices for the dead. 
 
 William Swan and Lorenzo Legg made a 
 coffin of black walnut boards, of which the set- 
 tlement had a plentiful supply, sawn from the 
 logs cut on the place, and while thus engaged, 
 it came to them that there was one, John Shar- 
 key, living near by, who was immune from 
 smallpox by reason of having had it years ago, 
 and that possibly he might be prevailed upon to 
 help in the present emergency. John Sharkey 
 is a French- Canadian who, on his arrival in the 
 Kankakee Valley in the year 1848, answered 
 to the name of Bateese Chartier. He worked 
 in various capacities for the Illinois Central, 
 which was then building its line into Kankakee, 
 and, among other things, helped lay the stone 
 in the old Court Street viaduct. He lived with 
 John Abair, who boarded a number of the men 
 employed on the Illinois Central works, operat- 
 ing for that purpose two log cabins that stood 
 on the court house square, in the year 1851. 
 Here boarded Joe Sheff and John Sego, stone 
 cutters, who got out the stone for the first 
 bridge across the Kankakee. In the early six- 
 ties John Sharkey lived in the "Leggtown Set- 
 tlement," where he farmed for a while, and 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 163 
 
 later went to Momence, where he now resides, 
 hale and hearty at the age of eighty-eight 
 years. The persistency with which people in- 
 sisted upon calling him Sharkey instead of 
 Char-te-ay, his right name, led him to finally 
 abandon it for the former. 
 
 Mr. Sharkey readily consented to care for 
 the body of Mrs. Blodgett when appealed to 
 by Mr. Swan and, in the deepening twilight 
 of an April night, repaired to the cabin. The 
 coffin had been left at a place fifty or seventy- 
 five feet from the house, and Mr. Sharkey was 
 obliged to drag it all the way alone. It was 
 heavy and difficult to handle. In the coffin 
 had been placed clothing suitable to give the 
 body a respectable burial but, by the dim, un- 
 certain light of the solitary tallow candle, the 
 body presented such an awful aspect that even 
 the stout heart of John Sharkey recoiled. The 
 clothes were thrown on the floor, the coffin 
 placed by the bedside, and the winding sheet 
 that enveloped the body was the one on which 
 she died. The coffin was barely large enough 
 and the exigencies of the situation required 
 that he put his whole weight on the lid when 
 the screws that held it were run down. In lieu 
 of a screw- driver, he used the cutting-edge of 
 
164 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 an axe which he found at a woodpile. He 
 dragged the coffin and its burden from the 
 house and, with much difficulty, loaded it into 
 Blodgett's wagon. Using Blodgett's team he 
 drove through the woods to the little cemetery, 
 known for many years as the Leggtown ceme- 
 tery, and here he found a grave had been pre- 
 pared to receive the remains. Lowering the 
 body into the grave was a task that taxed the. 
 full resources of Mr. Sharkey, for it must be 
 remembered that he worked alone. By means 
 of the heavy leather driving lines taken from 
 the harness, which he tied about each end of the 
 coffin and then swung from rails laid across the 
 grave, he alternately lowered the ends of the 
 coffin until, at last, it was safely deposited in 
 the bottom of the grave. 
 
 Thus was Mrs. Blodgett laid away in her 
 last resting place, among strangers, by a stran- 
 ger and in a strange land, with neither song, 
 nor prayer nor word of hope expressed for a 
 soul gone out into the realm of the hereafter. 
 Only the stars looked on as John Sharkey shov- 
 eled in the yawning pit, and the only sound, 
 aside from the soft pat of the falling earth, 
 was the lonely plaint of the whippoorwill in 
 the woods. It was past eleven o'clock when he 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 165 
 
 finished his labors, and, in the more than sixty 
 years that have intervened since that night, he 
 tells us, he has never set foot within the pre- 
 cincts of Leggtown cemetery. Blodgett was 
 given money by the settlers wherewith to re- 
 turn to Indiana, and some months later, hav- 
 ing in the meantime been sick with smallpox, 
 he returned to Leggtown, secured his team and 
 wagon and continued on west. 
 
 More than a half century later Mr. Blod- 
 gett appeared in the little settlement in Aroma, 
 coming here from the Pacific coast. He had 
 married again and was prosperous. This time 
 he sought to locate the grave of his former 
 helpmeet, but of the few who recalled the cir- 
 cumstance of her death and burial, there were 
 none who could locate, with any certainty, the 
 spot where she was buried. Even John Shar- 
 key, who put her away, confesses that he would 
 not know where to look for the grave. She is 
 lost to mortal ken in the little burying ground 
 which is not much greater in size than the ordi- 
 nary city lot. There is a place, though, over 
 in the extreme northwest corner, where the bit- 
 tersweet trails thickly in a tangled mass over 
 a depression in the ground which may have 
 been a grave — the grave. But, what matter? 
 Memorial stones fade and crumble and fail of 
 
166 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 their duty. It is only the heart that remem- 
 bers. 
 
 Kankakee's First Sunday School Excursion 
 
 Kankakee, in her growth and development 
 since the days of swaddling clothes, so to speak, 
 has been the objective of many thousands of 
 excursionists from far and near, brought in by 
 the Illinois Central, and in these later days, 
 by thousands of automobiles, for a day's out- 
 ing in the woods on the banks of the beautiful 
 Kankakee river. In fact, the excursionist of 
 this day is so frequently met with that he ex- 
 cites not even a passing interest. But in the 
 fall of 1853, my brethren, shortly after the Illi- 
 nois Central had completed its line this far, an 
 excursionist was accorded something more than 
 the "once over" by the native and transient 
 population. Our neighboring city of Mo- 
 mence which, in its long experience, has en- 
 joyed the distinction of having been first in 
 many good works, may properly claim, we 
 think, the honor of the first real church excur- 
 sion by rail to the City of Kankakee. Mrs. 
 Kendall, among other delightful reminiscences, 
 has told us that in the month of August, 1853, 
 following the completion of the Illinois Cen- 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 167 
 
 tral railroad to Kankakee in July, the member- 
 ship of the Baptist church and Sunday school 
 of Momence decided to visit Kankakee and 
 have a ride on the new railroad. Elder Storrs 
 was the one chiefly interested in the project, 
 and the announcement of the proposed excur- 
 sion caused a great flutter of excitement in the 
 little community. On the day set for it there 
 was a great outpouring of the young, the mid- 
 dle-aged and the old, for whom the new rail- 
 road and a ride on the steam cars offered novel- 
 ties most alluring. The first leg of the jour- 
 ney to Kankakee, that is, from Momence to 
 Manteno, was accomplished by means of such 
 conveyances as the limited facilities of pioneer 
 days afforded. Wagons figured principally 
 in this unique procession, several of which had 
 been provided with hay-racks whereon the 
 younger children were seated. It was a happy 
 party that set out from Momence that morn- 
 ing in August following the prairie trail across 
 country to Manteno to the railroad. Expec- 
 tation ran high and there were thrills galore at 
 thought of beholding that great, hissing, steam- 
 ing thing, the locomotive, which was to prove 
 such a potent factor in subduing the wilder- 
 ness. 
 
168 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 On their arrival at Manteno and after a wait 
 of an hour or so, the excursion train pulled in. 
 There wasn't a coach in the train, in fact, all 
 it consisted of was three or four flat cars pro- 
 vided with temporary seats, pulled by a di- 
 minutive, wood-burning engine. The party 
 were installed thereon and the men took it upon 
 themselves to look out for the younger mem- 
 bers and see to it that none fell off while the 
 train covered the distance between Manteno 
 and Kankakee at the dizzy speed of fifteen 
 miles an hour. If you are able to recall how 
 you felt when you saw for the first time the 
 flight of the aeroplane, then you may judge 
 something of the feelings of this roystering 
 party of excursionists. The fireman, evident- 
 ly moved by the conviction that this was an 
 epoch-making event, of which history might 
 at some time take note, when not engaged in 
 stoking the engine rang the bell and made the 
 whistle scream in a most terrifying way. If 
 the occasion did not become memorable sooner 
 it was no fault of the fireman. His efforts 
 quite over-awed and subdued the little com- 
 pany, the feminine members of which, could not 
 restrain their tendency to jump every time the 
 whistle squawked. And, in the interim when 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 169 
 
 the whistle happened to be silent, then the safe- 
 ty valve, which relieved the dangerous tension, 
 made acute in this instance by the enthusiastic 
 efforts of the fireman, popped off with a great 
 noise, and for a moment the party were en- 
 veloped in filmy clouds of steam, and during 
 the interval, which seemed much longer than a 
 moment, they were quite sure the thing had 
 blown up and was headed for "Ballyhack" (if 
 the casual reader may happen to know where 
 Ballyhack is). 
 
 Of course, there was no such thing as a re- 
 ception committee waiting to receive the ex- 
 cursionists on their arrival at "Kankakee De- 
 pot," for this all happened long before the 
 Kankakee of today was anything more than a 
 spot on the face of the universe with a strip of 
 railroad track and shacks for the men em- 
 ployed on the work. The men employed by the 
 Illinois Central, at sight of such an unusual 
 cargo, doubtless crossed themselves and stood 
 at salute, the while they invoked the protection 
 and kindly intervention of the Saints. Sur- 
 prises on that day were mutual. The party 
 ate their lunch in the shade of the nearby for- 
 est and, after several hours spent in viewing 
 the work on the road and the uncompleted 
 
170 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 bridge, re-embarked for the return trip to 
 Manteno. A good deal of anguish of mind 
 was caused for certain of the party who could 
 not figure out satisfactorily how the "goll- 
 dummed" train was going to be turned around. 
 But, out near where the fair grounds are to- 
 day located, the train backed onto a "Y" and 
 before anyone realized what was up, the train 
 was turned around and headed for Manteno. 
 That turning on the "Y" was one of the im- 
 pressive feats of the day. Altogether it was a 
 wonderful day, so they all agreed, full of in- 
 terest and thrills that, for many days there- 
 after, were fruitful themes for conversation. 
 And thus passed into history the very first ex- 
 cursion by rail to the City of Kankakee. 
 
 Dominick Bray, Voyageur, Trader, Citizen 
 
 Dominick Bray, a French-Canadian, in his 
 youth a voyageur, and later, an engage of the 
 great Astor enterprise, The American Fur 
 Company, when that organization first began 
 operations in the country of the Illinois, was, 
 after Noel LeVasseur, the first white settler 
 on the Kankakee river in the district now 
 known as Bourbonnais township. It was over 
 one hundred years ago that he came to the 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 171 
 
 country of the Illinois, threading the then un- 
 known water trails of the Kankakee and Iro- 
 quois rivers with the batteaux of the early trad- 
 ers. His first location was at Middleport, now 
 Watseka. Later, for a number of years, his 
 headquarters were at the old trading post es- 
 tablished by Hubbard at "Bunkum," on the 
 Iroquois river, near the site of the present vil- 
 lage of that name. It was here that in 1830 
 and 1832 a son, Dominick Jr., and a daugh- 
 ter, Ellen, were born, the latter, who, at the 
 great age of ninety, is still living near Fenni- 
 more, Wisconsin. Many were the trips he 
 made with Hubbard and LeVasseur up and 
 down the "Hubbard Trail," as that pioneer 
 thoroughfare was known, through the country 
 of the nation of the Pottawattomies, trading 
 with the dusky inhabitants and collecting pelts. 
 Little by little the charm of the country of the 
 Kankakee Valley, with its woods, and plains, 
 and stream, fastened upon the youthful Bray, 
 and became a lure, an obsession, not to be re- 
 sisted for long once the opportunity offered to 
 strike out for himself. 
 
 The removal of the Pottawattomies in 1833- 
 34 to the reservation near Council Bluffs, Iowa, 
 was a blow to the fur trade. Hubbard with- 
 
172 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 drew to Chicago, and Bray, left to his own re- 
 sources, did not long hesistate, but made for 
 the Kankakee, where LeVasseur had preceded 
 him by about a year. 
 
 The scene of Bray's active operations in 
 Kankakee county, was the farm now known as 
 the America Brosseau farm, lying two miles 
 out on the Bourbonnais road, in Bourbonnais 
 township, and between this place and the river 
 laid the reservation of the Pottawattomie chief, 
 "Me-she-ke-te-no." Through the intervention 
 and kindly offices of his friend, LeVasseur, 
 Bray succeeded in purchasing his land from its 
 Indian owner for a cash consideration of twen- 
 ty-five cents an acre, in specie, together with a 
 few beads and trinkets, which, in the eye of the 
 Indian, possessed a value in excess of specie. 
 He set to work and built a commodious double 
 log cabin and here, in 1833, was born Andre 
 Bray, the first white child born in Bourbonnais 
 township. In the years that followed other 
 children were born, and, in the year 1845, twin 
 daughters, Clarissa and Mary, gladdened the 
 home, the former, now Mrs. Deciel, of Chicago, 
 and the latter, Mrs. Baltazor, of Bradley, who, 
 at the age of seventy-seven years, recall enter- 
 tainingly many reminiscences of Bourbonnais' 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 173 
 
 first pioneers, and the delights of those early 
 days on the river. 
 
 The first service of the mass that ever took 
 place in Kankakee county, was, without doubt, 
 that held at the Bray homestead in June, 1837, 
 when Andre Bray, the son, was duly baptized 
 according to the rites of the Catholic church. 
 This service was conducted by Father LaLu- 
 miere, a typical missionary of the woods and 
 plains, who, with his portable altar, followed 
 hard on the trail of his wilderness flock, and 
 administered to their spiritual needs as oppor- 
 tunity offered. 
 
 Bray was of that forceful, energetic type, 
 who, in lieu of education, he being unable either 
 to read or write, had accumulated a fund of 
 practical knowledge and experience by asso- 
 ciation with such men as Gurdon S. Hubbard 
 and Noel LeVasseur. Noel LeVasseur, also, 
 could neither read nor write, but for many 
 years he successfully carried on large trading 
 operations, and such book-keeping as the exi- 
 gencies of that day made imperative, was in 
 the sign-language of the Pottawattomies. Sup- 
 plies were sometimes advanced to certain of the 
 Indians who were to pay for them later in 
 furs. These goods were indicated pictorially. 
 
m LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 Thus, a number of fine dots, indicated powder ; 
 a quantity of larger black dots indicated bul- 
 lets; a blanket was a square, with something 
 of the design, if it happened to be thus orna- 
 mented; a knife, or gun, or tomahawk was 
 shown in outline, and with the Indian's indi- 
 vidual totem affixed thereto, whether it was 
 "Big Horse," or "Little Turtle," or "The 
 Dove," or "The Bear," or what not, the proof 
 of the obligation was thus made indisputable. 
 Bray had a keen perception and the instincts 
 of the trader, and in and about his cabin home 
 the evidences of industry, participated in by 
 the members of his family generally, were not 
 lacking. The younger girls were busy weav- 
 ing the wheat-straw in long plaits, which were 
 later made into straw hats. Hides were tanned 
 by means of white-oak bark, and leather thus 
 obtained was worked up into moccasin-like 
 shoes which the settlers, up and down the river, 
 were glad to get, for they were not only serv- 
 iceable but cheap. A straw hat of ample di- 
 mensions, as put up in the Bray home, sold 
 for one shilling, twelve and one-half cents, and 
 a pair of the red, oak-tanned moccasins 
 brought one dollar. He would drive hogs over 
 the "Hubbard Trail" into Chicago, and with 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 175 
 
 the proceeds of the sale he purchased groceries, 
 and other necessities, which he carried on his 
 back to the home on the Kankakee. 
 
 Most notable among the achievements of 
 Bray, when you consider the time in which he 
 lived, and the limitations imposed by lack of 
 funds and the wherewithal to do, was the erec- 
 tion of a two-story brick dwelling — a mansion, 
 if you please — which was the talk of the set- 
 tlers generally, far and wide. This building 
 was put up in 1848 or 1849 and was the first of 
 its kind to be built on the river. For nearly 
 seventy-five years it has served continuously as 
 a habitation. This building is an interesting 
 example of Bray's resourcefulness. In the first 
 place, he made the bricks used in its construc- 
 tion, right on the ground. A small pen of rails 
 was built into which a number of cattle were 
 turned. These cattle were kept constantly 
 moving by small boys perched on the top rails 
 of the pen, who plied the gad vigorously. Water 
 was poured on the ground, and the constant 
 tramping of the cattle soon converted the soil 
 into mud of a consistency to be readily mould- 
 ed into bricks. After the bricks had been thor- 
 oughly sun-dried, they were arranged in the 
 form of a kiln and burned, the adjacent timber 
 
176 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 furnishing an abundance of fuel for that pur- 
 pose. That the bricks thus produced were of 
 excellent quality goes without saying, for they 
 are still doing duty in this late day. 
 
 The lime used in the mortar was produced 
 on the place. The limestone was quarried and 
 piled on a platform of dry hickory wood, the 
 whole enclosed with a thick covering of prairie 
 sod and earth, after which the hickory was fired 
 and left to smolder. In the bed of Davis creek, 
 a little ways to the west, quantities of excellent 
 sand were procured. It is said that Bray had 
 the help of a Frenchman, who understood ma- 
 sonry construction, and that, together, they 
 carried up the walls and completed the job. 
 There was nothing fancy about it, in fact, the 
 lines of the house were severely plain. But it 
 was comfortable and substantial, and its ad- 
 vantages so far outshone the old log habitation 
 that, in comparison, it seemed like a palace. 
 The outside finishing lumber for this home was 
 of the finest clear-grained walnut and the tim- 
 ber in the window-frames is of the same valu- 
 able material, four to six inches thick. A grand 
 old sachem of the black walnut tribe, that stood 
 in the Cooper woods, gave up its life to fill the 
 need of that day. It must have been a glori- 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 177 
 
 ous specimen in its vigor and prime, for the 
 remnants of the mouldering stump that re- 
 main today measure nearly four feet across. 
 
 During the years that he lived on the Kan- 
 kakee, Bray had prospered, and the new abode 
 was a reflex of it. Not only that, the Cana- 
 dian families of the neighborhood, especially 
 those of "Little Canada," a unique settlement 
 of ten or a dozen Canadian families, brought 
 west through the instrumentality of LeVas- 
 seur, accorded to him something of the defer- 
 ence and respect shown to a "Bourgeois," or 
 head man of the old days, and this, in its way, 
 was most pleasing to the master of the new 
 house. The first holiday season spent in the 
 new home was celebrated by a "Bouquet Par- 
 ty," participated in by the youth of the neigh- 
 borhood as well as a goodly number of the 
 older people. The youth of the country round- 
 about, made up a collection of money which 
 they placed in the hands of the host, to be used 
 by him in providing suitable entertainment for 
 the company during the three-days' celebration 
 that ensued, and which included "Nouvelle An- 
 nee," or the New Year. The days of the "Bou- 
 quet Party" were enlivened by sports common 
 in that day, varied now and then by a wood- 
 
178 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 chopping contest in which it was not unusual 
 to find some lithe, active, muscular young 
 woman disputing honors with the young men. 
 The days were also enlivened by "corn-husking 
 bees," participated in by the girls and boys, 
 and great was the excitement when the much- 
 sought red ear was uncovered by some lucky 
 swain, who proceeded to exact a kiss from his 
 sweetheart amid the tumultuous encourage- 
 ment of the merry company. Others of the 
 younger girls, meantime, wove the plaits of 
 wheat-straw, in strands of six or nine, and a 
 goodly number, chosen from day to day, aided 
 by the older women, devoted their attention to 
 preparing the meal of the day, which was 
 spread in feudal pomp and splendor in the main 
 part of the house. 
 
 And what banquets they were, with all the 
 good things of the wilderness storehouse to 
 draw upon! What savory odors emanated 
 from that backwoods kitchen redolent of sad- 
 dles of venison, and where, in the glow of the 
 capacious fireplace, suspended from strings, 
 the carcasses of wild turkeys were kept slowly 
 revolving until they were beautifully brown, 
 and done to a turn! Do you realize that the 
 phrase, "Done to a turn," originated in just 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 179 
 
 such a manner? There was something "homey," 
 something suggestive of gastronomic treats in 
 that old kitchen whose rafters hung plentifully 
 festooned with strings of onions, garlic, and 
 bright, shiny red peppers, and in whose shad- 
 owy corners lurked bunches of sage and other 
 herbs, gathered from the wild, whose savors 
 gave an added piquancy to the feast, besides 
 recalling memories of similar occasions long 
 ago, back on the St. Lawrence or Riviere de 
 Loup. 
 
 What a jolly, boisterous assemblage of the 
 youth and middle-aged that crowded around 
 that primitive board set in the wilderness home ! 
 How the tongues wagged, and the eyes spar- 
 kled as quip and jest flew right merrily! It 
 was a babble of voices uproarious and unre- 
 strained, reflecting the spirit of good cheer 
 that clearly outdone old Boreas himself as he 
 roared in futile rage at door and casement. 
 With something of the stateliness of old days, 
 old Dominick, the host, in a manner becoming 
 a host, expressed felicitations, and proposed 
 the health of the company, on which libations 
 of "w'iskey blanc," for the older ones, and 
 "Vin Rouge," for the younger members, were 
 quaffed. 
 
180 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 The tables were then cleared and taken out 
 preparatory to the dance that followed, while 
 the older members of the company gathered 
 before the blazing hearth and smoked. Joe 
 LaTroumaine, he who lost his life by drown- 
 ing a year later, in 1850, while crossing the 
 Kankakee river, tuned his fiddle and, as the 
 dancers gathered on the floor, set them off in a 
 cotillion to the strains of Moneymusk or "Cath- 
 erine Durand." For hours they danced and 
 reveled in that lightsomeness of spirit which is 
 the especial inheritance of youth ; and for hours 
 the elders smoked and dozed about the fire- 
 place and dreamed of days that were. 
 
 As a diversion, while they enjoyed a breath- 
 ing spell, the dancers called on Dominick to 
 relate tales of his youth, when, as a voyageur, 
 he came first into the great middle west, and 
 many a brave tale he told of adventure and 
 hardship until, at last, his mounting enthusi- 
 asm inspired him to sing the songs of the voy- 
 ageur, among which, the following was a fa- 
 vorite, sung in part by Dominick and a chorus 
 of the guests: 
 
 Dominick. — "Michaud est monte" dans un prunier, 
 Pour trellier des prunes. 
 La branche a casse* — 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 181 
 
 Chorus. — Michaud a tombe? 
 Dominick. — Ou est-ce qu'il est? 
 
 Chorus. — II est en bas. 
 Dominick. — Oh! reveille, reveille, reveille, 
 
 Oh! Reveille, Michaud est en haut!" 
 
 The marvelous part of the performance on the 
 part of Michaud seems to have been his ability 
 to still remain in the tree after the branch had 
 broken. After trying out, in song, an amaz- 
 ingly large number of trees, with the same re- 
 sults, so far as Michaud was concerned, then 
 Adele Odette would be called upon to sing the 
 famous, much-loved Canadian jig and, moved 
 by memories that warmed the blood, old Domi- 
 nick and "LaPointe" Odette would dance while 
 the encircling company urged them on by the 
 kindly encouragement of words of approval 
 now and then, while they kept time by patting 
 their knees with their hands. It is a French 
 custom, very generally observed, that the oldest 
 son takes the name of the father. Therefore, 
 "LaPointe" Odette, whose name was Bateese, 
 was thus distinguished from his son, because, in 
 Canada, he had lived on a piece of land shaped 
 like a flat-iron, or pointed. 
 
 That is, in part, the story of the battered 
 and weather-stained house that stands today 
 
182 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 out on the old Bourbonnais road, in the days 
 when it was new and when its first guests gath- 
 ered there and made merry under its roof -tree. 
 You would hardly think it, would you, of that 
 quiet, serious-looking domicile that seems to 
 shrink more and more into the kindly shadow 
 of the trees, as the years go by, as if fearful 
 that someone may know that it once had known 
 joy. Old houses, after all, are a good deal like 
 old people; sometimes the fires that warm 
 them burn low ; sometimes the light fades from 
 the windows and its welcome glow in the night 
 is lost to us, just as sometimes the light of the 
 eye pales, and fades, and we miss the glint of 
 its old-time friendliness. But the winter winds 
 have never forgotten that joyousness ran riot 
 here at the old house, and at that season when 
 old King Boreas marshals his hosts for an on- 
 slaught into the valley of the Kankakee, which 
 is about the time of "Nouvelle Annee," or the 
 New Year, his legions still assault door and 
 casement of the old place with all their old-time 
 fury, and then die down for a moment in 
 hushed expectancy, as if waiting for some chal- 
 lenging shout from within. But there is no 
 answering shout. Death, long ago, took toll 
 of the merry revelers. The things we have told 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 183 
 
 you about, the old house has not known in half 
 a century, and never will know again. It is old, 
 and decrepit, and old-fashioned; very, very 
 much so, just like the memories it treasures; 
 but the memories, how dear ! 
 
 The Story of "Little Canada" 
 
 The township of Bourbonnais, besides being 
 distinguished as the place of abode of the first 
 white settler, claims our attention and interest 
 by reason of the fact that during the late forties 
 a number of Canadian families, brought to the 
 western wilderness by Noel LeVasseur, settled 
 on the Francis LeVia reservation, west of 
 Davis creek, in what is now known as Bourbon- 
 nais township, forming a unique and populous 
 settlement which for years was known as 
 "Petite Canada." It took courage seventy- 
 five years ago to break the "home ties" and set 
 out on untrod paths half-way across the con- 
 tinent to find a home spot in the heart of the 
 wilderness. But our early-day fathers and 
 mothers, while lacking in much which the world 
 of today holds as most essential, were not lack- 
 ing in courage. In that early day about the 
 scarcest thing was money. The most plentiful 
 thing was unoccupied land, with its timber, in 
 
184 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 which game abounded, intervals on which grain 
 might be raised, and streams which abounded 
 with the finest fish. Here, then, was an oppor- 
 tunity for the poor man to live while getting a 
 "toe-hold," and here these Canadians settled 
 on small parcels of land, none of which ex- 
 ceeded thirty acres in extent. 
 
 This little settlement of ten or a dozen fami- 
 lies was a most primitive one, as may be readily 
 imagined. Of the original first settlers, Charles 
 Tebeault held sixteen acres, John Odette 
 twenty acres, Alex Dandurand twenty acres, 
 Luke Betourne thirty acres, John Dandurand 
 thirty acres, Francis Baltazor thirty acres, and 
 nearer to the river were located Louis Goyette 
 with three acres, and Alexine Castoneau and 
 one Deschon with not to exceed three or four 
 acres apiece. The inference is natural that the 
 title of "Little Canada" was fittingly applied 
 to a community that held tenaciously to old 
 manners and customs and traditions of the 
 Canadian home-land. There was another and 
 more cogent reason for thus distinguishing the 
 newly founded colony. It should be borne in 
 mind that these settlers were of the old 
 Canadian stock and most worthy exemplars of 
 the ancient tradition of big families, and for 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 185 
 
 that reason the community commanded the re- 
 spect of the countryside. It may heighten 
 your regard for the sterling qualities of those 
 old-time pioneers on being told that the popu- 
 lation of "Little Canada" was around about 
 seventy in that day, composed as follows: 
 Charle Tebeault, ten children; John Odette, 
 five children; Alex Dandurand, six children; 
 Luke Betourne, five children; John Dandu- 
 rand, four children; Francis Baltazor, five 
 children; Louis Goyette, four children; Alex- 
 ine Castonneau, six children ; Deschon, six 
 children. Add to these the heads of families, 
 eighteen, and you have a total of fifty-nine 
 souls, to which we almost forgot to add old man 
 Marcheterre (who owned and gave to M. 
 Tebeault the sixteen acres of land on which he 
 lived for taking care of him in his last days), 
 which rounds out and makes the grand total of 
 seventy which "Little Canada" claimed as its 
 own. 
 
 In the early days of the settlements along 
 the St. Lawrence river, "Seigniories," or grants 
 of land from the crown, with a narrow frontage 
 on the water, but extending back into the tim- 
 ber for a mile or more, were allotted to each 
 settler. By this arrangement he had access to 
 
186 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 the water, plenty of timber for his cabin, as 
 well as interval on which to grow his grain. 
 Another advantage of this early-day plan was 
 that the homes of the settlers were thus brought 
 closer together that they might live more hap- 
 pily and at the same time be the better enabled 
 to resist any sudden attack by the Indians. 
 This idea of living, ingrained in the very fiber 
 of generation after generation of French- 
 Canadians, we find exemplified in the little 
 community on the Kankakee in the days prior 
 to the 50's, and this fact alone is proof that the 
 title "Petite Canada" was no misnomer. 
 
 Our pioneer friends who first settled "Little 
 Canada," in the Francis LeVia reservation, did 
 not have the advantage of a grant of land from 
 anybody. Francis LeVia sold his reservation, 
 consisting of a section of land, to Noel LeVas- 
 seur in 1835, and he in turn sold it to Robert 
 A. Kinzie in 1837. These pioneers just nat- 
 urally squatted on the land and acquired it lit- 
 tle by little, and their combined holdings for 
 many years did not exceed one hundred and 
 sixty acres. 
 
 After seventy years "Little Canada" has 
 become only a memory, dear to the hearts of 
 those who, as children, played in its sylvan 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 187 
 
 shade or busied themselves with the varied oc- 
 cupations of the "habitant." They hunted, 
 fished and trapped in their youth, and grew up 
 wise to the lore of prairie, woods and stream, 
 absorbing, naturally, the deeper wisdom of the 
 wilderness after the manner of their forebears. 
 The hard work and meager fare of that day 
 produced a vigorous, hardy type of citizen, who 
 met the day's tasks and problems uncomplain- 
 ingly and with a stout heart, and in the end 
 subdued the wilderness realm and caused it to 
 blossom like the rose. "Little Canada," as we 
 have said, in this day is but a memory. The 
 grave has long since closed over those fathers 
 and mothers who, leaving their own beloved 
 Canada, made possible, for a brief space, the 
 "Little Canada" of the LeVia reservation. 
 The sons and daughters of these pioneer sires, 
 such as are left to us, have in turn become 
 white-haired and venerable, and they and their 
 children occupy stately homes, surrounded by 
 broad, fertile acres, in many instances the finest 
 to be found in all the wondrous Valley of the 
 Kankakee. 
 
 "Little Canada" that was, is today included 
 within the holdings of Magloire Pepin. The 
 log cabins of the settlers have long ago disap- 
 
188 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 peared, and even the Francois Baltazor home, 
 which was impressive for its quality in that 
 day, having been built of stone, is no more. 
 The march of events in this tremendous age has 
 obliterated "Little Canada" completely. It is 
 hopelessly, irretrievably lost, to live no more 
 except in the memory of those who have 
 listened to the narration of tales of its erstwhile 
 glory by some tottering, white-haired grand- 
 father. 
 
 When Young Folks Danced Over in Little 
 Canada 
 
 Youth is youth the world over — make no 
 mistake about that. Youth, with its rising tide 
 of life, be it high or low, rich or poor, in the 
 town or in the woods or on the prairie, finds 
 relief from the prosaic hum-drum of every- 
 day life by indulgence in various games, the 
 party and, best of all, the dance. Tales of the 
 dances of the old-time pioneers come to us now 
 and then from out the misty regions of the past, 
 and it is then that we conjure up visions of a 
 gay, light-hearted company of young people, 
 attired in a finery that would be a distinct shock 
 to the sensibilities of the present day, except, 
 perhaps, that one might find, in the wearers 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 189 
 
 thereof, enough of originality and charm to 
 make up for whatever there may have been 
 lacking in style. 
 
 Imagination pictures the log house, with its 
 puncheon floor and window panes of greased 
 paper; the broad, hospitable maw of the fire- 
 place, with its andirons and pots and kettles, 
 all suggestive of unstinted hospitality; the 
 home-made furniture, rude but serviceable; 
 and over the throng of dancers, as they move 
 in and out in the various figures of the dance, 
 the feeble rays of the "home-made' ' tallow 
 candle playing hide-and-seek. Everywhere is 
 radiated the cheer of the abounding spirit of 
 youth, and blended with the soft shuffle of 
 many feet on the floor is the low hum of voices, 
 a suppressed titter on the part of some maiden 
 whose partner has dared whisper how lovely 
 she is, and over all the droning of the music 
 and the strident voice of the backwoods caller. 
 
 "Little Canada" in the fifties, with its ten or 
 twelve Canadian-French families situated side 
 by side, with its youthful population of nearly 
 sixty boys and girls, held many an impromptu 
 soiree in the cabins that comprised the settle- 
 ment. And they were some times, too — quelque 
 temps — don't forget that. We tell you just as 
 
190 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 it was told to us. For these occasions the girls 
 put on their best and only calico dress, bought 
 in Chicago at ten cents a yard. This, with a 
 pair of "home-made" cowhide shoes, completed 
 the ensemble, except that some of the more 
 fortunate ones drew on the heirlooms of the 
 family for a bit of bright- colored ribbon, or an 
 ancient piece of lace or jewelry wherewith to 
 heighten their attractions. Like real daughters 
 of Eve, the too insistent glow of healthful, rosy 
 cheeks, was dimmed noticeably by a dash of 
 flour out of the family bin (but not like sister 
 does it today, not hardly) and, with a wild 
 flower or two tucked coquettishly in her hair, 
 she was ready. About all that good form re- 
 quired of Bateese, and Adelor, and Jacques, 
 and Pierre, and Marcel, and others of the boys, 
 was to slip into their best Kentucky jeans 
 trousers and smooth down their hair and make 
 it glossy by the application of a little raccoon 
 oil, and thus "dolled up" and painfully con- 
 scious of it the while, they, too, were ready, and 
 by twos and fours sought out the cabin from 
 whose door streamed a welcoming light. 
 
 The attendance at a dance in "Little 
 Canada" ranged anywhere from fifteen to 
 twenty-five of the young people, with a sprink- 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 191 
 
 ling of the fathers and mothers, who ex- 
 perienced an irresistible itching of the soles of 
 their feet whenever Marcel Odette's wife began 
 to sing. How Marcel's wife could sing! 
 Sapre! Moved by the spell of her entrancing 
 notes, it made the blood to tingle and the feet 
 to move, whether you would or not. We must 
 tell you about it. "Little Canada" among its 
 varied possessions had neither violin, accordion 
 nor any musical instrument whatever — not 
 even a jewsharp. How, then, could anybody 
 dance? you ask. Well, it was like this. Mar- 
 cel's wife had a fine voice. She sang or hummed 
 beautifully all the popular airs for the cotillion, 
 the quadrille, the "French Four" and the 
 Canadian Jig. Marcel's wife, whose name was 
 Adele, was most accommodating. She had 
 been a girl once herself and enjoyed to the full 
 the pleasures of the dance, and when she sang 
 the old tunes rhythmically and with feeling, 
 and in perfect time, Oh, Garcon, it was beauti- 
 ful, inspiring, transporting! For years the 
 youth of "Little Canada" did honor to the 
 musical genius of Adele Odette and gave her 
 first place over the best orchestra that ever was. 
 She was possessed of wonderful endurance, for 
 she would sing for hours, with but brief inter- 
 
192 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 missions, and many were the nights when the 
 fun became fast and furious and the dancers, 
 in a frenzy of joyous enthusiasm, insisted on 
 more and still more, until the flying hours 
 brought the dawn and thoughts of home. 
 
 Among the dancers in this old-time com- 
 pany, Arrette Baltazor and Pierre Bouvain 
 were, by universal consent, acclaimed the best. 
 "Ah, M'esieu'," said our informant, "just to 
 behold them as partners in the Trench Four,' 
 moving gracefully and keeping time with that 
 old Canadian chanson, 'The Twin Sisters/ as 
 sung by Adele Odette — what joy! What 
 pleasure! La! La! La!" Always at the con- 
 clusion of the dance there was a great buzzing 
 of voices and a great clapping of hands "for 
 the Trench Four' encore," and with Arrette 
 and Pierre in the lead, flushed and joyous, 
 away they would go again, light as birds, until 
 Adele, red of face and perspiring, threw up her 
 hands in sheer exhaustion. 
 
 In the delightfully expressive dialect of the 
 "habitant," who readily conceded honor where 
 honor was due, "Arrette and Pierre wos the 
 mos' bes' dancers on the worF." And when 
 you recall that "Little Canada" was their 
 world, the statement was not so extravagant as 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 193 
 
 might seem. After a brief rest Marcel's wife 
 would sound the notes of the Canadian Jig, 
 which was generally responded to by some 
 white-haired patriarch who moved with much 
 dignity and often with much ease and grace of 
 movement in the various steps, amid the plaud- 
 its of young and old. 
 
 Generally, on occasions of this kind, there 
 were refreshments, consisting of small cakes, 
 the surfaces of which were liberally spread with 
 the sugary substance of the wild honey, pro- 
 cured from the family supply in the hickory 
 trough, and a snappy, home-made drink, known 
 as "Epinette." "Connaissez-vous l'epinette?" 
 Well, any native Canadian will tell you that it 
 is a home-brewed beer, made from the juice or 
 gum of the spruce-fir, which abounds in 
 Canada. In "Little Canada" there was a 
 scarcity of spruce trees, so necessary when you 
 undertake the brewing of "epinette," so rosin 
 was often used to impart the flavor, if not the 
 "kick," to the beverage, as a graceful tribute to 
 memories of old-time Canada. More often 
 than not the party came to a close with the 
 dawn, and then the boys dropped coppers in 
 Adele's palm, sometimes as many as twenty 
 and twenty-five, and it was then that Adele 
 
194 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 was conscious of a great joy that her humble 
 efforts should be rated so highly. Don't smile 
 too broadly at Adele's simplicity. This all 
 happened in the days before much money had 
 made people foolish. As she viewed it, the 
 compensation was more than generous — it was 
 almost extravagant. 
 
 Time has laid a heavy hand on "Little 
 Canada," and there remains no trace or vestige 
 of it today. Long, long ago its gray-haired 
 sires answered the call of the grim reaper, and 
 long, long since the youthful habitants, whose 
 excess of spirit made the days and nights of the 
 wilderness ring with their joyousness, have 
 gone out — some near, some far — and with their 
 passing passed also the light of the open door 
 that first illumined the depths of the forests on 
 the Kankakee. One after another the hospita- 
 ble home fires on the hearth- stones of "Little 
 Canada" burned low and died out in ghastly 
 white embers. Today there is not a cabin left. 
 It is simply the graveyard of happy memories 
 of a day long gone. There are times, though, 
 when the golden-rod is in bloom, when the sum- 
 mer sun hangs low in the west and the air is 
 heavy with golden mists that tremble and 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 195 
 
 shimmer in the early glow of evening, when, 
 from the fringe of timber that lies along the 
 river, comes the call of the cardinal — bold, clear, 
 musical — calling to mind, were one familiar 
 with all that took place in "Little Canada," 
 when Marcel Odette's wife sang the old songs 
 dear to Canadian hearts, while the boys 
 
 "Danced all night, 
 'Till broad daylight, 
 And went home with the girls in the morning." 
 
 Walking as a Lost Art 
 
 With the tremendous increase of automobile 
 transportation in this garish age in which we 
 live, that most helpful and beneficial of all 
 exercises — walking — designed by the Creator 
 to keep the human machine attuned to a high 
 state of physical perfection and efficiency, has 
 taken a decided slump. The family bus has a 
 tremendous appeal for pater-familias, even 
 though the haul may be a short one. In this 
 day daughter simply must ride to school, for if 
 she walked, what would the girls say? And, 
 besides, the strain on her high French heels, or 
 rather the strain occasioned by the aforesaid 
 French heels, is something awful — not to be 
 considered for a moment unless one goes out 
 
196 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 for an all-night dance. Even sixteen-year-old 
 Willie loads his wilted frame into the machine 
 to go to the corner drug store, only a block 
 away, for a package of cigarettes. And "Ma" 
 — we almost forgot "Ma" — just like every- 
 body else does in this day. Well, if it wasn't 
 for the machine, "Ma" wouldn't get anywhere; 
 she wouldn't even get her nose out of doors — 
 and there you are. Nature still registers with 
 old-time constancy, and the human species still 
 continues to be born with legs, by means of 
 which they saunter, amble, perambulate, hop, 
 skip, jump, sidle or skid out of the way of the 
 omnipresent auto. Oh, we are getting along 
 beautifully in these days when it comes to rid- 
 ing in a machine, and that goes for the whole 
 family, but — what's the use of going further! 
 Let us rather cite a few examples of what they 
 did in the days when they had to do it! 
 
 Pierre LeClaire, a half-breed, was sent by 
 Major Robert Forsythe with the news of the 
 War of 1812 to his uncle, Mr. John Kinzie, at 
 Chicago. He started in the early morning and 
 walked from the mouth of the St. Joseph river 
 around the southern shore line of Lake Michi- 
 gan to Chicago, a distance of ninety (90) miles, 
 in one continuous walk. He arrived at Mr. 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 197 
 
 Kinzie's, ate his supper, and crossed over the 
 river to report to the officers at Fort Dearborn, 
 arriving there some time before nine o'clock 
 that evening. That record stands well up to 
 the head for a day's walk. But he who estab- 
 lished this record was only a half-breed. 
 
 Gurdon S. Hubbard in March, 1823, one 
 hundred years ago, had occasion to see some 
 Indians who were camped at "Big Woods," 
 on the Fox river, in DuPage county, west of 
 Chicago. After transacting his business with 
 them, on the evening before returning home an 
 Indian, who belonged to a band encamped some 
 ten miles distant, came to the wigwam where 
 he was and said he was going to accompany 
 him to his trading post. Hubbard gave him 
 some supper and told him he would start early 
 the next morning. They started as soon as it 
 was light enough to see to travel, and found the 
 ground very soft and muddy. 
 
 Hubbard noticed that his companion walked 
 very fast. About noon, though, he stopped to 
 smoke, but Hubbard, having made up his 
 mind that the Indian wanted a race, kept on 
 walking very fast and got a long way ahead. 
 Reaching the Illinois river above Hennepin, op- 
 posite his trading house, he found that his canoe 
 
198 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 had been taken. The bottom lands from the 
 river to the bluffs were overflowed, so he got 
 upon a log and, by pulling on the bushes and 
 pushing with a stick, got finally to the river and 
 swam across. The following morning he sent 
 some of his men back to look for the Indian. 
 They found him with a party on horseback and 
 very deeply chagrined at his defeat. It was then 
 that Hubbard discovered that the band he had 
 visited had wagered with the band the Indian 
 belonged to that he would outwalk the best 
 man they could produce. The distance walked 
 that day by Hubbard was seventy-five miles, 
 and while he suffered no inconvenience from 
 the trip, the Indian was badly used up. Among 
 the Pottawattomie Indians, Hubbard went by 
 the name of "Pa-pa-ma-ta-be," or "The Swift 
 Walker." 
 
 Mr. Joseph Haigh, a tall, raw-boned Eng- 
 lishman, purchased a quarter section of land 
 of the Illinois Central Railroad in 1855, the 
 land being located one mile south of Chebanse 
 station. He walked in one day from Chebanse 
 to Danville, where the government land office 
 was located, and recorded his deed, a distance 
 of over sixty miles, and on the return trip the 
 following day made nearly as good time. The 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 199 
 
 writer remembers Mr. Haigh as a most vig- 
 orous individual, who, for many years, held in 
 contempt all means of locomotion save what 
 the Lord had given him in the way of legs. 
 Trips from his farm to Clifton, five miles away, 
 or Kankakee, ten miles distant, he invariably 
 made on foot and thought but little of it. 
 
 "Uncle Bill" Parrish, of Momence, was 
 another man whom the exigencies of pioneer 
 life inspired with the habit of depending upon 
 himself whenever the emergency arose. Along 
 around 1840, when Kankakee county was still 
 a part of Iroquois, old Middleport, now a part 
 of the city of Watseka, was the county-seat. 
 In that year and for several years thereafter 
 "Uncle Bill" walked from Momence to Middle- 
 port, a distance of thirty miles, to pay his taxes. 
 He made use of the old Chicago- Vincennes 
 road, then called the Hubbard Trail, and with 
 economic foresight walked the trail barefooted, 
 with his stockings in his pocket and his boots 
 slung over his shoulder. Mother Nature re- 
 news a cuticle worn thin by contact with the 
 earth and tough prairie grass, but will not do 
 as much for a pair of boots — and boots were 
 boots in that day. Arriving near Watseka, or 
 Middleport, he would wash his feet at a con- 
 
200 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 venient wayside brook, put on his stockings and 
 boots and, thus "dressed-up," continue on to 
 his destination. 
 
 "Uncle Walt" Hess, who lived four miles 
 up the river above the Parrish place, in his 
 younger days, when he worked for Parrish, 
 used to pride himself on making the four miles 
 on foot each morning, arriving in time to begin 
 the day's work promptly at sunrise. In all the 
 time he worked there it is said that never once 
 did sunrise catch him on the road. It was a 
 common experience for many of the settlers, 
 who had stock to market, to drive them sixty 
 miles to Chicago, sell them, load up with neces- 
 sary articles in the way of family supplies, and 
 foot it back to the Kankakee. 
 
 We give these instances of early-day activi- 
 ties, not with the hope that the generation of 
 today may be moved to emulate them, but 
 rather that the vim and energy of our ancient 
 fathers may inspire something of admiration, 
 languid though it be. 
 
 The Papoose's Cradle 
 
 In these days of luxurious hard roads, as you 
 guide your flivver or touring car out via East 
 Court street, intent on joining the throng of 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 201 
 
 speed-bugs that infest the Dixie Highway, 
 with no very well defined idea as to where you 
 are going, or what you are going to do, other 
 than that you are going to show your heels to 
 the bunch and cut her loose, let us urge you 
 to pause for a moment in your mad flight and 
 turn to the left into one of the dirt roads out 
 beyond the bridge. This road will bring yoi* 
 soon to the south bank of the river, a delight- 
 ful drive, fringed with the fast thinning rem- 
 nants of the forest primeval. Up near the old 
 Ichabod Stoddard farm, which is now the 
 Legris place, some little distance this side of 
 where the Dixie makes its turn along the river 
 bank towards Momence, is to be seen a huge 
 water elm, situated well down the bank and 
 close to the water. This tree is not only beauti- 
 ful to behold, but has a history as well. It is 
 intimately associated, historically, with the 
 tribe of Pottawattomie Indians, who originally 
 occupied the land before and during the occu- 
 pancy of the first white settlers. 
 
 The infant son of a chief having died, his 
 body was placed, according to an Indian cus- 
 tom, in a portion of a log hollowed out, the 
 opening covered securely with a slab of bark, 
 tied down with rawhide thongs and stout 
 
202 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 withes, after which it was slung high up among 
 the branches of this noble old elm. There, in 
 his aerie sepulcher, this little scion of savage 
 royalty slept the years away, his rude cradle 
 rocked by the winds, while the Indian moons 
 waxed and waned and the years slipped silently 
 one by one from the hand of The Great Spirit 
 into the stream of time, even as the leaves put 
 forth and mirrored the loveliness of the passing 
 seasons with their green and crimson and gold, 
 in the placid bosom of the Kankakee, only to 
 fall at last and be borne out forever and aye 
 beyond mortal ken. 
 
 In springtime the birds built their nests in 
 the heavy foliage, and here in the long, dreamy, 
 summer days, from high up among the top- 
 most boughs, they sang their sweetest songs; 
 and sweeter still, perhaps, if you had but 
 listened, was the song of the south wind amid 
 the leafage — not a song, exactly, but some- 
 thing like the crooning of a lullaby, soft and 
 low and sweet and comforting, such as only a 
 mother sings to the babe on her breast. There 
 were times, so many of the early settlers around 
 Momence say, when the old chief and his 
 squaw, who had been thus bereft, would wend 
 their way in moody silence to the old elm that 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE WS 
 
 stands by the river and there indulge in lamen- 
 tations wild and weird, after which they would 
 sit within the widespreading shade with 
 blankets closely drawn over their heads, and the 
 body of the squaw would move rhythmically, 
 like a flower before the wind, while the old 
 chief smoked his calumet stolidly, and no word 
 did they speak, one to another, while thus they 
 sat with their dead. 
 
 And there came, at last, a day when these 
 children of the woods and plains, warriors and 
 old men, the lame, the halt and the blind, with 
 their worldly possessions, a motely group, 
 heavy of heart and sad, set out on the long 
 journey for their new home at Council Bluffs, 
 Iowa, many suns distant, because the great 
 white father had so willed. That day the old 
 Cradle Elm was visited again and all the 
 strange ceremonials of grief and mourning 
 were re-enacted, and it was with steps that 
 faltered and eyes that turned longingly back 
 as they moved away, and the old elm waved a 
 farewell to them until the vast prairie stretches 
 intervened and swallowed them, and down in 
 the rugged heart of it there was a thrill and a 
 shudder at the tragedy of it all. 
 
 An Indian, among other peculiar ideas con- 
 
204 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 cerning his origin, believes that his physical 
 being is somehow closely related to the soil 
 whereon he was born. He feels that he is a 
 part of it, hence, there is a deep feeling of at- 
 tachment for the land where his forebears have 
 hunted and fished and held their council fires. 
 So deeply is this feeling implanted, so strong 
 the yearning for the old associations, that for 
 many years after their removal to the lands at 
 Council Bluffs many, at various times, found 
 their way back on foot, and among them were 
 those who sought out the old Cradle Elm, 
 where, high in the upper branches, the queer 
 wooden receptacle and its precious dust still 
 swung to and fro, rocked by the hand of the 
 Great Spirit, while the south winds crooned 
 ever so softly. 
 
 For many years the body of the Indian babe 
 in its primitive log casket swung in the tree- 
 top by the river's side, a familiar object to all 
 the old settlers of the countryside. It remained 
 until long after the visits of the red man had 
 ceased, and then one day it disappeared — just 
 when, and how, no one seems to know. It may 
 have become a part of mother earth about the 
 tree, or it may have been caught on the gently 
 moving current of the river and borne away in 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 205 
 
 quest of that glorious land of Indian dreams — 
 the happy hunting ground. But the old elm 
 still stands serene, dignified, majestic, as if 
 glorying in its stewardship and the memory of 
 the affection of a vanished race. And there are 
 those who say that even now, along in the late 
 days of October, when the pale green of the 
 forest has turned to crimson and gold and the 
 corn shocks loom like Indian wigwams in the 
 blue haze, which is nothing more than the smoke 
 from the peace-pipes of the departed in the 
 spirit-land wafted back to earth, there is a new 
 song of the south wind in the old tree's top 
 which is neither lullaby nor direful lamenta- 
 tion, but a chant of welcome and recognition 
 to old familiar forms. 
 
 The Coming Together of the 76th Regiment 
 and Tommy Gorman 
 
 Do you remember old Tommy Gorman, who, 
 in the days of the Civil War, used to run a fruit 
 stand at 248 South East avenue, this side of 
 the old Exchange Hotel? Well, maybe, like 
 myself, you were too young to remember much 
 of what happened to Tommy the day the old 
 Seventy-sixth Regiment was mustered into 
 service and entrained for the south, and that is 
 
206 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 why, in all probability, you will enjoy hearing 
 about it now. English capital paid for it, but 
 the muscle and brawn of the Emerald Isle 
 built the Illinois Central into Kankakee in 
 1853, and Tommy Gorman was one of them. 
 Even though he was of the virile, "red-shirted" 
 variety, who smoked his stubby clay pipe bot- 
 tom-side up and, next to a drink, liked a fight 
 better than anything else, somewhere back 
 along the trail of the ages the genealogical line 
 of the Gormans must have been crossed by a 
 strain of Sicilian or Italian or some other fruit- 
 vending race, otherwise, why would Tommy 
 abandon the shovel and the pick to peddle fruit? 
 Answer me that. But this is not an auto- 
 biography — merely a tale of how Company H 
 mixed it with Tommy on that eventful day 
 back in August, 1862. 
 
 Old Tommy got the jolt of his life that day, 
 and for the first time in his career came to know 
 by downright experience that, though he was 
 a citizen of a country where "free speech" was 
 a guaranteed birthright, there were times when 
 it was the part of wisdom to be silent. For 
 reasons which no one ever took the trouble to 
 investigate, Tommy Gorman sympathized with 
 the South. Generally, after some news from 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 207 
 
 the front that announced disaster to the Union 
 cause, Tommy would be heard from. He 
 seemed to swell up with pride and beam with a 
 sense of satisfaction that at last became so in- 
 tolerable to the loyal citizenry that it began to 
 be freely hinted that someone ought to "put a 
 head on him." "Putting a head on him" was 
 the mild slang of that day for what we would 
 now term "beating him up." But what was 
 everybody's business was, in reality, nobody's 
 business, and the much-talked of "someone" 
 who was to deal out the long-merited chastise- 
 ment never materialized, and the upshot of it 
 was that Tommy pursued the even tenor of his 
 way with a growing confidence in his ability to 
 say disagreeable, irritating things and get away 
 with it all. 
 
 All went well with him until that fateful day 
 when the old Seventy-sixth Regiment, march- 
 ing down from the Fair Grounds, marched by 
 his place on the avenue to entrain at the Illinois 
 Central depot, which was then at Station street. 
 As Company H, Captain Plummer in com- 
 mand, drew near the place at 248, there was a 
 sudden "right about, face," a sudden dissolving 
 of the ranks and, losing all semblance of order, 
 the men swarmed over that fruit stand of Gor- 
 
208 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 man's like ants over an ant-hill. What they 
 did not do to the place might be a proper sub- 
 ject for further narrative. If they left any- 
 thing undone it was because they were in a 
 hurry and overlooked it. Every atom of stock 
 in the house was appropriated or destroyed on 
 the spot, furniture was broken, the front win- 
 dows knocked out, and the place invested with 
 a general air of desolation. Tommy made a 
 fortunate and timely get-away via the back 
 door, and the boys who watched his precipitate 
 flight say that he covered the several hundred 
 yards from his back door to the adjacent tim- 
 ber "in just nothin', flat." When, several hours 
 later, he ventured back, after Company H had 
 gone, he stepped high and cautiously, like a cat 
 that has had experience with high explosives. 
 Accounts vary as to just what happened on 
 this particular morning to disturb the equa- 
 nimity of the boys of Company H. Some have 
 it that, as the boys were passing Gorman's 
 place, he so forgot himself as to "Hurrah for 
 Jeff Davis!" By others it is said that the boys 
 had entrained, and the Illinois Central, in lieu 
 of coaches, had proivded a train of flat cars, 
 with ties, placed one upon the other, for seats, 
 and that while awaiting the signal to pull out, 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 209 
 
 someone made his way to the waiting train and 
 told of Gorman's seditious utterances. How- 
 ever that may have been, all accounts as to 
 what happened agree perfectly and in every 
 detail. That first skirmish of the Seventy-sixth 
 had the effect of making a pretty good citizen 
 out of Tommy, and long years after, now and 
 then one of the boys who had helped to take the 
 place apart, would stop and buy something and 
 ruminate on that incident of long ago. But 
 Tommy, they say, never did get over it alto- 
 gether, and always the measured tread of feet 
 on the walk outside made him nervous and un- 
 easy and inspired within him a fear of the Lord. 
 
 The Coming of the First Buggy to 
 Kankakee County 
 
 Along in the year 1839, "Uncle Jimmie" 
 Van Meter and his wife, "Aunt Lucinda," as 
 they were later affectionately termed by the 
 settlers on the Kankakee, Mrs. Van Meter, at 
 the time of her arrival in the country being only 
 a bride of a few months, made their way here 
 from Circleville, Ohio, and settled on land be- 
 yond Davis creek, near the Bourbonnais road. 
 Mr. VanMeter soon came to realize the won- 
 derful possibilities of the new situation in the 
 
310 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 Indian reservation lands lying along the beauti- 
 ful Kankakee, and set to work acquiring as 
 much of it as possible. Mrs. VanMeter did 
 not, at that time, share the enthusiasm of her 
 husband. Pioneer life, with its privations and 
 hardships, was not so much the cause of her 
 discontent, as was the fact that her nearest 
 neighbors were the Pottawattomie Indians, 
 whose tepees thickly dotted the woodland lying 
 along the river in what is today known as the 
 Cooper farm. "Aunt Lucinda" loved her 
 spouse with all that deep devotion which 
 woman gives to the one of her choice, but the 
 deadly monotony of life on the vast, unoccu- 
 pied prairie, the long days without companion- 
 ship, the brooding silence which bore down on 
 the little log-cabin home, set amid surroundings 
 without one familiar object, except it might be 
 the all-embracing canopy of Heaven, inspired 
 her with a homesickness that grew and became 
 more acute with the passing days. From time 
 to time she petitioned her energetic spouse to 
 let go and make a trip back to the old home in 
 Pickaway county, in God's country, where she 
 could once more behold familiar faces, only to 
 be put off by the extreme urgency of work that 
 pressed on all sides. So, spring drifted into 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 211 
 
 summer, and the summer by slow degrees gave 
 way to early fall and, so far as she could see, he 
 was busier than ever and the prospect of going 
 home as remote as ever. By this time she had 
 developed a condition of mind bordering on 
 desperation. She met him one day with an 
 ultimatum, the gist of which was that she was 
 going back if she had to walk! 
 
 It was then it dawned on "Uncle Jimmie" 
 that there are times in the life of womankind 
 when an ultimatum is just exactly what the 
 label reads, and so with an air of graciousness 
 he resigned himself to the inevitable, while the 
 little wife smiled amid her tears with a light- 
 ness of heart she had not known in months. It 
 was decided that they would make the trip on 
 horseback, and accordingly, one day, a week 
 later, after having partaken of their dinner, 
 they made fast the door of their cabin home and 
 mounted their horses, with such articles as were 
 needed for the journey stowed away in saddle- 
 bags. They made their way out over the old 
 Indian trail, the remains of which one may see 
 to this day, deep in the woods of the Cooper 
 farm. The hard maples were gorgeous in their 
 autumnal colorings, and here and there through 
 an opening in the woods lay the placid river of 
 
212 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 the Kankakee like a ribbon of blue on the 
 bosom of the prairie. The scenes on the Kanka- 
 kee to this day are most beautiful to look upon. 
 What must they have been before the devastat- 
 ing hand of civilization fell upon them? They 
 followed the winding way of the old "Indian 
 Trail," crossing the river at Waldron at the 
 old Schobar ford, and continued on the trail 
 until they reached old "Bunkum," on the Iro- 
 quois. From there they struck in a south- 
 easterly direction for LaFayette, Ind., reach- 
 ing the place after several days' travel. They 
 stopped at the home of a sister of Mrs. Van- 
 Meter, who resided in LaFayette, and that 
 lady was astounded at the thought of her young 
 sister making the long trip from the Illinois 
 country to her home in Circleville, Ohio, on 
 horseback. The hardships of travel by this 
 means were already telling heavily against her, 
 and the sister went after "Uncle Jimmie" in a 
 most vigorous fashion in an effort to convince 
 him that his spouse should be provided with 
 some more comfortable means of conveyance 
 for the remainder of the trip. 
 
 "Uncle Jimmie" seems to have been duly im- 
 pressed with the arguments advanced and, 
 after looking about in LaFayette, fell in with 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 213 
 
 a man who was building a buggy. He at once 
 entered into negotiations with the builder for 
 the purchase of the buggy, but was obliged to 
 defer his trip for ten days while the man fin- 
 ished the job and applied a single coat of paint. 
 He purchased harness for the horses, hitched 
 them to the vehicle, and, thus equipped, he and 
 his bride made the remainder of the trip in 
 luxurious ease. They spent the winter in Ohio 
 and the following spring, which was the spring 
 of 1840, the bride having, in the interval spent 
 with her people, regained her wonted cheerful- 
 ness, set out over the prairie trail for the hum- 
 ble cabin home on the edge of the wood, near 
 the Kankakee, with the team and buggy. 
 There are events in the lives of all of us that 
 are hallowed, and cherished with a fondness 
 and depth of feeling that time cannot quite 
 efface, and shadowy tradition has it that this 
 old-time couple, then in the hey-day of youth, 
 in all the years that drifted by showering them 
 with their gifts, nothing ever surpassed the 
 perfect joy of that leisurely trip home as they 
 made their way across prairies that glowed 
 with the first touch of spring; through forests 
 awakening under the urge of its latent life and 
 resonant with the welcoming songs of the birds ; 
 
214 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 for "Uncle Jimmie" and "Aunt Lucinda" were 
 something more than pioneers — they were lov- 
 ers, and their hearts were made light and joy- 
 ous as the birds by whisperings of a supreme 
 joy, which the future held, when they would 
 welcome an additional member to the little 
 family circle. 
 
 This buggy which "Uncle Jimmie' ' and 
 "Aunt Lucinda" used on their home-coming, 
 was the first that ever appeared within the con- 
 fines of Kankakee county. As they made their 
 way along the old Indian trail that wound in 
 and out among the sugar maples and drew near 
 to the camping site of the Pottawattomies on 
 the Cooper farm, the strange equipage was 
 viewed with consternation by the Indian chil- 
 dren and with well defined surprise and inter- 
 est by the braves and squaws who, later, when 
 they found it was none other than "Uncle Jim- 
 mie" and his wife, fairly overwhelmed them 
 with their inquisitiveness. That buggy was a 
 wonderful thing to Indian and white man alike 
 and even the French-Canadian, at sight of this 
 most unusual vehicle, forgot his greeting of 
 "Bo' jou'," and stared until it was out of sight. 
 
 Later, when Noel LeVasseur dissolved the 
 marital relations that bound him to the Pot- 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 215 
 
 tawattomie squaw, "Watch-e-kee," and sold 
 thirty- seven acres of the woodland of the pres- 
 ent Cooper farm to VanMeter, he received 
 therefor six hundred dollars in cash, a wagon 
 and team of horses, an ox-cart and yoke of 
 oxen and the famous buggy. And all this he, 
 in turn, gave to "Watch-e-kee," his squaw- 
 wife, as compensation for relinquishing her 
 rights as his wife. Some time later, in 1841, or 
 thereabouts, many of the Pottawattomies were 
 transferred to the new reservation near Coun- 
 cil Bluffs, Iowa, and among them went 
 "Watch-e-kee" and her three sons. It was a 
 sorrowful day at the old camping ground in the 
 woods by the river. There was the sound of 
 lamentation among these children of the forest 
 that began with the rising of the sun on that 
 fateful day, and continued without cessation 
 until the savage cavalcade had moved out and 
 away into the distant reaches of the prairie. 
 There were old men and braves astride their 
 ponies, squaws toiling along on foot, children 
 ranging far and wide with bows and arrows 
 looking for game and filling the air with their 
 childish clamor. About the last to leave the 
 grove and become a part of this motley proces- 
 sion came "Watch-e-kee," clad in all the sav- 
 
216 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 age finery at her command and seated in regal 
 splendor in the buggy — the first that ever came 
 to Kankakee county, and, without doubt, the 
 first that ever made the trip to the then distant 
 land of western Iowa. And thus passed 
 "Watch-e-kee" and the first buggy into the 
 land of the setting sun. 
 
 "For They Were Jolly Good Fellows" 
 
 There is a well authenticated legend which 
 links the names of two old-time Pottawattomie 
 chiefs in rather an unusual and interesting 
 manner. They were Shaw-was-ke-suk, "The 
 White Pigeon," located over in the timber in 
 the neighborhood of Morocco, Indiana, and old 
 chief "Mo-men-ce," whose people, in the early 
 days, were located on the Kankakee river in 
 what is now known as Momence and Ganeer 
 townships. Of all the vices of the white man 
 to which the Indian fell heir, there was one 
 which he adopted with an enthusiasm and spon- 
 taneity as remarkable as it was deplorable, 
 and that was the white man's "fire-water." 
 
 These two old cronies would get along very 
 nicely for several moons following the straight 
 and narrow path of rectitude and sobriety, un- 
 til the urge to "get off the wagon," (as they 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 217 
 
 say in this day) , and quaff of the cup that 
 cheers, became too strong and insistent to be 
 successfully resisted without too much anguish 
 of spirit. At such times a runner would be 
 dispatched by old Momence to White Pigeon's 
 camp, summoning him to tribal headquarters 
 on the Kankakee. White Pigeon, thus sum- 
 moned, always responded, and, in the course of 
 a day or so, would appear with his favorite 
 squaw, clad in the regal habiliments of a forest 
 monarch, and there, during the more or less 
 protracted season of chief Momence's debauch, 
 was vested with authority to administer the af- 
 fairs of the tribe, with none to say him nay, and 
 at the same time he kept "cases" on his brother 
 monarch. 
 
 There is an old saying "that one good turn 
 deserves another." These old boys, perhaps, 
 were not up on old sayings and things like that, 
 but, nevertheless, they practiced the spirit of 
 them, so, therefore, when a messenger from 
 White Pigeon suddenly appeared in old Mo- 
 mence's domain, with a request for the chief's 
 presence, by that token he knew that White 
 Pigeon had come to the end of his tether ; that 
 the thirst was active, and that it was not hu- 
 manly possible for him to hold out against the 
 
218 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 lure of the fire-water for long. And he, in 
 turn, appeared duly in White Pigeon's village, 
 adorned with all the savage splendor at his 
 command and, on taking over the reins of gov- 
 ernment, doubtless gave him a reassuring 
 thump on the back, with the admonition: "Go 
 to it, old kid; you know me — go as far as you 
 like." 
 
 In the case of the visiting potentate, who 
 thus succeeded temporarily as the administra- 
 tive head, a rigid abstemiousness was always 
 observed, and there is no single instance re- 
 corded in the traditional annals of these two, 
 that friendship was ever j eopardized by a lapse 
 of conduct on the part of the one thus entrusted 
 with the administration of tribal affairs, what- 
 ever his predilection for fire-water may have 
 been. Though his mouth may have watered, 
 and dripped profusely at the prospect, yet he 
 held his yearnings well in hand, and with a firm 
 grip. And, in this respect, he had it on his 
 white brother, in a very noticeable degree. 
 
 And White Pigeon did know old Momence 
 for a "Jolly Good Fellow," one that he could 
 tie to, and, without a thought for the future, 
 and without one disturbing qualm of con- 
 science, he joyously laid aside the affairs of 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 219 
 
 state and, while the family, warned by these 
 significant portents, withdrew to hibernate for 
 a season in the underbrush, or the tall timber, 
 White Pigeon went out and "got a beautiful 
 bun on," and made the welkin howl. 
 
 There is a wise old saw which says that "The 
 good is oft interred with the bones." But tales 
 of human weaknesses, apparently, never die, 
 but live on and on in the ghostly half-lights of 
 tradition, from generation to generation 
 "To point a moral or adorn a tale." 
 
 A Tale of Old Kankakee 
 
 In the historical annals of Kankakee, that 
 is to say, in the unwritten lore of early days 
 that lingers still in the memory of the older in- 
 habitants of the city, you will now and then 
 find that mention is made of one John Chest- 
 nut, once a resident of the city, who was looked 
 upon in the light of a "bad man" generally. It 
 is not to be gathered from this that he was a 
 "gun-man," or one who delighted in disturbing 
 the peace of the community, as a reason for 
 applying to him the sobriquet of "bad-man." 
 In many respects he was likable, and of a 
 superior type. But he was a drinker of strong 
 liquor, a scoffer of the faith that man has in 
 
220 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 Deity and of those institutions which reflect 
 the efforts of the better element of society to 
 build up and maintain a superior moral tone 
 in a community. In short, his profession was 
 that of a gambler. He was skilful, astute and 
 nervy, and in the numerous encounters of that 
 day, many of his adversaries in the game, after 
 pitting their wit and skill against his, came 
 sooner or later to acknowledge the superiority 
 of his skill or his luck. He was looked upon as 
 a "square" player but, somehow, his success 
 was proverbial. He wore fine linen and equal- 
 ly fine raiment, as is the custom of the frater- 
 nity, and these were the envy of the younger 
 stratum of society whose contributions to the 
 god of chance made much of this possible. 
 
 In time John Chestnut became deeply en- 
 amoured of a certain young woman of 
 the city, whose name is not necessary to the 
 story, but she looked upon him coldly, and 
 with a lofty scorn, and not the least scintilla 
 of encouragement did she ever extend to him. 
 The failure of his efforts affected him deeply. 
 He grew moody, and immersed himself deeply 
 in the cup that sometimes cheers, but which 
 more often brings forgetfulness. He developed 
 also an insidious malady which slowly but sure- 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 221 
 
 ly sapped his strength, so that friends from 
 day to day noted an increasing pallor of 
 the countenance and a slowing down of move- 
 ment very unusual for John Chestnut. As time 
 wore on he was missed at times from his usual 
 haunts, and at last, after many weeks and 
 months, he took to his bed, and the grim spec- 
 tre, death, also took up his abode there in the 
 chamber of the dying. In vain he looked to 
 the attending physician for some word of hope. 
 He grew constantly weaker until, at last, there 
 came a night when his premonitory sixth sense 
 indicated that the end was not far off. It was 
 then that a strange calmness of spirit and res- 
 ignation to his impending fate succeeded the 
 impatience and irritability of months of illness. 
 It was then that this man of the world sur- 
 prised those in attendance at his bedside, by 
 expressing the wish that a minister of the gos- 
 pel be with him in his last hours, although he 
 felt that it was asking much of those towards 
 whom he had shown so much indifference dur- 
 ing his lifetime. In fact, he doubted whether 
 there was one who would respond in the hour 
 of his dire need. Dr. Joseph H. Barnard, fa- 
 ther of George Barnard, the eminent sculptor, 
 whom many of the older residents remember, 
 
222 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 responded to the call of the dying man and, 
 during the hours of that last night on earth, 
 while life ebbed slowly away, brought to the 
 broken and penitent gambler such consolation 
 as only the Gospel can give, aided by the minis- 
 trations of a kindly, sympathetic soul, thor- 
 oughly imbued with the teachings of Christ. 
 
 Among those in attendance at the bedside 
 that night, was Lawyer Lake. Now, Lawyer 
 Lake, if you recall, was a unique character. 
 On days when he appeared in court the people 
 flocked thither to be thrilled by the power of 
 his eloquence, or amused and diverted by his 
 humor, which was keen, spontaneous, irresisti- 
 ble. But, on this night in the death chamber, 
 under the spell which the proximity of death 
 always inspires, the watchers were seized with 
 mild consternation when the dying man re- 
 quested that someone sing one of the old songs. 
 
 There was an awkward pause, a looking 
 from one to another and then Lawyer Lake, 
 straightening up, sang that old hymn dear to 
 the heart of the pioneer — 
 
 "On the other side of Jordan, in the sweet fields of Eden, 
 There is rest for the weary; there is rest for you." 
 
 It was as if he had felt the urge of some 
 sudden inspiration, for he sang it with such a 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 223 
 
 depth of feeling and sympathetic tenderness, 
 investing the old melody with such a quality 
 of simple sweetness, that every one of that little 
 company was moved to acknowledge its subtle 
 appeal with tears that coursed freely down 
 their cheeks. 
 
 In the gray dawn of that morning, as the 
 watchers passed out of the little room, one by 
 one they looked upon him whom death had 
 touched after many months of weariness and 
 suffering and, behold, the features of the gam- 
 bler, now strangely white and composed, 
 showed no trace either of weariness or pain; 
 only an expression of profound peace, as 
 though the angel in that last great moment may 
 have whispered: "His peace I give unto you." 
 And in the days that followed, when weeks 
 and months had slipped away into the stream 
 of forgetfulness, there were times when, in the 
 recollection of the watchers at that bedside, 
 there arose visions of a gentle, gray-haired 
 man of God, who spoke comfortingly, and of 
 still another who sang most sweetly the while 
 tears coursed down his cheeks. And at such 
 times the subconscious being thrilled gently 
 with the accents of an old, old melody, strange- 
 ly sweet, like when idle ringers strum the 
 
224 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 strings of a guitar, awakening familiar strains 
 as if by chance. 
 
 After many, many years, though he who 
 sang so sweetly has long since gone to his re- 
 ward, yet, there is one — the one who gave me 
 the story — to whom the insistent sweetness of 
 that old melody brings back the night, and the 
 hour, and all that happened therein, and awak- 
 ens a feeling akin to tears when memory for- 
 mulates the words of that stately old hymn : 
 
 "On the other side of Jordan, in the sweet fields of Eden, 
 There is rest for the weary; there is rest for you." 
 
 Outliving a Shroud 
 
 The spring of 1846 was long remembered 
 by the settlers who lived along the Kankakee 
 and on the edge of that vast, unoccupied coun- 
 try which stretched interminably to the south 
 and west, called "Grand Prairie," for that was 
 the year of the rains. Rain fell almost con- 
 stantly until sloughs, and swales, and every de- 
 pression in the prairie wilderness, were filled 
 to overflowing with water. There was no 
 drainage in that day, and water thus deposited, 
 laid there and, under the rays of the hot, sum- 
 mer sun, became stagnant and foul with vege- 
 tation that steamed and rotted, filling the air 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 225 
 
 with noisome, reeking vapors that became a 
 serious menace to the health of the wilderness 
 dweller. It was in August of that year, sev- 
 enty-six years ago, that James Powell and his 
 son, Elias, the latter, then ten years of age, 
 while engaged in threshing grain on the farm 
 in Limestone, were taken suddenly ill. It was 
 with great difficulty that they made their way 
 home. The nearest physician was Dr. Russell, 
 located at Bourbonnais, and he was immedi- 
 ately summoned. On his arrival he found the 
 boy Elias, unconscious, and the father with a 
 raging fever and delirious. The malady was 
 diagnosed as bilious fever aggravated by ma- 
 larial conditions. The following day the fa- 
 ther lapsed into unconsciousness and continued 
 in that condition for nine days, or until the 
 12th of August, when he died. 
 
 The boy Elias, in the meantime unconscious, 
 had been removed to the loft of the log house. 
 His case was looked upon as hopeless, even 
 as that of his father. On the afternoon of the 
 day his father was buried, he opened his eyes, 
 and for the first time recognized his surround- 
 ings, and apparently the fever had left him as 
 suddenly as it had come upon him. Through 
 the open window in the cabin loft he chanced 
 
226 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 to see, in the road, the slowly moving funeral 
 cortege returning from the cemetery where the 
 remains of his father had been laid away, and, 
 turning to the lady who sat by his bedside, he 
 recognized Mrs. Hawker, a neighbor, of whom 
 he asked what it all meant. She told him of 
 his father's death, and that the procession he 
 beheld on the road were those returning from 
 the burial over in the Hawkins cemetery. Lit- 
 tle by little she told him of the days he had laid 
 unconscious and how hopeless seemed the pros- 
 pect of his recovery. From that time on, how- 
 ever, he gained rapidly in strength and, some 
 weeks later, when he was quite himself again, 
 his mother showed him the shroud that had 
 been prepared for him by neighborly hands to 
 meet the great emergency which seemed in- 
 evitable and which he had so miraculously es- 
 caped. In that far-off day, seventy-five years 
 ago, the lack of the funeral director was sup- 
 plied by the kindly ministrations of neighbors. 
 It was the custom of that day, when preparing 
 a body for burial, to envelop it in a shroud of 
 white or black. The messenger dispatched to 
 Wilmington to procure the material for the 
 father's shroud was admonished to bring 
 enough white muslin to be used in making a 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 227 
 
 shroud for the boy Elias, for our old-time 
 friends who lived so far from the source of 
 things, were thus obliged to submerge senti- 
 ment and make use of opportunity. 
 
 This gruesome funereal relic was kept by 
 Mr. Powell for many, many years, in fact, for 
 more than a half century, when it, too, along 
 with those who fashioned it, passed on and into 
 the land of forgetfulness. Just what the end 
 of the shroud was, he cannot clearly recall to- 
 day. After seventy-six years, however, mem- 
 ory now and then reverts to the incident of the 
 shroud, and at such times the mind dwells on 
 the mystery of fate which, like a thread, is 
 strangely and inextricably mingled in the web 
 of life. And life thus hedged about by that 
 strange, immutable influence, smiles now and 
 then at thought of the grim reaper, as though 
 they might be on terms of mutual understand- 
 ing, and even laughs at the shortened vision of 
 those who labored sorrowfully and tearfully 
 the while they made a shroud, yet took no note 
 of fate. 
 
 "Myself when young did eagerly frequent 
 Doctor and saint, and heard great argument ; 
 About it and about: but evermore 
 Came out by the same door wherein I went." 
 
LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 In the Good Old Days of the Ox Team 
 
 How would you like to go back to the days 
 of driving oxen over raw prairie trails, instead 
 of roads, where the distance from home to your 
 best market ranged anywhere from ten to forty 
 miles, and when a ten-dollar bill, given in ex- 
 change for a load of oats, was a thing impres- 
 sive in its enormity to the youthful mind ? And, 
 speaking of oxen, the motive power of old pio- 
 neer days, how would you ever hook up a yoke 
 of oxen, anyway ? You young men who are so 
 expert when it comes to starting an automo- 
 bile, what would you do were it left to you to 
 start a pair of bulls, once you got them hooked 
 up? Would you talk to them, or beat them on 
 the head, or on the back ? We ask the question 
 because it seems pertinent to the subject of 
 "bulls" in general, and more particularly when 
 one tries to drive them. And stopping them, 
 once you got them in motion, is another deli- 
 cate and tactful operation requiring an intimate 
 knowledge of the slow-moving mental process- 
 es of the ox, especially if it is meant to stop at 
 some certain, particular spot, in which event 
 stopping operations must be timed in advance, 
 something like the time-fuse on a bomb. 
 
 Our well known townsman, Mr. Elias Pow- 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 329 
 
 ell, in his youthful pioneer days down on the 
 Powell farm, on the south bank of the Kan- 
 kakee river, was an expert handler of oxen 
 while still but a slip of a boy. The death of 
 his father shifted the cares and responsibilities 
 of man's estate onto his youthful shoulders, and 
 it was while making a trip to old Middleport, 
 near Watseka, Iroquois county, where, in that 
 day, the probate court was located, that he fell 
 in with one Bissette, a Frenchman, living on 
 the old Belgian farm in Chebanse township, 
 who was the owner of a fine yoke of rangy, 
 black oxen. How the youthful Powell cov- 
 eted that big pair of fast-walking blacks ! But 
 the price! Ah, yes, the price — that was a real 
 obstacle; he asked fifty dollars for them and 
 no argument would avail to make him throw 
 off a cent. And when you want a thing, and 
 the other fellow is meaner than pusley and 
 won't concede a thing, and the deal languishes, 
 it is then the situation is summed up in the po- 
 lite, diplomatic language of today, as an "im- 
 passe." But in the vernacular of the woods of 
 the time of Mr. Powell, seventy-five years ago, 
 it was "just hell," that's all. 
 
 Well, to make a long story short, Mr. Pow- 
 ell, with the help of his mother, succeeded fin- 
 
LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 ally in landing the oxen, and Bissette got his 
 price. He tells us that for instinct, intelligence 
 and all-around sagacity, as applied to the prac- 
 tical affairs of that far-off day, these oxen had 
 the average high- school graduate of the pres- 
 ent day backed up in a corner and hanging over 
 the ropes weak and groggy. We have read 
 with much interest the writings of that emi- 
 nent Frenchman, J. H. Fabre, on the instinct 
 quality of insects and animals, only to have his 
 observations fully corroborated in detail by 
 the practical observations of Mr. Powell. 
 
 Along in the late forties, long before the 
 coming of the Illinois Central railroad, oxen 
 were quite generally used by the settlers on 
 the prairie. The market for most of the pro- 
 duce of the Powell farm was at Joliet, some 
 thirty miles away. The grain was sacked and 
 loaded onto the wagon the night before, and, 
 in the early morning, while yet the stars shone 
 brightly and the moon hung low in the west, 
 this crack ox team of the Powell ranch was 
 hitched to the load, with the boy Elias in 
 charge. A short distance from the home the 
 Kankakee river was crossed at what was known 
 the country over as "Reed's Ford," situated 
 near the present Warner bridge, and once 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 231 
 
 across the river the trail led off into an intermi- 
 nable expanse of prairie to the north. Young 
 Powell was a boy just like any other boy, and 
 the expedients he made use of to relieve the 
 tedium of slow-going travel were pretty much 
 the same as any boy would have made use of. 
 He would talk to the cattle in an encouraging 
 vein; flick a horse-fly or "green-head" off their 
 necks with the long lash of his whip (and he 
 was an expert in this, too) ; take note for a 
 while of the doings of the varied folk who in- 
 habited the prairie, imitating the meadow-larks 
 and breaking up many a confab of red- winged 
 blackbirds with his shrill whistle. Then, as the 
 day wore on, and the sun grew hotter, he was 
 conscious of a growing drowsiness, made all 
 the more acute by the vast, undulating ex- 
 panses of the prairie and the steady thud of the 
 wagon wheels on the trail until, at last, this 
 human atom would topple over on the sacks 
 sound asleep — dead to the world— while the 
 ox team plodded on and seemed scarcely to 
 move. 
 
 With an early morning start he was often 
 enabled to make Joliet by three o'clock in the 
 afternoon. On many occasions, after unload- 
 ing the grain, he would head the oxen on the 
 
LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 back trail. On the homeward-bound trips he 
 invariably laid down in the wagon bed, and 
 such was the susceptibility of youth and the 
 abounding health of life in the open, on the 
 prairies, that he slept soundly and undisturbed 
 until the oxen reached the hill going down to 
 the river. At this juncture he always roused 
 up as the cattle wended their way down hill to 
 the ford. The fording place was a sort of cres- 
 cent of limestone in the bed of the river with 
 deep water on either side of it, but such was the 
 unerring instinct of the animals that, whenever 
 left to their own resources, they invariably 
 sought out the right place and took themselves 
 and the wagon safely over. Mr. Powell says 
 that on many occasions he would get up and 
 watch them, never saying a word, as they made 
 their way slowly but surely over the curve of 
 the ford and up the bank of the opposite side. 
 Generally, he says, he laid down in the wagon 
 again and took up his slumber where he left 
 off, when the fording of the river had been ac- 
 complished, and often the oxen, after reaching 
 the neighborhod of the old Nichols school 
 house, sensing their proximity to home, would 
 stop and feed in the dead of night and by the 
 light of the stars. 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 233 
 
 And young Mr. Powell, instead of spending 
 a portion of the ten-dollars he got for a load of 
 oats, at eighteen to twenty cents a bushel, for a 
 meal at some cafe, assuaged the pangs of hun- 
 ger by absorbing large sandwiches of Johnny- 
 cake whose interiors were decorated with gen- 
 erous slices of salt-pork, put up at home. These 
 he washed down with water gotten from some 
 slough, or by means of a hollow reed which he 
 thrust into some crawfish hole on the prairie, 
 just like a real "Sucker," one to the manor 
 born. People were not so fussy in those days ; 
 in fact, it was so long before the germ theory 
 had been evolved that Mr. Powell, thanks to 
 the simple lif e, got such a fine start on the way 
 to health that he has been enabled to maintain 
 it even to this day. Wheat in that day used to 
 sell for 35 cents a bushel, and sometimes, in 
 order to get two cents per bushel additional, 
 he would haul the grain five miles farther, to 
 Lockport. A good, prime steer in that day 
 used to bring ten dollars, but it had to be a 
 good one, and about the scarcest thing in the 
 pioneer universe of that day was money that 
 could be depended upon to be worth anywhere 
 near one hundred cents on the dollar after you 
 once got home with it. 
 
234 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 Hubbard's Fight with Chief "Yellow Head" 
 
 The old Pottawattomie chieftain, "Min-e- 
 mau-ung," (Yellow Hair) or Yellow Head, as 
 he was more generally known, and for whom 
 the north-easternmost township of Kankakee 
 county was named, had his village at Yellow 
 Head Point on what is now the Perry Stratton 
 farm. This land, a section in extent, was 
 awarded to him by the treaty of 1832, ratified 
 January 21, 1833. Such information as comes 
 down to us in this day regarding the old chief, 
 confirms the impression that he was a more 
 or less turbulent character and when under the 
 influence of the white man's "fire-water," a 
 fiend incarnate. The trader, Gurdon S. Hub- 
 bard, who knew the Indians of this section 
 well, has recorded in his memoirs, the details of 
 a personal encounter he had with "Min-e-mau- 
 ung" at his trading post on the Iroquois. This 
 fight took place in the early spring of 1827, 
 while Hubbard was convalescing from a se- 
 vere attack of rheumatism contracted while 
 hunting at Beaver Lake, only a few weeks be- 
 fore. His account of the battle follows. 
 
 "About six weeks after my attack of rheu- 
 matism I prepared to abandon my trading 
 house on the Iroquois and remove to Chicago, 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 235 
 
 but was compelled to wait for a band of In- 
 dians who owed me for goods and who had not 
 yet returned from their winter hunting 
 grounds. While thus delayed two white men 
 appeared with a pair of horses and a wagon 
 loaded with corn, corn meal, and whiskey. 
 Hearing that I was waiting for the Indians, 
 they decided to wait also and trade them whis- 
 key for furs, blankets, or anything else of value 
 which they might possess. I was unable to 
 walk without crutches, and scarcely able to 
 leave my bunk. I knew that if the Indians 
 were allowed to have the whiskey, trouble 
 would ensue, so I sent Noel LeVasseur to their 
 camp to ask one of the men to come and see 
 me. He soon came and I told him I did not 
 like to have him sell whiskey to the Indians, 
 and that he had no right to do so, as he had no 
 license from the government to trade with the 
 Indians. He replied that he had as much 
 right as I had, and that he should do as he 
 pleased. I warned him that the Indians would 
 become drunk, and then would rob, and proba- 
 bly murder them, but he refused to listen to me, 
 and returned to his camp. 
 
 I immediately stationed men to watch for the 
 coming of the Indians, and was soon informed 
 
LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 that Yellow Head and his band were at hand. 
 When they arrived I had a large kettle of corn 
 soup and other food ready for them, and as 
 soon as they had eaten, I took them into my 
 council room, traded for their furs, collected 
 what they owed me, and after giving each one a 
 gill of whiskey, dismissed them before the 
 strangers had learned of their arrival. The 
 Indians soon discovered the camp of the two 
 white men and commenced trading their blan- 
 kets and the goods they had just bought of me 
 for whiskey. I sent word to the men to leave, 
 and told them that as soon as the Indians got 
 drunk they would rob them of all they had sold 
 them, but they would not heed the message." 
 
 "As I had anticipated, the Indians soon be- 
 came drunk, and angry because they had noth- 
 ing more to trade and could get no more to 
 drink, and began to take back their blankets 
 and goods. The white men became very much 
 frightened, and came to me for assistance. I 
 refused to interfere, but sent Vasseur and 
 Jacques Jombeau to empty the remaining kegs 
 of whiskey, which they did. The Indians 
 scooped up the whiskey with their hands, and 
 became more drunk and more enraged, and 
 finally assaulted Jombeau, and stabbed him 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 267 
 
 in the back, though not severely. The In- 
 dians got back all they had sold, and the white 
 men made their escape with the horses and 
 wagon. The disturbance lasted all night. The 
 Indians came to my house and demanded more 
 whiskey, and were, of course, refused. They 
 all laid down and fell asleep, except Yellow 
 Head (a brother-in-law of Billy Caldwell), 
 who came several times to me, coaxing and 
 threatening me, but to no purpose. He finally 
 said he would go to my store, break in and 
 take as much as he wanted. I said: "Very 
 well, go on," and he started for the storehouse. 
 I got up from my bunk, took my rifle and 
 thrust it through the paper which served as 
 window glass, and as he reached the store, I 
 "drew a bead on him," and called to him to go 
 on and break in. He changed his mind and 
 walked away. 
 
 "I again lay down, and in a few minutes he 
 returned very angry, and walking up to my 
 bunk, drew a knife and attempted to stab me ; 
 but I was too quick for him, seized his arm, 
 and, lame as I was, jumped up, took the knife 
 away, and pushed him out of the door, where 
 I found some squaws who had been attracted 
 by the disturbance. Outside the door was a 
 
238 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 large mortar with a heavy iron-wood pestle, 
 which I used for pounding corn. I gave the 
 knife to a squaw, and leaned on one crutch 
 against the mortar with my hand on the pestle. 
 Yellow Head felt in his leggins for another 
 knife, when I said to the squaw, "Give the old 
 woman a knife." She did so, but Yellow 
 Head, looking at the pestle upon which my 
 hand rested, and doubtless remembering the 
 sudden manner in which I had before c is- 
 armed him, deemed 'discretion the better part 
 of valor,' and silently departed with the 
 squaws." 
 
 "The day following I started for Chicago, 
 leaving one of my men, Dominick Bray, by 
 name, in charge of the place, and to make a 
 garden and plant vegetables for the following 
 winter's use. Two or three days after my ar- 
 rival in Chicago, Bray appeared with the story 
 that Yellow Head had returned for revenge. 
 Bray was lying in his bunk, when Yellow Head 
 and two other Indians entered the house and 
 leveled their rifles at him. He jumped up and 
 ran by them out of the door, pulling it shut 
 just as they fired, and the bullets struck the 
 door through which he had escaped. Bray ran 
 into the woods, caught a horse and left for 
 
"WATCH-E-KEE" 
 
 THE POTTAWATTOMIE INDIAN PRINCESS, WHOSE FATHER 
 
 (NAME UNKNOWN), WAS CHIEF OF THE KANKAKEE BAND, 
 
 AND WHOSE MOTHER "MON-OS-KA," WAS OF THE TRTBE OF 
 
 THE "ILLINI," OR ILLINOIS. 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 239 
 
 Chicago. The Indians pillaged the house and 
 store, taking everything that had been left. 
 Other Indians warned me that Yellow Head 
 intended to kill me should he ever meet me 
 again, but before my return to the Iroquois, 
 he was killed in a drunken fight, and thus I was 
 saved from further trouble from him." 
 
 "Watch-e-kee's" Prophecy 
 Away back in the days when the great na- 
 tion of the Pottawattomie held peaceful sway 
 in the beautiful vale of the Kankakee, some- 
 where about the year 1810, historical tradition 
 records that, in one of the populous villages, 
 situated on the Iroquois river, on the present 
 site of the town of that name, was born 
 "Watch-e-kee," child of the Evening Star. 
 Nothing is known definitely as to her ancestry 
 except that she was a niece of the powerful 
 chief Tam-a-een. The old squaws of the vil- 
 lage, who noted the sign of the star under which 
 she was born, noted also that its brightness was 
 dimmed, momentarily by a gauzy, veil-like 
 cloud, and that as it dropped lower and lower 
 in the west lo! it was enveloped completely in 
 the increasing blackness of a cloud that seemed 
 to rise up out of the earth to meet it. The In- 
 
240 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 dian mind is strangely influenced by these 
 heavenly portents and, on many a day there- 
 after, as they gossiped in the shade of the wig- 
 wams, or while they worked in the fields of 
 maize, great was the speculation and many and 
 varied the opinions, concerning the future of 
 the tiny stranger that had come to abide in the 
 village that nestled under the broad, spreading 
 canopy of giant oaks and walnuts on the banks 
 of the placid Iroquois. 
 
 Womankind's maternal instinct serves as a 
 spur both to sympathy and curiosity, and the 
 maidens and young women of the village, no 
 less interested than the squaws, sought out an 
 ancient, wrinkled hag, on whom, it was said, 
 more than one hundred winters with their frosts 
 and snows had fallen, and whom the Great 
 Spirit had endowed with powers of divination, 
 and to her they put the question, "What of 
 Watch-e-kee?" The answer was even more of 
 an enigma. "Watch-e-kee," said she, "is the 
 ward of the Great Spirit; her path lies not in 
 the pathway of our people; to her shall fall 
 much of joy and much of sorrow." And when 
 they went away, these young people exclaimed 
 lightly: "Who is it, indeed, that is not the 
 ward of the Great Spirit?" "Who knows the 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 241 
 
 pathway her feet shall tread? And who is 
 there that has not much of joy and something 
 of sorrow?" Meanwhile the mother, all un- 
 mindful of the fateful words of the sorceress, 
 held the babe, Watch-e-kee, close to her breast 
 and, as she rocked gently to and fro, crooned an 
 ancient lullaby of the Pottawattomie, old as 
 time itself, which thrilled nevertheless, with 
 mother love, weird and unintelligible though 
 it may have been to you and me. 
 
 In the days that followed, from an adjacent 
 slough, the mother of Watch-e-kee procured 
 willows of which she wove with much skill a 
 curious platform-like basket, and this she lined 
 with soft mosses gathered from the nearby 
 river bank of the Iroquois, and made for her a 
 nest soft and warm and snug. And patiently 
 she wove into the fabric of the willow small, 
 fibrous roots of certain wild plants, colored 
 red, by the juice of the poke-berry, of black 
 and yellow, stained by the shell of the black 
 walnut or the butternut, and such was the cun- 
 ning love gave her nimble fingers that, at last, 
 the rude willow basket was transformed into a 
 thing of beauteous design. Tufts of the bril- 
 liant plumage of the blue jay, the wild turkey- 
 cock and the prairie hen fluttered here and 
 
242 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 there, adding a touch of barbaric splendor to 
 Watch-e-kee's primitive cradle and, in addition 
 thereto, was a loop of stout buckskin by which 
 the basket was carried on the back or swung 
 from the lodge poles, while its tiny occupant 
 slept, or gazed in listless, sleepy-eyed indiffer- 
 ence, on the great world about it. 
 
 In the half light of the wigwam, often the 
 mother knelt before this basket that held her 
 babe, devoutly, as a pilgrim kneels before her 
 shrine, and playfully she touched the placid 
 face of the infant with her finger-tips and, as 
 it smiled, so she smiled in return and talked to 
 her gently and caressingly in that language 
 which is love, which only a mother speaks and 
 which only the babe understands. At other 
 times, as the days passed by, the father of 
 Watch-e-kee and the uncle, old chief Tam-a- 
 een — Tam-a-een, which, in the Pottawattomie 
 tongue, means "The Strawberry," would enter 
 the lodge where the infant rested in her primi- 
 tive basket and, squatting on their haunches, 
 Indian fashion, lighted their calumets, filled 
 with a mixture of kinnikinic, made of the leaves 
 of the sumac and the dried bark of the red wil- 
 low, and as they smoked sedately they took 
 silent inventory of Watch-e-kee's youthful 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 243 
 
 charms, for charming she was, far in excess of 
 the common lot of babes, and every scrap of 
 gossip and tradition that has come down to us 
 in this day bears testimony to the fact. And 
 these two as they smoked, talked concerning 
 her, and if you could have heard and under- 
 stood, there was, in this talk, a note of mild 
 regret voiced by both, the father and the uncle, 
 that she had not been a brave instead of a squaw 
 — a Prince instead of a Princess — for such is 
 the universal desire of men for their first-born, 
 all the world over, be they saint or savage. And 
 Watch-e-kee, blinking lazily, unthinking and 
 unknowing, looked first on the kindly, benign 
 faces before her, and then in wonder on the 
 stately, waving plumes of the eagle feathers in 
 their war-bonnets, which were very splendid 
 indeed, and she, in turn, might have felt some- 
 thing of the sharp pang of regret voiced by her 
 elders could she have known that the glory of 
 the eagle-feather head-dress was not for her. 
 
 As the years passed on Watch-e-kee fulfilled 
 the promise of her youth and, as she grew, her 
 beauty became as radiant and luminous as the 
 Evening Star itself. Besides, there were 
 graces of mind, and a charm of manner, that 
 readily distinguished her as a personality sepa- 
 
244 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 rate and apart from her young associates. At 
 the age of thirteen years she was sought by 
 many a love-lorn youth who, in deference to 
 savage custom, placed before the doorway of 
 her lodge offerings of game, of fish, or fruits 
 gathered from the wild, and who then waited, 
 near by, in stolid expectancy, for some sign of 
 her favor. But the efforts of the lovers proved 
 fruitless and unavailing, and one after another 
 they retired amid the added discomfiture of 
 twits and taunts from marriageable young 
 women who, recalling the words of the old sor- 
 ceress, exclaimed, "Watch-e-kee is not for such 
 as you! Know you not that only the Moon 
 may look upon the Evening Star?" 
 
 If one were to ask why all this detail con- 
 cerning Watch-e-kee when facts so vital have, 
 apparently, been lost to us forever and aye, 
 we can only say that, having visited the old 
 site of Tam-a-een's village, and walked the 
 ancient trails of the redman that lead down 
 to the river's side, amid trees hoary and ven- 
 erable, whose wide extended boughs seem as 
 though spread in kindly benediction for memo- 
 ries of a departed race, then and there, some- 
 how, came the story, told by voices out of the 
 past, borne on the breath of the winds. 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 245 
 
 II 
 
 In the year 1818 the great American Fur 
 Company came into the country of the Iroquois, 
 and four years later came the redoubtable fig- 
 ure, Gurdon S. Hubbard, who was destined to 
 loom so prominently in the affairs of the new 
 country. He was stationed at the post at old 
 Middleport, on the Iroquois, where he re- 
 mained for several years. In 1825, having 
 been accorded certain trading privileges in the 
 new country, he, with Noel LeVasseur, re- 
 moved to a point near Tam-a-een's village, 
 where today is located the village of Iroquois. 
 He, apparently, soon realized that the success 
 of his enterprise depended largely upon the 
 friendship and good will of his dusky neigh- 
 bors and to secure and maintain this desired 
 friendship he bent every effort. The old chief, 
 Tam-a-een, evidently shared the same view, 
 but he proceeded in a more practical and mat- 
 ter-of-fact way. Tam-a-een presented his own 
 daughter to Hubbard, after the Indian man- 
 ner, for a wife. It was a trying time, a deli- 
 cate emergency for Hubbard, who, though not 
 averse to taking an Indian wife, held, never- 
 theless, to the right to make a choice for him- 
 self. By dint of careful diplomacy and the 
 
246 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 bestowing of many presents, Hubbard success- 
 fully declined the offer of Chief Tam-a-een's 
 daughter and still preserved the old chief's 
 friendship. Tam-a-een later presented his 
 niece, the maiden Watch-e-kee, who at that 
 time was about fifteen years of age, and Hub- 
 bard accepted her and married her according 
 to the Indian custom. During the two years of 
 their wedded life she bore him a daughter, who 
 died, however, at the age of eight months. 
 After two years of wedded life they separated 
 by mutual agreement. 
 
 Of Watch-e-kee, Hubbard always spoke in 
 terms of the highest commendation of her 
 steadfastness and womanly qualities. Concern- 
 ing Watch-e-kee's thoughts and feelings to- 
 wards her erstwhile spouse and their subsequent 
 separation, no word ever came from her. Hub- 
 bard, the white man, hardy, powerful, master- 
 ful, inspired his diminutive consort with a feel- 
 ing of awe and reverence. To her he was a 
 satellite to be worshiped from afar rather than 
 loved. And in Tam-a-een's village there were 
 those of the old women who recalled, as is the 
 wont of gossips, the fateful words of the aged 
 prophetess, "She is the ward of the Great 
 Spirit ; her path lies not in the pathway of our 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 247 
 
 people; to her shall fall much of joy and much 
 of sorrow." 
 
 Ill 
 
 With the departure of Hubbard, Noel 
 LeVasseur succeeded to the post at Iroquois, 
 or "Bunkum," as it was long known, and in 
 1828 he married Watch-e-kee. While some- 
 thing of the motive that actuated Hubbard to 
 take to wife an Indian maiden may have in- 
 spired LeVasseur's act, yet, in the years that 
 followed, from many sources has come to us 
 abundant evidence that this union was blessed 
 with reciprocal affection, deep and genuine. 
 The light, jolly, volatile nature of the French- 
 man, his generosity and kindliness, all so differ- 
 ent from the lofty, austere manner of her first 
 lord, touched the deeply hidden springs of af- 
 fection in her wild nature, so that this impas- 
 sive creature, roused by the mysterious power 
 of love, bloomed anew and put forth new 
 charms and graces. 
 
 In the years from 1828 to 1832 they lived 
 most happily and in great content in their 
 wilderness cabin, situated in the stately wood 
 near to the trading-post, and over all the vast, 
 far-reaching domain of woods and river and 
 plain, LeVasseur held full sway in the matter 
 
248 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 of trade, thanks to the influence of Watch-e- 
 kee, whose people, the warriors of Tam-a-een's 
 village, exchanged furs and pelts for articles 
 of merchandise at the post. In these days also 
 stalwart sons came, who brought added cheer 
 to the home in the woods, and it was then, in 
 the fulness of the great joy of motherhood, she 
 spoke of him endearingly as "Her sun by day, 
 her moon by night — the glorious one — 'Nin-e- 
 moo-ka.' " And he, with something of the 
 touch of poesy and eloquence, so characteristic 
 at times of the Indian, avowed playfully that 
 "Always she would be his 'Chee-kee,' or Even- 
 ing Star, shining to light his pathway in the 
 night." 
 
 By the treaty of 1832 great changes were 
 inaugurated, affecting the future of the nation 
 of the Pottawattomies. By its terms they 
 agreed to relinquish the country of the Illinois 
 for lands in western Iowa, and during the re- 
 moval of the various tribes LeVasseur, with 
 Hubbard, became an active agent of the gov- 
 ernment in charge of the work. For many 
 years LeVasseur had had in mind the Kanka- 
 kee, with its beautifully wooded shores and 
 opens spaces of country, and thither in the year 
 1832 he removed with his family. Near the old 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 249 
 
 "Indian Trail," as it swung in a broad curve 
 east of Bourbonnais Grove, he built a log cabin 
 of ample dimensions and settled down, and be- 
 came Kankakee county's first white settler. 
 Bourbonnais' main street of today lies in a 
 broad curve because of this original first trail 
 that skirted the curve of the timber. Here he 
 busied himself in acquiring land, more espe- 
 cially reservation lands lying along the river, 
 which, with the help of Watch-e-kee, he was 
 enabled to buy for a mere song. With the 
 passing of the Indian he sensed the incoming 
 tide of immigration of the whites, and the com- 
 ing of the white man meant development of the 
 land and increasing values. 
 
 In the course of time the idea took posses- 
 sion of him to go back to Canada and interest 
 his fellow countrymen in this wonderful coun- 
 try of the middle west. Fired by thoughts of 
 the project that promised so much of gain, he 
 apparently, for the first time, regarded Watch- 
 e-kee and the family as a stumbling-block and 
 hindrance to his plans. His ideas soared above 
 and beyond the patient, faithful, loving mate 
 of the wilderness, and bluntly he told her so. 
 He offered her a generous share of what they 
 had accumulated; he would send her west to 
 
250 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 her people in charge of a white man, who would 
 wed her if she so chose, but regarding the mat- 
 ter of separation he was insistent and unyield- 
 ing, despite her entreaties and pleading. Ac- 
 cording to the Indian custom, she could only 
 obey. 
 
 Among the legends and folklore of the early 
 French settlers in the town of Bourbonnais, 
 some of whom were brought there through the 
 efforts of LeVasseur, is one to the effect that, 
 on a certain day in the summer of 1842, Watch- 
 e-kee and her sons, together with a number of 
 families of the Pottawattomies, left what is 
 now known as the Cooper woods for the west, 
 under the guidance of Francois Bergeron. 
 The legend runs that to LeVasseur, who was 
 present, she spoke briefly and with much 
 earnestness, and that her words thrilled the 
 listeners as with the spirit of prophecy. "Ah, 
 Vasseur, Vasseur," said she, "the evil spirit has 
 touched you ; the song in my heart is dead ; and 
 that which was said of me long, long ago, even 
 as a babe on my mother's breast, that I should 
 know much of joy and very much of sorrow, 
 has come to be. Behold me in my woe ; behold 
 the misery you have wrought! But what of 
 you ? The honors you seek may come, but they 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 251 
 
 will fade and pass from you; wealth, much 
 wealth you may obtain, but in the end it will 
 run through your fingers like water; friends 
 will drop away, one by one, leaving you lonely 
 and distressed ; and you will dread the days as 
 they dawn, and the darkness of night as it falls, 
 and your heart, even as mine, shall know bit- 
 terness; and the way will be long — very long." 
 For many years after her departure, as the 
 season of spring drew near, Watch-e-kee and 
 her sons came back and pitched their tepees 
 in the nearby woods of Bourbonnais and re- 
 mained throughout the summer. LeVasseur 
 in the meantime had remarried, and in the years 
 that followed reared a family. For them he 
 built a pretentious habitation of brick that for 
 years occupied the northwest corner of the 
 present college campus. After he had vacated 
 the old log house, then Watch-e-kee on her 
 annual trips pitched her tepee in the yard, close 
 to the old home. On being asked why she did 
 this, she replied simply, "I go where the heart 
 is." These were the days of LeVasseur's great- 
 est prosperity. Thoroughly conversant with 
 the Indian character and knowing the tre- 
 mendous potency of gifts judiciously timed, 
 he was generous always in his attitude towards 
 
252 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 Watch-e-kee. In the early sixties his two sons 
 by Watch-e-kee came to Bourbonnais, ostensi- 
 bly to visit him, and LeVasseur gave to each of 
 them a fine horse, fully equipped with saddle 
 and bridle, newly bought, and sent them away 
 greatly pleased. 
 
 In the year 1863, Watch-e-kee, as if realiz- 
 ing the hopelessness of her quest, made her last 
 visit to Bourbonnais. At that time she walked 
 the long trail that led back to the scenes of her 
 childhood, on the Iroquois, and found possibly 
 something of melancholy pleasure and satisfac- 
 tion in pursuing old trails amid familiar sur- 
 roundings of her youth that spoke to her in the 
 dear language of recollection of those days of 
 her greatest happiness. So far as is known, 
 she never visited these places again. 
 
 But LeVasseur, having passed the zenith of 
 his prosperity and to whom the evil day of 
 reverses had brought disaster and collapse of 
 his hopes and plans, LeVasseur heard from her 
 again. In 1869, Dr. Benjamin F. Uran and 
 Ed. DeReamer were in the employ of Con- 
 gressman Hitt on the cattle ranges of western 
 Kansas, and during that year they were visited 
 by Osborne VanMeter. Two hundred miles 
 northwest of Peabody, Kan., there was an 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 253 
 
 Indian reservation, to which many of the Pot- 
 tawattomies of the country of the Kankakee 
 had been transferred, and the three boys set 
 out to visit them. Many of these Indians the 
 boys had known intimately for years. Great 
 was the surprise and pleasure of these old-time 
 friends on meeting the boys again, and the oc- 
 casion of the visit was duly celebrated after the 
 Indian fashion by numerous feasts and by many 
 hunting and fishing trips. Much to the boys' 
 surprise, they found that Watch-e-kee and her 
 family were here. She sent for them to visit 
 her in her lodge, which they did, and after the 
 first greetings she plied them with questions 
 concerning LeVasseur. "Was he well? Was 
 he happy ? Was he prosperous ?" together with 
 many other questions in like strain. She at that 
 time was the wife of the white man, Francois 
 Bergeron. 
 
 One year later, after the boys had returned 
 from the west, Dr. Benjamin F. Uran, while 
 riding through Bourbonnais one day, met the 
 tottering LeVasseur on his way from his home 
 to the saloon across the street, where he spent 
 his days imbibing much hard liquor while he 
 beguiled the hours at pinochle, euchre or 
 seven-up. There in the street he told him of 
 
254 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 having met Watch-e-kee and of the things she 
 asked concerning him. And it was then that 
 the old man paid tribute with tears to the 
 memory of a good woman. "Watch-e-kee was 
 good woman; she was good woman," tearfully 
 affirmed the old man. 
 
 Many years ago the county-seat of Iroquois 
 county did honor to the Indian maiden born in 
 Chief Tam-a-een's village in 1810 by adopting 
 her name, which, in this day, we know as "Wat- 
 seka." Some years ago public-spirited citizens 
 honored her memory still further by having a 
 beautiful oil painting, depicting Watch-e-kee 
 in the bloom of youth and beauty, prepared by 
 a competent artist, which was unveiled with 
 appropriate ceremonies in the public library at 
 Watseka. As to LeVasseur, on the old John 
 Wilson map of Iroquois and Kankakee coun- 
 ties, published in 1860, the town of Bourbon- 
 nais is designated as "Vasseurville." That was 
 about the only tribute ever paid to the memory 
 of the staunch old pioneer of the wilderness, 
 and that not for long. 
 
 We have visited the old burial ground in con- 
 nection with Maternity church at Bourbonnais, 
 where LeVasseur's remains were laid away in 
 1879, but found no trace of his grave. Per- 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 255 
 
 sistent inquiry brought to light the fact that 
 many years ago his body was removed to the 
 new cemetery out near the Graveline woods. 
 An old citizen with whom we talked recalled 
 that he had viewed the remains of LeVasseur 
 at the time the body was exhumed, but there 
 were only a few bones and shreds of clothing 
 and the slippers he wore when the body was laid 
 away. The body of his son, Edward, who died 
 during the Civil War, was also exhumed and 
 placed in the new grounds. In the new ceme- 
 tery the government has erected a stone to the 
 memory of Lieutenant Edward LeVasseur. 
 In the LeVasseur lot is another stone which 
 may have been the one originally erected to the 
 memory of the pioneer, but, if so, it fails to en- 
 lighten the casual searcher for the grave of 
 Kankakee county's first citizen, for time has 
 completely effaced the inscription as thor- 
 oughly as one would erase a name written on a 
 slate. And in this day, after the lapse of ninety 
 years, the sturdy old French pioneer, trader, 
 colonizer and man of aifairs generally has no 
 memorial and is unknown of men, save in the 
 memory of some white-haired patriarch, who 
 links with the name the direful prophecy of the 
 Indian woman, " Watch- e-kee." 
 
256 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 And what of "Watch-e-kee?" She lies in a 
 grave somewhere in the west — a grave forgot- 
 ten because unknown. 
 
 "As It Was in the Beginning" 
 
 Mr. Frank Chapman has placed in our hands 
 a copy of Kankakee's first directory, of which 
 he is the fortunate possessor, compiled in 1876 
 by A. L. Hennessy and printed at Peru, 111. 
 Accompanying the work is a brief history of 
 Kankakee City, written by W. H. Bristol, 
 which contains valuable and interesting data 
 relating to the city's early days which cannot 
 fail to be of interest. Here are some of the 
 things mentioned: 
 
 "The city was incorporated in February, 
 1855, and on the second Tuesday of April en- 
 suing the first election of city officers was held, 
 resulting as follows: C. R. Starr, president; 
 Hiram Whittemore and Clark R. Strong, trus- 
 tees of the first ward; Samuel L. Knight and 
 Cyrus B. Ingraham, trustees of the second 
 ward. 
 
 During the session of the Illinois Legisla- 
 ture in the winter of 1850 and '51 the charter of 
 the Illinois Central was granted; in the sum- 
 mer of 1851 the road was located ; in July, 1853, 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 257 
 
 Mr. Solon Knight received the first freight, a 
 consignment of lumber ; and in the summer and 
 fall of that year the railroad company erected 
 their freight house and depot. 
 
 In September, 1853, Mr. Samuel L. Knight 
 was appointed by President Pierce the first 
 postmaster for the city, but the name of the 
 postoffice was "Clarksville." 
 
 Elder James Gay in 1848, A. M. Wylie in 
 1849 and Edward Chappell in 1850 were the 
 first settlers to occupy territory within the pres- 
 ent city limits. 
 
 Charles R. Starr in July, 1853, and Hon. 
 Asa Bartlett in September of the same year 
 were the first regularly settled attorneys in 
 Kankakee. 
 
 The first store erected here was the Clark & 
 Roberts store, on the south side of Court street, 
 where the Rondy book store is now. It was 
 built in the summer of 1853. 
 
 Mr. A. B. True in the fall of 1852 had the 
 credit of erecting the first dwelling house. 
 During the building of the court house in 1854, 
 Mr. True's house was converted into a public 
 stopping place and was called the "Half-Mile 
 House," being so named on account of its sup- 
 posed distance from the court house site. 
 
258 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 The first term of the Kankakee County Cir- 
 cuit Court was held in the upper rooms of the 
 (then) I. C. freight house. The term was held 
 in November, 1853, Judge Henderson, of 
 Joliet, presiding. The second term of this 
 court was held in the stone part of the old Van- 
 Meter Hotel, near Entrance avenue, Judge 
 Randall, of Joliet, presiding. After this the 
 new court house, built at a cost of $27,000, was 
 occupied by court and county officers. 
 
 In 1858 Ketchum & Gray surveyed and 
 platted the cemetery north of town. They also 
 built at their own expense the arched stone 
 bridge over the Illinois Central tracks at Court 
 street, which was long called the "Railroad 
 Bridge." This viaduct cost $6,000. 
 
 The name of the original town, Bourbon- 
 nais, was changed by an act of the legislature 
 February 15, 1855, to Kankakee City, and sev- 
 eral years subsequently, to that of the City of 
 Kankakee, by which title it has ever since been 
 known. 
 
 On the 20th of June, 1854, John P. and 
 E. P. Gamble located in Kankakee and com- 
 menced blacksmithing and wagon making. 
 They built the stone shops on Soldier creek, 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 259 
 
 on the road leading to Bourbonnais. E. P. 
 Gamble died September 22, 1854. 
 
 The first plow made in Kankakee was in 
 March, 1855, and the first wagon was made in 
 the following April. 
 
 In April, 1856, the first carriage and buggy 
 were made by the firm of Gamble & French. 
 The first church building erected was in 1854 
 by the Presbyterians on the north side of Court 
 street, between Dearborn and Indiana avenues. 
 The Rev. William B. Mack, father of Col. 
 A. W. Mack, was the first settled pastor of 
 the church. 
 
 Augustine Chester established the Kankakee 
 Gazette about August 1, 1853. The first edi- 
 tion printed in Kankakee was by means of a 
 hand-press set up temporarily under the 
 spreading branches of an oak tree, while many 
 people looked on. 
 
 The Kankakee Mill Company was organ- 
 ized in 1841, when David Perry and Philip 
 Worcester built the first dam across the Kanka- 
 kee river, two miles below the city, just back of 
 the present village of Bourbonnais, but only a 
 sawmill was erected at that time. Thomas R. 
 VanMeter, in consideration of furnishing the 
 mill site with three acres of land on the east side 
 
260 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 of the river and hauling timber, was to own 
 one-half the property. Thomas It. sold to his 
 brother, Daniel VanMeter, who in 1850 sold 
 out to William Durham, and in '53 the grist 
 mill was begun and finished in 1855. 
 
 Pioneers Three and a Horse Trade 
 
 Thomas Sammons came to the territory 
 known as Will county, now Kankakee, in the 
 year 1834, and occupied for a while a dug-out, 
 located near Baker creek. He was not far 
 from where William Baker located in 1832, 
 and from him he obtained supplies from time to 
 time. Sammons ranged the country pretty 
 thoroughly and at last settled on a piece of land 
 lying along the Iroquois river in what is now 
 Otto township, but which at that time was a 
 part of Iroquois county. Here he built a log 
 cabin and in the years that followed reared a 
 family. Sammons was among the first to make 
 sugar from the sap of the splendid hard maples 
 that grew in great profusion on what is known 
 in this day as "Sugar Island." He was an en- 
 ergetic, forceful type, endowed with business 
 acumen and education much in advance of the 
 time. He was twice elected sheriff of Iroquois 
 county, serving in that capacity from 1846 to 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 261 
 
 1850. During this time he conducted a store 
 at his cabin home, which supplied the settlers 
 for a considerable distance around. An ac- 
 count book which he kept, containing a record 
 of transactions, shows that beef in that day sold 
 at 4 cents per pound, pork at 2y 2 cents per 
 pound, sugar 8 cents, coffee 40 cents, molasses 
 25 cents per gallon and whiskey 25 cents per 
 gallon. The goods he handled were procured 
 in Chicago and hauled overland to his place on 
 the Iroquois. The old account book, among 
 other things, contains interesting personal ob- 
 servations on various public questions of that 
 day, more particularly the Mexican War, writ- 
 ten on some of the back pages, indicating that 
 he was observant and of a critical, analytical 
 mind. Among other treasures the old book 
 contains were recorded the details of a horse- 
 trade between himself and John Cole seventy- 
 eight years ago. We present it herewith, ver- 
 batim et literatum: 
 
 "June the 22, 1845. John Cole and myself 
 traded horses; trade was to be unconditional. 
 Came to my house on Saturday evening, in- 
 quiring for two stray colts, and said he was 
 afraid he had rode his horse too far that day. 
 In the morning he said he would like to trade 
 
262 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 his horse if he thought he could make fair 
 trade. I went with him and got the two colts 
 which he said was his. Returning home, near 
 the house on the prairie, we passed by two 
 horses which belonged to me. After he exam- 
 ined them, he asked me if I would trade horses 
 with him. I told him I would if I thought 
 I could make fair trade. When we got home 
 he asked me to send and fetch the horse up 
 to the house. I did, and he looked to the horse 
 and rode him about half a mile. He got off of 
 him and looked him all over, and asked me to 
 say how we should trade. I told him he should 
 say, as he was the oldest. He said I must say. 
 I told him I would trade if he would give me 
 five dollars. He said he could not give it but 
 would turn tail to and trade even if I would. 
 I told him I would take at his offer. When I 
 traded my eyes decided for me, and I wanted 
 his eyes to make the same decision for him, and 
 if he would go in the house and state before 
 witnesses how we traded, we would call it a 
 trade." 
 
 And that is one of the well authenticated in- 
 cidents of a summer's day down on the Iro- 
 quois seventy-eight years ago. 
 
 Simeon Sammons, a son, born at the old log 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 263 
 
 cabin on the Iroquois in 1840, and who owns 
 and still lives on the place, tells us that in his 
 youth a favorite pastime of his used to be 
 swinging from the top of the cabin by means 
 of a long hickory pole to see how far he could 
 jump. He says that many a time in the sum- 
 mer, as the sun dropped down the western hori- 
 zon out of sight, from his aerie perch on the 
 cabin he used to watch the deer come out of the 
 woods and feed on the prairie in the cool of the 
 evening. Many and many an evening, he says, 
 he has counted seventy-five to one hundred deer 
 feeding in the open prairie to the north and 
 west and south of the cabin. 
 
 In 1846 two sturdy pioneers, Rutledge H. 
 Enos and Morey F. Frink, of Michigan, drove 
 into the country and prospected thoroughly for 
 locations for the sheep industry. Mr. Enos se- 
 cured holdings at Hickory Grove, now known 
 as Milk's Grove, while Mr. Frink selected a 
 tract of land in Pilot Township, near Pilot 
 Knob, which is held by his descendants today. 
 The following year Mr. Enos brought through 
 a herd of seven hundred sheep from Michigan, 
 driving them overland. He started with them 
 in the month of July and arrived at the S am- 
 nions ford on the Iroquois river, sometime late 
 
264 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 in September. It was a favorite practice in 
 that day for parties in eastern Indiana, west- 
 ern Ohio and southern Michigan, to lease their 
 herds to responsible parties, who drove them 
 out to the open country along the Kankakee 
 and the Iroquois rivers where they could obtain 
 unlimited range. At shearing-time, the sheep 
 were sheared and the fleeces delivered entire 
 to the owner of the flock. The lessee of a herd 
 took as his profit, the increase in the flock, and 
 this formed the basis of many a comfortable 
 fortune in the early days. As a youth, the 
 boy, Simeon, herded sheep for Mr. Enos on 
 the prairie at Hickory Grove. He rode a pony 
 and was assisted in his work by a shepherd dog. 
 He carried with him as a first-aid to sheep 
 stricken by the bite of the prairie rattler, a bot- 
 tle of whiskey in which had been placed a quan- 
 tity of tobacco leaves. He was obliged to keep 
 a sharp lookout for this dangerous adversary 
 of the prairie, and whenever he found an ani- 
 mal shaking its head or its leg vigorously, by 
 that sign he knew it had been bitten. He would 
 wash the wound with the decoction of whiskey 
 and tobacco, and pour a portion of it down the 
 animal's neck, and in most cases it recovered. 
 Between Mr. Enos and this grim, early-day 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 265 
 
 pioneer, Thomas S amnions, the bond of friend- 
 ship grew stronger with the passing years. He 
 died while comparatively a young man, and in 
 the days of his decline he used to say to Mr. 
 Enos: "When I send for you, I want you to 
 come." And one day, out at Hickory Grove, 
 the messenger sought him with the word, 
 "Come." Leaving everything, he made all 
 possible haste to the bedside of his friend, but 
 death had preceded him by a few moments. 
 They made a grave for him on a sightly emi- 
 nence in the pasture of his farm, and in all the 
 valley of the Kankakee, there is, perhaps, no 
 fairer view to be obtained anywhere than from 
 this vantage point with its miles of green vistas 
 dotted with the forest primeval — a spot which, 
 after seventy years of civilization, would still 
 delight the heart of a pioneer. 
 
 A Unique Pioneer Character 
 Mrs. Kendall, of Momence, has told us how, 
 as a little girl, she was privileged to go, now 
 and then, with her elders to a dance at the old 
 Hill Tavern. This tavern played a prominent 
 part in the social life of the prairie community 
 and the gayety and pleasure of these old-time 
 functions were deeply impressed on her youth- 
 
266 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 ful vision. Enoch Sargent, in 1844, built four 
 log houses at Momence, and every now and 
 then, in one or the other of them, there would 
 be held a dance. A fiddler by the name of 
 Blakesley generally furnished the music, and 
 set the crowd going to the inspiring strains of 
 "Turkey-in-the-Straw," "Pop-Goes-the- Wea- 
 sel' ' or "Moneymusk." There was another 
 man by the name of Bailey who sometimes 
 played for the dances. In 1845 she went to 
 school in one of these log cabins, the teacher 
 being none other than Elim Curtis. The seats 
 provided here were what was known as "pun- 
 cheon benches," made of a slab cut from a good 
 sized tree, in the ends of which holes were bored 
 with an auger and to which were fitted legs 
 made of saplings. They had no backs and 
 were not the most comfortable seat that ever 
 was. 
 
 Here, also, in the little log school house, she 
 at times attended divine services, when Elder 
 Morrison, a unique pioneer character, who lived 
 five or six miles north of Momence, would 
 preach. One winter revival meetings, con- 
 ducted by Morrison, were held in the log school 
 house, and Mrs. Kendall recalls that during 
 his discourse, he moved freely about the room 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 267 
 
 as he talked, and that, every once in a while, as 
 if to emphasize his point, he would pause and 
 give Newell Beebe a resounding whack on the 
 back, followed by the pointed interrogatory, 
 "Ain't that so, brother?" 
 
 Elder Morrison was of a highly nervous tem- 
 perament, high-strung and energetic, and 
 whether it was preaching the gospel, or the 
 plain, everyday tasks of the farm that engaged 
 him, he put his whole soul into it. There was 
 nothing indifferent or half-hearted in the spirit 
 that moved him to action. It is related that he 
 once had a falling out with miller John Strunk, 
 at Momence years ago, over the matter of a 
 grist he had taken to the mill to be ground, 
 and an altercation ensued in which the elder 
 was the aggressor. Hauling off his coat, he 
 announced in a loud voice as he threw it on 
 the ground, "Lay thar, religion, 'till I lick old 
 Strunk!" And lick him he did, and made no 
 bones of polishing up the miller in the most 
 approved manner. 
 
 But, for all that, our informant says that in 
 the fray, right and justice were on the side of 
 the elder. It is said that, for a time, Elder 
 Morrison served as one of the early-day "cir- 
 cuit-riders," in the country north and south of 
 
268 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 the Kankakee river, in what was then Will 
 and Iroquois counties. He had a farm a few 
 miles above Momence, on the Chicago- Vin- 
 cennes road, on which he built, in the early 
 days, a large, impressive two-story home of 
 stone, which is still standing today. Every 
 pound of stone in the building was hauled la- 
 boriously by ox-team from the distant quarries 
 at Joliet, when there were quantities of fine 
 building stone lying close by in the river bed if 
 they had but realized it. Frequently he would 
 hold services in the little school house situated 
 not far from where his home stands, and Judge 
 W. A. Hunter who, as a boy, knew him well, 
 tells us that on one occasion, when a protracted 
 drouth had all but burned up the countryside, 
 the old gentleman appeared before a waiting 
 congregation in the little school house, bare- 
 headed and barefooted, with his trousers rolled 
 up, and as he walked along the aisle, earnestly 
 he petitioned the Almighty in the words, "Give 
 us rain, Lord, give us rain!" "Give us rain, 
 Lord, give us rain!" It is to smile, of course, 
 when details such as these are related of the 
 old days but, after all, we cannot but admire the 
 heroic mould of this pioneer man of God, rude 
 and unlettered though he may have been, who 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 269 
 
 laid hold with faith and wrestled with the angel, 
 even as Jacob of old. He was the product of 
 the time — genuine, sincere — moved by a spirit 
 of helpfulness towards his fellow man. 
 
 The Recollections of a Nonagenarian 
 
 Mr. Peter B. S trickier, living on a farm near 
 Iroquois, Iroquois county, is a nonagenarian 
 who, in point of sprightliness, physically and 
 mentally, is in the class of our own Judson 
 Nichols. He told us last summer, among other 
 interesting things, tales of the Pottawattomies 
 who occupied the land by the hundreds in east- 
 ern Iroquois and Kankakee counties, and west- 
 ern Indiana, in the neighborhood of Morocco. 
 He recalled especially White Pigeon, Turkey 
 Foot, and another chief whom he called "Bull- 
 bonnais," evidently a half-breed, a monster of 
 a fellow, whose chief delight, especially when he 
 had any liquor aboard, was to go around from 
 one to another and push them over on the 
 ground and leeringly remark : "You papoose to 
 me!" Mr. Strickler said that one day, in his 
 grand rounds, old Bull-bonnais ran up against 
 an individual much more powerful than himself 
 to whom, after giving him an appraising 
 glance, he diplomatically deferred by saying: 
 
270 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 "I papoose to you!" Mr. Strickler could not 
 recall the name of the chief to whom Bull- 
 bonnais so readily struck his colors. Who 
 knows but that it may have been none other 
 than our giant friend "Tah-way," of whom 
 Mrs. Lyons, of Sherburnville, has told us? 
 Wau-coc-shuc is another notable Pottawat- 
 tomie chief whom he remembers well. 
 
 Mr. Strickler relates that shortly after com- 
 ing to Iroquois county, which was October 7th, 
 1835, a number of Indians engaged in a drunk- 
 en fight in which knives were used, the scrim- 
 mage lasting through several days, as a result 
 of which several Indians lost their lives. This 
 fight took place at a point this side of Morocco, 
 Indiana. It may have been that the doughty 
 old chief "Min-e-mau-ung," or Yellow Head, 
 lost his life in this long-drawn-out conflict, for 
 the trader, Gurdon S. Hubbard, who had a fight 
 with him at "Bunkum" in the spring of 1827, 
 mentions in his memoirs that he was thus killed, 
 but gives no intimation as to the time or place. 
 Yellow Head was a signer of the treaty of 
 1832, and his name also appears on a later 
 treaty, that concluded September 26th, 1833, 
 and ratified February 21, 1835. These record- 
 ed acts of Yellow Head tend to give color to 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 271 
 
 the supposition that he was involved in the fray 
 so vividly recalled by Mr. S trickier. 
 
 On Mr. Strickler's advent into the prairie 
 country of Iroquois county in 1835, he recalls 
 that the "hickory lines and bridles," in vogue 
 among the earliest of the pioneers, were very 
 much in evidence at that time. The tough, 
 pliable fiber of the young hickory was well 
 adapted to these uses and lasted for a long 
 time, especially if the fiber were kept from 
 drying out by frequent moistenings or by bury- 
 ing the hickory lines in the moist earth over 
 night. In that day they used to drive six yoke 
 of cattle hitched to a wagon, from Iroquois to 
 Chicago, going by way of the Chicago- Vin- 
 cennes Trail, which crossed the Kankakee river 
 one mile east of Momence where, at that time, 
 was located the famous pioneer hostelry known 
 as the "Hill Tavern." The first bridge built 
 across the Kankakee at that point was a boon 
 to the prairie settler, and served to lighten his 
 burdens while on the road, to a very perceptible 
 degree. The logs for this bridge were cut and 
 floated down the river to this point, where they 
 were squared and framed and gotten in readi- 
 ness. When everything was in readiness for 
 the "raising," as it was termed in that day, 
 
%n LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 word was sent out far and near and the settlers 
 responded and gave of their time and labor in 
 erecting the bridge. This bridge was built 
 during the early forties. Later, with the com- 
 ing of the Illinois Central railroad in 1853, the 
 Hill Tavern was moved to Momence and for 
 many years stood across the street from the 
 Charles B. Astle home. It is said that some of 
 the timbers of the old bridge are still discern- 
 able in the bed of the stream a mile east of Mo- 
 mence where it formerly stood. 
 
 Historical Flotsam and Jetsam 
 
 The assessor's and tax collector's books of 
 Iroquois county, for the years 1847-48, shows 
 the following list of land owners in Town 31, 
 range 11 east, which is the present town of 
 Limestone, Kankakee county : 
 
 George W. Byrns, N. W. Bliss, Sylvester 
 Brown, J. F. Coterel, E. Edwards, J. B. Haw- 
 kins, J. and R. Hawkins, A. Hawkins, A. M. 
 Howland, Robert Hawkins, William Neal, N. 
 D. Maxwell, Roswell Nichols, James R. Pow- 
 ell, Hannah Powell, James Rounceville, W. D. 
 Scott, P. S. S locum, J. L. Smith, E. H. S am- 
 nions, Daniel Huling. 
 
 It is worthy of record in a work of this de- 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 273 
 
 scription that Fred Bernier was the first citizen 
 from Kankakee county to enlist in the civil 
 war. He was a volunteer, and went from 
 Kankakee to Chicago, where he enlisted. He 
 served with distinction and, when mustered 
 out of the service, had earned the rank of Cap- 
 tain. 
 
 Mr. R. A. Hewitt tells us that during the 
 years he carried on business and lived in Chi- 
 cago, he got to know well a man by the name 
 of Watson, a harnessmaker by trade, whose 
 business was located on West Madison street, 
 between Oakley and Leavitt streets. Wat- 
 son, who liked to tell of his early-day experi- 
 ences, told Mr. Hewitt how he built the third 
 habitation erected within the limits of the pres- 
 ent city of Kankakee in the early fifties. It 
 was merely a shack, he said, but it was the third 
 dwelling of any kind to be built at that time. 
 He made good money, he said, during the days 
 when the Illinois Central was bringing in the 
 settlers. He owned a team and used to drive 
 parties far and wide over the prairies while 
 they viewed the land and made their selections. 
 Mr. Watson, when something over eighty years 
 old, made a trip up into Wisconsin one winter, 
 and walked ten miles into the country to the 
 
274 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 home of a friend. While walking back to the 
 station, through a heavy snowstorm, he 
 dropped dead in the road. Careful inquiry 
 among the present day old settlers of Kanka- 
 kee failed to elicit any information concerning 
 Watson, however. 
 
 Mr. Skelly, of Aroma Park, says that early 
 in 1855, when they were excavating for the 
 court house foundations, he used to put in a 
 good deal of time there, a highly interested 
 spectator, watching the workmen throw out 
 pieces of human bones, tomahawks, brass ket- 
 tles and rusted parts of guns that had been 
 buried there along with their Indian owners 
 years ago. This open spot on the prairie, 
 where now stands the present handsome coun- 
 ty structure, was formerly a burial ground of 
 the Pottawattomies, and many hundreds, 
 doubtless, were interred there. 
 
 Newton, Lindsley & De Graff constituted 
 the contracting firm who put through the work 
 on the Illinois Central railroad from Chicago to 
 Champaign in the early fifties. As the work 
 approached Kankakee (there was no Kanka- 
 kee in that day), the main base of operations 
 for the company was located on the south bank 
 of the river, at a point called Sacramento City. 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 275 
 
 This contracting firm brought to the prairie 
 region of Kankakee county the very first Mor- 
 gan horses. The horses employed on the work 
 were in charge of one Milo June, a typical 
 down-east Yankee and an old-time stage- 
 driver. Many oxen were also employed and 
 C. C. Harvey, an expert shoer of oxen, was 
 located over at Sacramento City, where a forge 
 was maintained and where Harvey attended 
 to the shoeing of the cattle as required. 
 
 No one knows why the company in that early 
 day chose to go six and one-half miles down the 
 river, to Limestone, to quarry the stone needed 
 in the bridges and culverts and other work of 
 the road. But the fact remains that they did, 
 and for a long time two four-horse teams and 
 an outfit of four yoke of oxen toiled daily 
 bringing in their loads from the quarry to Sac- 
 ramento City, where stone-cutters prepared the 
 material and shipped it north or south as the 
 occasion demanded. The horse teams made 
 two trips a day. The oxen, in charge of "Un- 
 cle John" Van Wert, made but one trip. Mr. 
 Elias Powell, then a young man, secured the 
 very first stone taken from this quarry at the 
 time it was opened, and has it among other 
 treasured possessions today. If you are at all 
 
276 LEGENDS AND TALES OF 
 
 curious about it and ask him, he will take you 
 out into the back yard of his Indiana Avenue 
 home and show you a piece of yellow limestone 
 about 12x18x6, nicely shaped up with a stone- 
 cutters' chisel, the interior hollowed out and 
 containing a water supply for the birds and 
 dogs and cats of the neighborhood. Every 
 stone which the Central so laboriously trans- 
 ported years ago on the division has long since 
 given way to cement, but this very first of all 
 the stones from the old Limestone quarry still 
 serves in its humble, helpful capacity as a reser- 
 voir to assuage the thirst of the nondescript 
 alley cat or dog, and as a bath for the birds. 
 
 Situated at the corner of South Washington 
 avenue and Jeff ery street, is said to be a build- 
 ing, incorporated in what is now the home of 
 Lum Piper, which antedates any other build- 
 ing in Kankakee. This building was a small 
 wooden shack bult by Milo June in the days 
 of the construction of the railroad, and used 
 as a cook house. It was built at Sacramento 
 City and moved from place to place south by 
 loading it on a flat-car. The shack traveled as 
 far as the division, Champaign, and, for some 
 unaccountable reason, was loaded on the car 
 and brought back to Kankakee, or more prop- 
 
HOMELAND ON THE KANKAKEE 277 
 
 erly, Sacramento City. In the course of time 
 it was shifted over to the corner, not far away, 
 and became a part of the home now standing 
 there, where it has successfully withstood the 
 vicissitudes of time and decay. The property 
 is owned by William Cunningham. 
 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 
 
 977.363B94L C001 
 
 LEGENDS AND TALES OF HOMELAND ON THE KAN 
 
 w 
 
 3 0112 025394906