CHAPTER XXIII.
Various Illinois Murders, Including Those of Sample, Payne and the St. Vrain Party.
Before recording the actions of this little regiment, or parts of it, all of them important, time must be taken to consider intermediate incidents of greatest importance and sadness. The first demonstration by the Indians after crossing the Mississippi was blood-curdling to the last degree, and proof positive that the wily old Sac was for war, and had not come for the purpose of “making corn” at all.
In the autumn of 1831 a young Methodist preacher named James Sample took up a claim near Black Hawk’s village, built a cabin and was engaged in subduing the land in the spring of 1832, when Black Hawk’s approach in April was proclaimed. Sample, with others, fled to the island garrison for refuge. Remaining there some weeks without any overt demonstration coming to notice, all danger was considered past, and Sample and his young wife of a few months determined to dispose of their effects and return to their friends south of the Illinois River. Proceeding for a time along the old Sauk trail, always used by Black Hawk in journeying to Maiden to receive his annuities from the British government, it was their intention to remain the first night with Henry Thomas, who lived about one mile north of it on Kellogg’s trail, where the same passed West Bureau timber. But the cabin was found vacant and all the doors and windows barricaded against intrusion, which compelled the travelers to journey on. They must have camped for the night in the timber, swam the creek and then set out for Smith’s cabin, some six miles distant, only to find it as empty as the first, as was also Elijah Epperson’s, a mile to the south. The travelers, weary and faint from hunger, were forced to continue until sixty miles had been covered.[[141]]
At this time, while picking their way over the prairies, they were astounded to hear whoops from a band of Indians to their rear, who, having discovered their presence at the Epperson cabin, were then giving them chase. Jaded though the horses were, the faithful beasts took heart and were soon rapidly distancing their pursuers, and but for the frightful condition of the ground would have carried the Samples to safety, but while attempting the passage of a muddy spot the horse of Mrs. Sample mired in the inextricable mud and could not move. Try as he would, the faithful animal was fast mired. By the time Sample had abandoned further efforts to release the horse, the Indians were upon them, intent upon murder. Resolved to sell life dearly as possible, he fired his pistol and one Indian dropped dead. Others of the band quickly pounced upon the hapless pair, bound them hand and foot, and carried them back to camp, to be disposed of in a manner most revolting and fiendish.
Everything Sample owned he offered them to spare the life of his wife and return her safely to the people at Fort Armstrong, but blood was demanded, and nothing but the blood of both would avenge the death of their comrade, so swiftly both were tied to trees, to watch the fiendish brutes gather faggots to place around them. When these were knee high the torch was applied, and the helpless victims, writhing in the agonies of a lingering death, were reduced to ashes.
These murders were committed in the western part of the state, and, isolated as they were, one might conclude that none others would follow, but as Black Hawk advanced up Rock River the infection to take the lives of white people spread in all directions.
About May 1st, in response to Black Hawk’s request to make common cause with him against the whites, the Pottowatomies held a council at the mouth of Rock Creek to consider the question and decide on their course during the conflict which was inevitable. That they anticipated one cannot be denied, and that many wished to join Black Hawk is equally certain, corroborated as the fact was by Shabbona himself, who was present and whose influence dominated the sentiment of the council to a large degree. Billy Caldwell, Robinson and George E. Walker were also present to contribute their influence for the peace party. That sentiment, after a long deliberation, prevailed, with an open and unanimous declaration that any Pottowatomie who joined Black Hawk’s forces would be proclaimed a traitor; but notwithstanding the friendly resolutions of the council, Black Hawk prevailed upon a few of them to join him and to carry on the predatory warfare and assist in the murders of Indian Creek, Adam Payne and others through the Illinois, Fox and DuPage river districts.[[142]]
When Shabbona, Pype-gee and Pypes made their famous ride, the panic-stricken settlers along these rivers generally flocked to the stockades, barricading their homes as best they could. During the raids which followed the store of George B. Hollenback was looted, the Indians drinking of the liquor until too stupid to carry their program of crime further. But for this fact murders without number might have been committed. As it was, the time consumed in sobering up allowed leisure for all who wished to reach the nearest stockade.
SHA-BO-NA.
WAU-BAN-SE.
CHIEF ALEXANDER ROBINSON.
SHERIFF GEORGE E. WALKER.
CAPT. JOSEPH NAPER.
REV. STEPHEN R. BEGGS.
FORT DEARBORN.
In what is now Will County, Plainfield was the designated refuge, and to the little fortification, which was built of logs and fence rails, around the log cabin of Rev. S.R. Beggs, the name of Fort Beggs was given. It was not much of a fortification, but it served the purposes of protection to the people, who placed themselves under orders of Chester Smith as captain until Captain Naper called with his little company, after the Indian Creek murders, and escorted the entire garrison to Chicago for better protection. They went none too soon, for the entire country along the Illinois, Fox, DuPage and Auxplaines (Desplaines) was very soon overrun with murderous bands of Indians, invariably led by prominent Sacs. As their actions became more and more annoying and then distressing, men from Chicago and vicinity, under Capt. James Walker, constituted themselves a band of rangers, doing yeoman service, ranging through to Ottawa as an independent company, until placed under Major Buckmaster when he later came to take charge of the DuPage River district, and under whom the Indians were soon dispersed.
The murder at this time of Rev. Adam Payne, a Dunkard preacher, was as pitiful as it was atrocious. He was a man found at all times sacrificing his personal comforts and his substance to alleviate the distresses and discomforts of his fellowman, and particularly the Indian. His ministrations to their needs had been rewarded by professions of religion from numbers, and among the Pottowatomies he was venerated to the last degree. His family had been stopping at Hollenback’s Grove, where he expected to find them at or near the home of Mr. Cummings, his stepson.[[143]]
On reaching Plainfield he found that they had gone to Ottawa for safety, where, in fact, they were in safety at that moment. He wished to reach them instead of marching to Chicago, as the garrison at Fort Beggs was preparing to do. He was importuned to go along, but by reason of his abiding faith in the Indians’ appreciation of his works and his trust in the protection of God, he determined to set out for Ottawa. The fact that he had traveled from Ohio to Illinois, thence by way of Hickory Creek to Plainfield without the least interruption from the Indians, was reason enough to convince him that he would not be disturbed if he continued. Accordingly he started the very morning the garrison set out for Chicago under Captain Naper. He was mounted on a fine bay mare, carried a large spyglass in his saddlebags, and with the aid of the two he was confident he could, if threatened, elude any ordinary foe.
About the middle of the afternoon, as he was skirting Holderman’s Grove, unconscious of danger, he was awakened from a reverie by shots fired from a foe concealed in a clump of underbrush. One ball entered his shoulder and another inflicted a wound, which soon proved mortal, in the body of his beautiful mare. Realizing that no time was to be lost in garrulous appeals for sympathy and that the only possible chance for escape lay in the old-fashioned way of flight, he pricked his mare forward and for five miles maintained a safe distance ahead of his three pursuers on ponies. But the effect of the mare’s wound was now apparent. She staggered and fell dead under her rider. The three pursuers quickly came upon him and leveled their guns, while he simply raised his hands to Heaven and appealed for mercy. The appeal was heeded by two of them, but, so we are told by one of the party, who subsequently removed west, the third pulled his trigger and fired and Mr. Payne dropped dead. If two of these fiends had been so humane in lowering their weapons it is remarkable that they should all have joined in severing the head from the body, as they did. A long black beard flowed from the victim’s chin, and by this one of the party seized the head, threw it over his shoulder and together the three returned to camp. At this very moment Mr. Payne’s brother Aaron was in the volunteer ranks, and it may not be amiss to relate an incident which occurred at the battle of the Bad Axe. He, too, was a Dunkard preacher, but, being a sensible man, the murder of his brother called every honest human passion into play, one being the desire to revenge his brother’s death, though this he subsequently denied.
In pursuing the retreating Indians, he, with others, came upon a squaw and a boy crouched behind a tree, but, under the belief that the pair were harmless, no attention was paid to them. As the last of the rangers passed the boy raised his gun and shot Payne from his horse, two balls entering his back near the spine. The enraged rangers wheeled and riddled both squaw and boy with bullets, an act which might be deplored in a discussion of casuistic questions, but not to be considered in a case so infamous as this. These bullets Mr. Payne carried during a very long life.
General Scott, attracted to this simple man as he was lying in the hospital at Prairie du Chien, had this to say of him:
“While inspecting the hospital at Fort Crawford, I was struck with a remarkably fine head of a tall volunteer lying on his side, and seeking relief in a book. To my question, ‘What have you there, my friend?’ the wounded man pointed to the title page of ‘Young’s Night Thoughts.’ I sat down on the edge of the bunk, already interested in the reader, to learn more of his history. The wounded volunteer said his brother, Rev. Adam Payne, fell an early victim to Black Hawk’s band, and he (not in the spirit of revenge, but to protect the frontier settlements) volunteered as a private soldier. While riding into the battlefield of Bad Axe he passed a small Indian boy, whom he might have killed, but thought him a harmless child. ‘After passing, the boy fired, lodging two balls near my spine, when I fell from my horse.’ The noble volunteer, although suffering great pain from his wound, said he preferred his condition to the remorse he should have felt if he had killed the boy, believing him to be harmless.”
Public feeling, by these murders, had been worked to such a pitch that a rumor, no matter how impossible or ridiculous, was sufficient to throw a community into a panic, consequently over in Fulton County occurred the silly “Westerfield scare,” which threw the population of the entire county into the improvised fortifications. At such times one Indian might have captured the county without the slightest resistance.
While Dodge was covering Michigan territory (Wisconsin), independent regiments and companies from the south were organized and sent rapidly forward to protect the country between Plainfield and Chicago and Ottawa and the Mississippi, the most important being the Vermilion County regiment organized by Colonel Moore on the 23d of May, the staff officers of which, as near as can be ascertained from the defective records and correspondence, were: Colonel, Isaac R. Moore; Lieutenant-Colonel, Daniel W. Beckwith. It was composed of the seven companies of Captains John B. Thomas, Alexander Bailey, of which Gurdon S. Hubbard was Second Lieutenant, Eliakem Ashton, James Palmer, I.M. Gillispie, James Gregory and Corbin R. Hutt; also of Morgan L. Payne, subsequently transferred to Buckmaster’s battalion. Of this Vermilion organization Governor Reynolds learned May 28th. The regiment ranged constantly until June 23d, when, finding its territory purged of the enemy and peace thoroughly conserved by Major Buckmaster’s battalion, it was mustered out.
At this period of atrocious murders, the killing of Felix St. Vrain, the Fort Armstrong agent for the Sacs and Foxes, was particularly thrilling as well as pathetic. This man, appointed about a year previous to supersede Agent Forsythe, had always been found the stanch friend of the Indian, and such had been the appreciation of his labors that “The Little Bear” had adopted him as his brother.
Aaron Hawley, John Fowler, Thomas Kenney, William Hale, Aquilla Floyd and Alexander Higginbotham, who had been to Sangamon County to buy cattle, had heard of the Indian troubles, and, abandoning their project, were hurrying home to assist in the protection of their homes. On the 22d of May they left Dixon’s Ferry for Galena and traveled as far as Buffalo Grove, where they found the body of Durley, who, as will be remembered, was the murdered member of the Frederick Stahl party. The party immediately returned to Dixon’s, reported the murder and remained there over night. As General Atkinson, who had just returned there on the 23d, had dispatches for Fort Armstrong, he detailed Felix St. Vrain, the most competent officer for the service, to travel to Galena with the party and from that point carry the dispatches down the Mississippi to the fort.[[144]]
At Buffalo Grove the returning party found and buried the body of Durley about a rod from the spot where he fell. The party then resumed its march, traveling toward Fort Hamilton for a distance of ten miles. Here it halted and camped for the night.
At daylight the little band started out again on its march and proceeded about three miles and then stopped again to cook breakfast. After the meal had been finished and the men were about a mile further on their journey, they fell in with a band of thirty Sacs under the command of “The Little Bear.” St. Vrain regarded this as peculiarly propitious and at once assured his companions that no trouble need be feared from his friend, who had many times been an inmate of his house and partaken of his hospitality. Though he approached the Indian with outstretched hand, the overture of peace was spurned, and death to everyone sworn. In vain St. Vrain pleaded for his companions and urged his relations as agent and adopted brother. The Indians attempted in the most methodical and cold-blooded manner imaginable to murder every man present.
Seeing the hopelessness of further parley or an attempt to fight such odds, each man dashed for freedom, trusting to the superior speed of the horses to distance the ponies of the Indians, and the motion of the flight to dodge bullets. But first Fowler was shot down, a few yards distant, then St. Vrain, a little further out, and Hale about three quarters of a mile from the scene of the parley.
Exulting in the glory of their deeds of blood, the Indians, after scalping the three, cut off the head and hands and feet of St. Vrain and took out his heart, which was cut up and passed in pieces to the braves to eat,[[145]] that they might take pride in the statement that they had eaten of the heart of one of the bravest of Americans. After these ghoulish acts, the pursuit of the survivors was resumed, and in it Mr. Hawley was killed, though his body was never recovered and nothing ever definitely heard thereafter concerning it. However, as Black Hawk himself was subsequently found in possession of his coat, it can be easily conjectured that Hawley’s horse mired in the mud, and then, while helpless, the rider was shot down, his body spirited away and his clothing used by his murderers.
The three other fugitives directed their course toward Galena, pursuing it successfully for three or four miles, when they met part of the same band of Indians, who gave them another chase of five or six miles, after which the pursued evaded them altogether. The men then crossed Brush Creek, and, sighting another band, immediately back-tracked six or eight miles to Plum River, where they camped in a thicket until night. Traveling all that night and the succeeding night, resting the intervening day, the three survivors reached Galena the morning of the third day.
Aaron Hawley’s horse being the fastest, was the first to get away, and it was always supposed that he was cut off by another party of the same band of Indians and killed, as stated. When last seen by the other three he was making his course toward the Pecatonica.
On the 8th of June the bodies of St. Vrain, Fowler and Hale were recovered[[146]] and buried four miles south of Kellogg’s Grove, “old place.” A bill for the relief of the widow and heirs of St. Vrain was passed by Congress January 6th, 1834. His tragic death was deplored the country over by reason of his unusual acquaintance and his great reputation for good deeds all his life long.
Felix de Hault de Lassus de St. Vrain[[147]] (such was his full name) in personal appearance was tall and slightly built, with black eyes and black curling hair, worn rather long. He was born in St. Louis, Missouri, March 23d, 1799. His grandfather, Pierre Charles de Hault de Lassus et de Luziére, Knight of the Grand Cross of the Royal Order of St. Michael, was born in Bouchain in Hainault (now Department of the North), where his ancestors had lived from time immemorial, holding offices of the highest importance and trust. This grandfather was compelled to leave France during the “Reign of Terror,” for the Spanish possessions on the Mississippi, where the oldest son subsequently became Governor de Lassus of Upper Louisiana. Mr. Felix St. Vrain’s father, Jacques, was an officer in the French navy. After the transfer of Louisiana to the United States members of the family, with the exception of the Governor, were appointed to offices of trust under our Government. St. Vrain married Mademoiselle Marie Pauline Grégoire, daughter of Charles Cyril Grégoire, also of France.
The Indians had always recognized him to be a man of unusual bravery and devotedly attached to their welfare; in fact, he was opposed to the use of the military that spring in sending Black Hawk back to the west side of the Mississippi, and early in April he went to St. Louis to dissuade the authorities from interfering, but the many and constantly increasing depredations of Black Hawk’s band were perverting the well-disposed Indians to similar acts, and it was decreed that the murderers of the Menominees must be taught a substantial lesson in behavior. Accordingly St. Vrain boarded the boat with General Atkinson and returned to Fort Armstrong. Upon this boat he was detected with the soldiers by the Indian spies, who immediately reported the fact to Black Hawk. Without investigating their charge of treason, all of St. Vrain’s life of devotion to the Indians was blotted out. In the manner of all his miserable judgments in the past, Black Hawk now swore revenge on the agent and selected “The Little Bear” as his deputy to execute the decree.
Gen. George W. Jones, brother-in-law of St. Vrain, identified the body and took back to camp with him the dress coat and pouch which he wore on that day. These articles are to this day in the possession of the Grégoire family.