CHAPTER XIII.
ROMANCE AND HISTORY.
At a little country store down in Indiana where the settlers usually gathered to read the weekly newspaper, William Munson, a young man who was born in New York, first heard of the Hall girls and their wonderful adventure. He was in the west seeking his fortune, and, being an admirer of the brave and full of youthful fire, he remarked to the people that he would some day marry one of those girls. His nearest friends did not take him seriously, and the matter as a passing joke was soon forgotten. However, with him it became a fixed idea, and in the spring of 1833 he went to Illinois and took up a land claim in the neighborhood where John W. Hall lived.
Every good woman is not satisfied until she has a home of her own. This natural longing was particularly strong in the minds of the Hall girls, whose home had been destroyed.
WILLIAM MUNSON.
There is no record of how William Munson first met Rachel Hall, but our information shows that their courtship was short; for in March, 1833, they were united in marriage, and shortly afterwards they settled down on the land claim entered by her father, about a mile and a half east of the scene of the massacre. They were thrifty and got along splendidly, becoming one of the foremost families of La Salle County. Besides the rich abundance of worldly goods, they were blessed with a large family of whom four died in their infancy. As there was no cemetery, the little ones were buried in the garden. Of the other children who grew up to manhood and womanhood, several became very prominent and their generations became numerous. Their four daughters were married as follows: Irena, to Dr. George Vance, who moved to California; A. Miranda, to Samuel Dunavan, who settled on a farm just north of the Munson homestead, where she still lives; Fidelia, to George Shaver, and Phoebe M., to John F. Reed, of Ottawa. Mr. Reed’s daughter Fannie was married to James H. Eckles who was Comptroller of the Currency under Cleveland; and Mr. Reed’s daughter Winnie is married to Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, of Chicago. Mrs. Munson left three sons: William, Louis and Elliot, and through them several grand-children.
MRS. RACHEL HALL MUNSON, AGED 42, AND YOUNGEST SON ELLIOT.
Edward Vance, a grand-son of Mrs. Munson, is a well-known lawyer in South Dakota, and Douglas Dunavan is a prominent lawyer at Ottawa, Illinois. We shall not attempt to give sketches of the various descendants of Mrs. Munson, as it would expand too much the limits of this volume.
The shock of the massacre and subsequent captivity impaired the splendid constitution of Mrs. Munson, who thereafter suffered from nervousness; but through the earlier part of her life, she manifested unusual vigor. As Mrs. Munson passed middle life she failed rapidly, and on May 1, 1870, she closed her earthly career and was laid to rest in the garden beside her infant children who had gone before her, and when Mr. Munson died he was interred beside his faithful wife. Their graves are about one and one-half miles east of Shabona Park, on the original Hall homestead.