Dixon’s Ferry, now Dixon, Illinois, at the period of this campaign consisted of a ferry, the simple flat-bottomed affair of those days, and a 90-foot log cabin, built in three sections, both owned by John Dixon. The patriarchal appearance of this old pioneer had brought to him the title “Na-chu-sa” from the Indians, meaning in the Winnebago dialect “Long hair white,” and from the whites “Father Dixon.” By his kindness, gentleness, honesty and courage he had won the love of every person, white and red, who had ever met him, and to those in the land who had not met him his reputation had extended, so that the mention of his name meant an overture for peace.
In the spring of 1827 his brother-in-law, O.W. Kellogg, broke a trail through the country from Peoria to Galena, to facilitate the rapidly increasing overland travel to the lead mines. “Kellogg’s trail,” as it was then called, crossed Rock River at this place, and in 1828, when Father Dixon received the contract for carrying the mails from Peoria to Galena and Gratiot’s Grove, he took with him from Peoria to Rock River a half-breed named Joseph Ogee,[[115]] who established a permanent, though unlicensed, ferry. Prospective competition or a friend must have suggested his laches in this respect, for on December 7, 1829, he received from Jo Daviess County, whose jurisdiction embraced all that section of country, the statutory license to operate the same. But by 1830 the restraint of a ferryman’s life had become so exceedingly irksome to one of his nomadic nature that Father Dixon was constrained to take it off his hands and remove his family thence, which he did, arriving there April 11, 1830.
When Ogee established his ferry he built a hut of logs, unfit for habitation to any but a rover like himself. The needs of Father Dixon’s family and increasing travel required something better, and this improvement he at once supplied by making additions, so that he soon had the comfortable house-store-hotel displayed in the illustration. He, with his family of wife and five children, from that time forward entertained travelers and traded with the Indians until the Indians were no more and travel many years later had become diverted to bridges and other thoroughfares made by the new and ever-multiplying settlements. He was made postmaster, and thenceforth Dixon’s Ferry was of commanding prominence in Illinois travel and Illinois geography. At this period, however, Father Dixon’s was the only family on Rock River above the old Black Hawk village.
On his march up the river Black Hawk camped one night near the Dixon cabin, and with Ne-a-pope and the Prophet ate with the family, Mrs. Dixon waiting upon them in a manner so courteous as completely to captivate Black Hawk and command from him thereafter his highest admiration. During this stop the family, after a careful observation, estimated the number of able-bodied warriors with the expedition to be 800, and that number was reported to the troops, which arrived there May 12. Under the order of April 16th from Governor Reynolds, Majors Stillman and Bailey recruited to their battalions the companies already named.
Leaving Pekin May 8th,[[116]] Bailey’s battalion reached Boyd’s Grove the first night out, where Stillman, with his three companies, joined them and all camped for the night. The following day, at Bureau Creek, another detachment under a Captain Bowman, which had been ranging through the country toward Dixon’s Ferry, joined these forces, reporting the theft of many of their horses by the Indians. At Dad Joe’s Grove the combined forces camped the second night, marching the following day (the 10th), across the present county of Lee to Dixon’s Ferry, where Reynolds and the militia joined them on the morning of the 12th.
The first act of the Governor was one of circumspection. Selecting from his ablest and most discreet officers Captain John Dement, Colonel James T.B. Stapp, Wyat B. Stapp, Major Joseph M. Chadwick and Benjamin Moore, and Louis Ouilmette, a French trader, thoroughly familiar with those parts and with Indian character, and who, with others, was waiting at Dixon’s Ferry, they were directed to start for Paw Paw Grove,[[117]] some forty miles to the southeast, in the present confines of Shabbona township, DeKalb County, and there have a “talk” with the Pottowatomies, whose village was at that place, and assure themselves of the positive neutrality of that nation.
CAPT. J.A. BALL.
