"Father Clark," or The Pioneer Preacher

by John Mason Peck

CHAPTER X.

Journey to Illinois.—Story of the Gilham family, captured by Indians.—Hard fare.—Mr. Gilham attempts to recover them.—Indian War.—Peace made.—The Family Redeemed.—Removes to Illinois with Mr. Clark.—Navigation of Western Rivers.—Story of Fort Massac.—Terrible sickness.—Settlement of New Design.—An ungodly race.—First Preacher in Illinois.—A Stranger in meeting.—First Baptisms.—Other Preachers.—First Church Formed.—Manners and customs of the French.—Indian War.—Stations or Forts Described.—Pioneer Books projected.

And now we find the pioneer preacher trudging along the obscure pathway that guided him down the country in a western direction, towards the Green river district. He made appointments and preached in all the principal settlements as he journeyed, and was treated kindly and hospitably by all classes of people. It was in the Green river country he became acquainted with James Gilham, who was then preparing to remove his family and settle in the Illinois country, and wanted three or four able bodied men to accompany him, and work the boat down the Ohio and up the Mississippi. Mr. Clark had started from Lincoln County with the intention of passing through the wilderness on foot, but he had now a good opportunity of proceeding in a keel boat, or French pirogue, by water. They fitted out at the Red-banks, on the Ohio. While pursuing their journey of several hundred miles, Mr. Clark, in accordance with a long cherished wish, had a fine opportunity to learn much of Indian character and habits from this family. Mrs. Gilham and three children had been redeemed from a long and distressing captivity but two years before, and the story of her sufferings, privations, and wonderful preservation, as told to Mr. Clark, while sitting around their camp fire at night, deserves a place in our narrative.

Mr. James Gilham was a native of South Carolina, where he married his wife Ann, and commenced the battle of life as a frontier farmer. He removed his young family to Kentucky, and pitched his station in the western frontier settlements of that district. There he purchased a claim to a tract of land, and cleared a farm, cheered with the hopeful anticipations of a peaceful and happy life; but, like many others, he and his wife were doomed to disappointment. They had three sons and one daughter living, between the ages of four and twelve.

It was in the month of June, 1790, that he was ploughing in his corn field, some distance from his house, from which he was hidden by a skirt of timber, while his eldest son Isaac was clearing the hills from weeds with the hoe. At the same time several “braves” of the Kickapoo tribe of Indians, from the Illinois country, were lurking in the woods near the house, where Mrs. Gilliam, the two little boys, Samuel and Clement, and the daughter, were sheltered, wholly unsuspicious of such visitors. The Indians, finding the door open, rushed in; some seized the woman and gagged her, to prevent her giving the alarm; others seized the children, who could make no resistance. Mrs. Gilham was so alarmed that she lost her senses, and could not recollect any thing distinctly, until aroused by the voice of Samuel, “Mamma, we’re all prisoners.” This excited her feelings, and she looked around to find out whether the other children were all alive. Indians never walk abreast, as white people do. One leads off on the trail, and the others follow in single file, and are sometimes half a mile apart. One stout, bold warrior, went forward as a guide, and another kept many yards behind as a spy, watching cautiously to see if they were followed. They kept in the thick forest, out of the way of all the settlements, lest they should be discovered.

Mrs. Gilham and the children were in great distress. They were hurried forward by their savage masters, whose fierce looks and threatening gestures alarmed them exceedingly. The Indians had ripped open their beds, turned out the feathers, and converted the ticking into sacks, which they had filled with such articles of clothing as they could conveniently carry from the cabin, but were in too much haste to be off with their captives, to lay in provisions. They were used to periods of starvation, and could go three or four days without food, but the mother and her little ones suffered to an extent beyond the conception of our readers. But human nature can endure much in extreme cases. The feet of the children soon became sore and torn with briers; and the poor woman tore her clothes to obtain rags to wrap around their feet. The savages, as they thought, treated them kindly,—just as they would have done to their own children,—and Mrs. Gilham and the children had been familiar with the privations of frontier life, but they always had enough of plain, coarse food to eat; now they were starving. The Indians had with them a morsel of jerked venison, which they gave the children, but for themselves and the suffering mother there was not a particle of food to eat. One day they encamped in an obscure place, and sent out two of their best hunters, who crept stealthily through the thick brush and cane, and returned towards night with one poor raccoon. Mrs. Gilham afterwards told her friends that the sight of that half-starved ’coon was more gratification to her at that time than any amount of wealth could have afforded. She was in great distress lest her children should perish with hunger, or the Indians kill them. They dared not hunt near the settlements, lest they should be discovered.

The coon was dressed by singeing off the hair over a blaze of fire, and after throwing away the contents of the intestines, the animal was chopped in pieces and boiled in a kettle with the head, bones, skin and entrails, and made into a kind of soup. When done, and partially cooled, the children, mother, and Indians sat around the kettle, and with horn spoons, and sharpened sticks for forks, obtained a poor and scanty relief from starvation.

They approached the Ohio river with caution, lest white people might be passing in boats. They camped in the woods near the present site of Hawesville, and made three rafts of dry logs, with slender poles lashed across with thongs of elm bark, and placed them near the river, that they might push them in and cross over before they became soaked in water and heavy. The wily Indians were too cunning to cross by daylight lest they should be discovered, and Mrs. Gilham was exceedingly terrified at the danger of crossing by night. However they all got over safely.

The warriors considered it a great achievement to capture a white woman and three children in Kentucky, and elude all pursuit, and reach their own villages on Salt Creek, in the Illinois country, without being discovered. And they exercised all their cunning and sagacity to accomplish this daring feat.

When they reached the wilderness south-west of the Ohio river, they were in the Indian country, and proceeded slowly. They hunted with such success in the country between the Ohio and White river that they had plenty of provisions. They kept to the right of the white settlements near Vincennes, and along the valley of White river, and crossed the Wabash below Terre Haute, and proceeded through the present counties of Clark, Coles and Macon to their towns in Logan county.[39]