Savage Indians have astonishing propensities for war and plunder. Before the European race came to this continent, the different nations and tribes were fighting and plundering each other, and they still keep up the practice, unless prevented by the strong arm of our national government. Nothing short of the influence of the gospel on their hearts can cure these diabolical passions.
The Indians who were hostile to the Americans did not attack the French inhabitants, for they had been accustomed to trade with them, and had been on friendly terms for half a century.
CHAPTER XI.
Religious families noticed.—Capt. Joseph Ogle.—James Lemen, Sen.—The three associates.—Upper Louisiana.—Attack on St. Louis.—The Governor a Traitor.—The assailants retire.—American immigration encouraged.—Baptists and Methodists go there.
With the religious families we have named, both Baptists and Methodists, Mr. Clark found himself at home. All were hospitable, kind and generous; no one begrudged him the comforts of life, in their frontier mode of living. As he studiously avoided making any trouble, and never appeared in the character of a preaching lounger, each family made him welcome to their homely fare. As he was more frequently the inmate of the families of Capt. Joseph Ogle, the Methodist class leader, and James Lemen, a leading Baptist in the community, it will be entertaining to our readers to have a sketch of these two pioneers.
Captain Joseph Ogle migrated with the Messrs. Zanes and other families, from the south branch of the Potomac to the vicinity of Wheeling in 1769, where he distinguished himself in the siege of Fort Henry, in 1777. In the summer of 1785, he moved down the Ohio river to the Illinois country, and at first settled in the American bottom, in the present county of Monroe. Being well qualified, he was chosen for a leader of the little band of pioneers, who had to defend themselves from Indian assaults. Indeed he was just such a man as the people in all exposed and frontier settlements look to as their counsellor, guide and commander. He possessed uncommon firmness and self-possession, had great energy, and yet was mild, peaceable, and kind-hearted in social intercourse; always striving for the maintenance of peace, good order and justice in the social relations. From the spring of 1784 to 1790, there was in fact no organized government in the Illinois country. Some of the forms of law were kept up, but in a truthful sense the people were “a law unto themselves,” and Captain Ogle, whom every body respected, was exactly the kind of man to preserve order. Other pioneers, who had talents and influence, occupied the same position. And this too was the period of Indian alarms, and the people had to do their own fighting. What the poet says of the fictitious Rolla, applied with much pertinence to Captain Ogle—
“In war, a tiger chafed by the hunter’s spear;
In peace, more gentle than the unwean’d lamb.”
He was scrupulously honest, punctual and strict in the fulfillment of all his engagements, and expected from all his neighbors the same degree of honesty and punctuality. The following anecdote will furnish an illustration of his true character.
A neighbor, by the name of Sullivan, who was not quite as punctual in performing promises as he ought to have been, borrowed some house-logs of Mr. Ogle to finish his cabin, promising to cut and return as many on a certain day. Capt. Ogle had arranged to raise his own cabin the day after the logs became due, but they were not returned. He went with several men to Sullivan’s cabin, told the family to remove any articles that might be in the house on the side he was about to pull down, and with handspikes proceeded with great coolness and deliberation to raise the corners and take the logs from the cabin.