Pekin as a Town — 1830 to 1849

By Jared L. Olar
Local History Program Coordinator

The first 19 years of Pekin’s history cover the period when our community was a pioneer town — an unincorporated community until 1835 (or 1837), and as a self-governed incorporated Town from the mid-1830s until 1849.

During those first decades, Pekin had much of the character that is associated with the Wild West rather than a modern semi-rural Midwestern city. A Native American village even thrived near the new town until 1833, first located on the ridge above Pekin Lake and later on the south shores of Worley Lake.

However, as Pekin’s pioneer historian William H. Bates tells in the 1870-71 Pekin City Directory, it was in that first period of Pekin’s history that the crucial groundwork was laid for Pekin’s civic development.

Thus, Bates tells us that Pekin’s nascent economy got a boost in Pekin’s first year with the opening of two stores – one belonging to Absalom Dillon and the other to David Bailey – and a hotel or tavern operated by Pekin co-founder Gideon Hawley. Religion in the new town also made its debut in 1830, with the construction of Rev. Joseph Mitchell’s Methodist Church on Elizabeth Street between Third and Capitol.

The following year, Thomas Snell built the town’s first school house, located on Second Street between Elizabeth and St. Mary. Thomas’ son John was the school teacher. The same year, Thomas built Pekin’s first warehouse.

The most significant of 1831’s milestones for Pekin was the transfer of the county seat from Mackinaw to Pekin. When the Illinois General Assembly created Tazewell County in early 1827, Mackinaw was designated as the county seat because it was near what was then the geographical center of Tazewell County. But Pekin’s location as a port on the Illinois River meant Pekin was less remote than Mackinaw. That greater accessibility gave Pekin better prospects.

Another thing that may have played a role in the decision to move the county seat was a memorable extreme weather event: the incredible “Deep Snow” of Dec. 1830, a snowfall and sudden freeze that had turned life on the Illinois prairie into a desperate fight for survival. Pekin was closer to other, larger towns and settlements than Mackinaw, and therefore safer for settlers.

With such considerations in mind, the county’s officials found it more convenient to meet in Pekin, and soon sought permission from the state to relocate the county seat to Pekin. On 18 Feb. 1831, the Illinois General Assembly enacted a law that created a special county commission to choose a new county seat. The appointed Commissioners were William Porter, Matthias Chilton, and John T. Stewart. The law directed the Commissioners to meet in Pekin on the first Monday of April 1831, or within four days of that date, to confer and choose a permanent seat of government for Tazewell. Section 4 of the law stipulates:

“Until the county seat of said county shall be located, it shall be the duty of the county commissioners court to to procure a suitable house at Pekin, and the several courts shall be held at Pekin until suitable buildings are furnished at the county seat.”

Detail from the 16 Feb. 1831 state law that appointed a special county commission with the task of choosing a permanent county seat instead of Mackinaw, which was then a remote village in Tazewell County’s back country. The law allowed Pekin to function as the county seat until the commission made a final decision.

Pekin remained the county seat for the next five years. During that time, Illinois Supreme Court Justice Samuel D. Lockwood presided over the Circuit Court in Tazewell County. Court at first took place in the Snell school house, but later would convene in the Pekin home of Joshua C. Morgan, who simultaneously held the offices of Circuit Clerk, County Clerk, Recorder of Deeds, Master in Chancery, and Postmaster. That house was later the residence of Pekin pioneer doctor William S. Maus.

Another notable event of Pekin’s early history that greatly aided in transportation and trade was the surveying and laying out of a state road from Pekin to Mackinaw and beyond. The General Assembly passed a law on 10 Feb. 1831 that appointed William Orendorff of McLean County and Matthias Reinhart of Vermilion County as road commissioners with the authority to lay out the new state road, which was to begin in Pekin and extend to Mackinaw, then to Blooming Grove (McLean County’s first settlement, located in Bloomington Township), then to Cheney’s Grove, and to end at Big Grove in Vermilion County (today known as Champaign in Champaign County). Part of this old state road is ancestral to Illinois Route 9 from Pekin to Bloomington, though the route it follows varies from what it originally did.

The Black Hawk War, Illinois’ last conflict with its Native American population, broke out in 1832. The war lasted only a few months. It began disastrously for the Illinois militia with the debacle at Stillman’s Run in northern Illinois, where the untrained and undisciplined militia recruits quickly succumbed to panic and fled, leaving behind the few brave men in their number to be butchered and scalped. As Bates sardonically put it, “The balance of the command, so history hath it, saved their scalps by doing some exceedingly rapid marching to Dixon on the Rock River.” Among the fallen was Pekin co-founder Major Isaac Perkins.

The town of Pekin itself was not directly affected by the fighting, although the townsfolk did build a stockade around the Snell school house as a precaution, renaming it Fort Doolittle. The fort never had to be used, however, which was a very good thing, because, as Bates commented, it “was so constructed, that in case of a siege, the occupants would have been entirely destitute of water.”

Despite the war’s inauspicious start, the Illinois troops quickly gained the upper hand and Sauk war leader Black Hawk (Makataimeshekiakiak) was forced to give up the struggle. The outcome of the war was the greatest calamity for the remaining Indian tribes of Illinois, who beginning in 1833 were almost to the last man, woman, and child relocated to reservations west of the Mississippi – including the Pottawatomi and Kickapoo bands who lived in Tazewell County. Tazewell County’s Pottawatomi were soon joined by the harried remnants of their kin from Indiana, whom state militia soldiers forced to march west from their homes in Indiana in 1838 along a route that is remembered as the Pottawatomi Trail of Death.

In July 1834, an epidemic of Asiatic cholera struck Pekin, causing the deaths of several pioneers, including Thomas Snell and the wife of Joshua C. Morgan. The victims were hastily interred in the old Tharp Burying Ground, the former site of which is now the parking lot of the Pekin Schnucks grocery store.

Given the challenges and upheavals of the first five years of Pekin’s existence, it should not be surprising that, as we mentioned before, the crucial 2 July 1835 vote to incorporate as a Town failed to be legally recorded. On July 9, 1835, the townsfolk elected five men as Trustees: David Mark, David Bailey, Samuel Wilson, Joshua C. Morgan, and Samuel Pillsbury. Two days later, Pekin’s newly elected Board of Trustees organized itself, choosing Morgan as its president and Benjamin Kellogg Jr. as clerk.

One of the first acts of the new board was passing an ordinance on 1 Aug. 1835, specifying the town’s limits. At the time, Pekin’s boundaries extended from the west bank of the Illinois River in Peoria County eastward along a line that is today represented by Dirksen Court, reaching out as far as 11th Street, then straight south along 11th to Broadway, then westward along Broadway back across the Illinois River to Peoria County. It is noteworthy that land in Peoria County has been included within the limits of Pekin ever since 1835.

This detail from an 1864 map of Pekin has been cropped so that the edges of this image match the town limits of Pekin as they stood in 1835 — extending from the west bank of the Illinois River eastward to what is today 11th Street, and from Broadway north to what is today Dirksen Court. Many of the 1864 streets did not yet exist in 1835, of course.

Pekin’s first Board of Trustees continued to meet until 27 June 1836, when the county seat was formally relocated by Illinois law to Tremont, where a new court house had been built. Pekin then elected a new board on 8 Aug. 1836, the members of which were Samuel Pillsbury, Spencer Field, Jacob Eamon, John King, and David Mark. King was elected board president and Kellogg was again elected clerk.

On 18 Feb. 1837, the Illinois General Assembly approved the incorporation of the Pekin Hotel Company, whose members were Spencer Field, John W. Casey, Harlan Hatch, David Bailey, David Mark, Enos Coldren, and Gideon Rupert, who included some of the most prominent men in Pekin in those days. It is uncertain where these men established their hotel, but it seems likely it was within the first two blocks of the river.

Board members served one-year terms in those days, so Pekin held elections every year. Getting enough board members together for a quorum was evidently a real challenge. The board addressed that problem by passing of an ordinance on 4 Jan. 1838, stipulating that any board member who was more than 30 minutes late for a board meeting would forfeit $1 of his pay.

Another notable act of Pekin’s board around that time was a resolution of 29 Dec. 1840, adopting “an eagle of a quarter of a dollar of the new coinage” as the official seal of the town of Pekin.

On 29 Dec. 1840, the Pekin Town Board of Trustees officially adopted an American eagle like the one shown on this mid-19th century quarter as the seal of the Town of Pekin.

Throughout these years, Pekin continued to see economic developments. The first bank in town, a branch of the Bank of Illinois, was established in 1839 or 1840 at the rear of a store on Second Street. There was not yet a bridge across the Illinois River, but ferries were licensed to operate. Alcohol distilleries also were established in the area that is still Pekin’s industrial district, and around those years Benjamin Kellog also built the first steam mill near the river between Margaret and Anna Eliza streets.

In spite of a scarlet fever epidemic in the winter of 1843-44, these economic developments were signs of Pekin’s continuing growth and progress, notwithstanding the loss of the county seat to Tremont. By the late 1840s, the pioneer town was poised to attain the status and rank of a City.

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Before Pekin: Arrival of the pioneers in the 1820s

By Jared L. Olar

Local History Program Coordinator

Before the formal platting and surveying of the little pioneer settlement that would be named “Pekin” in January of 1830, the groundwork for Pekin’s founding was laid by an influx of settlers who arrived throughout the 1820s.

The first settler at what would become Pekin was Jonathan Tharp (1794-1844), who left his old home at Urbana, Ohio, looking for new opportunities in Illinois. Tharp arrived in 1824, almost three years before the creation of Tazewell County, and built a log cabin on a ridge above the Illinois River just west of the spot now occupied by the former Franklin School building at the foot of Broadway. The land was unbroken and in places rather marshy, and living not far off to his north, on Gravel Ridge above Pekin Lake, was a village of Pottawatomi.

Joshua Wagenseller’s house at the southwest corner of Broadway and “Market” is depicted in this detail of an 1877 aerial map of Pekin. The view looks in a southerly direction. At the western edge of the detail, marked “26,” are the old gas works. Across Main Street from the gas works are two small homes at the location of Jonathan Tharp’s 1824 log cabin, today the site of the former Franklin School. Wagenseller’s home is the grand edifice next to the two small homes.

At the bottom of this cropped image of a Champaign County, Ohio, marriage register can be seen the 16 Nov. 1815 marriage record of Pekin founding pioneer Jonathan Tharp (1794-1844) and Sarah Eggman (Egmon). Jonathan was the first white settler at what would soon become Pekin, arriving here in 1824 from Urbana, Ohio.

Pekin’s pioneer settler Jonathan Tharp died at the age of 50 on 8 Nov. 1844 and was buried in the Tharp Pioneer Burying Ground, formerly located where the Pekin Schnucks grocery story is today. Jonathan’s remains and his gravestone were removed to Oak Grove Cemetery (now a part of Lakeside Cemetery). Find-A-Grave photo by Linda T.

Jonathan was joined the following year by other members of his family, including his father Jacob Tharp (1773-1871), and brother Benjamin Northcott Tharp, and his brother-in-law and friend Jesse Eggman, all of whom arrived in 1825 and built cabins near Jonathan’s. The 1860 diary account of Jonathan’s father Jacob is an invaluable source for the history of the settlement of Tazewell County and Pekin during these years. We’ve quoted Jacob’s account here before, but it’s well worth listening again to Old Father Tharp’s words:

“Jonathan Tharp, my son, built the first house ever erected in the city of Pekin, in 1824, on the spot now occupied by Joshua Wagenseller‘s residence. Jonathan’s farm embraced the land now covered by our heaviest business houses.

“At the time of my arrival, Jonathan was the only occupant. Their neighbors were Major Nathan Cromwell, living on the Hawley farm; Gideon Hawley, living on the Mackinaw side of Sand Prairie; Seth Wilson, living on John Young’s farm; John and Geo. Clines, between that place and Tremont; the Woodrows and John Summers, living in the Woodrow settlement; the Dillon family, after whom that township was named; the Hodgsons, friends and relatives of the Dillons; old Benj. Briggs, afterwards Sheriff; James Scott, who with Wilson, acted as constable in those days; and Wm. Eads, who was the first miller in this section of the State. . . .

“The Government surveys were made previous to 1828. This year we were cheered by a close neighbor, a Mr. Hinkle, who came to put up a trading house for Absalom Dillon. The goods came before the house was finished, and so my smoke-house was used for the first store. This season the Methodists established a mission, and their first service was held in Hawley’s house, on Sand Prairie. In the fall of 1828, Absalom and Joseph Dillon moved to Pekin, and ‘camped out’ for a while. Major Cromwell came in 1829, and bought out Dillon’s stock in trade, when those gentleman returned to the country. In the same year, Hawley and William Haines built cabins in our town. The inhabitants then consisted of Cromwell, Hawley, Haines, Dr. John Warner, the two Hiatts, Jonathan Tharp and myself. . . .”

A historical account of this nascent 1820s pioneer is included in Charles C. Chapman’s 1879 “History of Tazewell County, Illinois.” Prior to that, we have William Henry Bates’ first-ever account of Pekin’s history that was printed in the 1871 Sellers & Bates City Directory of Pekin. Bates was Pekin’s pioneer historian, and much of what we know of our community’s first five decades comes from Bates’ publications.

One of his publications was prepared in 1916 to mark the dedication of Tazewell County’s new courthouse. Its full title is, “Souvenir of early and notable events in the history of the North West territory, Illinois, and Tazewell County: including the names of those who have served the county in various official capacities.” On pages 7-10, Bates reviews the history of our local area from 1809, when Congress created the Illinois Territory, down to the year 1829, when efforts began to organize the pioneer settlement here into a formally platted town.

Following are extended excerpts from Bates’ “Souvenir,” interspersed with occasional comment:

“The territory comprising the county of Tazewell formed part of the counties at the dates named in the several subdivisions of the State prior to the organization of the county, as follows:

“1809 — Illinois Territory was organized, and subdivided into the counties of Randolph and St. Clair. Tazewell was included in the latter.

1812— Tazewell formed a part of Madison county.

1814 — Tazewell was included in Madison and Edwards.

1816— Tazewell was a part of Madison and Crawford counties.

1817 — Tazewell was a part of the counties of Bond and Crawford.

1819 — Tazewell was included in Clark and Bond counties.

1821 — Tazewell formed part of Fayette and Sangamon counties.

“In 1825, the Legislature created Peoria county, and all the territory north of town twenty and west of the third principal meridian, which included Tazewell, became a part of Peoria for all county purposes. When the population of Tazewell was thought to be sufficiently large to regularly organize, an election was held in April, 1827, and Benjamin Briggs, George Hittle and James Lotta were chosen County Commissioners. They at once proceeded to hold a meeting and consummate the organization. This they did at the house of William Orendorff, April 10, 1827. . . .”

Bates then tells of the first permanent white settlers of Tazewell County:

“. . . to-wit: Wm. Blanchard, Jr., accompanied by Charles and Theodore Sargeant and David Barnes, all revolutionary veterans of 1812, came west in 1819, settling temporarily at Fort Clark (Peoria). Finding a fine piece in the bottom land opposite, they planted a patch of corn and potatoes. Then in 1822, they found, near their first patch, an old French field of ten acres, which had been abandoned, of which they took possession and erected a rude cabin, and planted corn and potatoes. This is claimed to be the first dwelling built between Fort Clark and Chicago, (probably excepting the log cabins built in Ft. Creve Coeur in 1680, and the ‘Trading House,’ built at Wesley City about 1775.) There is still another claimant — Wm. Holland, who settled in Washington township, as early as 1821.

“The first death of a white man was that of a Mr. Killum, in December, 1823. He died of exposure after crossing the Mackinaw river, while on a trip between (what is today) Logan county and Peoria.

“The first white child born in Tazewell county, was Hannah, daughter of Nathan Dillon. The date of this historic event was August 2, 1824. . . .

“Jonathan Tharp was the first settler in ‘Town Site.’ He built his crude log cabin home on the high ground, between what is now the Franklin School and Pekin Gas Works, near the foot of Broadway.”

This mention of “Town Site” refers to the specific area that a company of settlers here platted and surveyed in 1829 as the site of their yet-to-be named town. Some of the standard works on Pekin’s history mistakenly say that “Town Site” was the name of the pioneer settlement before it was renamed “Pekin,” but that designation was nothing more than a convenient way to refer to the site of their planned town before the settlers agreed on a name.

“On the arrival of the first white settlers at ‘Town Site,’ there was quite a large Indian village on the ridge where the P. & P. U. R. R. trains pass by the W. A. Boley & Co., ice houses. The Pottawatomies predominated.

“Among the friendly Indians residing here, during the Black Hawk War, in 1832, was the noted Pottawatomie, Chief Shabbona, and his family, who erected wigwams at the foot of Broadway, near the present gas works. He was a true friend of the ‘pale face,’ because of which and the fact that he refused to join his forces with Black Hawk’s, in a war of extermination against the ‘pale face,’ his life was threatened. Whilst Shabbona escaped, Black Hawk’s savages succeeded in murdering his son and a nephew. Shabbona, although an Indian by birth, had early espoused the humane and civilizing influences of the first ‘pale face’ neighbors, and to his memory and honor may be ascribed the saving of scores of lives of those who had gone to the great Illini country, to build new homes and a western empire.

“Shabbona was buried near Morris, Illinois, and a monument was erected to his memory by the grateful Americans. . . .”

Apart from the loaded and far from impartial language he uses, Bates’ summary of Shabbona’s life is generally accurate. However, his statement that Shabbona resided at Pekin during the Black Hawk War is erroneous. Shabbona and his family are reported to have camped just to the south of Jonathan Tharp’s cabin, but it could not have been in 1832 since he is known not to have come as far south as Peoria or Pekin during the Black Hawk War. Although the year that Bates gives is wrong, this pioneer tradition he handed on seems to be reliable. At the time of Tharp’s arrival in 1824, Shabbona’s camp was near Starved Rock, but in any of the years between 1824 and 1832, Shabbona could have camped for a season or two near Pekin’s Pottawatomi. Shabbona’s presence at Pekin would not have been forgotten.

Continuing with Bates’ “Souvenir,” he offers remarks on Pekin’s first church building:

“The Methodists are said to have erected the first brick church — about 1830. This was in Pekin, and Rev. Jos. Mitchell (sic – John T. Mitchell) was the first regular pastor. This building, which had been converted into a foundry, was burned during the great fire in 1860. The Methodists had subsequently built a new frame church on the corner of Capitol and Margaret streets. The Palace Garage occupies the site of the old brick church.

“From 1831, to 1836, while Pekin was the county seat, Joshua C. Morgan held the offices of Circuit Clerk, County Clerk, Recorder, Master-in-Chancery and Postmaster. He transacted the business of his various offices and lived with wife, four children, his brother and a young lady, in a house of two rooms. According to our informant, ‘The entire court and bar, and many others, often spent the evenings there.’ Such was pioneer hospitality.”

The first seat of county government in Tazewell County was Mackinaw, but Mackinaw was not an easily accessible place in those early years, so county officials asked to Illinois General Assembly to relocate the county seat. The state agreed that Pekin, more easily accessible as an Illinois River town, could serve as the county seat until a permanent location could be agreed upon. In 1836, the General Assembly decided upon Tremont as the new county seat, since it was then near the geographical center of the county and more or less midway between Mackinaw and Pekin.

Bates then continues his enumeration of Pekin’s “firsts.” Here are some of the more notable ones:

“The first brick building erected in Tazewell county, for business purposes, was by David Mark, at the corner of Court and Second Streets, 200 Court, Pekin. The rear of this building, facing Second street, housed the first bank.

“Gideon H. Hawley is credited with starting the first hotel. . . .

“Joseph, son of Jonathan Tharp, was the first male white child born in ‘Town Site,’ his natal day being March 10th, 1827. . . .

“The first negro to reach ‘Town Site’, or Tazewell county, was known as ‘Black Nance,’ who came as a slave, leased to Major Cromwell, to satisfy a debt. This occurred about 1829. She was a good soul, ever willing to help on all festal occasions. All her children were ‘born in freedom,’ at Pekin. As the years rolled by, she gained distinction by being the first black slave freed by the great emancipator, Abraham Lincoln. This case came before the courts and was won by Lincoln when he was known as ‘Honest Old Abe.’”

Bates’ account of Nance Legins-Costley (1813-1892) is correct in its essentials, although the status of her first three children was in doubt until her case was decided in 1841. She was certainly one of Pekin’s most noteworthy and remarkable pioneer settlers, and her memory is now honored with a downtown park dedicated in her name last summer, as well as a historical marker in Peoria near the place where she was buried.

The reader will have noticed how often the Tharp name appears in these early notices and accounts of Pekin’s pioneer times. It might then seem surprising that the Tharps were not among the pioneers who surveyed, platted, and named Pekin. How that came about, and the story of Pekin’s founding, will be the subject of next week’s “From the History Room” article.

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‘In the Hollow of my Hand’: Library’s Local History Room features display highlighting Native American life and culture of Central Illinois

Around the time white settlers began flooding into Tazewell County in the 1820s, Potawatomi War Chief Senachwine compared the settlers’ numbers to the blades of grass on the prairie, while the chief could take all of his people and “place them in the hollow of my hand.”  After futile efforts at resistance and co-existence, the native tribes of our area finally were expelled in the mid-1830s. Some of the stories and memories of the original peoples of Pekin and Tazewell County will be recalled this Columbus Day by Pekin Public Library’s Local History Specialist Jared Olar, who will present a program titled “In the Hollow of my Hand” in the library’s Community Room at 9:30 a.m. Monday, Oct. 10. The library also has a display that spotlights Central Illinois’ Native Americans in the Local History Room.

Displayed here are images of: the war club and grave marker of Senachwine, Pottawatomi War Chief, who resided near the future site of Washington, Illinois, during the 1820s; the text of two speeches of Senachwine on the plight of the Native Americans of Illinois; Black Hawk, a leader of the Sauk and Fox who fought to resist the expulsion of his and other tribes in 1832; and a map showing the various expulsions of the Pottawatomi bands from Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois.

Displayed here are an array of images of Chief Shabbona of the Pottawatomi and his family, who is recorded as having camped in Pekin around 1830 (though his camps usually were in northern Illinois, and he and many members of his family are buried in Evergreen Cemetery, Morris, Illinois). In the image on the left, Shabbona wears the distinctive Pottawatomi turban. Also shown is Mimikwe or Miomex Zebequa ‘Po-ka-no-ka’ (1778-1864), who was the chief of Shabbona’s three wives. Two other family members are also shown: Shabbona’s daughter Modwe Quah, and his great-granddaughter Josephine Marshno. Another photograph shows a line of Native American wigwams along Pekin’s railroad tracks during a community fair in the early 1900s which included a commemoration of the Pottawatomi and Kickapoo who lived here until they were forced to leave in the mid-1830s.

In this display is a reproduction of artist George Winter’s 1837 sketch of Kee-waw-nay Village, near Bruce’s Lake in northern Indiana, which depicts Pottawatomi life. Note the distinctive turbans, like that which Chief Shabbona is known to have worn. Also in this display are maps showing the areas where the Illiniwek, Pottawatomi, Kickapoo, and other tribes lived around the time that white settlement began to increase in Illinois. Copies of two historically significant letters of Ninian Edwards that describe the locations of the tribes and chiefs in Illinois while he was territorial governor of Illinois, are also shown. According to Edwards, in May 1812 the future site of Pekin was then the dwelling place of Kickapoo chief Lebourse Sulky.

An array of historic maps from the “Indian Villages of the Illinois Country” collection are here displayed.

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Memories of Shabbona, Pottawatomi peace chief

By Jared Olar

Library Assistant

We have previously recalled the life of Pottawatomi leader Shabbona (c.1775-1859), who is mentioned in early Pekin historical accounts as briefly encamping with his family and a band of Pottawatomi at the site of Pekin circa 1830, pitching his wigwams just to the south of Jonathan Tharp’s cabin at the foot of Broadway.

As noted in an earlier “From the History Room” post, Shabbona (whose name is also spelled Shaubena and Shabonee, etc.) was prominent not only in the early history of Pekin and Tazewell County but also played a significant role in the wider history of Illinois, the Midwest and the U.S. At the time that Jonathan Tharp settled at the future site of Pekin in 1824, Shabbona’s camp was in the vicinity of Starved Rock, but Pekin pioneer historian William H. Bates indicates that around 1830 Shabbona and his family had set up a small village of Pottawatomi just south of Tharp’s cabin, between McLean Street and Broadway. But not much later, during the Black Hawk War of 1832 Shabbona and his family were camped in northern Illinois.

Pottawatomi leader Shabbona (1775-1859), shown in print from an earlier tintype image. Though he lived in Northern Illinois most of the time, Shabbona and his people camped at the site of Pekin circa 1830, just to the south of Jonathan Tharp’s cabin which was at the foot of Broadway.

This tintype of Shabbona was the basis for several drawn illustrations in Nehemiah Matson’s “Memories of Shaubena” (1878), based in part on Matson’s conversations with Shabbona.

Though he fought against the U.S. alongside Tecumseh during the War of 1812, after Tecumeh’s defeat and death, Shabbona spent the rest of his life striving to remain at peace with his white neighbors, and during the Black Hawk War of 1832 he not only counseled the Pottawatomi not to support Black Hawk, but he aided the Illinois militia forces as a scout and on May 15 he and his son Pypegee and his nephew Pyps made a desperate early morning ride across northern Illinois to warn settlers on the prairie that Black Hawk’s war parties were on their way.

Shabbona’s ride is recounted by Nehemiah Matson in chapter 10 of his 1878 book “Memories of Shaubena,” based in part on Matson’s personal interviews of Shabbona. Matson writes,

“The first house Shaubena came to was squire Dimmick’s, who lived at Dimmick’s Grove, near the present site of La Moille. On notifying Dimmick of his danger, he in reply said, ‘he would stay until his corn was planted,’ saying, ‘he left the year before, and it proved a false alarm, and he believed it would be so this time.’ To this statement Shaubena replied, ‘If you will remain at home, send off your squaw and papooses, or they will be murdered before the rising of to-morrow’s sun!’ Shaubena had now mounted his pony, and on leaving, raised his hand high above his head, and in a loud voice exclaimed, ‘Auhaw Puckegee’ (You must leave!); and again his pony was on a gallop to notify others. Shaubena’s last remark caused Dimmick to change his mind, consequently he put his family into a wagon, and within one hour left his claim, never to return to it again.”

In this way, Shabbona saved the lives not only of the Dimmicks, but also the families of Chamberlin, Smith, Epperson, Moseley, Musgrave, Doolittle, and others. His brave and noble effort is the subject of a ballad written in 1927 by Thomas C. MacMillan of LaGrange, Illinois, entitled, “A Flag Creek Ballad: The Pottawatomies’ Last Camp and Shabbona’s Ride,” or “Shabbona’s Ride” for short.

                “They told of brave Shabbona’s daring ride / When he warned the pioneers

                Of Chief Black Hawk’s plans / With his hostile clans,

                To ravage the wide frontiers.

                “How he spurred by day, and sped in the dark. / On prairie, past treacherous swamp,

                Where lurked the grim bear, / Near the fox’s lair,

                And the ravening wolf-pack’s camp. . . .

                “May the story of this bold soul survive / In the annals of our state,

                Place Shabbona’s name / On its roll of fame

                With the brave, and true, and great!”

As related at this weblog previously, after the Black Hawk War the State of Illinois resolved to clear the state of its remaining Native Americans – but for his friendship and help during the war, Shabbona and his family were granted a small reservation at Shabbona’s Grove. Even so, Shabbona at first wished to be with his people on their reservation in Western Kansas. That, however, was not to be, for the aid that Shabbona, Pypegee, and Pyps provided to white settlers in 1832 had made them enemies among other Indian tribes. As Matson relates:

“Shaubena’s band located on lands assigned them by the Government in Western Kansas, and here the old chief intended to end his days, but circumstances caused him to do otherwise. Soon after the band went West, the Sacs and Foxes were moved from Iowa to this country, and located in a village about fifty miles from Shaubena’s. Neopope, the principal chief of Black Hawk’s band, had frequently been heard to say that he would kill Shaubena, also his son and nephew, for notifying the settlers of their danger, and fighting against them in the late war. Shaubena had been warned of these threats, but he did not believe that Neopope would harm him.

“In the fall of 1837, Shaubena, with his two sons and nephew, accompanied by five others, went on a buffalo hunt about one hundred miles from home, where they expected to remain for some time. Neopope thinking this a good time to take his revenge, raised a war party and followed them. During the dead hour of the night, when all were asleep, this war party attacked the camp, killing Pypegee and Pyps, and wounding another hunter who was overtaken in his flight and slain. Shaubena, his son Smoke, with four other hunters, escaped from camp, but Neopope was on their trail and followed them almost to their home. After traveling over a hundred miles on foot without gun or blanket, and without tasting food, the fugitives reached home on the third day. Shaubena, knowing that he would be killed if he remained in Kansas, left it immediately, and with his family returned to his reservation in De Kalb county.”

They remained on their Illinois reservation for the next 12 years. However, while visiting his kin in Western Kansas in 1849, his reservation was seized and declared forfeited. Upon his return in 1851, he found that he and his family were homeless.

George Armstrong of Morris, Illinois, former sheriff of Ottawa, promised him, “While I have a bed and home you shall share them with me.” The people of Ottawa then bought him some land on the south bank of the Illinois River about two miles upriver from Seneca, where he lived until his death on 17 July 1859.

Regarding the genealogy of Shabbona and his family, Matson says in the first chapter of his book:

“Shaubena, according to his statement, was born in the year 1775 or 1776, at an Indian village on the Kankakee river, now in Will county. His father was of the Ottawa tribe, and came from Michigan with Pontiac, about the year 1766, being one of the small band of followers who fled from the country after the defeat of that noted chief.”

Other sources state that Shabbona’s father Opawana was Chief Pontiac’s nephew. (Allan W. Eckert’s “A Sorrow in Our Heart: The Life of Tecumseh,” page 373, says Opawana fought beside Pontiac at the Siege of Detroit in 1763.) Continuing, Matson writes:

“Shaubena, in his youth, married a daughter of a Pottawatomie chief named Spotka, who had a village on the Illinois, a short distance above the mouth of Fox river. At the death of this chief, which occurred a few years afterwards, Shaubena succeeded him as head chief of the band.”

The number and identity of Shabbona’s wives is uncertain. Matson lists three wives: 1) an unnamed daughter of Spotka, 2) Mi-o-mex Ze-be-qua, and 3) Pok-a-no-ka. However, cemetery records and other sources show that Mi-o-mex was the same person as Pok-a-noka, while Shabbona’s last wife was a young Kickapoo named Nebebaquah (by whom Shabbona had a son named Obenesse; she died in 1878). In the court case “27 Ind. Cl. Comm. 187,” Sho-bon-ier (Shabbona?) is referred to as the son-in-law of Topenebe (or Topinabe), a Pottawatomi chief in Michigan near Chicago. Topinabe’s daughter was called Mimikwe – cf. Mi-o-mex. This would suggest that she would then be distinct from Shabbona’s unnamed first wife, daughter of Spotka.

Mimikwe or Miomex Zebequa ‘Po-ka-no-ka’ (1778-1864) was the chief of Shabbona’s three wives. (Photo from the Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Grundy County, Vol. II)

Later in his book, in chapter 20, Matson provides the following account of Shabbona’s family:

“Shaubena, in his youth, married a daughter of a Pottawatomie chief, and by her he had two children. A few years afterward, this squaw and children died, and were buried at the grove; a pen of small timbers marked their resting place. In later years, Shaubena was in the habit of taking visitors to the graveyard and pointing out the graves of loved ones, while tears would trickle down his tawny cheeks.

“After the death of his first squaw, Shaubena married another, named Mi-o-mex Ze-be-qua, and by her he had a number of children. In accordance with Indian customs, some years afterward he married another squaw, and for a time lived with both of them. The latter was a young squaw of great personal attractions, named Pok-a-no-ka, and by her he had a large family of children. The old and young squaw did not live together in perfect harmony, and their quarrels would sometimes lead to open hostility. On account of these disagreements, Pok-a-no-ka in later years left the family and lived with her people in Kansas.

“The oldest son of Shaubena, whose Indian name was Pypegee, but known everywhere among the early settlers as Bill Shaubena, was a fine intelligent youth, spoke English quite well, and, like his father, frequently visited the cabins of settlers. He tried to court a daughter of one of the early settlers, and it appeared to have been the height of his ambition (as he expressed it) to marry a white squaw. In the fall of 1837, Pypegee was killed, in Kansas, by a party of Sacs and Foxes, on account of his fidelity to the whites, as previously stated.

“Shaubena’s second son, named Smoke, possessed a fine commanding figure, very handsome, and a great favorite among the whites. In 1847, Smoke, while returning from Kansas, where he had been on a visit, was taken sick in Iowa and died among the whites, and by them received a Christian burial.

“The youngest son, Ma-mas, became dissipated, and is now living with his band in Kansas.

“Shaubena had many daughters, two of whom were young and unmarried at the time of his death. One of his daughters married a Frenchman named Beaubien, who lived near Chicago, but Ze-be-qua was his beautiful daughter who at one time was the belle of the settlement.

“Shaubena’s family, while at the grove, consisted of twenty-five or thirty persons, including his two squaws, children, grandchildren, nephews, nieces, etc. He would frequently take the little ones to church with him on the Sabbath day, and take much pains to keep them quiet during the service.

“While at the grove, Shaubena had a niece living with him, a young squaw of about fifteen years of age and of prepossessing appearance, but, like other daughters of Eve, was not free from faults. For some indiscretion she was punished in accordance with Indian custom, which the following story, told by an early settler, Isaac Morse, will illustrate. One morning, Mr. Morse, on going into the timber to work, noticed a high pen built of poles around a large burr oak tree, in which was this Indian maiden. He asked her many questions, to which she made no reply, appearing sad and ashamed of her situation. At noon he offered her some of his lunch, but she would neither eat nor speak. Next morning, finding her still in the pen, Mr. Morse again tried to converse with her, and commenced pulling down the pen from around her. She then said that she was a bad Indian, consequently must stay there another day, and commenced repairing the pen around herself.

“Shaubena had a grandson named Smoke, a bright, intelligent lad, about thirteen years of age at the time of his death, and to him was bequeathed the chieftainship of the tribe. Smoke went to Kansas after his grandfather’s death, and is said to be chief of the band.

“Shaubena has a nephew, a half-breed, named David K. Foster, who received a college education, and is now a Methodist preacher at Bradley, in Allegan county, Michigan. Also, another nephew, a half-breed and a college graduate, by the name of Col. Joseph N. Bourassa, now living at Silver Lake, Kansas. From each of these men I have received many letters, and to them I am indebted for many items given in this work.

“A few years before Shaubena’s death, he gave all his family Christian names, in addition to their Indian names, assuming the name of Benjamin himself.”

These images of Shabbona, his daughter Modwe Quah, and his great-granddaughter Josephine Marshno, are featured at the homepage of the Shabbona-Lee-Rolla Historical Museum.

Following his death on 17 July 1859, Shabbona was a given a grand public funeral on 19 July and then buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Morris, Illinois. On 30 Nov. 1864, his widow Mi-o-mex and his granddaughter Mary Oquaka, age 4, accidentally drowned together in Mazon Creek in Grundy County. They were buried by his side.

Efforts to raise money for a grave monument were interrupted by the Civil War, so it was not until 1903 that a large inscribed boulder was placed at their final resting place. According to the 1886 compilation “Abraham Lincoln’s Vocations,” some years later Shabbona’s daughter and her son, John Shabbona, came from the reservation at Mayetta, Kansas, and visited Shabbona’s Grove, viewing photographs and documents pertaining to Shabbona in DeKalb and Chicago. In 1903, when Shabbona’s monument was laid, John Shabbona again returned to Chicago along with members of several of the expelled tribes of Illinois for a special Indian encampment recognizing the original peoples of Chicago (see “City Indian: Native American Activism in Chicago, 1893-1934,” 2015, by Rosalyn R. LaPier, David R. M. Beck, page 64).

Shown in this image posted to Find-A-Grave by Mike Kobliska is the marker at the grave of Shabbona and his family in Evergreen Cemetery, Morris, Illinois. The marker was placed in 1903.

This photograph, posted at Find-A-Grave by Taylor Warren, shows a grave marker listing the names, ages, and burial dates for Shabbona and his family. This marker is next to the large boulder that was placed in 1903 to mark the site of the graves of Shabbona and his wife and children.

NOTE: An earlier version of this article misidentified the Pottawatomi chief Topinabe as the same person as Daniel Bourassa, but Daniel Bourassa, a Frenchman of Michigan, cannot be identified as Chief Topinabe (see the article “Joseph and Madeline Bertrand” and other articles at the Chief Abram B. Burnett Family homepage). The spurious identification of Topinabe as Daniel Bourassa, found at Find-A-Grave and elsewhere on the internet, is due to the erroneous identification of the parentage of Madeline (Bourassa) Bertrand, whose mother was an unknown Native American woman.

#a-flag-creek-ballad, #battle-of-the-thames, #benjamin-shabbona, #bill-shabbona, #black-hawk, #black-hawk-war, #col-joseph-n-bourassa, #david-k-foster, #george-armstrong, #john-shabbona, #jonathan-tharp, #josephine-marshno, #ma-mas-shabbona, #mary-oquaka-shabbona, #memories-of-shaubena, #mimikwe, #miomex-zebequa-pokanoka, #modwe-quah-shabbona, #nebebaquah, #nehemiah-matson, #neopope, #obenesse-shabbona, #opawana, #pottawatomi-in-pekin, #pypegee, #pyps, #shabbona, #shabbonas-ride, #shabbonas-grove, #smoke-shabbona, #spotka, #tecumseh, #the-pottawatomies-last-camp, #thomas-c-macmillan, #war-of-1812, #ze-be-qua-shabbona

Senachwine, war chief of the Pottawatomi

This is a reprint of a “From the Local History Room” column that first appeared in November 2014 before the launch of this weblog.

Senachwine, war chief of the Pottawatomi

By Jared Olar
Library assistant

When settlers of European descent first began to make permanent dwellings during the 1820s in what would soon become Tazewell County, they found the area inhabited by Native American tribes. The most numerous of the tribes was the Pottawatomi, who had villages in the county’s northern townships, as well as a large village at the future site of Pekin, where they were led by a chief named Shabbona.

As this column has previously related, Shabbona was a member of the Ottawa tribe who had married the daughter of a Pottawatomi chief and succeeded to the headship of his wife’s group of Pottawatomi after her father’s death. Shabbona and his family are reported to have camped to the south of where Pekin’s pioneer settler Jonathan Tharp had built his log cabin in 1824. Other Pottawatomi in the area were headed by a chief named Wabaunsee. During the Black Hawk War of 1832, however, Shabbona and Wabaunsee refused to join Black Hawk’s uprising, and Shabbona even gave active help to white settlers, warning them of impending attack. Consequently, after the war, Shabbona and Wabaunsee were rejected as chiefs, and, according to the online essay “Potawatomi War Chief (1744-1831) Chief Senachwine,” the Pottawatomi instead chose as their leader Kaltoo, also called Ogh-och-pees, eldest son of the Pottawatomi War Chief Sen-noge-wone.

In central Illinois, Sen-noge-wone is more usually called “Senachwine.” In his “History of Tazewell County,” Charles C. Chapman spells the name “Snatchwine.” He and his people dwelt in and near what would become Washington Township. On pages 674-676, Chapman records some memories of Lawson Holland, an early white settler of Washington Township. Holland’s memories included recollections of Chief Senachwine and of the customs of the Pottawatomi of the area. Holland knew Senachwine for about 10 years, remembering him as often despondent.

Chapman writes that Senachwine “was honored and loved by all the braves,” and that “his word was law, and his presence and council always sought in times of disturbance or trouble. Among the whites he was generally honored and respected. To them he always extended the hand of welcome, and the fatted deer of the forest was brought to their door in token of good will.”

Chapman’s account of Chief Senachwine also includes the transcript of a lengthy speech of the chief’s. According to Chapman, Senachwine gave the speech around 1823 when he “found out the whites were becoming alarmed, and called a council with the whites, to talk. He spoke about four hours.”

“When you palefaces came to our country we took you in and treated you like brothers,” Senachwine said. “We furnished you with corn and gave you meat that we killed, but you palefaces soon became numerous and began to trample upon our rights, which we attempted to resist, but was whipped and driven off. This is returning evil for good. The graves of my forefathers are just as dear to me as yours, and had I the power I’d wipe you from the face of the earth. I have 800 good warriors, besides many old men and boys, that could be put in a fight, but this takes up a remnant of these tribes since the last war. I believe I could raise enough braves, and taking you by surprise, could clean the State. I know I could go below your capital and take everything clean. But what then? We must all die in time. You would kill us all off. You tell me that you have forbidden your men to sell whisky. You enforce these laws and I stand pledged for any depredation my people shall commit. But you allow your men to come with whisky and trinkets and get them drunk and cheat them out of all their guns and skins and all their blankets, that the Government pays me yearly for this land. This leaves us in a starving freezing condition and we are raising only a few children compared to what we raised in Old Kentuck, before we knew the palefaces. Some of my men say in our consultations, let us rise and wipe the palefaces from the face of the earth. I tell them no, the palefaces are too numerous. I can take every man, woman and child I’ve got and place them in the hollow of my hand and hold them out at arm’s length. But when I want to count you palefaces I must go out in the big prairie, where timber ain’t in sight, and count the spears of grass, and I haven’t then told your numbers.”

About eight years later, around 1831, Senachwine counseled that violent resistance to white encroachment was futile and would only lead to the annihilation of the native tribes. His counsel and the policy of Shabbona convinced the Pottawatomi not to join Black Hawk in his hostilities. The online essay “Potawatomi War Chief (1744-1831) Chief Senachwine,” quotes him as responding to Black Hawk, “Resistance to the aggression of the whites is useless; war is wicked and must result in our ruin. Therefore let us submit to our fate, return not evil for evil, as this would offend the Great Spirit and bring ruin upon us. . . . My friends, do not listen to the words of Black Hawk, for he is trying to lead you astray. Do not imbrue your hands in human blood . . . .”

Senachwine died in the summer of 1831 and was buried on a bluff above his village in Putnam County. After the Black Hawk War, the Pottawatomi were deported to reservations in Kansas and Nebraska, but in subsequent years members of his band reportedly would come back from time to time to visit his grave. On June 13, 1937, the Peoria Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution placed a large stone with a bronze memorial plaque at the spot that was believed to be his grave site, about a half-mile north of the village of Putnam. Five members of the Prairie Band Potawatomi came from Kansas to attend the ceremony.

This monument was placed in 1937 at the spot that was believed to be the gravesite of Pottawatomi War Chief Senachwine, about a half-mile north of the village of Putnam.

#black-hawk, #jonathan-tharp, #kaltoo, #lawson-holland, #pottawatomi, #pottawatomi-in-pekin, #preblog-columns, #senachwine, #shabbona, #wabaunsee

Black Hawk, Shabbona, and the Clearance of Illinois’ Native Americans

By Jared Olar
Library assistant

As previously noted in this column, the city of Pekin was established at the site of a Native American village of about 100 wigwams located on Gravel Ridge along the eastern shore of Pekin Lake (near the location of the Pekin Boat Club). Pekin’s first European settler, Jonathan Tharp, built his cabin in 1824 to the south of that village, at or very near the spot where the former Franklin School stands today, at the foot of Broadway.

The Indians who lived along Gravel Ridge in the 1820s and 1830s were primarily Pottawatomi, but much of Tazewell County also was home to Kickapoo bands. In a letter dated in May 1812, Illinois Territorial Gov. Ninian Edwards wrote, “At Little Makina, a river on the south side of [the] Illinois, five leagues below Peoria, is a band, consisting of Kickapoos, Chippeways, Ottaways and Pottowottamies. They are called warriors, and their head man is Lebourse or Sulky. Their number is sixty men, all desperate fellows and great plunderers.”

While Sulky was a Kickapoo, his other name “Lebourse” is French, for he was, like many Native Americans in Illinois during that period, partly of French descent, even as his own band was made up of warriors from three other tribes besides the Kickapoo. The name of the river that Gov. Edwards said was the location of Sulky’s village – “Little Makina” – might suggest that they were living on the shores of the Mackinaw River south of Pekin. However, the distance “five leagues below Peoria” indicates a spot about 17 miles downriver from Peoria Lake, which is the river distance between Peoria and Pekin, so “Little Makina” must refer to a stream or creek that flows into the Illinois (perhaps Lick Creek?). That would mean Sulky and his band were living at the future site of Pekin around May of 1812.

Another Kickapoo chief in Tazewell County, mentioned by Gov. Edwards in a letter written July 21, 1812, was Pemwotam (or Pemwatome), whose village was at the northeast end of Peoria Lake in Fondulac Township, to the north of the McClugage Bridge. On his raid of the Indian villages of Peoria Lake in Oct. 1812, Gov. Edwards destroyed a Kickapoo village that is said to have been Pemwotam’s. In his 1879 “History of Tazewell County,” Charles C. Chapman gives a somewhat lengthy account of Edwards’ raid, describing the destruction of the Kickapoo village in Fondulac Township and of Pottawatomi chief Black Partridge’s village in Woodford County.

Chapman mentions another Kickapoo chief of Tazewell County named “Old Machina,” whose name is also spelled “Mashenaw.” Machina’s village was near Mackinaw, and Chapman related the pioneers’ recollections of Chief Machina’s displeasure at the new wave of settlers who arrived in the 1820s.

Another Native American name associated with early Pekin history is that of a Pottawatomi leader named Shabbona, whose name is also spelled Shaubena and Shabonee. He was prominent in the early history of Pekin and Tazewell County and played a significant role in the wider history of Illinois, the Midwest and the U.S. At the time that Jonathan Tharp settled at the future site of Pekin, Shabbona’s camp was in the vicinity of Starved Rock, but Pekin pioneer historian William H. Bates indicates that around 1830 Shabbona and his family had set up a small village of Pottawatomi just south of Tharp’s cabin, between McLean Street and Broadway. But not much later, during the Black Hawk War of 1832 Shabbona and his family were camped in northern Illinois.

Pottawatomi leader Shabbona, shown in a daguerreotype printed in John Leonard Conger’s “History of the Illinois River Valley,” 1932.

A member of the Ottawa tribe, Shabbona was born about 1775, but his place of birth is uncertain. In his 1879 “History of Tazewell County,” Charles C. Chapman said Shabbona “was born at an Indian village on the Kankakee river, now in Will county,” but others say he was born in Ontario, Canada, or on the Maumee River in Ohio.

Shabbona was the grandnephew of the great Ottawa Chief Pontiac, and his father had fought alongside Pontiac in Pontiac’s War of 1763. His name comes from the Ottawa word zhaabne (related to the Pottawatomi word zhabné) which means “hardy” or “indomitable,” and interpreted by white settlers as “built like a bear.” The Ottawa originally lived in Ontario, Canada, but were driven out by the Iroquois, moving to Michigan where they joined with the Ojibwa and Pottawatomi, and afterwards migrating with their kinsmen the Pottawatomi to Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. Around 1800, Shabbona married Pokanoka (Coconako), daughter of a Pottawatomi chief in Illinois named Spotka (Hanokula), and upon the death of his wife’s father he succeeded him as leader of Spotka’s Pottawatomi band.

Chapman devoted a few pages of his 1879 history to the life of Shabbona, whom he praised as “The kind and generous Shaubena” and “that true and generous hearted chief.” In his account of the Black Hawk War of 1832, Chapman wrote:

“At the time the war broke out he, with his band of Pottawatomies, had their wigwams and camps on the Illinois within the present limits of the city of Pekin. Shaubena was a friend of the white man, and living in this county during those perilous times, and known by so many of the early settlers, that we think he deserves more than a passing mention. . . . While young he was made chief of the band, and went to Shaubena Grove (now in De Kalb county), where they were found in the early settlement of that section. In the war of 1812 Shaubena, with his warriors, joined Tecumseh, was aid to that great chief, and stood by his side when he fell at the battle of the Thames.”

Shabbona’s experiences in the War of 1812 convinced him of the futility of armed resistance to white encroachment, and for the rest of his life he strove to live in peace with the white settlers who were flooding into Illinois. Many Native Americans in Illinois called him “the white man’s friend” – and they didn’t mean it as a compliment.

Together with a fellow Pottawatomi leader named Wabaunsee, Shabbona kept the Pottawatomi out of the Black Hawk War, despite two attempts of Sauk war leader Black Hawk to persuade him to join the fight. “On one of these occasions,” Chapman wrote, “when Black Hawk was trying to induce him and his band to join them and together make war upon the whites, when with their forces combined they would be an army that would outnumber the trees in the forest, Shaubena wisely replied ‘Aye; but the army of the palefaces would outnumber the leaves upon the trees in the forest.’ While Black Hawk was a prisoner at Jefferson Barracks he said, had it not been for Shaubena the whole Pottawatomie nation would have joined his standard, and he could have continued the war for years.”

This artist’s depiction of Black Hawk was published in From John Leonard Conger’s “History of the Illinois River Valley,” 1932.

The Black Hawk War was the last, desperate attempt of Native Americans living in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin to resist their displacement before the wave of encroaching white settlers. The war is named for a Sauk warrior named Black Hawk (Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, 1767-1838), who had refused to accept the treaties with the U.S. by which the Sauk people had agreed to move from Illinois and Wisconsin to Iowa. Black Hawk repeatedly led hunting parties from Iowa into Illinois, and in 1832 when he was ordered to cease his “incursions,” he attempted to forge a confederacy of tribes to resist white settlement. But by 1832 it was already too late for the Indians of Illinois – though the war opened in April 1832 with a victory for Black Hawk caused by American incompetence at Stillman’s Run (in which Pekin co-founder Isaac Perkins was killed), Black Hawk’s efforts were futile and the war was over in months, having been nothing more than an occasion for whites and Indians to commit some brutal massacres. Black Hawk retreated to Prairie du Chien in Wisconsin, where he surrendered on Aug. 27, 1832, and bringing Illinois’ leaders to the conclusion that all remaining Native Americans should be expelled from the state. How differently things may have turned out for the Indians of Illinois if Black Hawk had taken an approach more like that of Shabbona and of his fellow Sauk chief Keokuk.

Chapman commented, “To Shaubena many of the early settlers of this county owe the preservation of their lives, for he was ever on the alert to save the whites.” But, Chapman said, “by saving the lives of the whites (he) endangered his own, for the Sacs and Foxes threatened to kill him, and made two attempts to execute his threats. They killed Pypeogee, his son, and Pyps, his nephew, and hunted him down as though he was a wild beast.” After the surrender of Black Hawk, for their alliance with the U.S. Shabbona and Wabaunsee were rejected by their people, who instead chose as their leader Kaltoo, also called Ogh-och-pees, eldest son of the late Pottawatomi war chief Senachwine (Sen-noge-wone).

After the Black Hawk War, new treaties were negotiated so Illinois would be cleared of all Native American tribes. The Pottawatomi of Indiana and Illinois, including those who had lived at Pekin, were deported to Nebraska and Kansas, and, and we noted before, the agonizing march of the Indiana bands is remembered as the Pottawatomi Trail of Death. Shabbona, however, was allowed to have a reservation of two sections of land at Shabbona’s Grove. But “by leaving it and going west for a short time the Government declared the reservation forfeited, and sold it the same time as other vacant land. Shaubena finding on his return his possessions gone, was very sad and broken down in spirit, and left the grove for ever,” Chapman wrote.

The people of the town of Ottawa then bought him some land near Seneca in Grundy County, where Shabbona stayed until his death on July 17, 1859. “He was buried with great pomp in the cemetery at Morris,” Chapman wrote. His widow Pokanoka drowned in Mazen Creek, Grundy County, on Nov. 30, 1864, and she was laid by his side. Efforts to raise money for a grave monument were interrupted by the Civil War, so it was not until 1903 that a large inscribed boulder was placed at their final resting place. According to the 1886 compilation “Abraham Lincoln’s Vocations,” some years later Shabbona’s daughter and her son, John Shabbona, came from the reservation at Mayetta, Kansas, and visited Shabbona’s Grove, viewing photographs and documents pertaining to Shabbona in DeKalb and Chicago. In 1903, when Shabbona’s monument was laid, John Shabbona again returned to Chicago along with members of several of the expelled tribes of Illinois for a special Indian encampment recognizing the original peoples of Chicago (see “City Indian: Native American Activism in Chicago, 1893-1934,” 2015, by Rosalyn R. LaPier, David R. M. Beck, page 64).

As an epilogue, in 2001 the Department of Interior’s Solicitor wrote an opinion that Shabbona’s Grove was never lawfully forfeited and therefore is a reservation owned by the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation. The case is still pending, however.

#battle-of-the-thames, #black-hawk, #black-hawk-war, #black-partridge, #chief-pontiac, #chippewa, #illinois-bicentennial, #isaac-perkins, #john-shabbona, #jonathan-tharp, #kaltoo, #kickapoo, #lebourse, #ninian-edwards, #ojibwa, #old-machina, #ottawa, #pokanoka, #pontiacs-war, #pottawatomi-in-pekin, #pottawatomi-trail-of-death, #pypeogee, #pyps, #senachwine, #shabbona, #shabbonas-grove, #spotka, #stillmans-run, #sulky, #tazewell-county-native-tribes, #tecumseh, #wabaunsee

When Pekin was only a town

By Jared Olar
Library assistant

For the first 19 years of its existence, from 1830 to 1849, Pekin was a pioneer town, with much of the character that is associated with the Wild West rather than a modern semi-rural Midwestern city. A Native American village even thrived near the new town until 1833, first located on the ridge above Pekin Lake and later on the south shores of Worley Lake.

However, as Pekin’s pioneer historian William H. Bates tells in the 1870-71 Pekin City Directory, it was in that first period of Pekin’s history that the crucial groundwork was laid for Pekin’s civic development.

Thus, Bates tells us that Pekin’s nascent economy got a boost in Pekin’s first year with the opening of two stores – one belonging to Absalom Dillon and the other to David Bailey – and a hotel or tavern operated by Pekin co-founder Gideon Hawley. Religion in the new town also made its debut in 1830, with the construction of Rev. Joseph Mitchell’s Methodist Church on Elizabeth Street between Third and Capitol.

The following year, Thomas Snell built the town’s first school house, located on Second Street between Elizabeth and St. Mary. Thomas’ son John was the school teacher. The same year, Thomas built Pekin’s first warehouse.

The most significant of 1831’s milestones for Pekin was the transfer of the county seat from Mackinaw to Pekin. When the Illinois General Assembly created Tazewell County in early 1827, Mackinaw was designated as the county seat because it was near what was then the geographical center of Tazewell County. But Pekin’s location as a port on the Illinois River meant Pekin was less remote than Mackinaw. That greater accessibility gave Pekin better prospects.

Another thing that may have played a role in the decision to move the county seat was a memorable extreme weather event: the incredible “Deep Snow” of Dec. 1830, a snowfall and sudden freeze that had turned life on the Illinois prairie into a desperate fight for survival. Pekin was closer to other, larger towns and settlements than Mackinaw, and therefore safer for settlers.

With such considerations in mind, the county’s officials decided to relocate to Pekin even though Illinois law still said Mackinaw was the county seat.

Pekin remained the de facto county seat for the next five years. During that time, Illinois Supreme Court Justice Samuel D. Lockwood presided over the Circuit Court in Tazewell County. Court at first took place in the Snell school house, but later would convene in the Pekin home of Joshua C. Morgan, who simultaneously held the offices of Circuit Clerk, County Clerk, Recorder of Deeds, Master in Chancery, and Postmaster. That house was later the residence of Pekin pioneer doctor William S. Maus.

The Black Hawk War, Illinois’ last conflict with its Native American population, broke out in 1832. The war lasted only a few months. It began disastrously for the Illinois militia with the debacle at Stillman’s Run in northern Illinois, where the untrained and undisciplined militia recruits quickly succumbed to panic and fled, leaving behind the few brave men in their number to be butchered and scalped. As Bates sardonically put it, “The balance of the command, so history hath it, saved their scalps by doing some exceedingly rapid marching to Dixon on the Rock River.” Among the fallen was Pekin co-founder Major Isaac Perkins.

The town of Pekin itself was not directly affected by the fighting, although the townsfolk did build a stockade around the Snell school house as a precaution, renaming it Fort Doolittle. The fort never had to be used, however, which was a very good thing, because, as Bates commented, it “was so constructed, that in case of a siege, the occupants would have been entirely destitute of water.”

Despite the war’s inauspicious start, the Illinois troops quickly gained the upper hand and Sauk war leader Black Hawk (Makataimeshekiakiak) was forced to give up the struggle. The outcome of the war was the greatest calamity for the remaining Indian tribes of Illinois, who beginning in 1833 were almost to a man forcibly relocated to reservations west of the Mississippi – including the Pottawatomi and Kickapoo bands who lived in Tazewell County. Tazewell County’s Pottawatomi were soon joined by the harried remnants of their kin from Indiana, whom state militia soldiers forced to march west from their homes in Indiana in 1838 along a route that is remembered as the Pottawatomi Trail of Death.

In July 1834, an epidemic of Asiatic cholera struck Pekin, causing the deaths of several pioneers, including Thomas Snell and the wife of Joshua C. Morgan. The victims were hastily interred in the old Tharp Burying Ground, the former site of which is now the parking lot of the Pekin Schnucks grocery store.

Given the challenges and upheavals of the first five years of Pekin’s existence, it should not be surprisingly to learn that there are no surviving records of the town’s elections prior to 1835. On July 9, 1835, the townsfolk elected five men as Trustees: David Mark, David Bailey, Samuel Wilson, Joshua C. Morgan, and Samuel Pillsbury. Two days later, Pekin’s newly elected Board of Trustees organized itself, choosing Morgan as its president and Benjamin Kellogg Jr. as clerk.

One of the first acts of the new board was passing an ordinance on Aug. 1, 1835, specifying the town’s limits. At the time, Pekin’s boundaries extended from the west bank of the Illinois River in Peoria County eastward along a line that is today represented by Dirksen Court, reaching out as far as 11th Street, then straight south along to 11th to Broadway, then westward along Broadway back across the Illinois River to Peoria County. It is noteworthy that land in Peoria County has been included within the limits of Pekin ever since 1835.

This detail from an 1864 map of Pekin has been cropped to match the town limits of Pekin as they stood in 1835 — extending from the west bank of the Illinois River eastward to what is today 11th Street, and from Broadway north to what is today Dirksen Court. Many of the 1864 streets did not yet exist in 1835, of course.

Pekin’s first Board of Trustees continued to meet until June 27, 1836, when the county seat was formally relocated by Illinois law to Tremont, where a new court house had been built. Pekin then elected a new board on Aug. 8, 1836, the members of which were Samuel Pillsbury, Spencer Field, Jacob Eamon, John King, and David Mark. King was elected board president and Kellogg was again elected clerk.

Board members served one-year terms in those days, so Pekin held elections every year. Getting enough board members together for a quorum was evidently a real challenge. The board addressed that problem by passing of an ordinance on Jan. 4, 1838, stipulating that any board member who was more than 30 minutes late for a board meeting would forfeit $1 of his pay.

Another notable act of Pekin’s board around that time was a resolution of Dec. 29, 1840, adopting “an eagle of a quarter of a dollar of the new coinage” as the official seal of the town of Pekin.

On Dec. 29, 1840, the Pekin Board of Trustees officially adopted an American eagle like the one shown on this mid-19th century quarter as the seal of the Town of Pekin.

Throughout these years, Pekin continued to see economic developments. The first bank in town, a branch of the Bank of Illinois, was established in 1839 or 1840 at the rear of a store on Second Street. There was not yet a bridge across the Illinois River, but ferries were licensed to operate. Alcohol distilleries also were established in the area that is still Pekin’s industrial district, and around those years Benjamin Kellog also built the first steam mill near the river between Margaret and Anna Eliza streets.

In spite of a scarlet fever epidemic in winter of 1843-44, these economic developments were signs of Pekin’s continuing growth and progress, notwithstanding the loss of the county seat to Tremont. The pioneer town was poised to attain the status and rank of a city.

#benjamin-kellogg-jr, #black-hawk, #black-hawk-war, #david-bailey, #david-mark, #deep-snow, #dr-william-s-maus, #fort-doolittle, #gideon-hawley, #illinois-bicentennial, #isaac-perkins, #joshua-c-morgan, #pekin-history, #pekins-first-town-seal, #pottawatomi, #pottawatomi-in-pekin, #pottawatomi-trail-of-death, #rev-joseph-mitchell, #stillmans-run, #tharp-burial-ground, #thomas-snell, #tremont, #tremont-courthouse

Bates recalls Pekin’s ‘Early Times’

By Jared Olar
Library assistant

This week we return to Pekin’s pioneer historian William H. Bates, from whom we received most of our knowledge of Pekin’s early history. It was in the 1870-71 Sellers & Bates Pekin City Directory that Bates first historical sketch of Pekin was published, but Bates also told the stories of Pekin’s past in other places and venues, such as in booklets, pamphlets, and newspaper columns.

One of the ways that Bates told Pekin’s history was in a lengthy essay entitled “Early Times in Pekin and Tazewell County” that he wrote for a magazine called Shades’ Monthly in May 1913. That issue of the magazine was included in the 1914 Tazewell County Courthouse Cornerstone time capsule. Bates’ essay was reprinted in recent issues of the Tazewell County Genealogical & Historical Society Monthly (May 2017, pp.1911-1919, and June 2017, pp.1942-1946).

Bates’ essay bears a close resemblance to the historical sketch that he printed and reprinted over the years in his Pekin city directories. It’s also similar to a historical sketch that Bates wrote for his “Historical Souvenir to Commemorate the Dedication of the New Tazewell County Court House.” But in the Shades’ Monthly essay he varied his expression somewhat, and also included some details and anecdotes not found in the city directory account of Pekin’s past.

Following are some excerpts from Bates’ “Early Times” essay, telling of the original Native Americans inhabitants and the settlement of the site of Pekin by the first pioneers. Bates said one of his chief sources for the recollections of the site’s Native American inhabitants was a pioneer named Daniel C. Orr “who played around Shabbona’s wigwam.”

Pottawatomi leader Shabbona, shown in a daguerreotype printed in John Leonard Conger’s “History of the Illinois River Valley,” 1932.

“Yes, Pekin is located on historic ground. For unnumbered years prior to the coming of the white man, the red man held full sway; roaming from one favorable location to another, as fancy, convenience or war dominated him.

“Indian villages occupied high ground above the possibility of overflow by the floods, but were always near the streams, which gave the aborigine fishing and hunting privileges.

“The high ground, from the upper end of Pekin Lake to the southern limits of Pekin, was the home of a tribe of Pottawatomie Indians, under the leadership of Shabbona, an able chieftain, who gained the friendship and gratitude of the white pioneers by warnings and tribal protection, for which he was appropriately named ‘The White Man’s Friend.’ In the Indian war of 1832, because he refused to join Black Hawk, in an attempt to exterminate the ‘pale face,’ he had to seek refuge near his white friends in order to save his life.

“Shabbona, and his immediate followers, while in this vicinity, occupied the high ground near our present Gas Works, on what is today Main street, southward to a point near the present C. P. & St. L. [Railway’s] round house. . . .

“Jonathan Tharp was the first permanent white settler in ‘Town Site,’ the date being 1824. He located his crude log cabin near the family wigwams of Shabbona, just west of the present Franklin School.

“Jesse Eggman, a boon companion of Tharp, also located in ‘Town Site,’ the name the hunters and trappers had given the high bluff . . .

“‘Town Site,’ as seen by the pioneer settlers, was on the first ridge; then came ‘Bitzel’s Lake;’ then another sand ridge between Third and Fourth streets; then a succession of low places and ponds between Fourth and Fifth streets. One of these ponds, about where Albertsen & Koch’s store now stands, was a great resort for ducks. Mr. B. S. Hyers, the oldest Pekin merchant, now living, told the writer that he ‘shot many a mess of ducks at this pond.’

“Then came ridges and ponds for over a mile to the east until you had in view a beautiful body of water afterward named ‘Bailey Lake,’ at the foot of East Bluff . . . .

“Joseph, son of Jonathan Tharp, was the first male white child born in ‘Town Site,’ his natal day being March 10th, 1827. . . .

“In the fall of 1828, the first steam boat that ascended the Illinois river, created wild consternation. The Indians fled to the hills or dense timber. Near Kingston, where Jesse Eggman had established a ferry, one Hugh Barr, who had never seen a steam boat, hearing the hideous noise made by the escaping steam, and seeing the open fires under the boilers, which looked like two great eyes, at the weird hour of midnight, turned out with dog and gun and chased the ‘monster’ until it passed up the river. The small band of settlers who lived along our river front, were awakened from their peaceful slumbers by the grewsome (sic) noise. They gathered in groups and waited the approach of ‘the monster of the deep.’ Good, old Father [Jacob] Tharp gathered his family together for prayers, doubtless thinking that Gabriel was blowing the final call; and good Aunt Ruth Stark prayed the ‘All Wise One’ to have Gabriel call at Fort Clark (now Peoria) first, as they were ‘wickeder up there.’ . . . .”

#black-hawk, #courthouse-cornerstone-time-capsule, #daniel-c-orr, #hugh-barr, #jacob-tharp, #jesse-eggman, #jonathan-tharp, #joseph-tharp, #pekin-history, #pottawatomi-in-pekin, #ruth-stark, #shabbona, #w-h-bates, #william-h-bates

Teepees along the railroad tracks?

Here’s a chance to read one of our old Local History Room columns, first published in December 2011 before the launch of this blog . . .

Teepees along the railroad tracks?

By Jared Olar
Library assistant

This week we’ll revisit a few recent “From the Local History Room” columns as we see what we can learn from a copy of a vintage Pekin photograph on file in the library’s Local History Room. The photo is remarkable because it shows a long row of teepees or wigwams between some railroad tracks.

The copy of this photo, a halftone image, was clipped from a newspaper or magazine, and is accompanied by a caption that informs us that the photographer was none other than Pekin’s own Henry Hobart Cole, whose life we have reviewed in this column previously.

In this vintage photograph taken by Henry H. Cole (1833-1925), a row of wigwams stretches northward between the railroad tracks in an area of northwest Pekin just to the west of Second Street.

The caption does not say when Cole took the photograph, but several clues both in the photo and the caption help us to narrow down the period when it was taken. These clues also show where the photo was taken, and suggest who placed the wigwams in that unlikely location – or rather, who didn’t place them there.

The caption says, “The long row of wigwams, as you look northward along the tracks of the Peoria & Pekin Union Railway, east of Pekin Lake, represents the site of the largest village of Pottowattamie Indians in this region at the advent of the white settler . . .”

By consulting some of the library’s old maps of Pekin and tracing the rail lines, we can see that the foreground of the photo shows the area where Second Street and Market Street used to intersect – today that stretch of Market Street is a bicycle path. The row of wigwams appears to start around the area of Catherine and State streets.

Obviously the wigwams were not actual Native American dwellings — no one can live in the dangerous plot of ground between two lines of rail. Also, as mentioned in previous columns, Pekin’s Indian population was deported to Kansas in the mid- to late 1830s, while the railroad did not come to Pekin until 1859. These wigwams, rather, indicated the area of Pekin where an Indian village formerly was located. Perhaps they were a display for a community fair or celebration.

The caption provides two more clues as to when Cole took the photo. It says the village was “fully one-half mile in length” and “on the high ground leading along Main street from the present gas works southward.” Similarly, W.H. Bates’ 1902 essay, “Historic Pekin!,” says the village was “on the high ground just east of the Gas Company’s coal sheds, on what is today First Street.”

Gas lights were installed on Pekin’s streets in 1866, so the gas works were constructed by that year, which means the photo can be no older than 1866. Similarly, the caption’s reference to “the Peoria & Pekin Union Railway” suggests a date no earlier than 1880, the year that railroad company was incorporated.

An 1877 aerial “View of Pekin Ill.” in the Local History Room collection depicts the area shown in this photo, including the frame house on the right and the large brick structure on the left. Both the 1877 aerial view and the photo show an overall absence of houses and industrial or business structures in that part of Pekin. Cole went into semi-retirement in 1911, but we would expect to see more buildings in the photo if it was taken that late in his career.

From what we’ve seen, it seems most likely that Cole took the photo during the 1880s or perhaps the 1890s. Pekin’s first street fair opened on Oct. 12, 1898, and a second street fair ran from Oct. 11-14, 1899. Could these wigwams have been an attraction at one of those fairs?

#henry-hobart-cole, #pekin-history, #pekin-street-fairs, #peoria-pekin-union-railway, #pottawatomi-in-pekin, #preblog-columns, #teepees, #wigwams