In the spring of 1832 the Black-Hawk War was a source of great alarm to the citizens of Canton. Major Isaiah Stillman, of Canton, in command of a battalion of volunteer infantry, was in the field, and had under him most of the young men of the community. On the 13th of May, 1832, the force under his command met with a defeat above Dixon, in Lee County, on what has since been known as ” Stillman’s Run,” and the news soon reached Canton, coupled with the fact that Bird Ellis, Tyus Childs and John Walter, from the vicinity of Canton, had been killed, and a number of others from here wounded. This news not only cast a gloom over the community, but created a feeling of insecurity in the bravest of the settlers, and of decided alarm, amounting in many cases to absolute panic, in the more timid. The settlers were certainly liable to attack from the red-skins, who were known to be in force and on the war-path to the north. There was no adequate force in reach to prevent any incursio they might feel disposed to make, when the “Westerfield Defeat,” as it was called in derision, occurred. Perhaps never in the history of frontier life has there occurred so broad a farce with so many of the elements of tragedy and melodrama combined. The news of Stillman’s Defeat had reached Canton, and grief-stricken mothers were in the first anguish of their mourning for slaughtered sons, when rumors reached the settlement of a purpose on the part of Black Hawk and his warriors to move southward for an attack on scattered inhabitants.
The excitement was intense. Stories of slaughtered families, of burnt homes, of captive women and children subjected to every fiendish indignity, were the current subjects of conversation at every gathering. Meetings were called in every neighborhood, and preparations for defense or refuge begun. Block-houses and stockade forts were erected, and scouts kept constantly in the prairies to the north- ward to warn the people of the approach of the Indians. One of these forts was erected around the store and residence of Joel Wright, on the corner of Wood and Illinois streets, where Mrs. Wilson now resides. This fort consisted of two block-houses and a palisade inclosure of split logs. This was built by
standing the logs on end in a deep trench, which was then filled up and the dirt well pounded around the logs.
In March, 1832, scouts were sent out by the people of Canton to see if any indication of hostile Indians could be discovered. These scouts had been out several days, but had brought in no report of an alarming nature, when one day, toward the last of the month, Peter Westerfield, an old frontiersman, and Charley Shane, a Frenchman, determined to go on a scouting expedition on their own responsibility. They were both well mounted, and, crossing Big Creek north of town in the prairie, rode nearly
north until they reached a point nearly in the line between Farmington and Ellisville, on Spoon River.
The morning before they started out a number of mounted white men had crossed the prairie from Peoria toward Quincy, and their trail, of course, was fresh and showed very plainly in the dried prairie grass. They had rode single file, in Indian style, and a better scout than even Peter Westerfield might have been deceived by their trail. When Westerfield and Shane reached this trail, they both dismounted, examined it carefully, and both were satisfied that it had been made by a large party of mounted Indians.
They cautiously followed the trail until their suspicion crystalized into comparative certainty, when, remounting, they started back toward Canton to alarm the citizens, and take measures for the safety of themselves and families. As they neared Big Creek– which by the melting of snow had risen until it was out of its banks, –they had a new cause for alarm. Jonathan Buffum and Ed. Therman had holed a wolf, and were shooting into the hole. They were in a direct line between where Westerfield and Shane reached Big Creek and Col. Barnes’s place==where John Lane now lives. These boys were not only shooting, but indulging in all sorts of unearthly yells, imitating Indians, screaming and hallooing. Another pioneer was squirrel shooting in the same vicinity, and another party shooting at a mark in the same neighborhood. Westerfield and Shane listened to these noises with undisguised fear.
That it was Indians there could be no mistake–Indians at bloody work, shooting, tomahawking and scalping the families of Col. Barnes and Henry Therman. They did not stop long to consider, but plunged headlong into the turbid waters of the raging Big Creek, and right gallantly did their noble steeds buffet the mad waves, until the angry stream divided them from the dreaded foe. Their saddles were wet and heavy, and would load their beasts too much for the fearful race for life they were entering upon, and, with a coolness never too much to be admired, they dismounted and relieved their gallant steeds of the dripping leathern saddles, which were deposited for safety in a convenient thicket of hazel.
This was the work of but a moment, when they remounted upon the backs of their bare-backed animals and were away over the smooth prairie, across the few ravines, and on, on to the fort at Canton. As they passed the cabin of Wheaton Chase, they shouted “Injins are killing Barnes’s folks : flee for your lives!” Soon Coleman’s grocery was reached, and the cry of “Injins! Injins!” reiterated. On, on to the fort they rode, and still their cry was ” Injins ! Injins !” “The Injins have killed every body at Barnes’s and Therman’s!”
And now began a scene of the wildest confusion. Men shouted the dreaded alarm; women screamed; small boys, pale with fright, crept into the dense hazel-thickets and fled for their lives. Some of these boys were thus hiding for days and days, subsisting on roots, berries, and elm-bark. “To the fort! To the fort!”
was now the cry, and soon the people were gathering, a pale, nervous, affrighted throng, within the little wooden inclosure which was then their only hope of safety. To us, who from the distance of nearly forty years contemplate the scene, it is a broad comedy; but to those affrighted pioneers it was a tragedy, the denoument of which might prove fatal to them and their loved ones.
It was known that Keokuk and three thousand warriors were encamped opposite the Yellow Banks, held in check only by his promise of neutrality; and who would believe the word of the treacherous red-skin? Black Hawk’s band, too, were on the warpath. They had defeated Major Stillman, and men from Canton were among the victims, while between here and the scene of that disaster there was no suflicient force for the protection of the infant settlement. All these facts were well known, and had been frequently canvassed among the settlers.
Peter Westerfield was a man, too, in whose word the most unbounded confidence was placed. He was a Baptist licensed preacher, a man of undoubted courage, and had had a considerable frontier experience. He believed the trail he had seen, the yells he had heard, the firing he had listened to, the work of Indians, and had no doubt that Col. Barnes’s family had been massacred. What wonder the defenseless people were frightened!
Preparations for defense, however, were not neglected. The women filled several large kettles with water, and determmed to aid all they could in the common defense by using it on the foe. There were incidents of broad comedy intermingled, even then, with the tragedy, that caused grim smiles to illumine even faces white with fear–incidents that have served to enliven many a fireside description of those frightful days. Joel Wright was, by common consent, selected as the com-mander of the fort, and Isaac Swan as his second in command. Joel was dressed in a light suit, with a linen round-about. During the excitement he was everywhere; assuring frightened women, issuing orders for defensive preparations, and distributing
powder and lead to the men. Be it understood, the women preserved their courage far better than their lords, as was evidenced by the fact that when no male hand could be found sufticiently steady to pour melted lead into bullet-moulds, a woman volunteered to make the bullets, and made them without spilling a drop of the melted metal, Mrs. Doctor Coykendall was particularly noted for her coolness and
courage on this occasion, and did most of the bullet-moulding.
To recount all the varied phases of this scare would itself require a volume: some were dramatic, most farcical, as viewed through the light of forty years, and by the knowledge that there was absolutely no danger. Among the amusing incidents of the day was the arrival at the fort of Jerry Coleman and ‘Squire
McKim, who were at Coleman’s mill, on Big Creek, when Westerfield’s news was communicated to them. Jerry got the word a few seconds in advance of McKim, and, being lame, set out at once. McKim was not long in overtaking him, however. McKim wore an old-fashioned dress or swallow-tailed coat, and as he ran past the slow-paced Jerry, the coat-tails offered so tempting an aid to the boy’s flight that he could not refrain from seizing hold of them with both hands. McKim was a large, portly man, who weighed nearly two hundred: at the same time McKim was a frightened man, and fright is ever selfish. He was not
willing to be retarded by the weight of Jerry attached, like the weight to the tail of a kite, to his coat-skirts, so he turned on Jerry and tried to disengage his hold; but Jerry’s grip was always good, and fear had turned it into a grip of iron; he would not let go. “For God’s sake, Jerry, let me go, or we will both be killed! Please, Jerry, let me save my own life !” But Jerry heeded not his pleadings: like Sinbad’s Old Man of the Sea, he could not be shaken off. McKim turned to run, but still the weight of the crippled boy
would retard his speed, and he would turn again and plead and fight, and pray for deliverance from the tormenter.
Jerry loved life and feared Indians too much to be influenced either by prayer, threats, or blows. He hung on, and was still hanging on when McKim dashed into the fort. Jerry found his father gone and the store thrown wide open. He took possession and sold out the whole stock of powder and lead in a few moments, not stopping to take an account of sales or settle with customers. It had cost him nothing, and he sold at cost and was satisfied. Win. Hannan, Charles Reeves and William Babbett, boys of perhaps a dozen years old, were so much infected with the contagion of fear that they determined to seek refuge in fiight. They accordingly left town and took to the timber. They crossed Big Creek north of Jacob Ellis’s mill, and struck down the creek through the timber to a point west of Lewistown, where they hid in a dense thicket. Young Reeves had on a pair of buckskin breeches, and during his flight he had got them completely saturated with water. When the party took to cover he pulled them off and hung them up on some brush to dry. This was a serious error on Charles’s part, as the sequel showed. He had not taken
into his calculation the peculiar idiosyncrasy of buckskin, and found, to his chagrin, that the pants which had fitted exactly before they were wet, been too large while saturated with the treacherous fluid, were in their dried state infinitely too small –so much so that by no amount of stretching, coaxing or pulling
could they be induced to come over his bare limbs. He had to give it up in despair, and made the rest of his trip through brush and briers in a primitive toilet, more simple and convenient than pleasant.
They were out all the day of the Westerfield scare, all the succeeding night, and until the next night, subsisting on berries and elm-bark. How long they would have hidden no one can aftirm–perhaps they would have been hiding until this day,–had they not been attracted by the sound of an ox-driver’s
” Wo-haw, Buck,” and ventured to “interview” him, thus learning that the danger was over and that they could safely return to their homes.
At Col. Barnes’s the news was tardy in coming that Westerfield brought. The colonel was out serving at the head of his company under Stillman, Stephen Babbett’s wife heard the alarm sounded on the east side of Big Creek, and, gathering up one child and calhng to her two remaining children to follow, ran
at her utmost speed to Barnes’s. Henry Andrews, then a boy of perhaps fourteen years old, saw her coming and called to know what was the matter. “Oh,” she exclaimed, “the Indians are murdering every body across the creek. The people are running and hallooing Indians! Indians! ” Andrews at once sent Col. Barnes’s two younger boys over to old Mr. Swegle’s to give them alarm, and in a short time they returned, bringing with them the old gentleman–who was far advanced in years–and his old lady and daughter. Mrs. Barnes now took the direction of affairs, and directed the party to seek shelter in a thicket at the head of a neighboring ravine. To reach this thicket the party were instructed to strike the ravine at a point considerably below, and then to follow up the bed of the stream, wading in the stream to hide their trail.
The two small boys led the way, and the old gentleman and the women and children followed. There were
fourteen persons in all, and only one boy, armed with a trusty rifle to protect them, Henry Andrews, brought up the rear; and as he followed he picked his flint and prepared for the struggle for life and for the lives of the women and children who were confided to his guardianship. , “Oh, Henry,” said Mrs. Barnes, ” what can you do with so many of us?” ” I will do the best I can and kill as many of them as I can,” responded Henry. On reaching the cover of the dense hazel-thicket, the party took to cover, except Henry, who stood guard for a couple of hours–and they seemed mortal hours to the boy, who looked
each moment to have the red-skins pounce upon him. At last, grown tired of waiting, Henry determined to venture to Canton and see what the real condition of afiairs might be. He proceeded very cautiously, keeping in the cover of the hazel-brush as much as possible, until he reached the ” Morse quarter ” adjoining Canton, when he came upon John Huff, who was out on guard. Huff was frightened, and it was with difficulty Henry succeeded in making himself known: he succeeded finally, and proceeded to the fort. Here he found the wildest confusion existing.
All crowded around him, believing him the sole survivor from among the settlers on the west side of the creek. Mutual explanations followed, and at once the scare was at an end. This scare was named, in honor of its progenitor, ” Westerfield’s Defeat,” and as such is still known. The Westerfield scare was by no means confined to Canton, but spread through all the surrounding townships. In the Mallory settlement–now Putman township–were living quite a number of settlers, among whom were the Mallorys, Fellows,
Stricklands and Holcombs. There was an understanding between Isaac Fellows and Joel Coykendall, at Canton, that if any serious alarm was given, Joel should communicate the news to Fellows. No sooner had the word brought by Peter Westerfield reached Canton, of proximity of Indians, than Joel mounted a fleet horse and rode at utmost speed to Fellows’s, to warn him of danger, according to his promise.
The men in the neighborhood had met that afternoon to drill; the place of muster being near old Mr. Holcomb’s. Thither Coykendall was directed by Mrs. Fellows, who, terribly alarmed, gathered up her two children, Penella and Stephen, and calling for her sister-in-law, Mrs. Cyrus Fellows, started for the same place. The company at drill were terribly excited when Coykendall communicated his news, and at once, by common consent, separated, with the understanding that they would meet and fort at Holcomb’s, whose house was the most roomy in the settlement. Holcomb’s house was a cabin, with two rooms, and situated on the prairie. He had no stable, but on the ground, ready for raising, had the logs for a small log-barn.
The men were wonderfully expeditious in collecting their little families at Holcomb’s; so expeditious, indeed that not a man of them had thought of his arms. When all were assembled, the scene would have beggared the pencil of Hogarth to paint all its serio-comic and tragic eifects. Women, with disheveled locks, were praying; men palsied with fear, and children screaming with affright. Some one suggested that a fort must be built about the house. The suggestion was grasped at, as drowning men grasp at straws.
Old Mr. Holcomb seized a spade, and rushing out before his door, began to excavate. “What on arth are you a doin’, old man?” shouted his wife. “Diggin’ a fort,” said he, as he frantically exhumed spadeful
after spadeful of the rich, black loam. It was soon discovered that the supply of barn-logs would not be sufficient for a stockade; so it was decided to build a breast-work. This was soon completed, and was only about three feet in height. Then was discovered a dire calamity. Here was a breast-work, and here were brawny defenders, but there was only one gun that was serviceable. Breast-works are a good thing in themselves, but without arms their strong points in defensive warfare could not be brought out to advantage.
What was to be done? So much time had been occupied in preparing their fortifications that it was not probable there would be time to return to their homes for arms before the murdering savages would be upon them, and then, the women have since suggested, that their lieges were too much–well, say demoralized–to venture so far from the fort. Some one suggested clubs; and as there happened to be a convenient thicket, the suggestion was at once adopted. Clubs, those primitive weapons of warfare, were cut in such abundance that Mrs. Isaac Fellows persists to this day in saying there were fully four wagon loads; enough to keep the Holcomb family in wood until long after corn planting.
While the young and athletic men were engaged in the club business, old Mr. Strickland, who weighed nearly three hundred pounds, and was too fat to venture so far as the thicket, engaged in improvising for himself a weapon more formidable than the club. Procuring a bayonet with about one-third of the point
end broken off, he fastened it to a hoe-handle; then stationing himself before a window in an arm-chair, he poised his blunt spear, and, with an expectant look, pronounced himself ready to send whoever of the red-skins should present himself at that window to his last account. As Strickland sat expectant, waiting,
watching, he prayed–for he was a religious man–watched and prayed, determined to die at his post–and no Indian within fifty miles. While Strickland was preparing his formidable weapon, old Mrs. Stewart, who weighed nearly as much as that old hero, was loading and doubly loading the only serviceable gun.
Still the Indians did not come, and men and women began to breathe easier. Finally one bold pioneer volunteered to go down the road toward Canton and see if he could discern any signs of the enemy. He soon returned with hair erect, and eyes dilated, and declaring that the “Injins” were coming, marching in solid column, at least a thousand strong. And now Pandemonium was a quiet place compared with Fort Holcomb. Men, women, children, all were screaming, all were praying, all were–but why attempt to describe what is indescribable? Had Black Hawk, with any of his braves, been within a mile, the noise then and there would have frightened them out of the country.
Still the Indians did not appear. Dark came, lights were extinguished, and in darkness and doubt the frightened people watched and waited. Twelve o’clock, and still no ruthless savage. Dawn, rosy dawn, came, and still the wary savage failed to make morn hideous with his terrible war-cry. And now came a suspicion, faint at first, but gradually growing stronger until it crystalized into conviction, that the scare was without foundation, and then, all at once, men became brave. Messengers were now found willing to go to Canton to learn, the extent and cause of the alarm. They soon returned, bringing the good news that there was not an Indian within, perhaps, one hundred miles of the county line. The Westerfield scare was communicated to the Moores’s Grove settlement by a runner, who crossed below the Lewistown Bridge and made his way to Harvey Crosswait’s. Crosswait communicated the alarm at once to his neighbors, inviting them all to take refuge at his new log house, which was quite roomy and tolerably
well calculated for defense.
Between Crosswait’s and Joshua Moores’s there was a ravine that, on account of the melting snow, had been converted into a raging torrent. Crosswait went as nearly to Moores’s as this torrent would permit, and hallooed across to old Mrs. Moores. The old gentleman was now quite old, and Walters, his son-in-law, had just been killed at Stillman’s defeat. Old Mr. Moores gathered up his sick wife in his arms and, followed by his daughter Jennie, her sister, and their four children, they started for the expected place of safety. On arriving at the slough, they waded in across the bottom for some distance to a foot-log across the small stream, Mr. Moores carrying his wife, the two daughters wading, each carrying a child and leading one. When the foot log was reached, Mrs. Moorcs expressed her belief that the alarm was false, and insisted on being taken back home; but at length, yielding to the entreaties of her children and the expostulation of her husband, consented to go forward. The whole party crossed over–the old folks by crawling on their hands and knees, and the younger women by wading through the swift current, carrying one child and dragging the other.
This was not accomplished without danger, as the water was deep and the current swift. When the two young women had reached the shore, they noticed close behind them a neighbor Avoman –Mrs. Robinson, with two children, wading through the overflowed bottom toward them, and at once determined to wait for and assist her across. When Mrs. Robinson reached the foot-log, Mrs. Walters called to her to know where he was. Mrs. Robinson replied, “I don’t know. Him and his brother were with me until we got to the creek, and then disappeared: I don’t know what has become of them.” It proved that both men, who were young, stout and hearty, had deserted the poor woman to her fate, and in company had started, as fast as their frightened limbs would carry them, for Springfield. They did not return for more than three weeks.
Mrs. Walters and her sister aided Mrs. Robinson to cross the stream, and accompanied her to Crosswait’s, where the company, with many of their neighbors, remained until dark, when another runner arrived from Jacob Ellis’s, informing them that there had been no danger. John Orendorf, Esq., relates the incidents of the ‘Westerfield scare occurring east and south of Canton. Orendorf and Richard Addis had started to Hazael Putnam’s place–since known as the ” Woods Farm,–to attend the muster of their militia company. On the way across Canton prairie and when near the mound, they met Richard Tompkins, who informed them that Peter Westerfield had just come home, and brought word that the Indians were killing every body north of Canton–that Barnes’s folks had all been killed, and the danger was imminent. “Who seen Westerfield?” asked Orendorf. “George Anderson,” was the reply. Orendorf expressing doubt of the truth of Anderson’s statement to some extent reassured Tompkins, and he consented to return and go with Orendorf and Addis to Westerfield’s house. Westerfield resided on what is now known as the “Capps farm.”
On arriving at Westerfield’s, they found the place deserted–Westerfield having fled to the woods with his family for shelter. They accordingly turned and rode over to Putnam’s. Here they found the militia company in consultation as to the course to be pursued. Esquire Orendorf was called upon for his opinion, and, after questioning Anderson, who was the only person present that had seen Westerfield, he expressed himself in favor of sending a messenger at once to Canton to ascertain the facts, and volunteered to go himself on that errand. Addis at once volunteered to accompany him. The company agreed to remain together at Putnam’s until their return. Orendorf and Addis set out at once on their mission, and had scarcely struck the high prairie before they discovered Peter Westerfield coming from toward his place, and evidently with the intention of joining them. Westerfield was mounted, barebacked, on a sorrel raw-boned animal; his head was enturbaned with a red bandana handkerchief; he carried his rifle and shot- pouch by his side, and wore a look of grim determination. He was evidently going to war, and his courage would not fail him.
Westerfield communicated his news to Orendorf and Addis, said he had hid his family, and was going to the fort at Canton to aid in its defense. On arriving at Canton, they found the scare had subsided– Henry Andrews having come in from the Barnes farm with news of their safety, and that no Indians were in that vicinity. When Westerfield heard this, he grasped Orendorf’s arm, and exclaimed, “I tell you, Orendorf, it is true I know. Didn’t I hear them and see their trail?” It was no use telling Westerfield that his senses had betrayed him.
Orendorf and Addis now rode back to Putnam’s to notify the company that the danger was imaginary ; but on arriving there they found that the valiant militia, taking a new scare, had run to their homes and were hiding out their families. Thus ended the most exciting day in Canton’s pioneer history.