632
HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.
up the Rock River valley, and encamped on the Killbuck near the mouth of the Kishwaukee, a few miles north of the beautiful Stillman valley, and, it is said, was enjoying a dog-feast with some Winnebagoes and Pottawatomies. The country was absolutely wild and there were no settlers in that region. Some of his hunters reported a body of white soldiers on his trail and encamped on the Stillman Creek. He at once dispatched a small party of braves, with a white flag of peace, to request a conference with its commander. This party was fired upon and two of them killed. Just how the miserable blunder occurred none can tell; but the Indians, already smarting under a bitter sense of previous wrong, were rendered furious with rage. Burning with hatred and desire for revenge, the chief raised the war-whoop of his tribes and plunged into open savage warfare. Charging furiously upon Major Stillman's command of volunteers and killing eleven of their number, he sent them flying back to Dixon's Ferry, "stinging under the most disgraceful defeat ever received by white men at the hand of Indians."
After enriching themselves with the spoils of Stillman's camp, the Indians hurried their women and children to the broken country and swamps about Lake Koshkonong, and then, joined by a few disreputable Pottawatomies and Winnebagoes, the warriors returned to Illinois, where scattered bands of the savages swept eastward and southward, upon the defenseless homes of the few settlers along the frontier, killing, scalping and destroying. Sha-be-na, the Peace Chief of the Pottawatomies, rode night and day giving hasty warning, and the few settlers near the Upper Illinois fled to the fort at Ottawa, and those more eastward to Fort Dearborn. A number, however, were massacred, and their homes burned. At Indian Creek, in La Salle County, which then included the present Kane County, sixteen men, women and children were brutally killed and scalped, and two young girls were carried into savage captivity.
Meanwhile, Gen. Winfield Scott, in command of Government troops, was hurrying toward the border, and arrived at Fort Dearborn, July 8, 1832. The dreaded scourge of cholera had broken out in his command and he was forced into a short encampment on the bank of the Des Plaines some miles above the portage. From this camp Gen. Scott moved nearly due west, and struck the trail followed by Major Long probably a little northerly from Warren-ville. Following that trail, he entered Kane County near the dividing line of Sections 12 and 13 in St. Charles Township. Moving down the southerly bank of Brewster Creek, he forded Fox River near the northeast corner of the northwest quarter of Section 11, where the traction company's bridge now crosses. The graves of two soldiers of his command are still pointed out on the northerly bank of the river. From here the old trail is readily traced, some portions of it being still visible and its location well remembered by old settlers. It passed through the southwest corner of Elgin, over the whole diagonal breadth of Plato Township, across the northeast corner of Burlington, and the southwest corner of Hampshire, and left the county over the old Hogebome farm on Section 30.
Thus the first white men appearing in the county were soldiers, and led by distinguished officers. Soldiers observe the county through which they march, and relate far and wide the tales of its characteristic features, and armies are often the advance guard of a changing civilization. Surely in the United States the sword and rifle have ever preceded the axe and the plow. Over these Indian and army trails, and along the waterways of the streams, the pioneers of Kane County found their way to this beautiful valley.
In 1833, when the first squatters appeared, Chicago was but a frontier outpost, in that year was incorporated as a village with two or three hundred inhabitants-many of them half-breed French and Indian-and Galena was the only village of any importance in the northern part of the State. The whole country between these points was peopled by only a few bands of Indians. As in other new lands, the first white men to appear were restless adventurers-men dominated by an impulsive desire for freedom of action that chafed at the social and legal restraints of populous communities and demanded more nearly the isolation and lawlessness of the Indian. Such men followed closely upon the footsteps of the army, constructed their rude and temporary cabins beside the springs, in the groves and in many of the most beautiful places throughout the county, always seeking the convenience and shelter of the timber. They were a brave, generous and honest people, very hospitable,
