graves of my father and some of my children. Here I expected to live and die and lay my bones beside those near and dear to me; but now in my old age I have been driven from my home, and dare not look again upon this loved spot.”

The old chief choked with grief and tears flowed down his cheeks. Covering his face in his blanket, he remained silent for a few moments. Then wiping away his tears, he continued:

“Before many moons you, too, will be compelled to leave your homes. The haunts of your youth, your villages, your corn fields, and your hunting grounds, will be in the possession of the whites, and by them the graves of your fathers will be plowed up, while your people will be retreating towards the setting sun to find new homes beyond the Father of Waters. We have been as brothers; we fought side by side in the British war; we hunted together and slept under the same blanket; we have met at councils and at religious feasts; our people are alike and our interests are the same.”6

On the 14th day of May, 1832, the militia under Major Stillman arrived within eight miles of the camp of Black Hawk who sent three Indians under a flag of truce to negotiate a treaty with the whites. The wily chief also sent five other Indians to a point where they could watch the unarmed braves carrying the white flag. Stillman’s men refusing to recognize the white flag set upon the Indians, killed one and captured the others, and then set off after the other five who held their guns crosswise over their heads as a sign of friendship. The whites killed two of the five and chased the others into Black Hawk’s camp. Then the Indians set upon Stillman’s army, cut it to pieces, and chased the scattered remnants for many miles. The place of that battle is known as “Stillman’s Run.”7 The disgrace of the entire affair has been a dark blot upon the white man’s bravery and his manner of dealing with the Indians. Up to this time the Indians had committed no crime nor act of war against the whites.8

BLACK HAWK AS A CIVILIAN.

Immediately after the engagement Black Hawk called another council of his braves, at which it was determined to fight to the last and to send out small bands of Indians to the various white settlements to destroy them. Among the great warriors present at that council was the celebrated Chief Shabona (Shab-eh-ney)9 who fought beside Tecumseh at his down-fall at the battle of the Thames. Shabona pleaded with the Indian chiefs to give up the war and to return to Iowa, and when they refused to do so, he, his son Pypagee, and his nephew Pyps, mounted ponies and rode to the various white settlements and notified the people of the danger of the Indians. The first horse with which Shabona started, dropped dead under him; but he obtained another horse from a farmer and rode day and night until he had warned the whites at all the settlements.

CHAPTER III.
THE DAVIS SETTLEMENT.

The father of our heroines, William Hall, who was born in Georgia, migrated to Kentucky where he married Mary J. Wilburs, and in 1825 emigrated to Mackinaw, about fifteen miles south of Peoria, Illinois, where he opened a farm. Shortly afterwards he moved to the lead mines near Galena where he staid three years, and then returned to Lamoille, Bureau County, Illinois. In the spring of 1832 he sold out his mining claim and settled upon a homestead about two miles east of the farm of William Davis. Prior to that time his oldest daughter, Temperance, had been married to Peter Cartwright, but the other members of his family, consisting of his wife, three daughters—Sylvia, aged 19, Rachel, aged 17, and Elizabeth, aged 8 years, and two boys, were living with him. Some time prior to the massacre, two Indians named Co-mee and To-qua-mee, who had been frequent visitors at the Hall home and treated kindly by Mr. Hall’s daughters, endeavored, after the custom of the Indians, to purchase Sylvia and Rachel from their father.10

MRS. DUNAVAN, AGED 16, LIKENESS OF SYLVIA HALL.

The Halls were noted for their hospitality. Judge Edwin Jerome of Detroit relates that he was the guest of the family one night in April 1832.11

William Pettigrew, also from Kentucky, who had just migrated to the Davis Settlement and had not yet established a home for himself, with his wife and two children, was temporarily stopping at the home of Mr. Davis at the time of the massacre.