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In 1830, John H. Henderson emigrated from Tennessee to Indian Creek and settled on a homestead adjoining the land of Davis on the south. Subsequently the Hendersons became prominent politicians, both in Illinois and Iowa.

In the spring of 1830, William Davis, a Kentuckian, and a blacksmith by trade, settled on a land claim on Big Indian Creek, twelve miles north of Ottawa, in the northern part of La Salle County, Illinois. He was the first white settler at that place.

Agriculture and marriage have always been the great necessities to found permanent civilization. To establish a settlement in the great west, at that time, a blacksmith shop and a mill were the next two great necessities, and around those the early settlers broke up the wild prairie and on the upturned sod sowed buckwheat, turnips and sod-corn, which within three months produced their first food from the soil for themselves and their stock. To “break” the tough prairie sod required a sharp plowshare and colter, which had to be resharpened frequently. Without the blacksmith the prairie could hardly be cultivated. The big ox-teams of the neighbors, with which they had moved into the country, pulled the plow. Next, with the crop produced, the grist mill to grind the grain was a great necessity. The Indians and some of the early settlers with hammers and stones pulverized corn and wheat enough to supply their absolute wants from day to day, but the whites, who had been accustomed to corn-meal and wheat-flour bread, were not satisfied with the mashed product. Therefore, Davis, who supplied both of those great necessities, was a prominent man in the Davis Settlement.

The mill-site was where the Sauk trail from Black Hawk’s Village at the mouth of the Rock River crossed Big Indian Creek and continued thence east to Canada, where the whole tribe of Sacs went every year to get their annuities from the English Government.12 Just above the ford the creek meandered through a flat-bottomed gulch that was about two hundred feet wide with precipitous banks about fifteen feet high. At this point the stream flowed southeasterly and was fringed along its course with woods that grew dense, and here and there expanded into groves, but at other places there were openings where the prairie fires annually destroyed the undergrowth and left standing only the monarchs of the forest. The north bank of the gulch had an incline of about forty-five degrees to the level of the prairie. On that bank in a sparsely timbered opening from which the prairie stretched off to the cardinal points of the compass, William Davis located his home and erected his cabin. About that cabin there were trees that produced fruit, fuel and lumber, among whose branches were singing birds of great variety, including the Cardinal, the Dickcissel, the Carolina Wren, the Thrush and the Robin. By May the bank was covered with a carpet of thick, waving grass, diversified with ever-changing colored flowers, until the cruel frost of Fall destroyed them. It was an idyllic spot. No doubt Davis hoped that some day the Davis Settlement would become Davis City, and that his generations would revel in mansions that would replace the cottage on the bank of that new Jordan, where he, like King David, in his old age might kneel among his people to pray.

SHABONA PARK, SHOWING MILL POND AND STATE MONUMENT.

However, the hopes and aspirations of the Davis family were soon to be blasted. Davis was a powerful man and his Kentucky blood fairly boiled with resentment at any offense, particularly one given by an Indian, upon whom he looked as an inferior. With his gun and bowie knife Davis would fight a dozen Indians—aye, a score. It seemed as though he could play with them in the air as an athlete plays with Indian clubs.

About one hundred and fifty feet south of his cottage, Davis erected a blacksmith shop and a mill. To obtain water power for his mill it became necessary for Davis to put a dam across the stream. Six miles farther up Indian Creek there was an Indian village, and as the fish naturally went up the stream every spring, there was good fishing at the village for the Indians. The dam prevented the fish from going up, and the Indians protested against this invasion of their rights. Davis, however, insisted on his rights to build and maintain the dam, and bad feelings were engendered.

One day in April, 1832, Davis discovered an Indian tearing an outlet in the dam, and with a hickory stick he beat the Indian unmercifully.13 Had he killed the Indian it might have ended the affair; but to whip an Indian with a stick as you would whip a dog, was an insult that incurred the resentment of the whole Indian village, and instilled in the Indian a rankling desire for revenge. The incident, however, was settled by Chief Shabona with the assistance of another Indian chief named Waubansee, who advised the Indians not to resort to forceful reparation and to do their fishing below the dam. The Indians followed Shabona’s advice for some time, but after a while Davis noticed that they ceased to go below the dam to fish, and being quite familiar with the Indian character, he took it as an intimation of their anger, and he prepared for hostilities.

CHIEF SHABONA.

CHAPTER IV.
THE MASSACRE.

The year 1831 was known to early settlers in Illinois as “The Dry Year.” There was little rain and there were long spells of great heat, so that vegetation was parched and the crop a failure. The season of 1832 was just the opposite.14 During the first half of the month of May there were numerous heavy thunder storms with intervals of hot weather that made the grass and flowers grow very rapidly, but delayed the farmers in their planting. Also, the several Indian scares interrupted the settlers in their regular work in the fields.

As already stated, immediately after the breaking up of the Indian council after the defeat of Stillman, Shabona rode in post haste to the Davis