HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.
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CHAPTER V.
COMING OF THE WHITE MAN.
IKDIAX DISSATISFACTION AM) UNREST VALIANT
EXPLOIT OF LIEUT. JAMES WATSON WKBB-MA.I. STEPHEN H. LONG'S EXPEDITION-THE BLACK
HAWK WAR OPENS THE STILLMAN RUN DEFEAT
AND INDIAN CHEEK MASSACRE-UEN. WINFIELU
SCOTT'S ARMY TRAIL THROUGH KANE COUNTY
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EARLY SQUATTERS.
The Indians were greatly dissatisfied with the unfair terms of the treaty of 1804, which Black Hawk, the War Chief of the Sac and Fox tribes, bitterly denounced, and which he contended had never been properly ratified by the councils of his people. The horrors of the Fort Dearborn Massacre were still vivid in the minds of the few settlers at Chicago, and at the portage, and along the river routes of the Illinois; and at the time the State was organized, the menace of further uprisings of the savages was an ever present terror. In 1822 the commanding officer at Fort Dearborn became convinced that the destruction of the garrison and few settlers at Fort Armstrong, on Rock Island near Black Hawk's village, was being planned by the Indians, and Second Lieutenant James Watson Webb volunteered to warn the unsuspecting garrison of the impending-danger. Alone and in mid-winter, he accomplished this perilous mission, and his promotion, the following year, to a first lieutenancy was doubtless in recognition of this deed of high daring and arduous endurance. Later he became a famous journalist and editor, and was appointed United States Minister to Brazil by President Lincoln. Avoiding the Indian trails, he secretly and silently held his dangerous way due westward through the unbroken wilderness to the Mississippi River at a point near the site of the present city of Fulton, and thence passed down that stream to the Fort. In all that vast solitude he saw no sign of human life save at the crossing of Rock River, where a Frenchman named La Salier had a trading post. He crossed the Fox River at the opening between the heavy timber of the "big woods" and of the "little woods," just north of Batavia. He was, beyond doubt, the first white man to enter the bounds of the present County of Kane.
The following year (1823), Major Stephen Harriman Long, in whose honor "Long's Peak" of the Rocky Mountains was named, passed over the county in charge of a party of United States topographical engineers, en route to explore the sources of the Mississippi River. From prehistoric times, important Indian trails centered at the portage between the Chicago and Des Plaines Rivers, radiating eastward and southeastward, and in all directions westward. There is little doubt that Major Long's party reached the portage over the old Indian and wagon trail around the foot of the lake from Detroit, and, crossing both streams, passed westward on an Indian trail leading past the place where Fort Paine was constructed in 1832, and on or near the site of the present city of Naperville, where he took a more northward trail toward Warrenville and Wayne, crossing the Fox River and Kane County on the route afterward well known as "Scott's army trail."
Black Hawk and his followers, known as the "British Band" of the Sac and Fox tribes, had clung tenaciously to their large village, "Saukatuk," and its adjacent fields, situated near the mouth of Rock River, but had been roughly crowded out by the invading whites and, by threats and warlike preparations oj the National and State Governments, driven across the Mississippi; and, on the 30th day of June, 1831, he was forced to sign a stipulation not to return unless by permission of the United States. It was too late in the season to raise any crop; game was scarce and, during that summer and the following winter, the Indians suffered miserably for want of food and shelter. On April 6, 1832, Black Hawk and his band of about five hundred men, with their families and scant effects, recrossed the river and trailed leisurely up the valley of the Rock, saying they were going to visit, and raise a crop of corn, with their friends, the Winnebagoes.
At Dixon's Ferry he was entertained at dinner by Mrs. John Dixon and declared that all his intentions were peaceful. But his coming created the wildest excitement throughout the State, and Governor Reynolds at once summoned volunteers to repel "the invasion," and called upon the General Government for assistance. Meanwhile Black Hawk moved leisurely
