Lewis and Clark, the Entire Story.

                   Meriwether Lewis                                           William Clark

Prelude: 1803 to May 1804

In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson won approval from Congress for a visionary project that was to become one of American history's greatest adventure stories. 

Jefferson wanted to know if Americans could journey overland to the Pacific Ocean by following two rivers, the Missouri and Columbia Rivers. He knew both rivers flowed from the Rocky Mountains; the Missouri River flows east from the Rockies, and the Columbia River flows west to the Pacific Ocean.

If the sources of the rivers were near one another, Jefferson reasoned that American traders could use that route to compete with British fur companies pressing southward from Canada.

On February 28, 1803, Congress appropriated funds for a small U.S. Army unit to explore the Missouri and Columbia Rivers. The explorers were to make detailed reports on the land's geography, climate, plants, and animals, as well as to study the customs and languages of the Indians. Plans for the Expedition were almost complete when the President learned that France had offered to sell all Louisiana Territory to the United States. This transfer, which was completed within a year, doubled the area of the United States. It meant that Jefferson's army Expedition could travel to the crest of the Rockies on American soil, no longer needing permission from the former French owners.

Jefferson selected an Army captain, 28-year-old Meriwether Lewis, as the Expedition's leader. The Jeffersons and Lewises had been neighbors near Charlottesville, Virginia, where Lewis was born on August 18, 1774. As a boy, he had spent time in the woods, acquiring a remarkable knowledge of native plants and animals. In 1794, he served in the Virginia Militia when President Washington called it out to quell the Whiskey Rebellion. Lewis had a successful army career when, in 1801, the newly elected Jefferson summoned him to work as his private Secretary in the "President's House."

Lewis chose a former Army comrade, 32-year-old William Clark, to co-leader the Expedition. Clark was born on August 1, 1770, in Caroline County, Virginia. At 14, his family moved to Kentucky, where they were among the earliest settlers. William Clark was the youngest brother of General George Rogers Clark, a hero of the Revolutionary War. William served under General "Mad Anthony" Wayne during the Indian wars in the Northwest Territory.

Lewis prepared for the Expedition and visited President Jefferson's scientific associates in Philadelphia for natural sciences, astronomical navigation, and field medicine instruction. He was also given a list of questions about their daily lives to ask the American Indians that they would meet. During these preparations, Lewis purchased "Seaman," his pure-breed Newfoundland dog, to accompany him to the Pacific for $20 ($520 today).

Camp River Dubois, the Lewis and Clark State Historic Site, Hartford, Illinois.

Lewis and Clark reached their staging point at the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers near St. Louis in December 1803. They camped through the winter at the mouth of Wood River on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River and the confluence of the Missouri River. The two captains recruited young woodsmen and enlisted soldiers who volunteered from nearby army outposts. Over the winter, final selections were made of proven men. The Expedition's roster comprised approximately 45 people in the spring, including some military personnel and local boatmen who would go partway up the Missouri River with the Expedition. Lewis recorded that the mouth of Wood River was "to be considered the point of departure" for the westward journey.

Camp River Dubois State Historic Site, Hartford, Illinois.

Lower Missouri: May 1804 to April 1805

The Expedition broke camp on May 14, 1804. Clark wrote in his journal: "I set out at 4 o'clock P.M and proceeded on under a gentle breeze up the Missouri River." The party traveled in a 55-foot-long keelboat and two smaller boats called "pirogues." Through the long, hot summer, they laboriously worked their way upriver. Numerous navigational hazards slowed their progress, including sunken trees called "sawyers," sand bars, collapsing river banks, and sudden squalls of high winds with drenching rains. There were other problems, including disciplinary floggings, two desertions, a man dishonorably discharged for mutiny, and the death of Sgt. Charles Floyd was the only member to die during the Expedition. In modern-day South Dakota, a band of Teton Sioux tried to detain the boats, but the explorers showed their superior armaments and sailed on.

Early in November, they came to the villages of the Mandan and Minitari (Hidatsa) Indians, who lived near present-day Washburn, North Dakota. On the north bank of the Missouri River, they found a grove of thick cottonwood trees to construct a log fort. Standing close together, the trees also offered protection from the prairie winds.

In four weeks of hard work, the men built a triangular-shaped fort. Rows of small huts made up two sides; a wall of upright cottonwood logs formed the front. They named it Fort Mandan in honor of the local inhabitants. The party was now 164 days and approximately 1,510 miles from Wood River.

The explorers spent five months at Fort Mandan, hunting and obtaining information about the route ahead from the Indians and French-Canadian traders who lived nearby. The Expedition's blacksmiths set up a forge and made tools and implements, traded for the American Indian's garden crops of corn, melons, and beans. A French-Canadian named Toussaint Charbonneau visited the captains with his young pregnant Shoshone wife, Sacagawea.

Sacagawea's tribal homeland lay in the Rocky Mountain country, far to the west. She had been kidnapped by plains Indians five years before, when she was about twelve years old, and taken to the villages of the Mandan and Minitari, where she was eventually sold to Charbonneau. Sacagawea spoke both Shoshone and Minitari, and the captains realized that she could be a valuable intermediary if the party encountered the Shoshones. They also knew that she and Charbonneau could be helpful in trading for the horses that would be needed to cross the western mountains. In addition, Sacagawea and her baby would prove to be a token of truce, assuring the Indians that the Expedition was peaceful. While descending the Columbia River, Clark later noted, "No woman ever accompanies a war party of Indians in this quarter." As a result, the captains hired Charbonneau, who was joined by Sacagawea and their infant son Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, born at Fort Mandan on February 11, 1805. The boy became a favorite of Clark, whom he nicknamed "Pomp," citing his pompous "little dancing boy" antics.

Upper Missouri: April 1805 to July 1805

Moving up the river from the Mandan villages, they passed the confluence of the Yellowstone with the Missouri River. They entered a country where Lewis observed "immense herds of Buffaloes, Elk, Deer and Antelopes feeding in one common and boundless pasture." Grizzly Bears charged the men hunting them.

Lewis said he would "rather fight two Indians than one bear." River navigation became more difficult. During a fierce windstorm, the pirogue that carried vital records and instruments filled with water and nearly capsized. Sacagawea, who was aboard, saved many items as they floated within her reach. Near the end of May, the Rocky Mountains came into view.

The river's current grew stronger. The explorers had to abandon the paddles and tow the heavy canoes with rawhide ropes while walking along the shoreline. When river banks gave way to cliffs, the men had to wade in the water, pushing and pulling the boats upstream.

In early June, the explorers reached a point where the Missouri River divided equally into northerly and southerly branches. They spent nine days concluding that the south branch was the true Missouri. Lewis named the "Marias River" north fork and scouted ahead with a small advance party following the south fork until he heard waterfalls. The Indians at Fort Mandan had told them about the falls of the Missouri River, so Lewis knew he was on the right stream.

In the vicinity of present-day Great Falls, Montana, the Expedition had to portage 18 miles around a series of five cascades of the Missouri River. The men attached cottonwood wheels to the canoes to push them overland. The weather was hot, with intermittent squalls pelting the party with large, bruising hailstones.

Transporting the heavy boats and baggage up the steep incline from the river and traversing the long stretch of prairie lands was exhausting. Prickly pear spines penetrated their feet through moccasin soles, adding to the difficult and exhausting portage.

After three weeks of shuttling canoes and baggage along this portage, a camp was established above the falls at "White Bear Island." They had brought along a metal framework over which they stretched hides to make a large, light boat to resume their journey on the river. The plan failed when stitches in the hides leaked water, and they had to abandon the framework and make two more cottonwood canoes.

West of the Divide: July 1805 to November 1805

On July 25, the Expedition arrived, where the Missouri River was divided into three forks. They named the southeast branch the "Gallatin" for the Secretary of the Treasury, and the southerly one was called the "Madison" for the Secretary of State. The westerly branch became the "Jefferson" River, "in honor of that illustrious personage Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States."

Because it flowed from the west, the captains decided to follow the Jefferson River. Learning from Sacagawea that they were now within the traditional food-gathering lands of her people, Lewis went ahead to look for the Shoshones. He reached a spring in the mountains in mid-August, which he called "the most distant fountain" of the Missouri River. Just beyond was a saddle in a high ridge (today's Lemhi Pass), from which Lewis saw towering, snow-covered mountains to the west. A brook at his feet ran westward, and he knew he had crossed the Continental Divide. The brook was one of many tributary streams of today's Snake River, joining the Columbia River.

Immediately west of the Continental Divide, Lewis came upon two Shoshone women and a girl digging edible roots. Lewis gave them presents, and soon, they were joined by a large number of Shoshone men on horseback. Lewis rejoined Clark and the main party, returning from this scouting trip accompanied by several Shoshones. The explorers formed a camp with the Indians a few miles south of present-day Dillon, Montana, called "Camp Fortunate." Here, Sacagawea found a childhood girlfriend. The girl had been with Sacagawea when both were captured but had escaped and returned to her people. Sacagawea learned that her brother, Cameahwait, was now chief of the tribe. It was an emotional scene when brother and sister were reunited.

Thinking ahead to their return journey, Captain Lewis ordered the canoes submerged to "guard against both the effects of high water and that of fire the Indians promised to do them no intentional injury." The party then proceeded across the Continental Divide to the main village of the Shoshones. With Sacagawea providing vital service as an interpreter, a Shoshone guide was hired, and trading with the Indians for riding and pack horses was successful. After a short stay, the now horse-mounted corps followed their guide, Old Toby, into the "formidable mountains."

September found the half-starved explorers surviving on horse meat while following the Lolo Trail's ancient Indian route across the Bitterroot Mountains in modern Montana and Idaho. During an early-season snowstorm, they encountered fallen timber, bone-chilling cold, and slippery, hazardous travel. Descending the west slope of the mountains, they reached a village of the Nez Perce.

Here, the natives provided a salmon, roots, and berries feast. The ravenous explorers found, to their dismay, that this unaccustomed diet made them extremely ill.

The group reached today's Clearwater River, where they branded and left their horses in the care of the Nez Perce until their return. They built new canoes and proceeded through boulder-strewn rapids, making speedy but risky progress. They reached the Snake River and then the Columbia River on October 16. They floated down that mighty river reaching the now inundated "Great Falls of the Columbia" (Celilo Falls) near the modern Oregon town of The Dalles. Here, and also when confronted by the raging rapids within the Cascade Mountains that Clark called the "Great Shute," they again were forced into toilsome portages.

On November 2, they drifted into the quiet upper reaches of tidewater on the Columbia. On November 7, Clark wrote: "Great joy in camp we are in view of the Ocean, this great Pacific Ocean which we have been so long anxious to see." They were still 25 miles upstream and saw the storm-lashed waves of the river's broad estuary.

For the next nine days, savage winds blew, ocean swells rolled into the river, and the rain poured down, stranding them in unprotected camps just above the tide at the base of cliffs. In mid-November, the captains finally strode upon the sands of the Pacific Ocean near the Columbia's mouth, the western objective of their journey. Clark recorded that 554 days had elapsed, and 4,132 miles had been traveled since leaving Wood River.

Pacific Ocean: November 1805 to March 1806

Captain Lewis carried a letter of credit signed by Jefferson, guaranteeing payment for the explorers' return by sea via any American or foreign merchant ship encountered in the Columbia River estuary. They saw no ships upon reaching the ocean, nor as their records reveal, would any enter the turbulent river entrance during their four-month stay at the coast. In truth, the captains never seriously intended to return by sea, preferring to establish a camp close to the coast instead. They hoped to obtain from trading ships "a fresh Supply of Indian trinkets to purchase provisions on our return home."

Due to the absence of game and their unprotected exposure to fierce winter storms on the Columbia (Washington State) north shore, the party crossed the river to the south side (Oregon), where Indians informed them elk and deer were numerous. An actual vote of the members was recorded, representing the first American democratically held election west of the Rockies that included the vote of a woman, Sacagawea, and a Negro-American man, York.

Crossing the river, they built their 1805-06 winter quarters on a protected site five miles south of modern Astoria, Oregon, naming it Fort Clatsop for their neighbors, the Clatsop Indians. The men spent the winter hunting elk for food and making elk skin clothing and moccasins to replace their worn buckskins.

Lewis filled his journal with descriptions of plants, birds, mammals, fish, and amphibians, weather data, and detailed information on Indian cultures. Clark drew illustrations of many animals and plants and brought his maps of the journey up to date. Sacagawea joined Clark and a few men on a coast trip to procure oil and blubber from a "monstrous fish," a whale washed up on the beach. They visited the Expedition's salt-making camp at present-day Seaside, Oregon, where several men kept a continuous fire burning for nearly a month, boiling seawater, to produce twenty gallons of salt.

Return Journey: March 1806 to September 1806

On March 23, 1806, the explorers started back up the Columbia in newly acquired Indian canoes. At the Great Falls of the Columbia River, they bartered with local Indians for pack horses and set out up the river's north shore on foot. The party obtained riding horses from various tribes along the way and reached the Nez Perce villages in May. While camped among the Nez Perce for a month, waiting for the high mountain snows to melt, the captains gave frontier medical treatment to sick and injured Indians in exchange for native foods.

The Nez Perce rounded up the Expedition's horses that they had cared for over the winter, easing the captains' concern for adequate transportation as the party resumed its eastward travel in early June. Retracing their outbound trail through the Bitterroots, they were turned back by impassable snowdrifts and made their only "retrograde march" of the entire journey. After a week's delay, they started out again and successfully crossed the mountains. On June 30, they arrived at their outbound "Travelers Rest" camp, eleven miles south of modern Missoula, Montana, where they enjoyed a welcome rest from their toils.

On July 3, 1806, the party separated. With nine men, Lewis rode directly east to the Great Falls of the Missouri River. Then, with three men, he traveled north to explore the Marias River almost to the present Canadian border. Lewis and his companions camped overnight with some Blackfeet Indians, who attempted to steal the explorers' guns and drive off their horses at daylight. In describing the ensuing skirmish, Lewis related that he was fired upon by an Indian, which resulted in a near-miss that "I felt the wind of the bullet very distinctly." Lewis afterward would elaborate that two of the Blackfeet were killed during the brief encounter but that he and his companions miraculously escaped unharmed.

Meanwhile, with the balance of the party, Clark proceeded southeasterly on horseback, crossing the Rockies through today's Gibbons Pass. Returning to the Jefferson River (now the Beaverhead River in its upper reach), the submerged canoes were recovered and repaired. Clark placed some men in charge of the canoes while the others continued on with the horses, all following the river downstream to the Three Forks junction of the Missouri River.

Here, the group is divided. The canoe travelers continued down the Missouri River to White Bear Island, where they recovered their cached equipment and portaged back around the falls. With the remainder, Clark rode their horses easterly to explore the Yellowstone River. While the Expedition was again passing through the Shoshone lands, Sacagawea remembered from her childhood, Clark praised her "great service to me as a pilot."

Upon reaching Yellowstone, new canoes were made. Clark assigned three men to drive the horses overland while he and the others drifted down the river. On July 25, 1806, Clark named an unusual rock formation on the south bank of the Yellowstone River (Montana) "Pompy's Tower" in honor of Sacagawea's son.

The parties were reunited on August 12 near the confluence of the Yellowstone and the Missouri rivers. Here, Clark learned that Lewis had been shot while searching for game in the brushy shoreline of the Missouri River. In his buckskin clothing, Captain Lewis was mistaken for an elk by Pierre Cruzatte. Clark treated and dressed the wound with medicines they carried.

Arriving at the Mandan villages on August 17, the Charbonneau family was mustered out of the Expedition. At his request, Private John Colter was discharged to join a fur trapping party bound up the Missouri River. The remainder of the party, accompanied by a Mandan chief and his family, headed down the Missouri River on the last leg of the homeward journey.

After September 23, 1806

On September 23, 1806, the tattered Corps of Discovery arrived at St. Louis and "received a hearty welcome from its inhabitants." Jefferson's explorers had covered 8,000 miles of territory over 2 years, 4 months, and 9 days. Its records contributed important information concerning the land, natural resources, and native peoples. Lewis and Clark learned that the surprising width of the Rocky Mountains chain destroyed Jefferson's hoped-for route between the Missouri and Columbia River systems. This finding resulted in a passage over what is now South Pass (Wyoming) during later trips westward by fur traders and other explorers. Despite difficulties, Lewis and Clark remained friends after the Expedition. Congress rewarded the officers and men of the military enterprise, including Toussaint Charbonneau, with land grants. Neither Sacagawea nor York received compensation for their services.

On February 28, 1807, President Jefferson picked Lewis as Governor of the Upper Louisiana Territory. His career started well, but controversy involving government finances arose in 1809, culminating with his decision to travel to Washington, D.C., to resolve the dispute. Traveling through Tennessee, Governor Meriwether Lewis, on October 11, 1809, died mysteriously from gunshot wounds inflicted while at Grinder's Stand, a public roadhouse. It is not known conclusively whether he was murdered or committed suicide. His grave lies where he died, within today's Natchez Trace National Parkway near Hohenwald, Tennessee.

Clark enjoyed a lifelong, honorable career in public service in St. Louis. On March 12, 1807, Jefferson commissioned him Brigadier General of Militia and Indian Agent for Upper Louisiana Territory. In 1813, he was appointed Governor of Missouri Territory, which he held until Missouri Statehood in 1820. In 1822, he was appointed Superintendent of Indian Affairs by President Monroe. He was reappointed to this post by each succeeding President and served in this capacity for the remainder of his life. General William Clark died of natural causes in St. Louis on September 1, 1838, and is buried in the Clark Family plot at Bellefontaine Cemetery, St. Louis. 

Camp River Dubois and the Lewis and Clark State Historic Site, Hartford, Illinois.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

The Ku Klux Klan in Southern Illinois in 1875.

THE KLAN'S BEGINNING

The first Klan was established on December 24, 1865, in Pulaski, Tennessee, a group of Confederate veterans convenes to form a secret society that they christen the “Ku Klux Klan” in the wake of the Civil War and was a defining organization of the Reconstruction era. Former Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest was the Ku Klux Klan’s first grand wizard.

Organized in numerous independent chapters across the Southern United States, federal law enforcement suppressed it around 1871. It sought to overthrow the Republican state governments in the South, especially by using voter intimidation and targeted violence against African-American leaders. Each chapter was autonomous and highly secretive about membership and plans.

The second Klan started in 1915 as a small group in Georgia. It suddenly started to grow after 1920 and flourished nationwide in the early and mid-1920s, including urban areas of the Midwest and West.

The third and current manifestation of the Klan emerged after 1950 in the form of localized and isolated groups that use the Ku Klux Klan name. They have focused on opposition to the civil rights movement, often using violence and murder to suppress activists.

THE KLAN IN ILLINOIS

The Ku Klux Klan in Southern Illinois operated between 1867 and 1875 in seven counties — Franklin, Williamson, Jackson, Saline, Johnson, Union, and Pope. The "worst Klan years" were in 1874 and 1875.

Acute lead poisoning had overtaken a number of members of the original gang in 1875, and I suggested the same "remedy" for the then-current epidemic of night riding.

 

At the time I wrote my newspaper article Klansmen were so numerous throughout the southern part of the state that few people dared to speak or write disparagingly about the organization for fear of a boycott in one form or another. Nor would many newspapers publish anything detrimental to the interests of the Klan. One exception was Edwin Rackaway, the Mt. Vernon Register-News editor, who never missed an opportunity to tell the white-hooded hoodlums what he thought of them. Many other newspapers reprinted my story after he had taken the lead. 

On the July afternoon that the article appeared, squads of supposed Klansmen could be seen reading the paper, gesticulating, and pointing toward my office. Many of them were predicting, so my friends told me that I had ruined myself socially and financially and that I would certainly have to leave the county if I expected to continue the practice of medicine. I also received a number of anonymous letters criticizing my attitude toward the Klan and the Masons, who were said to have united with the Klan in their earlier escapades. 

Some of my critics said that my story about Klan activities in Franklin and Williamson counties in the decade after the Civil War was a pipe dream, that nothing of the kind had ever happened and that my article would be refuted in a few days. Of course, it never was.

The Klan's defeat and downfall in 1875 resulted when a posse ambushed a gang of fourteen-night riders at the farm of John B. Maddox in Franklin County (the Maddox farm was three or four miles northeast of West Frankfort). I knew several posse members personally; my brother had lived at the Maddox home while teaching school in the neighborhood, and one of the Maddox daughters was my aunt by marriage. I had heard the story from several sources and knew what I was writing about. More recently, I have come across a copy of The History of Williamson County) Illinois by Milo Erwin, an attorney, which was published at Marion in 1876, and also a scrapbook kept by W. S. Cantrell of Benton in which are pasted newspaper clippings of the time the raid took place. These publications confirm and expand my statements about the Klan some thirty years ago. 

The earliest mention of the Klan in the Franklin-Williamson section is contained in Erwin's history: 

On April 15, 1872, Isaac Vancil, the first white man born in this Williamson] county, a man seventy-three years old, living on Big Muddy, was notified to leave the country or suffer death. He did not obey the order, and on the night of the 22nd, ten men in disguise as Ku Klux rode up to his house, took him out about a mile down the river, and put a skinned pole in the forks of two saplings and hung him, and left him hanging. The next morning, when he was found, all around was still, blank and lifeless. Vancil was an honest, hardworking man but had some serious faults. Still, God gave an equal right to live and none the right to deal death and ruin in a land of peace. Soon after his death, eighteen men were arrested in Franklin county, charged with the murder, but all were acquitted." 

There was an off-and-on continuance of Klan activity for the next two years, and Erwin records some of it: 

During the summer of 1874, there was an organization of fifteen men near Carrier's Mills in Saline County who extended their operations up into Williamson County. They called themselves "Regulators," dressed in disguise, and went around to set things in order. They did not injure any person but simply notified those whom they thought were out of line on domestic duty and even in financial affairs to fall into line again. They generally gave the victim such a scare that he was willing to do anything to be left alone. Such a band is a disgrace to any civilized country, but no serious results or disparaging influence came from this one. 

There was probably an organization of a more serious character in this county. Several men were taken out and whipped, and some ten or fifteen were warned to leave the county. This was during the years 1874-5.

On the night of October 23, 1874, a party of twenty men in disguise visited the family of Henry D. Carter in Northern Precinct, Thompsonville, Franklin County, and ordered him to leave the county within four days, whereupon a fight took place, and twenty-two balls were lodged in his house. In a few days, fifty-two men met in arms at the County Line Church in daylight and ordered six of the Carters to leave the county. Mr. Carter wrote their names to Governor Beveridge, imploring protection. The Governor wrote to Jennings, the state's attorney of Williamson County, to enforce the law, and of course, that ended it." 

The Carters must have given a pretty good account of themselves in holding the fort because Dr. Randall Poindexter of Cave Township, Franklin County, was called out that night to treat several of his neighbors who were suffering from lead poisoning.

At this time, the headquarters of the Ku Klux gang that infested Franklin and Williamson counties were at a village with a bad name and a bad reputation known as "Sneak Out." It was located in Franklin County on the west bank of Ewing Creek, where the road between Benton and Thompsonville crossed it. Members of this gang wore the usual white robes and high peaked hats and had their horses covered with sheets. They traveled over the country in the dead of night and visited isolated farm homes where they called out the occupants and warned or threatened them about their conduct.

Early in August 1875, Bill Jacobs, a Mason who had recently joined the Klan, notified Captain John Hogan and John B. Maddox that they were soon to be visited by the night riders. The latter was also a Mason, and Jacobs thought more highly of his Masonic connections than of the Klan. Maddox, at the time, was one of the commissioners of Franklin County, a successful farmer and perhaps the wealthiest man in the Crawford's Prairie section where he lived. (Maddox lived on the western edge of Crawford's Prairie, which was about 2½ miles east and west and 1½ miles north and south, and ½ mile wide.) Hogan, likewise, was a respected citizen and had served in the Union Army. He had gone to California in a covered wagon during the gold rush and spent several years there. 

Captain Hogan did not propose taking orders from the Klan, so he went to Springfield to seek the aid of Governor Beveridge. He told the Governor of conditions in Franklin County and said that if given the authority and means, he could raise a volunteer company and arrest the Klansmen. The Governor advised Hogan to go back to Franklin County and to cooperate with Sheriff James F. Mason in organizing a volunteer company. He also said that the state would provide a hundred muskets and ammunition for the group. 

On his return to Benton, Captain Hogan met with Maddox and Sheriff Mason and discussed the matter, with the result that a "reception committee" of thirty or forty men armed with shotguns and revolvers gathered at the Maddox home on the evening of August 16, the date set by the Klan for its visit. Bill Jacobs had told Maddox that the Klansmen planned to approach from the south, where there was a lane bordered by stake-and-rider fences. The posse, under the command of Sheriff Mason, blocked this lane at the end near the house with threshing machines, wagons and other farm implements and lay in wait for the raiders.

At 2 am on August 17, 1875, the Klansmen, fourteen of them, rode silently up the lane, two abreast, fully covered by their long white robes, high white hats and masks. In the grim darkness, they were, as one of the posse described them, "enough to frighten the devil." When the leader reached the barricade, Sheriff Mason and Robert H. Flannigan stepped out of their hiding places, and the Sheriff commanded the group to halt and surrender. The leader answered by firing his pistol at the Sheriff but missed his target.

The Klansmen then wheeled their animals, attempting to escape back down the lane, and the posse opened fire. When the smoke of battle had cleared away they found one wounded Klansman, John Duckworth, lying in the road, shot in the neck. Also, there was one dead horse, a live horse belonging to one of Maddox's neighbors with its saddle filled with shot, a mule belonging to another neighbor with a saddle that had been borrowed from Maddox's son a few days earlier, and numerous bloody robes discarded on the route.

Duckworth was carried into the Maddox home, where he was examined by Dr. Thomas David Ray of Frankfort Heights, a member of the posse. Dr. Ray thought the man was mortally wounded and told him so. Believing he was making a deathbed confession Duckworth told all that he knew about the Klan. 

Only one of the fourteen-night riders escaped from the battlefield with his skin whole. The horse with the saddle filled with shot was identified as belonging to Green Cantrell, who lived two miles east of Maddox. He was arrested and taken to Benton, where Dr. Zachariah Hickman picked more than forty shot out of the posterior of his anatomy, and the Benton paper commented: "How many shot must be embedded in the carcass of a klansman before a human would consider him wounded? One of the Ku Klux Klan's captured had forty-one shots in him and still persisted in saying he was not injured."

The dead horse had been ridden by George Proctor and belonged to his father, an aged minister. Young Proctor was wounded in the heel but was helped away by another Klansman. The next morning the two of them were found in the straw stack of Henry Hunt, a neighbor of my father" who lived twenty miles from the Maddox farm. They had ridden one horse from the scene. On the day after the battle, the citizens of Benton called a meeting and passed resolutions that said:

We, as law-abiding and peaceable citizens of Franklin County ... do hereby cordially endorse the action of the Sheriff and his posse in their conduct last night; and ... we condemn in the strongest manner, these armed and disguised marauders, and ... to their suppression and the maintenance of the laws and liberties of our citizens, we do hereby pledge our lives and money."

Another result was the formation of a "military company," as authorized by Governor Beveridge, to "assist the Sheriff in the execution of the Laws, and be subjected to his orders." 

About sixty men were enrolled, and John Hogan was elected captain; G. S. Hubbard, first lieutenant; J. L. Harrell, second lieutenant; R. H. Flannigan, third lieutenant; and William Drummond, orderly sergeant. Following the organization of this company, a number of the Klansmen were arrested and brought before a United States Commissioner. A newspaper clipping in the Cantrell collection gives the following exciting account: 

THE CHIEF OF THE EGYPTIAN NIGHT RIDERS WAS HELD FOR TRIAL UNDER THE KU KLUX LAW. / INTERESTING DEVELOPMENTS AT THE EXAMINATION OF THE HELLIONS OF ILLINOIS. / HOW THE MASKED KNIGHTS OF THE GOLDEN RING REGULATED THEIR NEIGHBORS. / A PLACE WHERE HELL COMES AS NEAR CROPPING OUT AS ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD. / THE MYSTERIES OF THE INITIATION AND THE OBJECTS AND PLANS OF THE BANDITS. / THE NIGHT RIDERS IN COURT.

Centralia, Illinois, August 28, 1875 - Deputy United States Marshalls, John H. Hogan] and James F. Mason, with a number of guards armed with shot-guns and revolvers, arrived at this place last night at 7 o'clock, in charge of Aaron Neal, the reputed grand master of the Franklin County Ku-Klux, or Golden Ring, and Green M. Cantrell, John Duckworth, Williamson Briley, James Lannlus, James Abshear, and Frank Fleming, who are said to be members of his band of night riders. The railroad platform was densely crowded with people, all anxious to catch a glimpse of the live Ku Klux, and the only thing necessary to make the reception an ovation was a brass band. 

Proceeding Commenced at 20 minutes past 9 this morning, United States Commissioner Zabadee Curlee of Tamaroa, assisted by Wm. Stoker of Centralia, organized into a United States commissioners' court for the trial of the prisoners upon the complaint and information of John H. Hogan and Wm. W. Jacobs, the last named member of the Golden Ring, under sections 5,507 and 5,508 of the United States statutes, chapter 7, entitled "Crimes against the elective franchise and civil rights of citizens." 

The complaint and information against Neal were made by John H. Hogan, that he did the band and conspire with other persons, and did go with them in disguise upon a public highway in Franklin County, and upon the premises of one John B. Maddox, injure, oppress, threaten and intimidate the true right, the exercise and enjoyment of which the said Maddox was entitled to, the right and privilege thereof being guaranteed to him by the constitution and laws of the United States.

Mr. John B. Maddox was the first witness. He testified that he had lived in Franklin since 1837, that he had received notice from Mr. William W. Jacobs through Mr. John H. Hogan of the proposed attack upon him by members of the band who were repulsed in his lane on the night of that day. On cross-examination, he testified that his relations with Neal were of a friendly character. Mr. W. W. Jacobs testified that he was initiated into the Ku Klux or Golden Ring on July 29. He was sworn into the organization.

The objective of the band was to do simply as it pleased without regard to law or anything else. Calvin Moore administered the oath to him. Neal was present at that time and was also present with the band in the battle of Maddox's Lane. Several other persons were sworn in the same night. A witness was detained til a uniform came and then proceeded toward Crawford's Prairie. When we were within two or three miles of the prairie, several men in uniform and mounted dashed up behind us. We then dressed in uniform and went to Brown's; then to Calvin Moore's; then to James Moore's; then to Rice's, and then Maddox's. Neal was with us during all this time. We were at Brown's at about 11 or 12 o'clock. We inquired at Brown's where he was, and so forth and so on, and about a gun he had. Fourteen of us were at Brown's, all disguised. I think Neal professed to act as our captain. He and Calvin Moore gave commands. We went to Brown's to whip him. We had given orders which he had not complied with, and we were going to whip him and broke the gun he had.

We then went to Maddox's to give him orders. When we left the main road, we debated whether we should go to Maddox's. We decided to do so, and when we got into Maddox's lane, I thought I saw someone run across it near the house. As we came up in front of the house, I heard the command "Halt" and the order to surrender in the name of the people of the State of Illinois. I next heard a cap burst; next, a pistol shot. All of us wheeled, and the firing commenced. I saw Neal's mule run past me. Neal rode up on the mule but was not on it when it passed me. I heard that it was the intention to give Maddox orders first, whip him if he disobeyed, and hang him if he persisted in disobedience.

We went to Brown's to whip him because he had accused people wrongfully. We went to Maddox's because he had been a little too free with women and with Rice's wife. We intended to talk to Maddox, and if he didn't come out to fetch him out.

Mr. John Duckworth, the wounded Ku Klux, then took the stand as a witness for the prosecution. His evidence was a little confusing. He testified that he had been a member of the Golden Ring for about three months; that he had been initiated with Jacobs, who testified that he became a member less than a month ago. He was initiated in Eli Sommers' lot. Jacobs testified that he was initiated by Hiram Summers', a whiskey seller at Sneakout. Neal acted as captain or, as the members designated him, grand master. He was at Maddox's and rode a mule. I had a pistol. Calvin Moore had a gun, and George Proctor had a gun. The object of the organization was to make fellows da as we wanted them to.

The law could not get at us. We gave a man orders, and if he did not obey, we whipped him and would hang him. If he did not, then obey. Neal was alone at the time of the Maddox affair. He was in front. I was in front, too. I was shot and did not know anything more. 

Matilda Brown testified that her late husband had been visited twice by the Ku Klux. The first time was June 24. Four came and wanted water. They asked about Maddox. They were inside the house, but one only talked.

She recognized Neal by his voice. I have known him since his youth and knew his voice. I recognized Calvin Moore by his actions; by a peculiar walk; by a proud, hasty walk. I told my husband they would be back to see him. Fourteen called the second time and inquired about Brown. I told them he was in bed, sick. They asked if he had a gun and revolver. I told them no. They told me he was measuring horse tracks and must stop that in the country. I recognized the voice of Calvin Moore on the second visit. My sick husband was frightened. He didn't appear like the same man and died the next day. I think fright hastened his death. Dr. Thomas David Ray testified that he was waiting on Brown at the visit by the Ku Klux and thought the excitement hastened his death.

The second case against Neal, of conspiring with others to injure, oppress and intimidate citizens, was submitted on the same evidence. The cases were submitted without argument. Commissioner Stoker, Commissioner Curlee being absent from the room, having been attacked by sickness, dismissed the second case against Neal as insufficient and said he would consult with Commissioner Curlee on the first case and announce his decision after supper. The court here adjourned at half-past 7 o'clock.

After a conference of several hours, United States Commissioner Curlee decided to hold Cantrell in fifteen hundred dollars bond and Briley in one thousand. The sum is considered low, and regret and indignation are expressed that Neal, the leader, should have been let off on a two thousand dollars bond.

In a long talk with Captain John Hogan, who was Captain of the Franklin County Militia, I gathered some interesting facts. It is owing to Captain Hogan that the first organized resistance was made to the Klan. He provoked their hostility by prosecuting Hiram Sommers, of the Klan, for selling his boy whisky and was warned to pay Sommers back the amount of the fine of $100 and costs. He was to have been visited on the 20th inst., and on a second warning, was to have been hung. He aroused Maddox and Sheriff Mason and procured necessary arms and accouterments from Governor Beveridge to form a militia company for the arrest of the offenders. The arms were furnished by the State, which of course, also bears the expense of their subsistence.

A careful estimate shows that nearly fifteen hundred men are more or less directly connected or in sympathy with the band in Franklin, Williamson and adjoining counties. Aaron Neal, the leader, is an old member of the Southern Ku Klux Klan. 

Great credit is due to W. W. Jacobs, who has voluntarily exposed the Klan and its membership. He joined it for the purpose of exposing and breaking up the organization. Another object he had was to discover the murderer of old man Vancil, who was hung by a band of Ku Klux for disobedience of their orders about two years ago. Several men were arrested for the murder but had to be discharged after the main witnesses against them had been shot and killed. It has been discovered through Duckworth, Jacobs and others that Aaron Neal, Calvin Moore and a man named Jesse Cavins were all present at, if they did not assist in, the hanging of Vancil. This brutal murder will probably never be avenged. 

The passwords of the Klan were simple. On meeting a supposed member, they would put their hands in their pants pockets and move the pinky fingers on the outside. If he was a member, he responded by moving his coat by the lapels with his hands or the lapels of his vest by the same means. Then, taking him by the hand, they would put two fingers on his hand between the thumb and first finger, and if he was a member he would say something about doing well. The last two spoken words were the passwords and were sufficient if used in any sort of phrase. 

So far as reports indicate, no member of the first Ku Klux Klansmen, even those who were caught red-handed, was ever convicted in Franklin County. However, the dose of lead poisoning administered by Sheriff Mason, Captain Hogan and their posse was an effective cure for Klan activities in 1875. 

The Ku Klux Klan reorganized in southern Illinois in 1923.

A Ku Klux Klan Wedding, 1926

ADDITIONAL READING

The Disappearance of Civil Rights Pioneer Lloyd Gaines, last seen in Chicago in 1939, his whereabouts still a mystery.

By Andy Hall, M.D., 1953

Edited by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Mass Murderers in Frontier Illinois: The Harpes Brothers

Micajah "Big" Harpe, born Joshua Harpe (c.1748-1799), and Wiley "Little" Harpe, born William Harpe (c.1750-1804), were murderers, highwaymen and river pirates who operated in Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois and Mississippi in the late 18th century. Today, the Harpes are considered the earliest documented "serial killers" in U.S. history.

Micajah "Big" Harpe, born Joshua Harper and Wiley "Little" Harpe, born William Harpe. Image from the movie: Harp Brothers.

A murder spree began stretching from the Cumberland Gap in westernmost Virginia to Cave-in-Rock and Potts Spring in southeastern Illinois.

During the next nine months, the murderers killed at least 40 men, women and children on the frontier until a posse caught up with the killers and took the leader's head on August 24, 1799. Known as the brothers Micajah and Wiley Harpe, the two started out life as first cousins William and Joshua Harpe, natives of Scotland who emigrated as young children with their parents, and two brothers who settled in Orange County, North Carolina. In addition to their other aliases, frontier historians remembered them as Big and Little Harpe.

James Hall, a Philadelphia native and judge in Shawneetown, Illinois, during the 1820s, wrote the first histories about the characters. His introduction from his 1828 "Letters from the West" serves best for the story:

"Many years ago, two men, named Harpe, appeared in Kentucky, spreading death and terror wherever they went. Little else was known of them but that they passed for brothers, and came from the borders of Virginia. They had three women with them, who were treated as wives, and several children, with whom they traversed the mountainous and thinly settled parts of Virginia into Kentucky marking their course with blood. Their history is chilling as well from the number and variety, as the incredible atrocity of their adventures."

The nine-month spree began in the early Tennessee state capital of Knoxville. The Harpes and two of their women arrived there sometime between the summer of 1795 and the spring of 1797. They lived on a farm eight miles west of the village on Beaver Creek until late 1798 when a neighbor rightfully accused the Harpes of stealing his horses. The Harpes ran off, but the neighbors eventually caught up with them and the horses. As they made their way back to the capital, the Harpes escaped. For a while, the neighbors pursued but eventually gave up.

Rather than hiding that same night, the Harpes returned to a "rowdy groggery" operated by a man named Hughes a few miles west of Knoxville. The Harpes had frequented the establishment before and knew the operator. Inside, they found a man named Johnson for whom they were looking. He may have been the man who enlightened Harpes' neighbors about the horses' whereabouts. Why he will never be known. The Harpes took and killed him. Some days later, a passerby found his body floating in the Holstein River, ripped open and filled with stones — a trademark of what would become a Harpe victim.

The Harpes got away with that murder, partly because authorities believed the establishment's owner and his brothers-in-law, who were present that night, had something to do with it. Meanwhile, the Harpes traveled eastward toward the Cumberland Gap to meet with their wives. While crossing the Wilderness Road, they killed twice more, the first time a pair of Marylander travelers named Paca and Bates. The second time occurred on December 13, with a young Virginian named Langford, a man foolish enough to travel the wilderness alone and show off his silver coin in too many inns.

Like Johnson, they failed to dispose of the body well enough and passing drovers discovered it a couple of days later. The nearby innkeeper immediately recognized the body and figured out the culprits. A posse gathered, and the chase began. On Christmas Day, 1799, they caught the Harpes and imprisoned them in Stanford, Kentucky. A preliminary hearing on January 4 found enough evidence for a trial and ordered that the prisoners be taken to the district court in Danville, Kentucky.

For the next two months, the Harpes plotted their escape, which came on March 16. They left the women in jail for practical reasons — all three were pregnant. By the time the district court freed the women in April, all three had given birth, each child two months apart in age.

After their escape, the Harpes continued their murderous spree. In late March or early April, they killed a man near the future site of Edmonton, followed by another murder on the Barren River eight miles below Bowling Green. On April 10, they killed the 13-year-old son of Col. Daniel Trabue, who lived three miles west of present Columbia, Kentucky. Ironically, posse members chasing the Harpes were at Trabue's house, urging him to join the chase. Then they discovered Trabue's son missing and believed he was abducted by the Harpes.

From the Trabue home, the Harpes continued towards Cave-in-Rock through Red Banks (now Henderson, Kentucky.), Diamond Island and Potts Spring in Illinois. Meanwhile, the Danville court acquitted one of the Harpe women, forced a mistrial on the second and convicted a third during trials on April 15. The judge offered a new trial to the one woman convicted, and the attorney general decided four days later not to re-try her. With their freedom once again theirs, the women left the jail and headed for Cave-in-Rock, where a messenger had told them to meet their men.

On April 22, the governor of Kentucky issued a $300 reward for the capture of the Harpes. During this time, the extent of outlawry in the western portion of Kentucky, especially in the Ohio River counties from the Green River on down, spurred the local militias into action. Under Captain Young, they drove the outlaws out of Mercer County, then crossed the Green into Henderson County, killing 12 or 13 outlaws and pushing the rest downriver. They continued their law and order sweep until they reached the Tradewater River and Flin's Ferry at its mouth. Cave-in-Rock lay just beyond, and Captain Mason's pirates prepared for the attack that never came. Instead, the pirates welcomed fleeing outlaws and the Harpes seeking refuge.

Historians believe the Harpes spent less than a month in Illinois but long enough for three or four murders. The first took place on their way to the cave. Hall wrote that in the 1820s, there were still persons in Shawneetown who could point out the spot on the Potts' Plantation near the mouth of the Saline River where the Harpes "shot two or three persons in cold blood by the fire where they had camped." Hall did not say where on Potts' Plantation the men had camped, but a likely place would have been Potts' Spring, the same spring where the legendary Billy Potts killed his victims. The spring lies near the base of a south-facing bluff halfway on the trail between Flin's Ferry and the saltworks near Equality.

Upon reaching the cave, the Harpes joined the pirates in the trade of their craft, attacking heavily laden flatboats traveling downriver with goods. After one such attack, the pirates threw an impromptu celebration inside the cave. Seeing the only survivor tell the tale of the attack, the Harpes developed a fiendish idea for entertainment. With the others drunk in their revelry, the Harpes took the survivor up to the top of the cliff. They stripped him naked, tied him to a horse, blindfolded the horse and ran it off the cliff.

"Suddenly, the outlaws in the cave became aware of terrified screams, hoof beats, and the clatter of dislodged rocks. They ran out of the cave. They could see the horse's neck extended, its legs galloping frantically against the thin air, and tied to its back the naked, screaming prisoner, stark horror on his face. In an instant, horse and man were dashed against the rocks," wrote W. D. Snively Jr. in his book "Satan's Ferryman."

The scene proved to the pirates that the Harpes had to go. They ordered them to leave and take their women and children. After that night in May 1799, the Harpes' reign of terror quieted down for a while — or at least for a few weeks. By mid-July, they began their final race toward death. In quick succession, they killed a farmer named Bradbury, about 25 miles west of Knoxville and another man named Hardin, about three miles downstream from that city.

On July 22, they murdered the young son of Chesley Coffey on Black Oak Ridge, eight miles northwest of Knoxville. Two days later, they struck William Ballard, also a few miles away from Knoxville. On July 29, they came across James and Robert Brassel on the road near Brassel's Knob. Pretending to be posse members looking for the Harpes, the Harpes turned against the Brassels, accusing them of being notorious outlaws. Robert escaped and went for help. With him gone, the Harpes beat James to death. As they headed toward Kentucky, they killed another man, John Tully, around the beginning of August in what is now Clinton County, Kentucky. Then, in almost daily attacks, the Harpes murdered John Graves and his son and, finally, the families and servants of two Trisword brothers who were encamped on the trail about eight miles from modern-day Adairville, Kentucky. Also, during this period, they killed a young black boy going to a mill and a young white girl. A few miles northeast of Russellville, Kentucky., Big Harpe even killed one of his own children or his brother's child.

The Harpes threw their various pursuers off the track at Russellville, tempting them to travel a false trail southward back into Tennessee. Instead, the Harpes continued northward to Henderson County. During the first or second week of August, they found a cabin on Canoe Creek about eight miles south of Henderson and rented it. A failed attack on a neighbor aroused suspicion, but a week of surveillance on the Harpe cabin could not convince the locals of the renters' true identities as the Harpes.

While spies watched the Harpe men at the cabin, the Harpe women traveled elsewhere, collecting supplies and old debts. After a week of surveillance, the spies gave up the job on August 20. The following day, the Harpes left to meet their wives at a rendezvous. While riding good horses that morning, they met up with James Tompkins, a local resident. Tompkins had not met the men before and believed their tale of being itinerant preachers. The local man invited them home for the midday supper, where Big Harpe presided over with a more than adequate meal blessing. Ironically, during the conversation, Tompkins admitted that he had no more powder for his gun. In a show of charity, Big Harpe poured a teacup full from his powder horn. Three days later, that powder would be used to shoot Big Harpe in the back as he tried to escape.

Leaving Tompkins' place in peace, the Harpes traveled on to the house of Silas McBee, a local justice of the peace, but because of McBee's aggressive guard dogs, they decided against an attack. Instead, they traveled to the home of an acquaintance, Moses Stegall. Moses wasn't home, but his wife offered them a bed to sleep in as long as they didn't mind a third man, Maj. William Love, who had arrived earlier. They accepted, but later that night, they murdered Love, Mrs. Stegall and the Stegall's four-month-old baby boy. In the morning, they burned down the house, hoping to attract the attention of McBee.

The smoke attracted McBee and several others. By the following day, the posse grew to include seven local residents, including Stegall. All day, they followed the Harpes' trail. At night, they camped and started again the next morning, August 24, on the trail. While chasing the Harpes, they discovered two more victims of the men killed a few days before.

They soon found the Harpes' camp with only Little Harpe's wife present. She pointed the way Big Harpe and the other two women went. They caught up with Big Harpe about two miles away and called for his surrender. Instead, he sped away, leaving the women. Four of the posse members shot at Harpe. One hit him in the leg. John Leiper missed and then borrowed Tompkins's gun for a second shot. Leiper then spurred his horse forward to catch up with Big Harpe. Knowing there hadn't been enough time for Leiper to reload his weapon, Harpe turned and aimed carefully at Leiper. Then, using Tompkins' gun containing the powder given to him by Harpe just days before, Leiper fired his second round towards Harpe, entering his backbone and damaging the spinal cord.

Harpe continued riding down the trail, losing more blood every minute. The posse caught up with him and pulled him from his horse without resistance. Begging for water, Leiper took one of Harpe's shoes and filled it with water for him. Harpe confessing his sins pulled Stegall over the edge. He took Harpe's butcher knife and slowly cut off the outlaw's head. Placed in a saddlebag, the posse eventually put it in a tree where the road from Henderson forked in two directions, one to Marion and Eddyville and the other to Madisonville and Russellville. For years, the intersection took the name Harpe's Head.

The Harpe reign of terror had ended — almost. Little Harpe escaped and eventually rejoined Captain Mason's band of river pirates at Cave-in-Rock. Four years later, Little Harpe and a fellow pirate named May turned on Mason and took his head in for the reward money.

Presenting the head and a tall tale explaining how they did it, they took the reward money and started to leave. Just then, someone arrived in the crowd, a victim of an earlier flatboat attack, and recognized Harpe and May as outlaws. Authorities immediately arrested them, but they soon escaped. On the run again, a posse caught up with them and brought them to justice, where they were tried, sentenced, and hung. And just for good measure, they had their heads cut off and placed high on stakes along the Natchez Road as a warning to other outlaws.

What Became of the Harpe Women?

Following Big Harpe's death, the posse chasing the Harpes took the three women to the court in Russellville. Eventually freed and released, the youngest wife, Sally (Rice) Harpe, returned to her father's home in the Knoxville area.

The other two, Susan (Wood) Harpe and Maria Davidson, who continued to use her alibi of Betsey Roberts, stayed in the Russellville area for a while, living every day, respectable lives. A few months after Little Harpe lost his head after turning in Mason's, Betsey married John Huffstutler on September 27, 1803. By 1828, they had moved to Hamilton County, Illinois, where they raised a large family and lived until they died in the 1860s.

Sally later remarried and, like Betsey, moved to, or at least through, Illinois. In 1820, the former sheriff of Logan County, Kentucky., who cared for the women after the death of Big Harpe, saw Sally as they crossed the ferry at Cave-in-Rock. Sally was traveling to their new home with her new husband and father in tow.

Susan died in Tennessee. It's believed her daughter eventually moved to Texas.

ADDITIONAL READING:

The Checkered Past of Cave-In-Rock on the Ohio River in Hardin County, Illinois.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Contributor J. Musgrave

ILLINOIS TOWNS NAMED FOR INDIAN CHIEFS

The original inhabitants of the area that had become the State of Illinois in 1818 included the Chickasaw tribe, the Dakota Sioux tribe, the Winnebago (Ho-Chunk, and the Shawnee tribe. 

The indigenous tribes of the Chicago area were the Potawatomi, Ojibwe, and Odawa (Ottawa) Nations, as well as the Miami, Winnebago (Ho-Chunk), Menominee, Sauk (Sac), Meskwaki (Fox), Kickapoo tribes, and the Illinois Confederacy. 

The Illinois, aka Illiniwek and Illini [the Illinois is pronounced as plural: Illinois'], was a Confederacy of Indian tribes consisting of the Kaskaskia, Cahokia, Peoria, Tamarais (aka Tamaroa, Tamarois), Moingwena, Mitchagamie (aka Michigamea), Chepoussa, Chinkoa, Coiracoentanon, Espeminkia, Maroa, and Tapouara tribes that were in the Algonquin Indian family. The Illinois called themselves "Ireniouaki" (the French word was Ilinwe).

MIDWESTERN INDIAN CHIEFS, 1865.

 

Algonquin, Illinois – Winnebago (Ho-Chunk) - Named after the Algonquin people, a large linguistic group encompassing numerous tribes.

Annawan, Illinois – Derived from the Kickapoo word "Aniwa," meaning "thunder." Named for Chief Annawan.

Aptakisic, Illinois – Potawatomi

Ashkum, Illinois – Named for Chief Ashkum of the Potawatomi tribe.

Aptotakin, Illinois – Named for Chief Optagushick of the Potawatomi tribe.

Big Foot, Illinois – Potawatomi

Cahokia, Illinois – Named after the Cahokia Mounds, a major pre-Columbian Mississippian culture city. While not directly named after a chief, it honors the community's historical leaders.

Chebanse, Illinois – This comes from the Potawatomi word "Zhishibéns," which means "the little duck." Possibly named after Chief Chebanse of the Potawatomi tribe.

Channahon, Illinois – Named for Chief Channahon, a Potawatomi leader. Possibly name for Chief Shabbona.

Chenoa Township, Illinois – From the Ojibwe word "Shenowa," meaning "big." Potentially named after Chief Chenoa of the Peoria tribe.

Du Quoin, Illinois – Kaskaskia

Half Day, Illinois – Potawatomi

Kankakee, Illinois – This comes from the Potawatomi word "Kankakee," which means "cornfield."

Kaskaskia, Illinois – Named after the Kaskaskia tribe, part of the historic Illiniwek confederacy.

Kewanee, Illinois – Named after Chief Kewanee, a Peoria leader.

Lake Ka-ho, Illinois – "Ka-Ho" translates to "big water" in Potawatomi, referencing a nearby lake and possibly honoring tribal leaders associated with the area.

LaSalle Township, Illinois – Named for René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, who had strong ties with Native American tribes.

Loami, Illinois – Possibly from the Miami word "loam," meaning "earth."

Mackinaw, Illinois – Derived from the Ojibwe word "mikinaak," meaning "turtle."

Mahomet, Illinois – Named after the Prophet Muhammad, likely due to a local legend about a Muslim traveler.

Makanda, Illinois – Possibly named after Chief Makandocle of the Kaskaskia tribe, though historical records lack clarity.

Marseilles Township, Illinois – Named for Chief Marseilles, a Potawatomi leader in the 1810s.

Mascoutah, Illinois – Derived from the Mascouten tribe, an Algonquian people.

Matteson, Illinois ─ Named after Chief Matteson, a Potawatomi leader.

Mendota, Illinois – From the Dakota word "Mendota," meaning "junction of two trails."

Menominee, Illinois – Named after the Menominee people, an Algonquian tribe. Historically present in Wisconsin but with cultural ties to Illinois.

Metamora, Illinois – Potawatomi

Mettawa, Illinois – Potawatomi

Minooka, Illinois – Named for Chief Minooka, a Potawatomi leader.

Momence, Illinois ─ Named after Chief Momence, a Potawatomi leader.

Monee Township, Illinois – Possibly named after Chief Monee of the Potawatomi tribe, though this connection lacks definitive proof.

Moosomin Township, Illinois – Possibly derived from the Ojibwe word "moozomin," meaning "moose," but could also be a reference to a chief.

Moweaqua, Illinois – Possibly from the Kickapoo word "Moweaqua," meaning "place of the turtle."

Neponset, Illinois – Possibly named for Chief Neponset, a Massachusett leader.

Niantic, Illinois – Named for the Niantic tribe and their chief, Ninigret. Possibly from the Narragansett word "Niantic," meaning "island."

Niota, Illinois – The name "Niota" was based on the name of a fictional character in a dime novel[1], a Native American chief named "Nee-o-tah." (Algonquian Tribe?)

Oconee, Illinois –  Possibly from the Muscogee word "Oconee," meaning "river."

Okawville, Illinois ─ Potentially named after Chief Okaw of the Kaskaskia tribe. The Kaskaskia word "okahwa" means "big water."

Onarga, Illinois – Comes from the Potawatomi word "Onagan," meaning "white oak."

Oneco, Illinois – Potawatomi

Optakisic, Illinois ─ Named after Chief Optagushick of the Potawatomi tribe.

Oquawka, Illinois – Named for Chief Oquawka, a Sauk leader.

Orland Park, Illinois ─ Potentially derived from Chief Orland, a Potawatomi leader.

Oswego, Illinois ─ Named after Chief Oswego, Possibly a Fox or Sauk leader.

Owaneco, Illinois – Possibly from the Oto word "owanec," meaning "big river."

Pana, Illinois ─ Possibly named after Pana, a chief from the Cahokia tribe. Possibly named after Pana, a Chief from the Cahokia tribe.

Patna, Illinois ─ Kickapoo

Paw Paw Township, Illinois – Believed to be derived from the Miami word "Pawapaw," meaning "fruit of the pawpaw tree." While not referencing a chief, it honors the indigenous culture and environment. Possibly from the Pawnee word "pápa," meaning "head."

Pocahontas, Illinois – Originally known as Hickory Grove and then Amity. In 1850, the name was changed to Pocohontas (with an "o"). 1855, the current spelling with an "a" came into place. Pocahontas was incorporated as a village in 1847. The town was named after Pocahontas Coal.

Pecatonica, Illinois – Derived from the Winnebago word "pekatoniká," meaning "river of the painted feather."

Pekin, Illinois – Named after Chief Pekin, a Peoria leader who signed treaties in the 1810s.

Peoria, Illinois ─ Named after the Peoria tribe and their principal village.

Pesotum, Illinois ─ The village was named after Pesotum, a Kickapoo warrior in the Battle of Fort Dearborn.

Pontiac, Illinois – Named after Chief Pontiac, an Odawa (Ottawa) leader during the French and Indian War.

Sauk Village, Illinois – Named after the Sauk people, an Algonquian tribe.

Saukenuk, Illinois ─ Named for the Sauk tribes, though not after specific chiefs. (Black Hawk was born in 1767 in Saukenuk, Illinois).

Saunemin, Illinois – Kickapoo

Seneca, Illinois – Named after the Seneca people, one of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, it acknowledges their influence and historical connections to the region.

Shabbona Grove, Illinois – Named after Chief Shabbona, a Potawatomi Chief, honoring his role in local history.

Shawneetown, Illinois – Named for the Shawnee people, who lived in the area before being forced to move west. Named after the Shawnee people, an Algonquian tribe.

Shobonier, Illinois – Potawatomi

Tampico, Illinois – Named for Chief Tampico, a Potawatomi or Kaskaskia tribe leader.

Tolono, Illinois – Possibly from the Illiniwek word "Tolowane," meaning "black walnut."

Tonica, Illinois – Possibly from the French word "tonique," meaning "bracing" or "refreshing," influenced by Indigenous names.

Wapella, Illinois – Meskwaki (Fox)

Waukegan, Illinois – Named for Chief Waukegan, a Potawatomi leader.

Wauponsee, Illinois – Potawatomi

Wauponsee is an unincorporated community in Vienna Township, Grundy County, in North East Illinois. Wauponsee is located on Verona Road, 7 miles south-southwest of Morris. Google Mapped: 41°16′28″N 88°29′40″W

The Potawatomi were a major tribe in the Great Lakes region, and they had a significant presence in Wauponsee Township in the early 19th century. The township was named after Potawatomi Chief Waubonsie, whose tribe were residents. Wauponsee Grove, today a state park, was named for Chief Waubonsie.

Wyanet, Illinois – Derived from the Wyandot tribe, an Iroquoian people.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

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[1] DIME NOVEL - Any cheaply produced popular fiction published in the United States between 1860 and 1930 might be called a dime novel, providing it was published on paper covers (paperback) and issued in a series (chapter books).

EXAMPLE

"Malaeska, the Indian Wife of the white hunter" is a groundbreaking novel, considered the first true dime novel. It sparked controversy, having a female author, a sympathetic portrayal of an Indian woman, and a strong, independent heroine. Malaeska tackled themes of race, gender, and frontier life. It was the first published title in Beadle's Dime Novels series and became a runaway bestseller.

The entire series in one (pdf) publication: 

Malaeska is the Indian wife of the white hunter, by Ann S. Stephens. pub:1860.