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

A Few Illinois Firsts and Facts List.

SOME ILLINOIS FACTS

• Origin of the name Illinois: Algonquin for "tribe of superior men."
• Illinois is known as the Prairie State.

ILLINOIS MONIKERS

• The Sucker State ─ 1820s
• The Prairie State ─ 1840s
• Land of Lincoln ─ 1955

ILLINOIS STATE ______________. 

• Illinois State Amphibian – Eastern Tiger Salamander; approval in 2005.
• Illinois State Animal – White-Tailed Deer; schoolchildren voted in 1980.
• Illinois State Artifact – Pirogue; a canoe made of a hollowed-out tree trunk, 2016.
• Illinois State Bird – Northern Cardinal; chosen in 1929.
• Illinois State Dance – Square Dance; signed into law in 1990.
• Illinois State Exercise – Cycling; effective January 1, 2018
• Illinois State Fish – Bluegill; schoolchildren voted in 1986.
• Illinois State Flag – First adopted July 6, 1915; current flag adopted July 1, 1970.
• Illinois State Flower – Violet; effective January 1, 2018.
• Illinois State Fossil – Tully Monster; selected in 1989.
• Illinois State Fruit – Goldrush Apple; named the State Fruit in 2007.
• Illinois State Grain – Corn; officially named January 1, 2018.
• Illinois State Insect – Monarch Butterfly; chosen in 1975.
• Illinois State Microbe – Penicillium Rubens; Named on May 31, 2021.
• Illinois State Mineral – Fluorite; the State Mineral since 1965.
• Illinois State Motto – State Sovereignty Nation Union; In State Seal banner, 1867.
• Illinois State Nickname – The Prairie State; given by the first settlers.
• Illinois State Pet – Shelter Dogs and Cats; effective on August 25, 2017.
• Illinois State Pie – Pumpkin Pie; named in 2015.
• Illinois State Prairie Grass – Big Bluestem; named in 1989.
• Illinois State Reptile – Painted Turtle; vote by Illinois citizens, approved in 2005.
• Illinois State Rock – Dolostone (CaMg(CO3)2); named in 2022.
• Illinois State Slogan – Land of Lincoln; adopted in 1955.
• Illinois State Snack – Popcorn; official in 2003.
• Illinois State Snake – Eastern Milksnake; January 1, 2023
• Illinois State Soil – Drummer Silty Clay Loam; declared the State Soil in 2001.
• Illinois State Song – "Illinois;" named the state song in 1925.
• Illinois State Tartan – Illinois Saint Andrew Society Tartan; signed into law in 2012.
• Illinois State Theatre – The Great American People Show; designated in 1995.
• Illinois State Tree – White Oak; voted on in 1908; voted on type of Oak in 1995.
• Illinois State Vegetable – Sweet Corn; Elementary students voted in 2015.
• Illinois State Wildflower – Milkweed; designated the official Wildflower in 2017.

ILLINOIS GEOGRAPHICAL DATA:

• Public use areas: 275,000 acres, including state parks, memorials, forests and conservation areas.
• Geographic center: In Logan County, 28 miles northeast of Springfield.
• Highest point: Charles Mound, 1,235 feet
• Lowest point: Mississippi River, 279 feet
• Land Area: 57,918 square miles.
• Illinois ranks third in the nation in the number of interstate highway miles.
• Illinois has more units of government than any other state (i.e., city, county, township, etc.), more than six thousand.

ILLINOIS FIRSTS:

• The first birth on record in Chicago was of Eulalia Pointe de Sable, daughter of Jean-Baptiste Pointe de Sable and his Potawatomi Indian wife, in 1796.
• Chicago's Mercy Hospital; The Lake House Hotel became the first hospital (12 beds) in Illinois from 1850 to 1953.
• Illinois was explored by Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet in 1673.
• Peoria is the oldest community in Illinois. It was founded in 1813.
• Illinois became the 21st state on December 3, 1818.
• Illinois was the first state to ratify the 13th Amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery in 1865. (Illinois' Black Codes)
• The world's first skyscraper, the Home Insurance Building, was built on the corner of Adams and LaSalle Streets in Chicago.
• Illinois has 1,118 miles of navigable waterways that provide the state with a direct link between the Atlantic Ocean (through the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway) and the Gulf of Mexico via the Mississippi River.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Lost Towns of Illinois - Illinoistown

The human settlement of the American Bottom region goes back to ancient Native Americans and their settlement in Cahokia. Europeans beginning with the Spaniard, Hernando de Soto first traveled through the region in the sixteenth century. This European contact was transitory and it was not until the seventeenth century that the French explored the region with the intention of settlement.

French Cahokia, founded in 1699, was not the first French outpost, but it was the earliest settlement that survived more than a few years. Kaskaskia was the next place French settlers built and it was followed by a series of east bank towns at Prairie du Pont and Fort Vincennes on the Wabash River. Settlements by the French on the east bank of the Mississippi included the Village of Nouvelle Chartres & Fort de Chartres and included New Madrid (then known as Anise de la Graise or "Greasy Bend") and St. Genevieve on the west bank of the Mississippi. These were followed by St. Louis, St. Charles, Carondelet (in 1767), St. Ferdinand (now Florissant) and Portage des Sioux. Settlement increased after the late eighteenth century and the end of the American Revolution.

As settlers reached the American Bottom there were those who established homes within the Mississippi River's flood plain, on the eastern shore. At the time, the area was swampy and prone to flooding. Most settlers preferred the higher and better draining Missouri side of the river. We know the identity of only a few of the first Illinois settlers. The historical record begins in detail with the forceful presence of a single man, Captain James Piggott, who, while instrumental to the region's development, certainly benefited from the help of his family and the other settlers of the area.

James Piggott took the long view regarding the development of Illinois territory. Born in Connecticut, his fortunes took him further west throughout his life. He served in the Revolutionary War as a member of the Eighth Pennsylvania Regiment. After his military service, he joined George Rogers Clark recruiting families to live in the proposed town of Clarksville, close to present-day Wickliffe, Kentucky. Chickasaw Native Americans forced the abandonment of this endeavor in 1782 and Piggott moved with seventeen families to Illinois territory.

In 1790 Illinois territorial Governor Arthur St. Clair made Piggott a territorial judge. He settled in Cahokia and soon began the business of providing ferry service crossing the Mississippi to the more developed St. Louis side. The ferry operation continued long after Piggott's death in 1799, later being operated by his sons and eventually absorbed into the Wiggins Ferry monopoly.

In 1808 Illinois City is established. The town's name changed to Illinoistown in 1817.

PIGGOTT'S FERRY
James Piggott, a late eighteenth-century pioneer and a territorial judge for Illinois, settled in the American Bottom Region of Illinois after migrating from the Eastern United States. Once settled in Cahokia, Piggott and his family built a log and mud road from that settlement to a point on Cahokia Creek opposite St. Louis in 1792. During that time the area that is present-day East St. Louis was swampy and uninhabited. Goods crossing the river from the Illinois side had to travel from Cahokia, upstream to St. Louis. Piggott's road allowed him to move goods onto Cahokia Creek, into the Mississippi, and across the river to St. Louis. This access was more direct than shipping from Cahokia and Piggott soon had a growing business providing access to St. Louis.

Once established Piggott refurbished the route to Cahokia Creek with a sturdy road consisting of rocks buttressed with logs through the swampy region. Cahokia Creek, not wide or deep enough for regular use, quickly became an obstacle to Piggott. He spanned a 150-foot wooden bridge over the creek to the riverfront where he built two log cabins. Piggott's Ferry became a central point for travelers and soon the area further inland began to be developed.

After James Piggott died in 1799, Piggott's Ferry remained in business. The growth of St. Louis in the early nineteenth century encouraged further development of the Illinois side of the Mississippi River through the increased demand for transportation across the river. Soon the Piggott family had a number of neighbors and their business faced competition from other entrepreneurs interested in capturing some of the ferry business.

ILLINOISTOWN - A CENTRAL RIVER CROSSING
When James Piggott established his ferry service in 1795, the closest settlement on the Illinois bank was south of the ferry in Cahokia. However, Piggott was soon transporting both people and goods to St. Louis and the ferry landing was a natural place for commerce to develop. Between 1805 and 1809 a wealthy French Canadian, Etienne Pinsoneau, purchased land behind the ferry landing and built a two-story brick tavern. He called the area Jacksonville. In subsequent years Pinsoneau sold some of the lands and in 1815 Moses Scott built a general store. The McKnight-Brady operation bought out Pinsoneau at the same time it invested in Piggott's ferry. Brady and McKnight platted the land behind the Piggott ferry in 1818 and called it Illinoistown. A traveler in 1821 described the settlement as one consisting of roughly twenty or thirty houses and one hundred inhabitants.

WIGGINS' FERRY
In 1819, Samuel Wiggins, a politician, and businessman bought an interest in the Piggott family's ferry operation and began to compete with the McKnight-Brady ferry and other ferry services. Soon after he began operations Wiggins used his political clout to persuade the Illinois General Assembly to grant him a charter with exclusive rights to two miles of Illinois riverfront opposite St. Louis and the right to establish a toll road leading to his landing. The act went further and allowed no new ferry operations to be created within a mile on either side of Wiggins' landing. Wiggins later bought out the McNight-Brady interest in Piggott's Ferry. To further his control of the Illinois side of the river he went into partnership with a prominent businessman who owned substantial portions of land in Illinoistown.

An Undated St. Louis & Illinois Team Boat Ferry 50 Cents - Ticket № 193. Circa 1819-21

The Wiggins operation marks a watershed for the area that would become East St. Louis. Through Wiggins' political power in Illinois, he established a stronghold on river transportation to St. Louis and the west. This concentration of power was temporary, but lasted long enough to make Illinoistown and later East St. Louis a central crossing point for goods and people heading west. One of the first steamboats to ply the Mississippi stopped at St. Louis and the McKnight-Brady landing in 1817. The new technology promised new economic potential for the Illinois side of the river and Samuel Wiggins capitalized on this future.

In the early years of Illinoistown it is clear that Samuel Wiggins, a politician, and Illinois businessman, was an influential presence. The Reverend John Mason Peck described the town as a small one of about a dozen families with a post office, hotel, livery, and store. The post office was called Wiggins Ferry and Samuel was the postmaster.

Although a flood in 1826 (only one of many to damage the area) may have set back the growth of Illinoistown, Wiggins' concentrated ferry business helped spawn economic growth throughout the 1820s and 1830s. According to a study by the National Park Service, by 1841 Illinoistown had become a bustling place with numerous groceries [EXPLANATION], general stores, two bakeries, a clothier, a cooper, blacksmiths, and hotels. There were more than one hundred homes and a newspaper, "The American Bottom Reporter."

Samuel Wiggins was apparently not a person to have others do his work. He was involved in the lives of the people living in and around Illinoistown as an excerpt from William Wells Brown's narrative proves.

The first thirty years of the nineteenth century marked a period of regular growth along either side of the Mississippi. St. Louis was established as the largest city in the region and a central starting point for people heading west. The community on the Illinois side was growing as well, providing passage to St. Louis.

Steamboats brought Illinoistown and St. Louis a variety of new ventures. Steamboats needed fueling stations and a means of transporting their goods once ashore. The local ferry operations were a natural fit, developing shore facilities for steamboats and already possessing the ability to quickly move goods across the river at low cost.

An example of a time-period wood-burning steamboat ferry on the Mississippi.

By 1828 the Wiggins operation had converted its ferries to steam, taking advantage of its renovated facilities and the fairly low cost of constructing a steamboat.

Illinoistown becomes East Saint Louis, Illinois in 1861.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

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

Hardin County in Illinois was formed in 1839, but the natural centerpiece of the whole county was first seen by European eyes a hundred years before. In 1739, the French explorer & surveyor M. Chaussegros de Léry charted the course of the Ohio River, found, mapped and named it "Caverne Dans Le Roc" or, in English, the Cave-In-Rock.

The cave had, of course, been in existence for thousands of years. It was worn into the bluffs by Ohio River flooding, probably extensively during the melting following the Wisconsin Ice Age, which ended about 10,000 years ago. The effects of the 1811-1812 New Madrid earthquake (7 and 7.5 on today's Richter scale) may have further contributed to the formation of the cave.

Many caves are the topics of stories told about the happenings in and around the premise. Possibly no cave, though, has more stories and legends told about it than this cave! Cave-In-Rock outlaws, pirates and counterfeiters reined for fifty years beginning in 1790. As is true with most legends, facts are few; sometimes, even local folklore is hard to document in any credible way. However, legend holds that notorious counterfeiters Philip Alston and John Duff used the cave as a meeting place in the 1790s. 

Through a relationship with Duff, Samuel Mason moved his base of operations to Cave-In-Rock in 1797. Mason had been a Revolutionary War militia captain and later served as an associate judge in Pennsylvania before moving his family to Kentucky. After arriving in Kentucky, Samuel Mason became the leader of a gang of river pirates and highwaymen outlaws who wreaked havoc around Cave-In-Rock, Stack Island (a point on the Mississippi River about 200 miles north of New Orleans) and along the Natchez Trace. Mason's gang's practice was to rob travelers going down the rivers. They also pirated boats carrying merchandise and supplies down the rivers. It was common practice for men to move supplies down the rivers, abandon the flatboats at the end of their journey, then return home along the Natchez Trace. If the Mason gang missed robbing them on one of the great rivers, they'd have yet another opportunity to rob them on land along the Natchez Trace.

Samuel Mason used Cave-In-Rock as a central point of his base of criminal operations, which stretched all the way to New Orleans. His tavern in the cave created an easy lure for travelers to stop as they passed, but the combination of the gambling den, brothel and refuge for criminals made it the perfect trap.

Micajah "Big" Harpe, born Joshua Harper (c.1748-1799), and Wiley "Little" Harpe, born William Harpe (c.1750-1804)

Some believe that the first recorded mass murderer in American history might have spent time at Cave-In-Rock. Micajah and Wiley Harpe, known as "Big" and "Little" Harpe, were active during the last decade of the 18th Century. 

Known as the Harpe brothers, the two started out life as first cousins.

The Harpe brothers spread killing and despair wherever they went. While they operated primarily in Kentucky and Tennessee, there are some accounts of their horrible activities on the Illinois side of the Ohio River. 

"Big" Harpe was the first of these three bandits to lose his head to captors, but eventually, Samuel Mason and "Little" Harpe were captured, killed and beheaded. Their heads and skulls were left strategically in plain view to deter future outlaws. Their departure only made way for the next generation of thieves and counterfeiters!

In the early 1800s, the Sturdivant Gang and the Ford's Ferry Gang appeared in the region. The Sturdivant Gang originated in Colonial Connecticut. By 1810, third-generation counterfeiter Roswell S. Sturdivant led his gang, primarily based in St. Clair County, Illinois, but also occupied a fortress nearby Pope County. The Ford's Ferry Gang had a more local foundation. James Ford (1770-1833) was a business and community leader in Kentucky and Southern Illinois on both sides of the Ohio River. The other side of his dual personality was that of a gang leader and his bandit's high-jacked flatboats for decades!

Isaiah Potts and his wife Polly, who owned a tavern, Pott's Inn, near Ford's Ferry, are two of the most colorful characters in our story. Ferry goers would depart the boat and take the short trek to the tavern as they ventured inland. It was a common occurrence for the travelers to be attacked, robbed and killed along the route to the tavern. 

This photograph of Pott's Inn was taken in the 1920s by Cave-In-Rock.

Although one descendant of Isaiah and Polly believes their behavior has been highly exaggerated over the years, one story seems to live on. Did they murder their son when he returned after being gone for years? While there is no credible evidence, legend holds that young Billy Potts left home after being caught by locals in the act of murder. Young Potts changed his ways and prospered. He returned home after many years, but his parents didn't recognize their well-dressed son, lured him to the infamous spring for a drink, and robbed and murdered him. As they had often done, they buried him in a shallow nearby grave. The next day, friends of Billy Potts came looking for him and described having seen him the day he got off the ferry. Isaiah and Polly realized what they had done. They dug up his grave and found a young man bearing a birthmark just like their son had. If it is true, it is a sad ending.

Happily, outlaw folklore isn't the only history associated with Cave-In-Rock! Although not too highly revered today as a highly educated researcher or author, in 1833, Josiah Priest wrote about cave paintings he observed at Cave-In-Rock. Priest described the paintings as plants, animals, humans, the sun, the moon, and stars. He described the humans as wearing clothing similar to the early Greeks or Romans. He wrote, "On the Ohio, twenty miles below the mouth of the Wabash, is a cavern, in which are found many hieroglyphics, and representations of such delineations as would induce the belief that their authors were, indeed, comparatively refined and civilized."

In 1848, another writer visited the cave. William Pidgeon was a well-known antiquarian and archaeologist. He became famous for his 1858 work, Traditions of Dee-Coo-Dah and Antiquarian Research, although at a later time, his work was critically deemed to be partly almost science fiction. He described the curious pictographs at Cave-In-Rock as humans that looked like ancient Egyptians. Pidgeon wrote about his belief, because of artifacts he had found, that an entire network of a mound-builder race was occupying sites in Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois and Minnesota. At the time, many in the science community made fun of him. In the past 150 years, history and prehistory have unfolded, and we now know that the Ohio River Scenic Byway region was such a place!

The pictographs described by Pidgeon and Priest have long been destroyed, but more recent graffiti tells the stories of other visitors to the cave. In 1913, the Ohio River flooded, and B.C. and Cole paddled his boat into the cave, stood up and carved his name into the cave ceiling.

In 1929, Illinois bought 64.5 acres of land, including the cave. Additional parcels were purchased later, and all combined form the current 200-acre Cave-In-Rock State Park. The beautiful park stretches from the Ohio River's shoreline to the top of a 60-foot-tall bluff. It is maintained by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, and the lodge and cabins are managed by Marty Kaylor, a Cave-In-Rock lifetime resident. Kaylor recently reported that IDNR reported that in 2012, 514,000 visited Cave-In-Rock State Park, and Kaylor said the number significantly increased over the 2010 number of 227,000 people.

ADDITIONAL READING:

Mass Murderers in the Illinois Frontier: The Harpes Brothers.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

Life in Post-Colonial Illinois for French Women and Families.

The American hero, George Rogers Clark, had just seized the French village of Kaskaskia from the British and now turned his sights on Vincennes. Clark appealed to the local French habitants for help. He found support in an unlikely place. With the encouragement of Kaskaskia's women, he had no trouble in finding male recruits eager to join him on his journey. The pivotal town of Vincennes fell to the Americans a short time later. Thanks, in part, to the women of Kaskaskia, Clark emerged victorious once again.

The role of French women in post-Colonial Illinois plays out in small sentences like this. There are very few studies on the women living in the area known as the Illinois Country between the years 1778 and 1818, the year Illinois achieved statehood. Yet French women played an important part in the history, settlement, and development of early Illinois. French settlers had come to the Illinois County in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, migrating south from Canada and north, via the Mississippi River, from lower Louisiana. Through trade and intermarriage, the French cultivated effective working relationships with native tribes. By 1778 French families on both sides of the river dominated the commercial, political, religious, military, and cultural frontier of early Illinois. The regional economic and social foundations constructed by the French were inextricably linked by their extended family networks. French women, in their roles as mothers, daughters, and wives, were crucial players in developing and maintaining these family networks.

In general, a woman's role in society was much more limited than that of a man's. Unlike her brothers, who might go off to boarding school for their education, French girls generally learned at home. Under a mother's tutelage, girls learned the basics of domesticity: washing, sewing, cooking, cleaning, gardening, and the many other tasks that accompanied running a household, including managing slaves. A few girls' schools were established in St. Louis in the early 1800s. There, formal instruction included the study of languages, mathematics, history, poetry, art, music, and even some simple philosophy. However, distance made the schools inaccessible to many girls, and the cost was prohibitive to nearly everyone except the wealthy.

The primary purpose of any girl's education—formal instruction or homeschooling—was to help her catch a husband. Since marriage was considered the societal norm, there were very few other options for women in early Illinois. Women could find work as governesses or teachers. Some women worked as midwives or healers, but generally, these women had been married before. Most of the French women who managed businesses on the Illinois frontier did so as widows who took over their husband's dealings upon his death. A final alternative to marriage was entering a convent, although, before 1833, this required leaving Illinois altogether.

With so few choices, it is not surprising that the women of the American bottom tended to marry in their teens, while their counterparts in Northern New England and the Mid-Atlantic farming communities during this period married between the ages of twenty and twenty-two. Most French women married into multi-family households, which were common on the Illinois frontier, where death often claimed spouses and remarriage was a necessity for survival. Husbands often came with children from previous marriages.

When Angelique Saucier married Pierre Menard in 1806 at age twenty-three, she was only ten years older than her eldest stepdaughter, thirteen-year-old Marie-Odile, one of four surviving offspring from Menard's first marriage. Angelique and Menard went on to have eight children together. In 1798 Nicholas Jarrot married Julie St. Gemme de Beauvais, with whom he had six children. Jarrot's daughter from his first marriage grew up in the family home with the rest of the Jarrot children. Most French homes had multi-family units. Living with many "step-people" and extended family members was common.

Pierre Menard House

Many women of varying ages (mothers, aunts, grandmothers, sisters, cousins, etc.) in large French households provided many role models from which girls could learn and pattern their behavior. For example, there was twenty-nine years age difference between Sophie Menard, born in 1822, and her eldest stepsister Marie-Odile, born in 1793. Her second eldest stepsister was twenty years her senior. These women acted as second mothers to Sophie, who, at age seventeen, lost her own. At the same time, large families could bring conflict, living as they did in cramped quarters where both space and privacy were at a premium. The Pierre Menard Home, for example, located just outside Ellis Grove, Illinois and built between 1815 and 1818, measured only 71 x 43 feet. Although large for its day, it contained only three sleeping chambers and housed between ten and sixteen people, not including slaves.

Birth order was an important factor in when a woman could enter the marriage market. Usually, daughters were married off in order from eldest to youngest. If an elder daughter made a good (i.e., lucrative) match, the next in line was not under so much pressure to promote the family's aggrandizement. Moreover, the successful match of the first daughter signaled to the world that the family was up and coming. Oftentimes, a well-matched older sister provided an important entree into society for her younger siblings. If, on the other hand, the first daughter chose a less-than-adequate mate, the pressure intensified upon the next offspring to marry well.

Selecting a husband, however, was no easy task. The choice of a marriage partner was probably one of the most important decisions a woman would make in the early nineteenth century. The right husband offered financial support and physical protection from harm. A husband's good name (or lack thereof) determined a woman's status within the community. If she made the wrong choice—if she selected an abusive husband, a drunk, a lie-about who would not work, or a man of the low regard in the community-her place in life would suffer as well.

Men vastly outnumbered women on the Illinois frontier in the early nineteenth century. Consequently, a young French woman faced a wide variety of men, not always desirable, from which to choose. On the east coast and in more settled areas of America, a woman could rely on a long-established family's good name and reputation when sizing up her potential beaus. But in post-colonial Illinois, very few of the eligible young men came from established families. As the nineteenth century progressed, Americans and Germans migrating from the East began to replace the old French families. How could one know if these mobile, young men, who drifted in from parts and families unknown, whose accents, mannerisms, and even religions were so very different from the local customs, would make good husbands? To help them in their selection of a husband, women turned to family, friends, and their community for assistance. Parents, while not always arranging marriages, still held a great deal of control over their offspring's choice of spouse. Women, in particular, were often very active in the courtship process, arranging events where young people could meet and orchestrating the events to see that only the "right" people mingled together. Thus, while in many cases, a woman was virtually free to choose her own spouse, family and friends made sure that the pool from which she selected was limited and that only suitable partners were considered.

Just as the social elite could close their ranks on one less worthy, they eagerly embraced those they saw beneficial to their position. Therefore, a man's social and business connections were extremely relevant to his suitability as a husband, perhaps more important than religion or nationality. Conversely, in many cases, a man's success was inextricably linked to the women they married, the daughters they married off, and the networks these women helped them establish throughout the country. The ever-changing power struggles on the Illinois frontier required settlers to adapt to ensure political and financial survival. One way of adapting was to marry into the powerful political families of the day. Thus, ambitious newcomers to The Illinois country found the fastest way to ingratiate themselves with the local French elite was to marry their daughters. Pierre Menard, for example, came to Illinois in 1790 and quickly ingratiated himself into the local elite by marrying Therese Godin, whose family had lived in the area for nearly one hundred years. This marriage put him in the center of a ruling French elite, and what better place to be for a young entrepreneur like Menard? His second marriage was just as beneficial, and Menard went on to become a successful merchant, trader, Indian sub-agent, and the first lieutenant governor of Illinois.

Nicholas Jarrot House

This pattern of marrying into the elite was also adopted by Nicholas Jarrot. Within a year of his arrival in Cahokia, he confirmed his increasing stature in the community with his marriage to Marie-Louise Barbau, who came from a very well-known and respected family. Her father, Jean-Baptiste Barbau, had served as the first judge of St. Clair County. The witnesses at the wedding were from some of the most prominent families of Prairie de Rocher, including the names Janis, Dubuque, and Barbau. Jarrot's second wife, Julie St. Gemme de Bauvais, also hailed from a prominent well-established family. In another example, Pierre Martin, having migrated from Canada to settle at Cahokia, married a Cahokia widow whose inheritance from her father and first husband made her a lucrative catch. He later sold off her family property to pay his debts.

Likewise, long-established French families found that they could maintain their standing in the community—a community increasingly overrun by Americans—by allowing their daughters to take these men as their husbands. Pierre Menard's daughter Marie-Odile married Irishman Hugh Maxwell, a successful businessman. Alzire Menard married George Hancock Kennerly, a close relation to William Clark, the famous explorer, whose political ties helped further her father's business interests. A woman's choice of marriage partner meant personal security and securing the future wealth and position of her entire family.

Despite the emphasis placed upon choosing a marriage partner who would provide well and promote the family's aggrandizement, there is evidence of love matches taking place. Indeed, as the nineteenth century progressed, love, as a requirement for marriage, increased in importance. Extant letters between couples often reveal much affection and tenderness between husbands and wives.

Depending upon when and whom she married, a woman could be bound by one of two legal systems. A set of French laws, called the Custom of Paris, governed marriage contracts and inheritance in The Illinois Country long after the United States took control. Under the Custom of Paris, both husband and wife made monetary contributions to the marriage. A widow generally received half of her husband's estate upon his death. The other half was divided equally between the couple's children, both male and female. This system protected women from their husband's financial carelessness.

As increasing numbers of American settlers moved into Illinois, English Common Law replaced the Custom of Paris. Under this system, when a woman married, her husband became the owner of her property, land, or money. This greatly affected inheritance practices. While the interests of wives, sisters, and daughters were often protected, rarely were they given actual control over land because this land would become the property of her spouse, who might squander it away or allow it to pass out of the family's bloodline. From 1750 to 1820, however, dower laws expanded to offer more protection to women. These laws held that upon the death of her spouse, a woman retained one-third of her husband's real property and one-third of his personal property. The rest was divided, rarely equally, among the children, usually favoring the eldest son.

Since the primary purpose of marriage was to procreate and extend the family line, many years of childbirth and child-rearing awaited women after marriage. Large families were a way to secure the bloodline and provide numerous farm or business workers. Children could promote family interests by marrying well and by caring for their elderly parents.

Most women usually had their first child within two years of their marriage, and on average, they continued to give birth in two-year intervals over the next fifteen or twenty years. Yet having large families posed a significant risk to women. Pregnancy and childbirth were life-threatening endeavors. Multiple pregnancies depleted women's strength and nutritional stores, making each consecutive pregnancy, especially at close intervals, that much more difficult. Numerous medical problems, un-sterilized instruments, and the resulting infections and complications during birth also plagued these women, who lived without the benefits of modern medicine. Many French women and their babies died in childbirth on the Illinois frontier. Those who survived relied on other women to help them through the pregnancy and the delivery. Women often traveled to be together during their period of lying in, and they continued to turn to each other to help with the trials and tribulations of child-rearing.

In addition to raising numerous children, most women spent their time running their households. For many women, the domestic sphere was the only place in which they could gain the satisfaction and power unavailable to them in the public workplace. Daily chores were endless, and even wealthy women found themselves overseeing the kitchen and gardens, ordering supplies for the home, planning menus, directing cleaning, refurbishing or decorating, sewing and repairing garments, and supervising the family slaves. When business or trade required a man to travel far from home, women picked up the slack, acting as their husband's agents and taking over many of his managerial duties at home and in their business life, sometimes for months at a time.

For the well-to-do French wife, promoting the right public image became the hallmark of her role. A smoothly run household raised a family's standing within the community. Some wealthier women took up philanthropic activities, acting as benefactors for orphanages or religious schools. Angelique Saucier Menard was very active in establishing a girls' school in Kaskaskia, and she continued to support the Sisters of the Visitation throughout her lifetime. This, too, lent an aura of prestige to the family name. Displays of hospitality, meant to further business and social aims, also fell to women.

A further job of women was "kin keeping" or "kin work." Women, more than men, actively cultivated contacts among families and relatives, which tied households together. For many women, marriage meant leaving their homes and settling elsewhere. Separated from family, women on the Illinois frontier had to work to retain kinship ties and family networks. Through letter writing, mutual aid, visiting, and orchestrating societal functions, women allowed extended family relations to flourish. Women were key players in births, baptisms, weddings, confirmations, illnesses, death, and funerals. By providing social, emotional and even medical support to their kin, these women constructed and maintained the family ties upon which nearly all business and political pursuits were based in post-colonial Illinois.

The genteel society of the French elite society and culture cultivated and propagated by and through French women provided a model for civilization and social order on the frontier. As a result, many incoming American settlers sought alliances with the native Illinois French. Americans saw this French society, so similar to gentility systems in the East, as a place to begin advancing their own political, economic, and social agendas. Marrying these French families gave a boost to newcomers and, at the same time, allowed the old French families to maintain their place in the powerful circles of a new American government.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.