Indian Creek Massacre and Captivity of Hall Girls: Complete history of the massacre of sixteen whites on Indian creek, near Ottawa, Ill., and Sylvia Hall and Rachel Hall as captives in Illinois and Wisconsin during the Black Hawk war, 1832Scanlan, Charles Martin
History
Indian Creek Massacre and Captivity of Hall Girls: Complete history of the massacre of sixteen whites on Indian creek, near Ottawa, Ill., and Sylvia Hall and Rachel Hall as captives in Illinois and Wisconsin during the Black Hawk war, 1832
Scanlan, Charles Martin
Black Hawk War, 1832; Horn, Sylvia Hall, 1813-1899; Indian captivities -- Middle West; Munson, Rachel Hall, -1870
[19] 2 “Indian Tribes of U. S.”, Drake, 68, 72; 6 Schoolcraft’s,
“History of Indian Tribes of the U. S.”, 83, 88.
The squaws requested Sylvia and Rachel to lie down on separate beds,
and then a squaw lay on each side of each of the girls, so that there
was no chance for escape. Thus abed, they had a night of confused,
disordered sleep, in which visions of their friends and the scenes of
the massacre haunted them almost continually. The squaws endeavored to
soothe the girls, but they could not take the place of that mother who
in their childish nightmares would say to them: “My dears, say a prayer
and try to sleep.”
“But God is sweet.
My mother told me so,
When I knelt at her feet
Long--so long--ago;
She clasped my hands in hers.
Ah! me, that memory stirs
My soul’s profoundest deep--
No wonder that I weep.
She clasped my hands and smiled,
Ah! then I was a child--
I knew no harm--
My mother’s arm
Was flung around me; and I felt
That when I knelt
To listen to my mother’s prayer,
God was with mother there.
Yea! “God is sweet!”
She told me so;
She never told me wrong;
And through my years of woe
Her whispers soft, and sad, and low,
And sweet as Angel’s song,
Have floated like a dream.”--Fr. Ryan.
CHAPTER VI.
TO THE RESCUE.
When John W. Hall arrived at Ottawa he did not know that his sisters
had been taken prisoners, but he supposed that they had been massacred
with the rest of the people at the Davis cottage. His first impulse was
revenge, and he rushed wildly about, urging men to arm and go with him
to the scene of the massacre. The spirit of adventure was rampant among
the people at the time, and John soon found himself at the head of a
considerable number of mounted men armed with all kinds of guns, who
followed him like a mob, from Ottawa to the Davis Settlement.
On their way out they met some of the men who were defeated at
Stillman’s Run, returning to Ottawa. John endeavored to have these men
accompany him to the Davis Settlement, but they had enough of Indian
adventure, and instead of assisting John, discouraged the men with him
from engaging in a fight with the Indians.
When John’s squadron arrived at the Davis cottage there was presented
an awful sight--thirteen murdered and mutilated bodies in and about
the cottage, some hung on shambles like butchered pigs, just as they
were left by the Indians. On the creek below the cottage were found the
bodies of Norris and George where they fell from the bullets of the
Indians. The absence of his sisters Rachel and Sylvia from among the
dead, presented to John a new quandary. A careful search was made about
the premises but no traces of the girls could be found.
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