Springfield had been located and platted by the Indian traders, George and William Wood, who built their post on the west side of the Des Moines; while the settlers who came later, mostly from Iowa, selected claims and built cabins on the east side of the river. The cabins of the settlers were not closely grouped, but were scattered up and down the river valley for seven or eight miles. Owing to this isolation the settlers could not be of much service to each other in the matter of defense. Moreover, the difficulty of successful individual defense was appreciated; and so at the conference which followed the arrival of Markham and Granger, it was decided to concentrate so far as possible. In this conference the Wood brothers did not participate, as they scouted even the possibility of trouble--so confident were they of the friendliness of the Indians and of their own ability to keep them from hostile acts. According to Jareb Palmer, the Woods believed that only two houses had been robbed at the lakes, that the robbery had been laid to the Indians for no good reason whatever, and that in all likelihood it “had been done by the whites, as there had been some difficulty at the Lake in regard to claims.”[182] Having decided to concentrate, the Springfield settlers selected the cabins of James B. Thomas and William T. Wheeler as the points of defense. The Thomas cabin was distant about one and a half miles from the Wood brothers’ store, and the Wheeler cabin about three-quarters of a mile beyond that of Thomas. Various reasons led to the selection of these cabins, the principal of which were their size and the great strength with which they had been built. In the end it appears that not all of the settlers were gathered in these two cabins. The Joshua Stewart family, consisting of Mr. Stewart, Mrs. Stewart, and three children, were originally at the Thomas cabin; but owing to the physical condition of Mrs. Stewart, who had been overwrought by the fear of Indian attack, and the too crowded condition at the Thomas home, it was necessary for the family to return to their own home. This they did after a stay of two or three days at the Thomas cabin.[183] The Stewart cabin was located about one-half mile from that of Thomas.