Our first bit of Woodford County history was a military action of the War of 1812 when we had just been transferred into Madison County.6 This expedition has seldom been mentioned and perhaps it is just as well, for we cannot be too proud of it. On October 18, 1812, territorial militiamen and U. S. Rangers left Fort Russell, near Edwardsville, under the personal direction of Governor Ninian Edwards and Colonel Russell, and marched north on the Elkhart Hill landmark.7 On Salt Creek near there they burned the Kickapoo Indian town as the tribe fled; following this, they burned another Indian village on the lower Mackinaw and moved northward into our Partridge Township.
The war gave an excuse to destroy these Indian villages, although there was scant evidence the tribes were pro-British or pro-anything. Men later prominent in Illinois were in that march, including the four Whiteside brothers, William, Robert, Stephen and David; Elias Rector, Benjamin Stephens, Nathaniel Pope and Thomas Carlin. In our county they attacked and burned the Potawatomi village of Black Partridge's people than under Chief Chequeneboc, killing two or three of them and destroying their crops which they had stored for their winter food. Meantime, the expedition's supply boats under Capt. Craig arrived at Peoria, where the French and Indians had lived and traded peaceably since around 1700.
Apparently resenting this French-Indian amity, Craig's men burned Peoria, then known as Fort. Clark, and took away all the French as prisoners, including a well known Indian agent of the United States government named Thomas Forsyth. After being taken to St. Louis, Forsyth finally secured the release of the French and an official apology, but no damages of record. However, we do find another expedition under General Howard helping rebuild the town the next summer to make some amends.8 They cut most of their timber on the Woodford County side upstream and floated it down and across to Peoria’s water front.
Thus was Chief Black Partridge's Woodford County village detroyed by whites within ten weeks after he had personally saved the life of Mrs. Helm in the Chicago massacre on August 15, 1812. That chief had tried to prevent his hot-headed young braves from committing that atrocity. Seeing he could not, he gave back his "White man's medal" saying he could not wear it while his young men made war upon the whites.
Another expedition came near in 1812. General Hopkins was to burn the revived Kickapoo village in West Township of McLean County, and then join the Edwards expedition at Peoria. Before the anticipated fight, his ill-disciplined militiamen mutinied and went back to the Vincennes post ingloriously out of the General's control. A twenty-seven year old aide, Capt. Zachary Taylor, relayed the orders which were not obeyed. However, in June of 1813, General Joseph Bartholomew9 did burn that village with a much smaller force. Capt. James
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