DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER, from early French prairie du Chien and the land of the Winnebagos, came in 1820 John
Shaw, traveler, explorer, hunter, adventurer, Indian fighter, scout and spy, skilled in the arts of Daniel Boone,
deadly of aim with the rifle gun, fleet-footed as a greyhound, cunning as the savage tribes whom he had outwitted
in many a border massacre, a man unschooled save in the hard lessons of the wilderness, a character as colorful
as Leather-stocking of the Cooper tales; with which the reader will agree when he reads the following personal
narrative of Shaw's life in these western wilds of the 1800s.
Far in the northern wilderness, at the first falls on the Black river, near the site of present LaCrosse, the Indians
in 1820 had burned Shaw's sawmill, the first in the western part of what is now the state of Wisconsin, and Shaw,
his life endangered by hordes of starving Winnebagos, rafted down the river to the Mississippi the pine logs he
had cut in what was then Michigan Territory, in the year 1819. In the winter of 1820-21 he crossed the trail of
the Rosses at Alton and in the spring of 1821 he is found starting a clearing between the Mississippi and Illinois
rivers, out of which clearing arose Coles' Grove, early capital of Pike county.
In the state of Wisconsin, in the forepart of September, 1855, Colonel John Shaw, nearly blind and in his 73rd
year, dictated to Lyman C. Draper, secretary of the Wisconsin Historical Society, the narrative of his prior to
and following his residence in Pike and Calhoun counties, which Draper then took down and transcribed. This narrative
is now incorporated in Volume 2 of the Wisconsin Historical Collections, a copy of which is in the Illinois State
Historical Library at Springfield. Shaw was then (1855) a resident of Marquette county, Wisconsin, where, after
his mysterious disappearance from Calhoun county in 1842, he had, in 1846, in the then Wisconsin Territory, founded
a new settlement on the banks of the beautiful Fox river which for more than a century had been a trade route for
the fur traders of the north.
"I was born," says Shaw, "May 30th, 1783, in Johnstown, Montgomery county, New York. My father's
name was Comfort Shaw, and my grandfather's was Daniel Shaw, who resided in Stonington, Connecticut, and was of
Scotch descent; and at Stonington my father was born. Soon after the commencement of the Revolutionary war, fired
by the patriotism of the times, my father, unable to obtain the permission of his parents to join the American
army, ran away at the age of 16, and effected the object so near his heart. He had from early life excelled in
playing the spirit-stirring fife, and soon received the appointment of Fife-Major, and served several years in
that capacity in the army. He was present and participated in the memorable battles at Saratoga, and was among
the first that scaled the enemy's breastworks on the 7th of October, 1777. My father was a man of unusual personal
activity and gave his country long and faithful service in the War of Independence.
"Towards the close of 1780, father married, at Johntown, New York, Miss Mary Hollinbeck, whose father, John
Hollinbeck, a native of Amsterdam, Holland, came when a young man to America, and settled at Claverack, on the
Hudson. He married a New England wife and raised a large family, one of whom was a son named after his father,
who early migrated to Johnstown, and settled on a farm about three miles east of the village, and took with him
his young sister, Mary (Shaw's mother).
"I was the second of eight children, all sons, six of whom grew to years of maturity, and two of my brothers,
Nathaniel of Calhoun county and Comfort of Pike county, Illinois, both forehanded and respectable farmers, yet
survive (1855)."
Shaw, who at one time had 30,000 acres of land in his name in Illinois and Missouri, never had a day's schooling.
To him the school room was repulsive; but he became a vivid writer and to America history he contributed some of
the finest and most authoritative accounts of early Indian campaigns in the Illinois and Missouri Territories.
Shaw thus tells of an incident that prejudiced him against the school room:
"When three years of age, I one forenoon accompanied my elder brother Daniel to the village school in Johnstown.
A Mr. Throop, the adopted father of Enos T. Throop, since governor of New York, was the teacher. I was so terrified
by his repulsive appearance, having very long eyebrows and a very unpleasant physiognomy, that I could never after
be induced to attend school. What little education therefore I became possessed of was obtained by piecemeal and
in a picked-up way. When I was fourteen years of age, my father died, having been four years incapacitated for
labor by consumption; the two eldest boys, Daniel and I, had all the work to do in order to support the family.
"In the spring of 1808, when 25 years of age, I resolved to go to the western country, as my younger brothers
had now grown up and could more than fill my place to secure a competency in the old settlements, and I had formed
an ardent desire to cross the Rocky Mountains, and bathe on the shore of the Pacific. For a year prior to this
period, I had carefully practiced the use of the gun, and became very expert.
"I started that spring (1808) for Montreal, intending to journey with some company of the Northwest Fur Company,
and by that means reach the remote west. But concluding this was not very practicable, I went up the St. Lawrence
and along the shore of Lake Ontario, to Niagara Falls, which latter I had first visited two years previously. There
was only a single log house, nearly a mile from the Falls, on the Canada shore; and at Black Rock I crossed the
river and went to Buffalo, where there were about 30 wooden houses.
"From some of the Indians at Buffalo, I purchased a bark canoe and paddles, and made the necessary outfit,
and resolved to push on up Lake Erie, and pursue the Lake route to Green Bay, and employed two young men to accompany
me. In consequence of a severe storm, and the rockbound shore of the Lake, I changed my course; I had my canoe
transported across the country on a wagon to Chataqua Lake, when again launching my frail bark, I descended the
Lake, its outlet into French creek, and entered the Allegheny (taking thence the route of the Rosses 12 years later).
"Continuing down the river I stopped at Pittsburgh, Wheeling, Marietta, Limestone (now Maysville), Cincinnati
and Louisville, only long enough to rest and procure needful supplies. Thence I kept on down the Ohio, and crossed
the Mississippi on the 10th day of August, 1808, when I turned my course up the Mississippi by land to Cape Girardeau
and Ste. Genevieve; at which latter place I well remember seeing Henry Dodge (later governor of Wisconsin Territory,
1836-41 and 1845-48), then sheriff of that county, and since so distinguished in the west. Passing up to St. Louis,
thence to Florissant, Portage des Sioux, and St. Charles I then became acquainted with the celebrated Daniel Boone
and family, together with nearly all the leading French families of those several Missouri settlements."
A glance at the map of this region at the time of Shaw's arrival is fitting. Illinois was a part of Indiana Territory,
which included the present states of Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana, except a small strip on the west
side between the mouths of the Kentucky and the Great Miami; of this vast region, Vincennes was the seat of government.
Missouri was a part of Upper Louisiana, LaSalle, in the 17th century, upon discovering the mouth of the Mississippi,
having given the name of Louisiana to all the territory drained by the great river. Not until 1812 did Missouri
become a Territory. Four years prior to Shaw's arrival, Delassus, last of the Spanish-French line of lieutenant-governors
of St. Louis, had relinquished Upper Louisiana to the United States.
The Missouri towns mentioned by Shaw had arisen in the 18th century. Ste. Genevieve, the oldest, marked the site
of a settlement of about 1750; St. Louis had been founded by Pierre Laclede in 1764; a Spanish fort had arisen
at New Madrid in 1786; St. Charles, first capital of Missouri, had been founded by Blanchette as a military post
in 1796.
Daniel Boone had dwelt on his Spanish land grant about 45 miles west of St. Louis and 30 miles south and west from
what is now lower Calhoun, since 1797, he having become a Spanish subject in Missouri and a Syndic (magistrate)
of the Femme Osage district. He was 73 when Shaw first knew him. Boone's kin, the early Pike county Allens and
Garrisons, settled later in what are now Montezuma and Detroit townships.
Shaw thus continues his narrative: "Spending the ensuing autumn and winter (1808-1809) at St. Louis, New Madrid,
and the various settlements in then Upper Louisiana, in viewing the country, I early the next spring procured from
Edward Bates, father of the present (1855) Hon. Edward Bates of St. Louis, an accomplished Marylander, then Secretary
of Louisiana Territory, and, in the absence of Governor Merriwether Lewis, acting Governor, a license to search
for gold and silver anywhere within the limits of that Territory, then supposed to extend to the Pacific — still
resolving to reach that distant ocean.
"I at once fitted myself out for a long journey, and engaged Peter Spear and William Miller (Spear later associated
with Shaw in Pike county) to accompany me in this adventure. I fully explained to them the dangers to be encountered
and, if successful, I agreed we should equally share the profits of the enterprise.
"We started from the extreme western settlement of Cape Girardeau county, on the headwaters of the St. Francis
river, where a few families then resided, and pushed on into the great western wilderness. Our route was very nearly
upon what I have since learned was the 37th degree, or perhaps half a degree south of that parallel. We crossed
a branch of the White river, which I named the Currents, which it has ever since retained, and the Black river
and afterwards Spring river, which we followed to its source, where we found a very large spring and hence the
name of the stream. We next passed the main fork of White river, and then continued on westerly until we reached
the prairie country, and went beyond all the western headwaters of the Mississippi, except the Arkansas and Missouri."
Shaw then tells of pushing on, day after day, deeper into the west, nearer to regions infested by hostile tribes,
of pressing on 800 to 1,000 miles from the settlements, of meeting numerous friendly Indian parties, Chickasaws,
Choctaws, and Creeks or Muskogees, engaged in hunting, of encountering vast herds of buffaloes and occasionally
large herds of wild horses. "We judged," says Shaw, "from the buffalo trails that we passed near
the Great Salt Rock, and a long distance beyond, we came in view of the spurs of the great Rocky Mountain chain.
"In this remote region, we one day during the summer (1809) met three men, who proved to be the only survivors
of a party of some fifteen trappers who had penetrated high up the Missouri when, in two savage attacks by the
Indians, all the others were slain; and these survivors were now directing their course to the Arkansas river,
and admonished us to desist our further journey westward."
Shaw and his two companions, not heeding, pushed on, and the next day encountered a party of a dozen or twenty
wild Indians, believed by Shaw to be Comanches or Pawnees, chasing and catching wild horses with the lasso, which
Shaw noted they used with great dexterity and success. Shaw and his companions discovered the Indians in time to
secrete themselves, unseen by the savages, and had a full view of them for three or four hours in an immense prairie.
The Indians most of the time were not less than five miles away, but once, in chasing the wild horses, came within
a mile of Shaw's place of concealment.
Shaw now became thoroughly alarmed. "It seemed madness," he says, "to attempt any further progress,
so reluctantly we turned our faces eastward, and coming to what we deemed pretty safe hunting grounds in what is
now eastern Kansas and western Arkansas and Missouri, we pitched our camp and went to hunting for beaver. We then
little dreamed that the white settlements would extend to that region for the next five hundred years. Our main
camp was near the headwaters of one of the northern tributaries of the Arkansas, and having no traps, we procured
the beaver musk and planted it some distance from the shore which tempted the animals to go and smell it when we
would secrete ourselves and shoot them.
"During the autumn of 1809, all of the year 1810, and the winter of 1810-11, we steadily pursued our hunting;
and, in the spring of 1811, we gathered and packed up all of our beaver, otter and bear skins - about 50 beaver
and otter, and about 300 bear skins, and 800 gallons of bear's oil; and making canoes or pirogues on one of the
headwaters of White river, we conveyed our skins and oil to them by the three horses we had taken with us in all
our journeyings. The oil was carried in sacks make of bear skins, one being swung on either side of a horse. Lashing
our boats together, and trading off our horses to friendly Indians, we descended the White river to the Mississippi,
and thence, stopping briefly at one Turnbull's an English planter, upon the high bluff where Vicksburg now stands,
and at Natchez, we passed down the river, and arrived at New Orleans about the first of May, 1811.
"Another disappointment was here in store; the Embargo (spelled backward by its enemies, who called it the
‘O Grab Me' act), then in force, put a total check to all exportations, and our cargo of furs, peltries and oil,
which found their market in Europe, were a drug in New Orleans. The large quantity of oil, if not soon shipped,
as the hot season had commenced, would become rancid and almost worthless. The result was that our large cargo,
which at former rates would have brought between two and three thousand dollars, we now sold for the mere pittance
of $36. No language can depict my great disappointment, first in failing to reach the Pacific, and then all our
hope being frustrated in regard to the proceeds of our two years' hunt.
"The sickly season now approaching, I proceeded through the Choctaw Nation, accompanied by Spear, leaving
Miller in New Orleans, and never seeing him afterwards. We passed through the Choctaw and Chickasaw country, to
Colbert's Ferry on the Tennessee, and thence to Vincennes, and at length to St. Louis."
Shaw was in the center of the great earthquake disturbance that rocked the upper Mississippi delta region in the
winter of 1811-12. This, the greatest quake in the history of the great valley, and known as the New Madrid quake,
was accompanied, historians say, by impressive and awe-inspiring phenomena. Violent recurrent shocks occurred for
months and tremors were noticed for two years. Alluvial areas, during the violent disturbances, were traversed
by visible waves that rocked the trees, uprooting some and permanently entangling the branches of others. Water
courses flowed upstream, the Mississippi river, over part of its course, flowing north instead of south at the
height of the disturbance. Yawning crevices opened and closed, not once, but with every recurring shock, and mud
of various kinds was hurled into the air and lodged in tree tops. Existing lakes were drained and new ones created.
Pittsfield sportsmen go to the earthquake region to this day to fish in great inland lakes that resulted from the
terrific upheaval, notably in southeastern Missouri and across the river, near Tiptonville, Tennessee. Attorney
George Weaver of Pittsfield has told the writer of the excellent fishing in Reel Foot Lake, a creation of the earthquake,
said to contain 32,000 acres under water, the stumps and trunks of cypress trees that once stood on dry land still
rearing themselves in the waters.
Shaw thus describes the terror of the days of the quake: "While lodging about 30 miles north of New Madrid,
Mo., on the 14th of December, 1811, about 2 o'clock in the morning, occurred a heavy shock of an earthquake. The
house where I was stopping was partly of wood and partly of brick structure; the brick part all fell, but I and
the family all fortunately escaped.
"Then, when came the still greatest shock, about 2 in the morning of February 7, 1812, I was in New Madrid,
when nearly 2000 people f all ages fled in terror from their falling dwellings in that place and the surrounding
country, and directed their course north about 30 miles to Tywappety Hill, on the western bank of the Mississippi,
and about seven miles back from the river. This was the first high ground above New Madrid, and here the fugitives
founded an encampment. It was proposed that all should kneel, and engage in supplicating God's mercy, and all simultaneously,
Catholics and Protestants, knelt and offered solemn prayers to the Creator.
"About twelve miles back towards New Madrid, a young woman about 17, named Betsey Masters, had been left by
her parents and family, her leg having been broken below the knee by the falling of one of the weight poles of
the roof of the cabin; and, although a total stranger, I was the only person who would consent to return and see
whether she still survived. Receiving a description locating the place, I started, and found the poor girl upon
a bed, as she had been left, with some water and cornbread within her reach. I cooked up some food for her and
made her condition as comfortable as circumstances would allow, and returned the same day to the grand encampment.
Miss Masters eventually recovered."
Shaw describes the strange alterations in the face of the country and relates the terrors of the panic-stricken
populace which was undecided whether water or fire would issue from the great fissures and engulf all. He says
the timber lands around New Madrid sank five or six feet and the bottoms of former ponds and lagoons were upheaved
and emptied their waters into the sunken areas. He relates that through the fissures there was forced up vast quantities
of a hard, jet-black substance which appeared very smooth, as though worn by friction, and seeming very different
from either anthracite or coal. (Scientists, describing the phenomena of this great upheaval, stated that water,
sand and coal issued from the crevices.)
"This hegira," says Shaw, "with all its attendant appalling circumstances, was a most heart-rending
scene, constraining the most wicked and profane to plead earnestly to God in prayer for mercy." In less than
three months he says that most of these people returned to their former places of abode, and that while the shocks
continued at intervals, there were no more disastrous upheavals. The people became so accustomed to the slight
tremors that they no longer permitted them to check or interfere with their dances, frolics or vices.