COLONEL JOHN SHAW thus begins his personal narrative of the Indian wars in this region, a narrative that later
rises into an heroic saga as he recounts the daring deeds of frontiersmen whose descendants yet linger in the county
of Pike, notably the exploit of Paul Harpole, early bearer of a distinguished Pike county name, who, grinning at
death and a thousand painted savages, went to glory under the eyes of Shaw and Zachary Taylor (later President
of the United States), and hundreds of rangers, in a moment so horrifying that, as a poet of the exploit has sung,
"even God himself was frightened."
"The upper Mississippi Indians of all tribes," says Shaw, "commenced depredations on the frontiers
of Missouri and Illinois, in 1811 and early in 1812. Several whites were killed in different quarters. Thirty miles
above the mouth of Salt river and fully one hundred above the mouth of the Missouri, was Gilbert's Lick, on the
west bank of the Mississippi, noted resort for animals and cattle to lick the brackish water, where a man named
Samuel Gilbert, a Virginian, had settled two or three years prior to the spring of 1812. There were a number of
other settlers in the vicinity, notably below him. About the latter part of May, 1812, a party of 12 to 18 upper
Mississippi Indians descended the river in canoes, fell upon the scattered cabins in the night, and killed a dozen
or more. At the time of this massacre I was at the home of one Riffle in that region; hearing the alarm I went
in company with others in pursuit and arrived just in time to see the Indians embarking.
"This massacre caused great consternation along the Missouri frontier, and the people as a matter of precaution
commenced forting. Seven or eight forts or stockades were erected, among them Stock's Fort, Wood's Fort, a small
stockade at what is now Clarksville, Fort Howard, and a fort at Howell's Settlement, the latter the nearest to
Colonel Daniel Boone.
Shaw and Boone had first met in 1808 and for the next six years Shaw was much in the company of the Boones. The
Pike region between the two rivers was often trod by the Boones, and here, on Bay Creek, in what is now Pleasant
Hill township, they fought a fierce night battle with Indians, three times their number, in 1813. Shaw, with the
old Kentucky pioneer's sons, Daniel Morgan and Nathan Boone, campaigned in the Indian wars of 1812- 14, while the
famous scout himself, then in his old age, chafed in Nathan's home, his enlistment refused by the authorities.
Boone, since 1797, had dwelt in what is now the state of Missouri, about 45 miles west of St. Louis and 30 miles
from the Point in what is now Calhoun. He had settled there when this region was under Spanish dominion. Dispossessed
of his lands in Kentucky, the "dark and bloody ground" that he had invaded and subdued, Boone had turned
his back on that ungrateful land and had settled in the valley of the Kanawha, whence he emigrated in 1797 to what
is now Missouri, then as wild and uncivilized as the Kentucky he had wrested from the wilderness. The Spanish governor,
learning of his coming, had tendered him a grant of 1,000 rich valley acres on the Femme Osage Creek and there
Boone erected his log cabin, on land adjacent to that of his son Nathan, and for the fourth time in his life settled
down as a pioneer in a new country.
There it was that Shaw encountered Boone in 1808. Shaw, in his early writings, thus describes the Kentucky pioneer
as he was then:"Boone, now 73, was still erect and powerful, broad of chest, muscular, quick as a bear trap,
still a crack shot with his powerful Kentucky rifle which weighed 11 pounds and had an octagonal-shaped barrel
more than four feet in length. He was fair of countenance, with a high bold forehead, a noble bearing and a look
in his eye that suggested a deeply reverent character. Boone considered himself an emissary, chosen from on High
to open the American wilderness. At this time he was a great hunter of the beaver, the pelts of which he could
sell in St. Louis at good prices (as high as $9 each, according to another writer). At night, before a roaring
fire, he would sometimes relate, with becoming modesty, incidents of his own and Simon Kenton's stirring exploits
on the ‘dark and bloody ground.'"
"Boone had cause to hate the Indians; he had lost sons and a brother at their hands. But a thing so gross
as hatred was foreign to Boone's nature. He fought the Indian fairly, on terms that made him respected among the
tribes. He respected the rights of the preemptor of the soil and often stemmed the impetuosity of outraged settlers
eager to wreak vengeance on the tribes, thereby frustrating hostilities that would have been luckless for the whites."
Shaw's statement that "Boone had cause to hate the Indians" is amply substantiated by Boone's own statement
quoted by Stewart Edward White. Said Boone: "My footsteps have often been marked with blood. Two darling sons
and a brother have I lost by savage hands, which have also taken from me 40 valuable horses and an abundance of
cattle. Many dark and sleepless nights have I been a companion for owls, separated from the cheerful society of
men, scorched by the summer's sun and pinched by the winter's cold, an instrument ordained to settle the wilderness."
Shaw, writing of Boone, relates numerous stories of border days as told by the famous scout. Once he told of tracking
for many days an Indian who had committed some dastardly outrage upon a settler's family. One day he sighted the
Indian fishing from a fallen tree trunk. "A I watched him," said Boone, "he suddenly toppled off
the log into the water." There was a twitch in Boone's eye that hinted he might at the time have been watching
the Indian over the sights of his trusty Kentucky rifle.
Boone, by the Spanish authorities, was made the Syndic or Commandant of his district, the government of which rested
solely in the hands of this official, who was a sort of court and military authority unto himself. Boone in this
capacity as magistrate was intolerant of technicalities and sought only the truth, regardless of any rules of evidence.
He had the faculty of getting at the truth and his decisions, says, Thwaite, "based solely on common sense
in the rough, were respected as if coming from the supreme bench." Boone's methods of administering justice
became celebrated in the early settlements and when the law first came to early Pike county, we find the justices
of the period, John Shaw, William Ross and others, following the Boone precepts, both as to trial and penalty,
the latter, in cases of guilt, usually consisting of "lashes on the bare back, well laid on."
Shaw relates many interesting and thrilling episodes of the period when the settlers, for their protection, were
erecting forts and stockades along the Mississippi just prior to the beginning of the War of 1812.
"I was engaged about this time," says he, in his personal memoirs, "with 18 or 20 men building a
temporary stockade where Clarksville (Mo.) Now stands, on the west bank of the Mississippi. A party of Indians
came and killed the entire family of one O'Neil, about three miles above Clarksville, while O'Neil himself was
employed with his neighbors in erecting the stockade.
"In company with O'Neil and others I hastened to the scene of murder and found all killed, scalped and horribly
mangled. One of the children, about one and a half years old, was found literally baked in a large pot metal bake-
kettle or Dutch oven, with a cover on; and as there were no marks of the knife or tomahawk on the body, the child
must have been put in alive to suffer this horrible death; the oil or fat in the bottom of the kettle was nearly
two inches deep."
Liquor added to the horrors of Indian barbarity on the border. From Shaw's writings it appears that every settler's
cabin had its whiskey jug; the forts and stockades their liquor supplies. Indian raids netted the redskins the
"firewater" they craved, which inflamed them to deeds of atrocity beyond the ordinary ingenuity of savage
barbarism.
What a tragedy for the early settler, who, unable to get ahead in some older community, had brought his family
to this western frontier, and by hard labor in the wilderness had "raised" his log home, cultivated a
few acres, bred and nurtured a few cows and hogs, home returning after a hard day's chopping, logging or forting,
turning a corner that gave him a view of home — then to see his little clearing a bloody shambles, his cattle lying
where they had been wantonly shot down, his crops destroyed, his wee baby that had got just big enough to toddle
to the door in greeting, baked in his own oven. Or, as in the case of a neighboring settler, the child lying at
the foot of a tree in the dooryard, its brains crushed out when a savage had swung it by the feet against the tree
trunk; his young and pretty wife murdered and scalped, or, worse fate, carried into captivity by the savages for
the slow tortures of their diabolical ingenuity, her nails turned back, her tender flesh seared by gun barrels
heated to glowing redness, her ten fingers and ten toes burned off a joint at a time, suffering a thousand screaming
agonies before death came with its blessed unconsciousness. These and innumerable indignities of a character that
cannot be printed are described or inferred by Shaw and other border writers as occurring on these frontiers when
the Indians, armed and liquored by their British masters, swarmed upon the settlements or desolated some remote
cabin at the outbreak of the second war with Britain.
Little wonder that as Shaw and his comrades gazed upon the baked body of O'Neil's child and the scenes of savage
deviltry that were all around (remember, this scene was within 17 miles of present Pittsfield), fury, fierce and
consuming, blazed in their hearts and vengeance, a vengeance that would show no mercy, was pledged in a solemn
resolution that gave to every redskin the status of a skulking savage brute, to be shot on sight.
To St. Louis sped John Shaw, accompanied by Ira Cottle, to see Governor William Clark and learn whether war was
actually declared. "This," says Shaw, "must have been some time in June (war was formally declared
on June 19, 1812) but news of the declaration of war against Great Britain had not yet reached there."
Upon his return from St. Louis, Shaw was urged by the settlers, now congregated in the forts across the river from
the present Pike and Calhoun shores, to act as a spy upon the Indians and give notice of any canoe expedition down
the river.
"On my return," says Shaw, "I was urged by the people to act as spy or scout on the frontier, as
I was possessed of great bodily ability, and it was well known that I had seen much woods experience. I consented
to act in this capacity on the frontiers of St. Charles county. I went alone on this duty, sometimes mounted, sometimes
on foot, and carefully watched the river above the settlements to discover whether any Indians landed and sometimes
to follow their trails, learn their destination, and report to the settlements."
Shaw states that he became an Indian spy with no thought of reward or of ever being paid for his services; his
only object being the protection of the settlers. Upon his advice, several of the weaker stockades for 20 or 30
miles around were abandoned and concentration made near the mouth of Cuivre or Cooper river, at or near the present
village of Monroe. Shaw relates that some 60 or 70 were employed two or three weeks in building this fort, which
was named Fort Howard, in honor of the "patriotic Governor, Benjamin Howard." Some 20 or 30 families
soon located there. This fort stood west of the river, at a point about halfway between the present West Point
and Golden Eagle Ferries in Calhoun.
War was now actually begun and under authority conveyed by an act of Congress there was raised six companies of
rangers, three on the Missouri and three on the Illinois side. The Missouri companies were commanded by Daniel
M. and Nathan Boone, sons of the great scout, and by David Musick. Shaw says that Nathan Boone's commission was
dated June, 1812 and was for a period of one year; he supposes the others held similar commissions.
These rangers were feared by the Indians; they were selected with care and their movements were rapid. Says Alvord:
"The aborigines of the prairies had not learned the art of resisting cavalry attacks." And in the Wisconsin
Historical Collections is the statement that "the Indians learned to fear cavalry at the battle of Fallen
Timbers."
Says Shaw: "The Indians were supplied by their British employers with new rifles and it seemed the Indians
were bent on exterminating the Americans, excepting the French and Spaniards, who, from intermarriages, were regarded
as friends and connections."
"Through the whole war," he says, "I acted as spy and was in constant service."
The Missouri Rangers, by the terms of their enlistment, were to supply themselves with horses, provisions and provender.
Shaw was solicited by the Rangers to furnish these supplies. The Rangers promised he should be paid every three
months, they not doubting they would receive their own pay from the General Government.
Shaw of consenting to furnish these supplies to the Rangers early in the summer of 1812. There were approximately
100 men in each company of the Rangers and Shaw was furnishing an average of 150 men with mounts, food and provender
throughout the war. :I was well acquainted throughout the Missouri frontiers," he says, "and could secure
credit from millers and stockraisers. I employed assistants to purchase and drive forward beef cattle, and hands
to boat or wagon flour and other provisions."
Shaw himself scouted in advance of his wagon trains and often discovered hostile bands in time to save men, outfits
and provisions from capture.
"I remember," he says, "in the spring of 1813, being at the head of five teams loaded with supplies
when, at the fording of a large stream known as Peruque Creek in the northern part of St. Charles county, I discovered
a party of 13 Indians concealed behind blinds formed of bent bushes, or broken bushes struck in the ground for
a screen, and retreated in time to save both teams and loading. Unable to proceed by land for fear of ambuscade,
I secured a large boat and loaded the provisions and took them upriver to a point nearest Fort Howard."
At Fort Howard, the ears of Shaw's men were so filled with tales of Indian foray and outrage that they refused
to man the boat for the return trip on the Cuivre river. They finally consented upon Shaw agreeing to go on ahead
in a skiff, he to fire a gun in case of Indian threat.
Shaw describes the Cuivre river as very crooked, between 20 and 30 rods in width, and its banks generally low,
with low grounds adjacent that were frequently overflowed. It was eight or nine miles by the river from the fort
to the river's mouth, but only three miles by land. Taking with him in the canoe one Joseph Clarement, Shaw descended
the river about three miles when a noise was heard, and looking back he saw three or four canoes on the north bank
and a dozen to twenty Indians rushing down the bank and manning the canoes for pursuit of the two white men.
Fortunately a sharp turn in the river permitted Shaw to interpose a wooded angle momentarily between himself and
the pursuers; bending to the oars, he and Clarement ran the canoe up a bayou, left the boat, then ran a mile and
a half upstream, through water knee deep in the low lying bottoms. The Indian surprise occurred about 10 o'clock
in the morning and until after nightfall Shaw and his companion secreted themselves from the Indians, standing
much of the time in water up to their necks. Under cover of night, a party from the fort, a mile distant, crossed
over, rescued them and transported them back to the fort.
Governor Howard resigned the governorship of Missouri Territory on the first of June, 1813, and as Brigadier General
in the U. S. service assumed charge of the Illinois-Missouri subdistrict of the eighth military district under
command of Major William Henry Harrison. General Howard's headquarters were at St. Louis.
Shortly after, General Howard visited Fort Howard and there heard John Shaw publicly acclaimed by the residents
of the fort for his valiant service on the frontier. General Howard said he had not the authority to appoint spies,
but, moved by the strong approbation of the settlers, he personally thanked Shaw for his services and told him
he would intercede with the war department and the federal government in an attempt to get for him a proper recompense
for those services. He also signed and gave to Shaw a certificate for the latter to present to the authorities.
About this time, fear spread among the settlers that the Upper Mississippi Indians might descend the river in a
body and so it was decided to erect a fort directly on the bank of the river. Then it was that there arose on the
west bank of the river, opposite the site of the present West Point Ferry in Calhoun, a fort that was to figure
strongly in the history of what later became Pike county.
Says Shaw: "About eight or ten miles above the mouth of the Cuivre river, on the eastern bank of the Mississippi,
was a large well-known promontory of grit or sandstone, hence called Cape au Gris. Directly opposite was the place
selected for the fort, which was called Cape au Gris Fort, under the command of Captain Davis Musick."
Cape or Cap au Gris, site of an early French settlement, became, as has been seen in former chapters, the famous
Cap au Gris Pike county voting precinct wherein John Shaw, contesting with the Rosses at Atlas, rolled up his big
majorities for himself or his candidates and there it was that the big votes were mustered against Atlas in the
county seat wars. The loyalty of this section of the early county to John Shaw is now well understood, for here
it was that Shaw, during the Indian wars, as a succeeding chapter will reveal, performed some of his most amazing
feats for the protection of the settlers.