of Menard and Mason Counties
By T.G. Onstott
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CHAPTER XL Page 368 In 1826 a battle occurred at Havana at Ross' ferry. The Indians were victorious in the fight. The true history of the fight is as follows: Samuel Mallory and his stepson had rented the ferry of O.M. Ross. They were both settlers of Fulton county. This was before the tavern was built. Mallory was the father of Hiram Sander's wife and the grandfather of Mrs. Judge H.L. Bryant. A few years later they settled eight miles south of Canton in the direction of Lewistown. After they had been at Havana a few weeks they received by keel boat a barrel of whiskey from St. Louis, as then they were expected to keep liquor for the accommodation of the traveling public. In fact the merchants in the country kept whisky the same as any other kind of goods. A party of Indians were traveling up the Illinois river in canoes and camped a half mile above the ferry. They came down to trade some furs for whisky, as they had been in the habit of doing with the Scoville's, but Mallory refused to let them have any whisky. As he was alone they drew their tomahawks and compelled him to give them whisky. Wm. Nichols, who had been working in the woods came home and seeing the situation Mallory was in, slipped away and got a canoe and went across the mouth of Spoon river the where the keel boat was lying, but part of the boat's crew had started for Lewistown. He soon overtook them and told them the situation Mallory was in; so each one of them cut a stout hickory cane and went back to rescue Mallory. The found that some twenty-five Indians had Mallory completely under their control. Some of them were pretty drunk and were all having a jolly time except Mallory. The white men ordered the Indians to leave but they refused to go and then the fight commenced, the white men using their hickory clubs on the heads of the Indians. But the Indians were about four to one and they succeeded in getting the clubs away from the white men. It was a pretty hard fight for a half hour and the whites would have probably whipped the Indians, but while they were in the fight they saw some squaws coming from the canoes with Indian spears and tomahawks for the use of the Indians; then the whites thought it was time to retreat and get more help. As they were running to the ferry boat they discovered Simon Kelsey and a couple of Indians having a hard fight near the river, and in attempting to capture the Indians one of them ran into the river and they took after him with the boat, and when they would get near him he would dive under the boat and come up a rod behind the boat and would make for the shore. The white men would then have to turn their boat and go after him again and he would play the same game of dodging them. They kept up this for a half an hour, and when they came upon him they could se his head two feet under the water. One of the men ran his arm down and caught him by the hair, and as he drew his head over the side of the boat another man drew his knife and cut the Indian's throat and left him to sink in the river. The men returned to the keel boat and William Nichols started to Lewistown for more men to fight the Indians. He got there after dark and raised the alarm, and next morning fifteen men on horseback started for the battlefield. The company raised at Lewistown were each armed with guns. When they got to the river at Havana they were joined by the crew of the keel boat that had the fight with the Indians the day before, with the exception of Kelsey, who had been badly used up the day before and was not able to go with them. The men all got on the ferry boat and took as many horses as they could crowd on the boat and started across the river. Some squaws a little way down the river saw the men coming and ran and told the Indians that a great company of white men were coming with guns. The Indians took alarm and started to run. Some went to their canoes and started up the river; some ran to the woods. The men followed the Indians that ran to the woods until they got in the swamp a few miles up the Quiver Lake and had to give up the chase. The company came back to Havana to Mallory's, where the fight had taken place the day before. They found some pools of blood and a short distance two newly-made graves, showing that the fight had been a hard one and that two Indians had been killed with clubs, besides the one whose throat had been cut on the ferry boat. They also found that eight or ten gallons had been taken from Mallory's whisky barrel and that his household goods had not been touched. So ended the Indian fight at Ross' ferry. After that time, Mallory and Nichols kept the ferry for a year and never had any more trouble with the Indians. O.M. Ross then moved to Havana and took charge of the ferry himself. The Indian that had his throat cut floated down the river and landed in some driftwood at the head of an island three miles below Havana. There was at that time a man by the name of John Hemford, who was long a resident of Bernadette. One Sunday John went down to the island and brought up the skull and jawbone. Harvey Ross decided that he could have lots of fun in frightening the Indians who were superstitious. After thoroughly cleaning the skull and jawbone he fastened it on a stick about four feet long, the lower end to stick in the ground. He put into it a lighted candle. When the scarecrow was set up on a dark night with the candle lighted it was certainly the most horrible object mortal eyes ever beheld. About a mile above Havana there were eighteen or twenty wigwams of Indians. They were in the habit of coming to Havana every week to do some trading and would frequently stay until after dark before starting home. Harvey knew the path they traveled and would have the skull set up a few rods from their path. When they would discover it they would run as fast as their legs would carry them and frightened nearly to death. It made a great commotion among the Indians for awhile, but Harvey's father found out what was going on and put a stop to Harvey's fun. One day a steamboat landed at Havana and Harvey went down and sold it to the pilot for $2. The outfit put it on the bow of the boat at night, to scare the natives along the river. Soon after, O.M. Ross went to Havana. He built three warehouses, one on the east side of the river and two on the west side. One was north of Schoonovers' and one on the south side. They were built of logs and were used to store the produce of the farmers who lived on both sides of the river. The upper part of the warehouse on the Havana side of the river he finished off for a store and opened up a stock of goods. The nearest store on the west of him was at Lewistown, twelve miles west, and New Salem, twenty-five miles on south. The Phelp's had a trading fort nine miles, on Grand Island, below Havana. Ross had a large trade with the Indians, for they were scattered all over the country, up and down the Illinois river, and both sides of the Spoon river. These wigwams could be counted by the hundreds. About the mouth of Spoon river was a great resort for them. Indian ponies, hundreds of them, would be brought every fall to feed on the grass that kept green all winter, and if there was a deep snow the Indians would chop down small trees for these ponies to browse on till the snow went off. Ross would often sell them goods on credit for six months, but would require a recommendation of some of their chiefs which made them very punctual in paying their debts. The Indians were very numerous in all this country, until 1832, when the Blackhawk war broke out and they all went west.
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