The Wood River Massacre
Madison County ILGenWeb Coordinator - Beverly Bauser
The most startling and cruel atrocity
committed by the Indians within the bounds of Madison County was
the Wood River massacre, on July 10, 1814, that resulted in the
death of one woman and six children. This tragedy took place in
the forks of the Wood River, east of Upper Alton. The victims
were the wife and two children of Reason Reagan, two children of
Abel Moore, and two children of William Moore.
At the
beginning of the War of 1812-14, citizens of Madison County who
lived at exposed locations on the frontier sought refuge in the
forts and blockhouses. When no Indians made their appearance,
and the Rangers were constantly on the alert, people began to
feel secure. In the summer of 1814, people returned to their
farms and dwellings. There were six or eight families residing
at that time in the forks of the Wood River. At the residence of
George Moore on the east branch of the Wood River, a blockhouse
had been built to which the people could flee should danger
arrive.
July
10, 1814 began as a pleasant Sunday. William Moore was on duty
at Fort Butler near St. Jacob, and Abel Moore had gone to Fort
Russell for the day. Rachel Reagan and her two children spent
the day with her sister, Mrs. William Moore. Rachel’s husband,
Reason Reagan, had gone three miles away to the Wood River
Baptist Church on Vaughn Hill. Also at the Moore home was Miss
Hannah Bates, sister of Abel Moore’s wife. The time was spent
peacefully while the women talked and the children played games.
Later in the afternoon they all went to the Abel Moore home. As
preparation began for the evening meal, Rachel, who was in
advanced stage of pregnancy, decided she would go back home and
pick some beans that would be added to the evening mean.
Rachel’s two children, two sons of William Moore, and two sons
of Abel Moore accompanied her. Hannah Bates went along, but for
some reason decided to turn back to the Moore house. Some say
she had a premonition. Others say her shoes did not fit well and
hurt her feet. Regardless, that decision saved her life.
Two days before, Reason Reagan and his brother-in-law, Samuel
Thomas, had gone to a deer lick [spot of ground where deer
assemble, due to natural salt in the ground] about ten miles
west of the settlement [this would have placed the deer lick in
Jersey County, north of Lockhaven], and camped there for the
night. It was later ascertained that a company of eleven Indians
had been three miles distant [near Dow], and the next morning
found the abandoned camp of Thomas and Reagan. The Indians
determined the group was a small one, and decided to follow
their tracks eastward.
The Indians may have reached the
empty Reagan cabin first. They continued on the trail eastward,
towards Abel Moore’s home, as Rachel and the children approached
from the east. It was on this trail that Rachel and the children
met their untimely death. They were stripped of their clothing,
bludgeoned with a tomahawk, and scalped.
William Moore,
having returned that day to look after the women and children at
home, became alarmed as night approached and the children had
not returned. He first went to his brother, Abel Moore’s place,
to see if they were there. His wife, who was Mrs. Reagan’s
sister, also started on horseback to look for them, taking a
different route from her husband. Mrs. Moore chose to go through
the woods, and William walked along the wagon path. Mrs. William
Moore found the children lying by the road, and at first thought
they had laid down to sleep. It was nighttime, and there was
little light to see by. She called their names, but they did not
answer. She got down from her horse, and it was then she
discovered the lifeless bodies in the darkness. She placed her
hand on the shoulder of the naked corpse of Mrs. Reagan. On
further examination, she could feel the flesh from which the
scalp had been torn. She looked over and could see the figure of
the little child of Mrs. Reagan’s sitting so near the body of
its mother as to lean its head toward its mother. The little one
said, “The black man raised his axe and cutted them again.” She
picked up the youngest child, and then heard a noise. Alarmed,
she grabbed the boy, Timothy, and sprang on her horse and rode
away, thinking she would be the next victim. The wounded child
died the next day.
Unknown to Mrs. Moore, her husband,
William, had also found the bodies. He had returned to Abel
Moore’s home, telling that someone had been killed by Indians.
He could not see in the dark who it was. Thinking the Indians
were having an uprising, he wanted to warn the others and get
them to safety. From Abel’s house he took Abel’s wife and her
remaining children, along with Hannah Bates, and they headed to
William Moore’s house, with the plan of going on to the
blockhouse at Fort Wood River, where they would be safer.
Approaching his home, he saw the horse which his wife had
ridden. “Thank God, Polly is not killed,” he said. His wife came
running out, exclaiming, “They are killed by the Indians, I
expect!” The whole party then departed for the blockhouse, and
waited for daybreak.
At dawn a search for Rachel and the
six children was held. They gathered their loved ones for
burial. Mr. Solomon Preuitt assisted in the burial of the
victims. He hauled them on a small one-horse sled to the burying
ground on Vaughn Hill. [Note: Vaughn Hill Cemetery, about 4
miles “as the crow flies” from Abel Moore’s home, was
established by the Wood River Baptist Church - presumably where
Reason Reagan was at the time of the massacre.] The graves were
dug and lined with slabs split from trees nearby, as nearly like
planks as possible, and the bodies were covered with more
planks. The seven were buried in three graves: Mrs. Reagan and
her two children, Elizabeth and Timothy, in one grave; Captain
Moore’s children, William and Joel, in another; and William
Moore’s two children, John and George, in the third. A stone
slab marked their resting place. Also buried in the Vaughn Hill
Cemetery is an Indian girl who was captured by Abraham Preuitt
during one of the campaigns in the War of 1812. Preuitt,
pursuing Indian into the Winnebago Swamps, heard firing in the
distance and went to investigate. He found Davis Carter and
another man firing at the little Indian child, six years old,
who was mired and could not get out. He called the man cowards,
and ordered them to cease firing at a helpless child. Preuitt
went into the swamp and rescued the child, and brought it home
with him. She lived to the age of fifteen. It was stated that
she was always of a wild nature.
A young man by the name
of John Harris, living at Able Moore’s home, traveled on
horseback bearing the alarming news to Fort Russell. Leaving the
Fort about 1:00AM, seventy rangers arrived at Abel Moore’s about
sunrise, and proceeded to the scene of the tragedy. News soon
spread, and it was not long before Captain Whiteside and nine
others gave pursuit of the Indians. Among them were Reasan
Reagan, James
Preuitt, Abraham Preuitt, William and John Sample, James
Stockden, William Montgomery, and Peter Waggoner. When the
Indians learned they were being pursued, the frequently bled
themselves to facilitate their speed and give them greater
endurance. The weather was hot, and some of the rangers’ horses
gave out. Others kept going. On the evening of the second day,
between sunset and dark, they came within sight of the Indians
at a stream entering the Sangamon River, about 70 miles in
Morgan County. This site was later named Indian Creek to
remember what took place there.
On the ridge was a lone
cottonwood tree. Several Indians climbed the tree and saw their
pursuers. They separated and went in different directions. James
and Abraham Pruitt, taking the trail of one of the Indians,
overtook him and shot him in the thigh. He fell, but managed to
climb a tree. Abraham then shot again and killed him. In the
Indian’s pouch was the scalp of Mrs. Reagan. Reason Regan lost
his life in the pursuit of the Indians. He was either buried
where he died, or in the Vaughn Hill Cemetery. The remaining
Indians hid in the woods, near where Virden now stands, about 44
miles north of the scene of the murder. It was learned later
that only one Indian escaped, and that was the Chief who led the
party.
Today there stands a monument, dedicated in 1910,
in memory of those killed in the massacre. It is located on
Fosterburg Road, east of Upper Alton, in front of the Hilltop
Auction and Banquet Center. The massacre took place 300 yards
behind the monument, and about one mile from the Abel Moore
home.
THE WOOD RIVER MASSACRE
Read before the Illinois State
Lyceum, December 6, 1833
By Rev. Thomas Lippincott
Source:
Alton Telegraph, April 4, 1873
Travelers who have passed on
the direct road from Edwardsville to Carrollton will remember at
a pleasant plantation on the banks of the east branch of the
Wood River, a short distance from the dwelling house and powder
mill of Mr. George Moore, an old building, composed of rough
round logs, the upper story of which projects about a foot on
every side beyond the basement. This, in times of peril, was a
blockhouse, or in the common phrase, a fort, to which the early
settlers resorted for safety. Pursuing the road about two miles
to an elevated point of the west fork, where the road turns
abruptly down into the creek, another farm, now in possession of
a younger member of the family of Moores, exhibits the former
residence of Reason Reagan, and midway between these two points
resides Captain Abel Moore, on the same spot which he occupied
at the period to which our narrative relates. William Moore
lived nearly south of Abel’s, on a road which passes towards
Milton. Upper Alton is from two to three miles, and Lower Alton
four or five miles distant from the scene of action.
It
appears that while the gallant rangers were scouring the
country, ever on the alert, the inhabitants, who for several
years had huddled together in forts for fear of Indians, had, in
the summer of 1814, attained to such a sense of security that
they went to their farms and dwellings, with the hope of
escaping further depredations. In the forks of the Wood River
were some six or eight families, whose men were for the most
part in the ranging service, and whose women and children were
thus left to labor and defend themselves. The blockhouse which I
have described was their place of resort on any alarm, but the
inconvenience and difficulty of clustering so thickly induced
them to leave it as soon as prudence would at all permit.
Nor had the hardy inhabitants forgotten amidst their
dangers, the duties of social life, nor their highest
obligations to their Creator. The Sabbath shone, not only upon
the domestic circle, as gathered around the fireside altar, but
its hallowed light was shed on groups collected in the rustic
artifices which the piety of the people had erected for divine
worship.
It was on the Sabbath, July 10, 1814, that the
painful occurrence took place which I now record. Reagan had
gone to attend divine worship at the meeting house some two or
three miles off, leaving his wife and two children at the house
of Abel Moore, which was on his way. About four o’clock in the
afternoon, Mrs. Reagan went over to her own dwelling to procure
some little articles of convenience, being accompanied by six
children, two of whom were her own; two were children of Abel
Moore; and two of William Moore. Not far from, probably a little
after the same time, two men of the neighborhood passed
separately, I believe, along the road, in the opposite direction
to that in which Mrs. Reagan went, and one of them heard at a
certain place a low call, as of a boy, which he did not answer,
and for a repetition of which he did not delay. But he
remembered and told it afterwards.
When it began to grow
dark, the families became uneasy at the protracted absence of
their respective members, and William Moore came to Abel’s, and
not finding them there, passed on towards Mr. Reagan’s to
discover what had become of the sister-in-law and children.
Nearly about the same time, his wife went across the angle
directly toward the same place. Mr. Moore had not been long
absent from his brother’s, before he returned with the
information that someone was killed by the Indians. He had
discerned the body of a person lying on the ground, but whether
man or woman, it was too dark for him to see without a closer
inspection than was deemed safe. The habits of the Indians were
too well known by these settlers, to leave a man in Mr. Moore’s
situation, free from the apprehension of an ambuscade still
near.
The first thought that occurred was to flee to the
blockhouse. Mr. Moore desired his brother’s family to go
directly to the fort, while he should pass by his own house and
take his family with him. But the night was now dark, and the
heavy forest was at that time scarcely opened here and there by
a little farm, while the narrow road wound through among the
tall trees, from the farm of Abel Moore to that of his brother,
George Moore, where the fort was erected. The women and
children, therefore, chose to accompany William Moore, though
the distance was nearly doubled by the measure.
The
feelings of the group as they groped their way through the dark
woods may be mor easily imagined than described. Sorrow for the
supposed loss of relatives and children was mingled with horror
at the manner of their death, fear for their own safety, and
pain at the dreadful idea that remains of their dearest friends
lay mangled on the cold ground near them, while they were denied
the privilege of seeing and preparing them for sepulture.
Silently they passed on till they came to the dwelling of
William Moore, and when they had approached the entrance, he
exclaimed, as if relieved from some dreadful apprehension,
“Thank God, Polly is not killed.” “How do you know?” they
inquired. “Because here is the horse she rode.” My informant
then first learned that his brother-in-law had feared, until
that moment, that his wife was the victim that he had
discovered.
As they let down the bars, Mrs. William Moore
came running out, exclaiming, “they are killed by the Indians, I
expect.” The mourning friends went in for a short time, but
hastily departed for the blockhouse, whither by daybreak, all or
nearly all the neighbors, having been warned by signals,
repaired to sympathize and tremble.
I have mentioned that
Mrs. William Moore went, as well as her husband, in search of
her sister and children. Passing by different routes, they did
not meet on the way, nor at the place of death. She jumped on a
horse and hastily went in the nearest direction, and as she
went, carefully noted every discernable object, until at length,
she saw a human figure lying near a burning log. There was not
sufficient light for her to discern the size, sex, or condition
of the person, and she called the name of one and another of her
children, again and again, supposing it to be one of them
asleep. At length, she alighted, and approached to examine more
closely. What must have been her sensations on placing her hand
upon the back of a naked corpse, and feeling, by further
scrutiny, the quivering flesh from which the scalp had been
torn! In the gloom of the night, she could just discern
something, seeming like a little child, sitting so near the body
as to lean its head, first one side, then the other, on the
insensible and mangled body. She saw no further, but thrilled
with horror and alarm, remounted her horse and hastened home.
When she arrived, she quickly put a large kettle of water over
the fire, intending to defend herself with scalding water, in
case of an attack.
There was little rest or refreshment,
as may well be supposed, at the fort that night. The women and
children of the vicinity, together with the few men who were at
home, were crowded together, not knowing but that a large body
of the savage foe might be prowling round, ready to pour a
deadly fire upon them at any moment. A neighbor and six children
of the little settlement were probably lying in the wood, within
a mile or two, dead and mangled by that dreadful enemy! About
three o’clock, a messenger was dispatched to Fort Russell with
the tidings.
In the morning, the inhabitants undertook
the painful task of ascertaining the extent of their calamity,
and collecting the remains for burial. The whole party, Mrs.
Reagan and the six children, were found lying at intervals along
the road, tomahawked, scalped and dead, except the youngest of
Mrs. Reagan’s children, which was sitting near its mother’s
corpse, alive, with a gash, large and deep, on each side of its
little face. It were idle to speak of the emotions that filled
the souls of the neighbors and friends and fathers and mothers,
the husband, who had gathered round to behold this awful
spectacle. There lay the mortal remains of six of those whom but
yesterday they had seen and embraced in health, and there was
one helpless little one, wounded and bleeding and dying, an
object of pain and solicitude, but scarcely of hope.
To
women and youth, chiefly was committed the painful task of
depositing their dear remains in the tomb. This was done on the
six already dead, on that day. They were interred in three
graves, which were carefully dug so as to lay boards beneath,
beside, and above the bodies – for there could no coffins be
provided in the absence of nearly all the men – and the graves
being filled, they were left to receive in aftertimes, when
peace had visited the settlement, a simple covering of stone,
bearing an inscription descriptive of their death.
It was
a solemn day, observed my informant, to follow several bodies to
the grave, at once, from so small a settlement, and they too,
buried under such painful circumstances. Could we have followed
that train to the cemetery where they were embowered, would we
not feel that the procession, the occasion, the ceremony, the
emotions were of a character too awful, too sacred to admit of
minute observation then – or accurate description now? The
seventh, however, was not then buried. The child found alive
received every possible attention. Medical aid was procured with
great difficulty, but in vain. It followed within a day or two
at most.
On the arrival of the messenger at Fort Russell,
a fresh express was hastened to Captain (now General) Samuel
Whiteside’s company, which was on Ridge Prairie, some four miles
east of Edwardsville. It was about an hour after sunrise on
Monday morning when the gallant troop arrived on the spot –
having rode some fifteen miles – ready to weep with the
bereaved, and to avenge them of their ruthless foes. Abel Moore,
who was one of the rangers then on duty, and of course absent at
the catastrophe, was permitted to remain at home to assist in
burying his children and relatives, and the company dashed on,
eager to overtake and engage in deadly conflict with the
savages. I regret that I have no recent account of the
particulars of this interesting pursuit, and that my memory does
not hold them with sufficient distinctness to warrant an attempt
at the narration. At Indian Creek, in what is now Morgan County,
some three or four of the Indians were seen, and one killed. It
is a current report among the rangers that not one of the ten
that composed the party survived the fatigue of the retreat
before the eager troop.