The Mormon Menace | Page 9

and vegetation. Cattle and hogs were also running
wild in great numbers; every kind of game, large and small, could be
had with little exertion. The streams were full of fish; the forests
contained many varieties of timber; nuts, berries, and wild fruits of
every description, found in the temperate zone could be had in their
season.
Near by was the Reservation of the Kaskaskia Indians, Louis DuQuoin

was chief of the tribe. He had a frame house painted in bright colors,
but he never would farm any, game being so plentiful he had no need to
labor. Nearly all the settlers were French, and not very anxious for
education or improvement of any kind. I was quite a lad before I ever
saw a wagon, carriage, set of harness, or a ring, a staple, or set of bows
to an ox yoke. The first wagon I ever saw was brought into that country
by a Yankee peddler; his outfit created as great an excitement in the
settlement as the first locomotive did in Utah; the people flocked in
from every quarter to see the Yankee wagon.
Everything in use in that country was of the most simple and primitive
construction. There were no sawmills or gristmills in that region; sawed
lumber was not in the country. The wagons were two-wheeled carts
made entirely of wood - not a particle of iron about them; the hubs
were of white elm, spokes of white oak or hickory, the felloes of black
walnut, as it was soft and would bear rounding. The felloes were made
six inches thick, and were strongly doweled together with seasoned
hardwood pins; the linch pin was of hickory or ash; the thills were
wood; in fact all of it was wood. The harness consisted of a corn husk
collar, hames cut from an ash tree root, or from an oak; tugs were
rawhide; the lines also were rawhide; a hackamore or halter was used in
place of a bridle; one horse was lashed between the thills by rawhide
straps and pins in the thills for a hold-back; when two horses were used,
the second horse was fastened ahead of the first by straps fastened on to
the thills of the cart. Oxen were yoked as follows: A square stick of
timber of sufficient length was taken and hollowed out at the ends to fit
on the neck of the ox, close up to the horns, and this was fastened by
rawhide straps to the horns.
The people were of necessity self-sustaining, for they were forced to
depend upon their own resources for everything they used. Clothing
was made of home manufactured cloth or the skins of wild animals.
Imported articles were procured at heavy cost, and but few found their
way to our settlements. Steamboats and railroads were then unthought
of, by us at least, and the navigation of the Mississippi was carried on
in small boats that could be drawn up along the river bank by means of
oars, spikes, poles, and hooks. The articles most in demand were axes,

hoes, cotton cards, hatchels for cleaning flax, hemp and cotton,
spinning wheels, knives, and ammunition, guns, and bar shears for
plows. In exchange for such goods the people traded beef, hides, furs,
tallow, beeswax, and honey. Money was not needed or used by anyone
- everything was trade and barter.
The people were generous and brave. Their pleasures and pastimes
were those usual in frontier settlements. They were hardy, and well
versed in woodcraft. They aided each other, and were all in all a noble
class of people, possessing many virtues and few faults. The girls were
educated by their mothers to work, and had to work. It was then a
disgrace for a young woman not to know how to take the raw material -
the flax and cotton - and, unaided, manufacture her own clothing. It is a
lamentable fact that such is no longer the case.
CHAPTER II
- LEE BEGINS A CAREER
I formed a liking for Emily Conner. Emily was an orphan, and lived
about four years at my aunt Charlotte's after her mother died, and until
her father married again. She had a consoling word for me at all times
when I was in trouble. From being friends, we became lovers and were
engaged to be married, when my circumstances would permit. That
winter I went to a school for three months.
Early in the spring the Indian war known as the Black Hawk war broke
out, and volunteers were called for. I enrolled myself at the first call, in
the company of Capt. Jacob Feaman, of Kaskaskia. The company was
ordered to rendezvous at Fort Armstrong, Rock Island, where the
troops were reorganized, and Capt. Feaman was promoted to colonel,
and