Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 37, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 January 1905 — BLACK HAWK WAR SURVIVOR. [ARTICLE]

BLACK HAWK WAR SURVIVOR.

He la Now in Mia 90th Tear and Realties in an Illinois Town. William H. Lee, of Shobonier, 111., claims the distinction of being the sole survivor of the Black Hawk Indian war of 1832. With the difficulty which lowa is experiencing to find traces of its Mexican war survivors, it is hardly probable that any survivor of the Indian war fourteen years earlier will be found in this State. Mr. Lee is now in his 90th year. The story of his life shows many hardships, but the pioneers on the frontier a half or three-quarters of a century ago were inured to hardships. Mr. Lee was brought west from New York when he was 3 years old. The party made its way on two rafts and a flatboat constructed of logs. The emigrants took all of their live stock with them in their passage down the Alleghany and Ohio rivers, landing at Shawneetown, from there going to Salem, and finally to Vandalia, at that time only a small village. At this place Lee grew to young manhood under the hard lessons qf frontier life, assisting his father in his grain treadmill and in sawing lumber. The story of his participation in the Black Hawk war and subsequent life is told by a correspondent thus: “When the Sac and Fox, or, as it was known, the Black Hawk, war broke out in 1832, William H. Lee was only 16 years of age, but he possessed courage ec to the hardy training he had received in his Illinois life. After the close of the war he made three successful trips to New Orleans by boat, which in those days was considered a feat of unusual importance, each time taking large loads of grain. In 1850 he succumbed to the California gold fever, making an overland trip to that part of the country. This trip was followed by two others. On each of the trips large numbers of cattle were taken along as an investment. The party was attacked by Indians on the first trip, but was successful in deafeatlng the red men. On the second journey the party lost all their live stock. The third trip was thoroughly successful. Returning to his farm in Illinois, Mr. Lee has remained there in active charge until within the last few years, when he turned the active management over to other hands. None of his children is living.” The Black Hawk war wUs closely associated with the early history of lowa. It was near Fort Madison that Black Hawk’s followers rendezvouzed to take up the war trail and to..cross the Mississippi; it was across the river from the very northeastern point of lowa that the massacre, hardly to be dignified by the name of battle, of Bad Axe occurred and ended the short-lived war; it was to lowa that Black Hawk and the few survivors returned when the war was ended. The Black Hawk war figures more prominently in Illinois history than in that of lowa, but it is an important chapter in the annals of this State. —Des Moines Register and Leader.