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Introduction.On May 9th, 1832, a party of Sauk Indians arrived at the trading post of Stephen Mack, a fur trader engaged in trading with the Winnebago Indians of Turtle Village. His post was located at the mouth of Dry Run Creek and the Rock River in present-day Roscoe, Illinois. The Sauk put his trading post to the torch and were about to execute Mr. Mack and several of his employees when the Winnebago intervened. Mack and his men quickly departed the area and returned to Fort Dearborn. (1) This article is a brief look at Mr. Mack’s life and his involvement in the Black Hawk War of 1832. The War began on April 5th, when Black Hawk’s “British Band” crossed the Mississippi River at Yellow Banks.
Beginnings.
Stephen Mack Jr. came from a relatively influential family that made many notable contributions to American History. Stephen Mack Sr. fought in the Revolutionary War for several different regiments. Following the war he became a colonel in the Vermont Militia. During this time his wife Temperance gave birth to Stephen Mack Jr. on February 20th, 1798. After a successful venture as a tinker and dry goods merchant, Mack moved his business to Detroit, Michigan Territory. (2) He regularly kept in touch with his family from Detroit, and used the profits of his business to put his children through school. Stephen Mack Jr. attended Dartmouth College’s Moor Preparatory School, where he graduated at age 18 in 1816. Extant letters from the Mack Family show that Mack attended college in Boston, MA, however they are inconclusive as to the name of the college. Stephen Jr. would eventually join his father in Detroit.
By 1816, Stephen Sr. had changed partners in his fur and trade business and was doing so well he decided to open an office in Chicago, four miles south of Fort Dearborn. Meanwhile he speculated land in Michigan and formed a coalition of land prospectors called the “Pontiac Company”. These men would eventually plot and organize the city of Pontiac, Michigan. (3) The Mack family was related to the family of Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon faith. (4)
Opening Shop at the Grand Detour of the Rock River.
Stephen Mack Junior’s first venture in the west was to take part in an expedition from Detroit to Green Bay. Apparently it was here he learned of the potential of the Rock River valley. In 1823, Stephen Jr. was granted a license to trade with the Indians for one year. This license was renewed in 1824 and granted again in 1826. Mack would spend the summers working for his father in Chicago, and would winter at his trading post. During his time here he met his wife, a Pottowottomi Indian named Ho-no-ne-gah. Tension between Stephen Jr. and the Indians following their marriage drove the couple to leave the Grand Detour and head north, to Turtle Village. He arrived there in 1829 and set up a new trading post at Dry Run Creek and the Rock River. In 1830, he bought two lots in the newly incorporated city of Chicago. He would sell the claims in 1833. Mack named his settlement “Bird’s Grove” and remained there until the outbreak of the Black Hawk War.
Bird’s Grove Destroyed.
On May 9th, 1832, a party of Sauk Indians arrived at Bird’s Grove. After capturing Mack and several of his employees, they put his trading post to the torch. Fortunately for Mack, friendly Winnebago Indians were alert to the approach of the Sauk and intervened before Mack could be killed. At their urging, Mack made for Chicago with all possible speed. The next day, Illinois militia and US Army soldiers burned the village of the Winnebago Prophet (5) and the combat phase of the Black Hawk War began.
Joining the Militia and Going on Campaign.
As soon as he arrived in Chicago, Stephen Jr. enlisted in Captain John Hogan’s company of Major David Bailey’s Odd Battalion of Cook County Volunteers as a first sergeant.(6) Mack would later describe the company as “mounted rifle men”.(7) The battalion would participate in two scouting expeditions. The first expedition went out in search of the perpetrators of the Indian Creek massacre. Being unsuccessful in their search, the militia buried the dead from the attack and returned to Fort Dearborn. A second patrol mission would be made in late June. In a letter to his sister in Detroit, Mack expressed disapproval of the slow pace the campaign against Black Hawk was being conducted (8), and also expressed that he intended to leave with one of the battalions going north to fight rather than stay at Chicago. Mack would serve as a guide for Colonel Abraham Eustis’ contingent of US Rangers and US infantry who traveled from Chicago to Hamilton’s Diggings, then Dixon’s Ferry, and finally to Fort Armstrong in mid to late August, 1832. (9) Following the campaign he returned to Chicago. He spent the winter of 1832-33 in his rebuilt trading post on Rock River, and returned to Chicago in the summer of 1833, where he wrote his sister apologizing for not writing during the winter, and for being unable to procure porcupine quill-decorated moccasins for her. (10)
Aftermath.
In 1834 Mack would build a home near the confluence of the Rock and Pecatonica Rivers below present-day Rockton, IL. The home was finished in 1839, and a stone tavern was built nearby. The tavern was completed and opened in 1841. While construction was ongoing, Mack plotted a settlement, to be called “Pecatonic” near his home. This settlement never materialized. A new settlement called Rockton was built across the Rock River from his home in 1835-36, and eventually his home and “Pecatonic” would be incorporated in this village by 1847. Mack remained at this place until his death in 1850. (11) Mack’s 1839 home and 1841 tavern are still standing in the Macktown Forest Preserve, and are maintained by the Macktown Living History Education Center, a group of people dedicated to preserving Rockton’s early history through active interpretation in place of museum exhibits. (12)
Notes.
1. Letter from Stephen Mack Jr. to Lovicy Cooper, May 30th, 1832: “I left my wintering ground or trading station on the 9th inst. and as I left it the Socks took possession of my house but were prevented from injuring me or my men by the Winnebago Indians who claimed me as their friend and trader…”
2. Nuggets of History, Vol. 39, April 2001 edition, p. 3.
3. Nuggets of History, Vol. 39, April 2001 edition, p. 4.
4. Nuggets of History, Vol. 39, April 2001 edition, p. 1.
5. Robert Braun, “Sauk War Chronology”, March, 2001.
6. Ellen Whitney, The Black Hawk War 1831-1832, Vol. 1: "Illinois Volunteers," p. 449.
7. Letter from Stephen Mack Jr. to Lovicy Cooper, June 13th, 1832: “In that case I will join him with a few mounted rifle men from this place.”
8. Letter from Stephen Mack Jr. to Lovicy Cooper, June 13th, 1832: “And then to sit down and listen tot he remarks of the raw Yankees who have lately emigrated to this country, one would think that Napoleon Bonaparte had risen from the grave and presented himself in the person of Blackhawk and that the spirit of his millions of heroes were concentrated in the 5 or 600 warriors led by that chief. I by no means wish to undervalue our enemies, they are brave and subtle and it may be dangerous to encounter them without an overwhelming force, but I can by no means approve of the tardy operations of our chief officers, for it gives time to the nimble-footed Indians to ravage our frontier settlements…”
9. Ellen Whitney, The Black Hawk War 1831-1832, Vol. II, Part II: "Letters and Papers," p. 1050.
10. Letter from Stephen Mack to Lovicy Cooper, May 17th, 1833.
11. Nuggets of History, Vol. 39, September 2001 edition, p. 9.
12. Conversation with Kathy Tallacksen, MTLHEC board member, Friday, March 12, 2004.
Bibliography.
Carr, Edson I. The History of Rockton, Winnebago County, Illinois, 1820 to 1898. Rockton: Herald Office Press, 1898.
Powers, Thomas A. “Stephen Mack, Jr.: Fur Trader and Businessman: Life on the Illinois Frontier." Nuggets of History, Vol. 39, No. 1, April 2001.
Powers, Thomas A. “Stephen Mack, Jr.: Fur Trader and Businessman: The Town of Pecatonic." Nuggets of History, Vol. 39, No. 2 & 3, September 2001.
Stephen Mack letters, Talcott Free Library collection, Rockton, IL.
Whitney, Ellen. The Black Hawk War 1831-1832, Vol. I: "Illinois Volunteers." Springfield: Illinois State Historical Library, 1970.
Whitney, Ellen. The Black Hawk War 1831-1832, Vol. II, Part I: "Letters and Papers." Springfield: Illinois State Historical Library, 1973.
Whitney, Ellen. The Black Hawk War 1831-1832, Vol. II, Part II: "Letters and Papers." Springfield: Illinois State Historical Library, 1975.