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The pioneer hamlet of Canton passed through three dreadful ordeals of horror and excitement:

The first was "Westerfield’s Defeat" in March, 1832, a dreadful Indian scare.

The second was the memorable cyclone of June 18, 1835, in which five Canton people were killed, many houses blown to pieces, and goods and furniture scattered over the prairies and forests even into Mason county.

The third great event was the uprising of Canton’s women against the saloons of that village in which men stood aghast while 100 valiant mothers, wives and sisters gutted the saloons and routed the whisky sellers.

But I have promised to tell the story of John Coleman’s connection with Westerfield’s defeat, as I witnessed part of the events. There were many reasons in 1832 why the people of Fulton county should be in apprehension of a raid and general massacre by Black Hawk and his great army of Indians. This county for ages had been their home. Here were their favorite hunting grounds and loved sugar groves unsurpassed on the whole continent. Here were the graves of their sires. The Indians venerated their dead as white people do not. They had holy burial places at Duncan’s, Water’s graveyard (where there are Indian graves to this day), at Mount Pleasant, and at hundreds of spots along the Spoon and Illinois rivers and all over the great

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woods of Fulton county. These Indians knew their lands had been wrongfully taken from them, and that the venerated graves of their dead had been ruthlessly plowed and desecrated. They had only been driven out of the county about two years before. The great chief Black Hawk was at this time making his last heroic stand on Rock river. The memorable battle of "Stillman’s Defeat" had just been fought with victory to the Indians, and among the dead were Bird Ellis, Tyus Childs, John Walters and Joseph Farris of Fulton county. Many others were wounded. Among these was Major Samuel Hackelton, who lived on Spoon river, four miles south of Lewistown, a few rods west of the spot where the C. B. & Q. bridge now spans that stream. He had a single combat in that fight with a chief, both armed with knives. The chief was killed, but Hackelton received serious wounds that disabled him for a long time. This battle was followed by dreadful Indian massacres in the Rock river country in which men and women were killed and scalped and little children chopped to pieces by savages.

Then between Canton and Rock river was 100 miles of wilderness. The Indians could come unheralded to the cabins of settlers. All these things were known to the pioneers, and there was general apprehension and alarm in the spring of 1832. During March scouts were kept on the outskirts of the settlement to give warning if bands of Indians should appear. There was such gloom and alarm that many people loaded their household goods and moved over the Illinois river into Sangamon county, where the settlements were larger, and where they would be safe. Among these were the wife and younger members of the family of John Coleman. Meantime the people of Canton erected a fort or block-house to go into if necessary.

One day Peter Westerfield, an old elder of the Presbyterian church of Canton, and a Frenchman, Charles Shane, went on an independent scouting expedition of their own. Some ten miles northwest of Canton they came upon a trail running through the grass which they were sure had been made by traveling Indians. In fact it was the path made the day before by a band of soldiers en route from Beardstown to join their company on Rock river.

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Westerfield and Shane immediately hurried back to Canton to report their important and alarming discovery. As they neared Canton they heard shooting and shouts of a party of fool young hunters who had treed a lot of game. Of course they assumed that it was Indians massacreing white families who lived just there. They rode furiously into the hamlet of Canton, yelling wildly at every cabin they passed, "The Indians are on us! The Indians are on us!" There was an immediate panic which no words will describe. People hastily gathered their wives and little ones and rushed either to Canton or to the brush, hoping to escape the scalping knives that seemed hanging over them. In Canton there was the wildest alarm. Mr. Westerfield had the confidence of the people. They believed his report implicitly. The more timid started a-foot and by every means of conveyance toward Havana and Sangamon county. Others gathered at the Canton fort to make the best defense they could. The story of heroism and helplessness from fright would fill many columns.

John Coleman and his son Jerry were at their store and residence a half-mile north of Canton. They quickly started to join Mrs. Coleman and children at Havana, and as they passed along south through the Wilcoxen neighborhood they gave the alarm at every cabin they passed. These people in turn gave the alarm to their neighbors in what is now Buckheart, Liverpool and Waterford townships, as the road from Canton to Havana passed four or five miles east of Lewistown.

Mr. Coleman and his son got to the ferry at Havana about 4 o’clock in the afternoon. My father was keeping the ferry at that time, and had two boats—one large one for heavy teams, and a smaller one for horsemen and buggies. As a lad I was then steersman for the smaller boat, and was an eye-witness to the stirring events of that time in Havana. We heard the frantic yells of Mr. Coleman through the dense timber half-a-mile away from the ferry. As he came nearer we could hear "Indians!" "Murder!" When they got to the boat Mr. Coleman told us of the Indian raid at Canton, of the probable horrid massacre of many families, and that the people were coming to the river in swarms, and that we had better have both boats ready at once, as

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we would have all we could do to ferry them over. He was entirely correct, for we had only landed them on the Havana side when we again heard hallooing on the west side of the river, and the people poured in upon us in such a flood that both boats were kept busy until 11 o’clock at night. The people came a-foot, on horse-back and in all imaginable pioneer conveyances. As many as three or four members of a family would come riding on one horse. There was but one block-house in Havana at that time, and many of these people went right on into the Springfield country.

After the people had all been ferried over the river there were two men who determined to go back to the Canton country and see just what the situation was, and at Canton they learned that it was all a mistake, and that there had not been an Indian within maybe 100 miles of the settlement. So they hurried back to Havana to tell the good news, and the people with unbounded joy began at once to return to their homes. Mr. Coleman and his family had gone on to the Springfield country. But in a few days they returned and were again ferried over into the Fulton county country and returned to their Canton home and store in a much pleasanter frame of mind than when they so suddenly left. But Mr. Coleman was not feeling very amiable toward his neighbor, Mr. Westerfield. But there is no doubt that the old elder was just as honest and sincere in warning his neighbors to flee from Black Hawk’s tomahawk and scalping knife as when he was leading a prayer-meeting in the Canton Presbyterian church.

But it was the greatest Indian scare that ever was known in that country.

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