by Harvey Lee Ross

Pages 9-13

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In regard to the tragical death of Peter White, supposed to have been murdered by his son, I will have to make a preliminary statement. When my father first came to the mouth of the Spoon river, in 1821, he determined, if possible, that he would be the owner of a ferry across the Illinois river at that place as soon as possible. It was forty miles down the river to the first ferry at Beardstown, and fifty miles to Peoria, where the next ferry was kept. He believed that it would be but a few years until there would be a good deal of travel across the river at Havana, and that a ferry at that place would be a paying investment. He was on the alert, and as soon as a license for a ferry could be procured he got one. It proved to be a good enterprise. For a good many years the receipts from the ferry amounted to about $2,000 a year.

Peter White came to Lewistown among the early settlers. He

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was fifty years old, was a widower, and had one son, a large stout young man twenty-three or twenty-four years old, and his name also was Peter. They had worked about Lewistown and the old gentleman had worked for my father on the farm. He was an eastern man of good information, and a reliable man to work. My father made a bargain with both of them to go down to the river and keep the ferry and to put a house where Havana now stands, as there was no house there at that time. My father rigged them out with a horse to haul the logs together, with tools, and some provisions to live on, and they started for the river. He also secured from John Eveland the pirogue alluded to last week to be used until the ferry could be built. The Whites first erected a little shanty to live in until they could cut the timber and make the clapboards for the house. So everything appeared to start off all right. After they had been down about six weeks young Peter came up to Lewistown one evening a little after dark, and staid at my father’s all night. The next morning my father asked how he and his father were getting along with the house. "Not very well," was his reply. "Has anything gone wrong?" asked my father. "Yes, my father is dead," replied young Peter. On being asked what was the matter with his father, he coolly said that he and his father were working on the house and that his father had slipped and fallen off the house, and that his head struck a log lying near, and that it had broken his skull, resulting in his death. My father asked the boy what he had done with his father’s body. He replied that he had dug a grave and wrapped him in a blanket, and put him on a sled and hauled him out and buried him.

The remarkable story that Peter told and the manner in which he had conducted himself made my father suspicious; so he went into Lewistown to confer with others as to what had better be done. It was not long until old John Eveland came up from Spoon river, and he reported that Peter had come to his house the day before, had taken dinner with them, had played ball, had run foot-races, and shot at a mark with his boys, but had not said a word about his father’s death. So my father and Mr. Eveland and three or four others concluded to go down to the river, and take

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Peter along, and investigate the matter. He took them to the grave where he had buried his father. They got a spade and dug open the grave, took up the body, and examined it. They found a spot on the side of the head where the skull had been broken from a blow by some blunt instrument. They then went to the house which Peter said his father had fallen from. There was no logs near the house on which he could have struck his head, and the house had only been raised six or seven feet, so that a fall from it was not likely to kill a man. Some ten feet away was a pile of logs, with a couple of handspikes lying upon them which had been used in handling the logs. All of the men were of the opinion that the old man had come to his death from a blow struck by Peter with one of those handspikes. They believed that Peter and his father had quarreled about something, and that Peter in a passion had struck his father with a handspike, but with no intention of killing him; but that the blow had proved fatal.

As the supposed murder had occurred in Sangamon county it was decided that the best thing to do was to send Peter to Springfield, and a couple of men agreed to take him there and deliver him to the sheriff. The other men returned to their homes. The next day the two men came back to Lewistown and reported that Peter had gotten away from them. It was the general belief that they had given Peter a good whipping and let him go. But that was the last that was ever heard of him in that country.

The next parties that my father got to take charge of the ferry were Norman and Ira Scoville, two brothers. They finished the house that the Whites had commenced to build, and also built another log house near by. These men staid two or three years, when Norman Scoville engaged to run a keel boat for the Phelpses, and then my father rented the ferry property to Samuel Mallory and Wm. Nicholls. They were keeping the ferry and the tavern at the time the fight took place between the Indians and the whites as recorded in Chapman’s history, page 205. The author has made some mistakes in regard to material facts. He says the fight took place in 1828 at Mallory’s ferry, and that the

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whites proved to be the victors. This is all wrong. The battle took place in 1826, and the ferry was never called Mallory’s ferry, but was Ross’ ferry. No man named Mallory ever kept the ferry, and the Indians were the victors in the fight. The true history of that fight is as follows: As I have already stated, Samuel Mallory and his stepson, Wm. Nicholls, had rented the ferry of my father. They were both old settlers of Fulton county. Mallory was the father of Hirah Saunders’ wife and the grandfather of Mrs. Judge H. L. Bryant. A few years later he and Nicholls settled some eight miles south of Canton on the Lewistown road.

After they had been at the river a few weeks they received by keel boat a barrel of whisky from St. Louis. At that time all tavern keepers were expected to keep liquor for the accommodation of their guests. In fact, almost every merchant in the country kept whisky for sale as freely as any other kind of goods. A party of Indians were traveling up the Illinois river in their canoes and camped a half mile above the ferry. They came down to the house to trade some furs for whisky, as they had been in the habit of doing with the Scovilles. But Mallory refused to let them have any whisky. As he was alone they drew their tomahawks over his head and compelled him to give them whisky. Wm. Nicholls, who had been out working in the woods, came home, and seeing the situation Mallory was in, slipped away and got into a canoe and slipped across the river to where the keel boat way lying. But part of the boat crew had started off for Lewistown. He hurried on and overtook them, and told them the situation that Mallory was in. So each one of them cut a stout hickory cane and went back with him to rescue Mallory. They found that some twenty-five Indians had Mallory completely under their control. Some of them were pretty drunk and all were having a jolly time except Mallory. The white men ordered the Indians to leave, but they refused to go, and then the fight commenced, the white men using their hickory canes on the heads of the Indians. But the Indians were about four to one, and they succeeded in getting the canes away from the white men. It was a pretty hot fight for about half an hour, and the whites

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would probably have whipped the Indians, but while they were in the fight they saw some squaws coming from the canoes with Indian spears and tomahawks for the use of the Indians. Then the whites thought it was about time to retreat and get more help. As they were hurrying to the ferry boat they discovered Simeon Kelsey and a couple of Indians having a hard fight near the river, and in attempting to capture the Indians one of the Indians ran into the river and they took after him with the ferry boat, and when they would get near him he would dive under the water and come up a rod or two behind the boat and would be making for the shore. The white men would then have to turn their boat and go after him again; he would play the same game of dodging them; they kept up this chase for about half an hour, when they came upon him where they could see his head two feet under the water. One of the men ran his arm down and caught him by the hair, and as he drew his head over the side of the boat another man drew his knife and cut the Indian’s throat, leaving him to sink in the river.

The men returned to the keel boat and Wm. Nicholls started to Lewistown for more men to fight the Indians. He got there after dark, raised the alarm, and the next morning fifteen men on horseback started for the battlefield. I will give the result of their expedition in my next letter.

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