These two men were strikingly dissimilar in personal appearance. Keokuk was large, of fine person, noble bearing, neat in dress, and went appareled like a white man, in fine blue broadcloth. Black Hawk was a heavy set man, not tidy like Keokuk, and wrapped his muscular form in his blanket, though sometimes he was seen to wear a coat.

Once more the Denisons were urged by their red friends to abandon their home. They were told that war was decided upon, and that to remain was to court certain death. They were on familiar and friendly terms with the savages, and their experiences of the year before did not make them hasty subjects of fright. When they asked why the war was not begun when threatened the first time, the Indians replied that they were not ready then; that they submitted to the situation to gain time: but that they were now fully prepared for war.

The Denisons hesitated about departing three or four days, and all the while the Indians showed a truly anxious interest in their safety and did not relax their exertions to induce them to go away to a white settlement. Keokuk, who was employing all his influence to prevent his followers from joining the war party, promised them protection if they would, come and live with him. Appearing still to be determined not to forsake their homes, an Indian calling himself Captain Pepo, who seemed to have a solemn concern about their respectable extermination, came to them and with all the fidelity of a friend urged them to go,, telling them that the young warriors who would come would roughly insult and barbarously murder and mutilate them, and that to save them from so painful and humiliating treatment, if they would not leave for a place of safety, "he would come and kill them decently !

After his, discovering moccasin tracks among their garden beds, they concluded that the savages were prowling around, and thought it no longer safe to tarry in the neighborhood. They were living about half a mile down the river, where the woodyard was, and opposite where the graveyard now is. Taking most of their goods, they began their removal one morning, and went down to Pence's Fort, which consisted of some block-houses, and was situated four miles northeast of Oquawka,

Having at the time nearly 150 cords of wood at the yard, the two sons of the senior Denison, William and Erastus, were left behind to cord up what was not piled, and to sell as much as they could to the steamboats. In the turn that affairs took, this wood was all lost.

. A Frenchman by the name of Pentacosa, who called himself Coty, had a trading house at New Boston, and that evening the young Denisons went up to stay with him. In the night the Indians surrounded the premises and assaulted the building; the three inmates escaped by the back way, and gliding swiftly but cautiously down to the edge of the river, followed along precipitately under the bank, the Indians coming behind and whooping with vengeance. The fleeing men waded the Edwards at the mouth, and then struck for Pope creek, at a point where it was spanned by a foot-log, five miles distant. At this point a dog in pursuit closed up with them and Erastus Denison shot him. The Indians were last heard here, about a quarter of a mile back, and it is supposed they threw up the chase at the creek.

The party continued their flight apprehensive of pursuit until Coty gave out and was secreted by his companions in the tall grass, in a sink or basin. The two men now went forward as rapidly as the darkness of night would allow; and arrived at Pence's at two in the morning, having accomplished the flight of sixteen miles since nightfall. At daylight the men at the stockade turned out to go for the Frenchman, and when he had been safely brought in they went up the river together in boats to the Upper Yellow Banks, and brought away all his goods from the trading post. Two squaws were found sitting in the house, having been stationed there to take care of the place and prevent its being despoiled.

After peace was made and the families returned, the Indians aifected to have much sport in telling the Denison boys that in their flight they made the brash crack as if they had been bucks.

Just being satisfied with their confinement at the fort, the Denisons, a week later, went to Monmouth to stay. John Denison bought a house and a small piece of ground, and lived there through the summer. In the fall they came back to New Boston in time to put up hay for winter. William Denison returned to his old place on the river, but John went back two miles, where he made a farm. Mrs. Denison had three small children, and that fall she stayed alone with the children in her house a week, while her husband went back to Monmouth to get his com and potatoes. Mother Denison was a brave woman and felt no alarm, though she heard the guns of the Indian hunters as they were fowling, and her husband's absence was prolonged several days beyond expectation:

The same day that the Denisons left the Upper Yellow Banks, Benjamin Yannatta, who was living at Keithsburg, loaded up his goods at night and drove out on the prairie and remained in a low place, .going from there next day to the fort.

Just before hostilities ended a party of seven Indians penetrated the country as far as Little York, and creeping up on a young man named Martin, who was mowing on the prairie, all fired upon him at once and shot him dead. They afterward said that they could have killed many more, but being acquainted with them, and having been fed and warmed by them, they were deterred from taking their lives. Uufortunately, Martin was a stranger who had never had the privilege of bestowing a favor. A company of rangers was raised that summer at Monmouth, and this command scoured the country between Oquawka, New Boston and Monmouth. A detachment of these was sent out after this prowling band and pursued them so close that they threw away everything in their flight, and escaped across the Mississippi.

When Black Hawk returned from bis tour to Washington, he had the candor to tell his people that Keokuk was right in his estimate of the strength and number of the whites, and assured them that instead of being as numerous as the trees of the Mississippi valley they were as numberless as the trees and the leaves together.

William Denison had a very handsome daughter by the name of Julia, about fifteen years old, for whom the savages conceived a great fancy and to buy whom they exhausted every means. Mother Denison cannot remember the offers that were made by her savage admirers, but thinks that they at one time brought thirty ponies. They came several times to urge a bargain. That young lady is now the wife of Judge Ephraim Gilmore, of Aledo.

Nancy Denison, daughter of John Deaison (now Mrs. William Willett, of Keithsburg), was another white child whom the savages were bent on possessing, and several times attempted to kidnap. The .squaws would pick her up and wrap her in a blanket, but before they could get away the vigilant watch dog would discover their movements, and assailing them furiously, compel them to leave her. They were often at the house, and by making much of her, and giving her presents, had artfully won her childish confidence so that she was greatly pleased at the prospect of going with them. She learned to converse in the Indian as early as in her own tongue.

History of Mercer and Henderson County

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