Archaeology

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A Proposal

A 1908 rendering of a privy.

I want to excavate an outhouse.

Now to explain the “why” inherent after that statement, I have found that a narrative is in order. The town of Shabbona Grove, Illinois, was founded in the winter of 1836 when Edmund Town and David Smith moved from the “abandoned” residences of the Potawatomi Indians into the first permanent wooden house. In less than 20 years, Shabbona Grove exploded to a population over 900 with immigrants and frontier families, boasting of two school houses, a couple of trade stores, a saloon, a blacksmith, and other necessary businesses. However, when the railway came not 4 miles north of the village in 1871, the town quickly became defunct. The new town of Shabbona, sitting on the rail to Chicago, boomed as new schoolhouses, churches, businesses, and residents moved onto the prairie. By 1900, only 100 people remained in Shabbona Grove. Today, 4 houses on gravel roads mark where this prosperous town used to be.

I grew up in Shabbona proper and I never encountered this history. Shabbona Grove represents the story of little towns all across the Midwest whose growth and decline depended on the flow of people and goods from the East. In this small place, the interaction between material culture and networks of exchange become crucially important. I am interested in how and from where the people of this small place received, used, and interacted with the material artifacts of everyday life.

In order to attack these questions as an archaeologist, I must look into the reminants of those everyday practices. These experiences may be understood through the base truth of human existence: garbage. In the pre‐twentieth century that I am most interested in, garbage condensed in two places‐ in garbage pits for kitchen refuse and outhouses. I have chosen an area within the town of Shabbona Grove itself, on the corner of West and Short Street (of which Short Street no longer exists). Though my research talking to current residents, I have found that a house did stand on that location well into the 1920s, though there is no map to my knowledge that shows when the house was built or where it exactly stood. Today there are no above‐surface indications of the foundation. However, there is a good chance that privy remains intact, as there has been no further use of the land after the house was removed. We can guess that the privy was located near the back of the lot, near the alley, as was common practice.

The Shabbona Grove Archaeological Project is aimed at locating, recording, and excavating the remains of outhouse or midden (garbage) deposits as associated with the house at West and Short. Further investigations with the local historical society may be able to associate those remains with the residents themselves, providing a very intimate study of rural life in the mid to late‐1800s.

Shabbona Grove: Origins

Shabbona Grove Church, undated photo. No longer intact.

The Origins of the Town

Edmund Town and David Smith built the first permanent wooden house in the area during the winter of 1836. The woodland was known to be a seasonal stop for Shabbona’s family and was hence given the name “Shabbona Grove”. Before Town’s house was built, Edmund and David helped themselves to the cleared areas made by its regular inhabitants as the proximity to Indian Creek and forested areas made the spot very attractive. A 1871 history states that “While building this [Edmund Town’s first] house, they lived in the deserted wigwams of the Indians, who had gone west about three months before. The Indians never made a permanent home at this place, but came and went every year or two. During this time, many whites had been attracted to the grove, and became settlers at this place, and were on friendly terms with the Indians, and ever since that time, the country surrounding the grove has improved very fast.”[i] The fear of Indians in the area had been replaced by the confidence in the friendly countenance of its name-bearer Shabbona. The histories all confirm Shabbona’s gentility and amiability, earning him the nickname “Friend of the White Man” and separate entry into the histories apart from his Potawatomi brothers. He even got featured in A.E. Strand’s 1905 History of the Norwegians of Illinois, which related the sad story of Shabbona and his family’s treatment. In a bought of bad timing, Shabbona and his family went west of the Mississippi in 1837 and when they returned to Illinois in 1855 all of his former residences had been claimed by speculators. Although he had been promised his tract of land by the government, white settlers claimed he had either abandoned or sold his right to the land before he left. No longer welcomed in his own Shabbona Grove, citizens of Ottawa Illinois “generously” donated 20 acres for Shabbona and his entire extended family near Seneca. He died in 1859 at approximately 84 years and was buried there. Plans for a monument in his honor were proposed, but never fulfilled for a lack of funds following the financial hardship of the early 1860s.[ii]

Memories of the devastating fear surrounding settlement in Indian country were quickly replaced with a paternalistic concern and nostalgia for the local Indians. But that nostalgia and remembrance would not stop the influx of new settlers into the area. The town grew according to the pattern of other small Illinois towns, in places with forest and access to a sizable stream.[iii] The area that was to become Shabbona township was mostly prairie, excepting Shabbona Grove.[iv] So that is where people settled. Following the idea that woodland cover promoted easier and more fertile agriculture, settlement was contained to the Grove. Within 10 years of the first white settlers, a new legal precinct of Shabbona was carved out of southern Paw Paw and in 1848 the township organization was enacted. Economic hardship and the lack of cash made settlement difficult still in this “frontier” place; in 1845 “Settlers were more anxious to leave the county than to move to it.”[v] An idyllic remembrance, however states that “The Indians…lived by [the white settlers’] side in perfect peace and good fellowship. The children of the white families were numerous, and in 1842 two school houses were built at the grove for their instruction…They were an honest and law abiding population, and struggled courageously with the poverty and many hardships which were common to all the inhabitants at this early day.”[vi] These settlers were committed to the land and when questions surrounding the legality of the titles of the land were brought up in 1848, 150 armed citizens mobilized north to Dixon to prevent speculators bidding on the land. “Arrived at Dixon, they found a number of men prepared to purchase their lands, and they arranged to seize any bidder, and drown him in [the] Rock River. Their resolute aspect overawed all opposition and they secured their lands at the minimum rate” of $1.25 an acre.[vii] Within a matter of a decade, Indian Country had transformed from the base of settlers’ fears to a strong Anglo community with roads, houses, schools, and legal precedence.

Shabbona was still a small place, however. Confined to the small grove, the “town had steady growth in early years, but…lapsed into gradual decay.”[viii] Shabbona could not grow as a community without expanding outside of the wooded area. In 1855, seven years after formally being recognized, the population stood at 966. At the next census in 1861, however, the population had stagnated, dropping by 3.[ix] However, interest in the area suddenly exploded when rumors of railroad coming through DeKalb County spread. Railroads came north and south of the area within 15 miles in 1851 and 1853, through DeKalb and Ottawa. “Most of the lands in [DeKalb County] were taken up during [1852], as there was a prospect that the county would soon be made accessible to market by railroads; therefore it induced a good many settlers and speculators to purchase the wild prairie land…the first Agricultural Society of the county was organized and held an exhibition.”[x] Although Shabbona could still transport its goods to these major areas and property values had risen markedly, it remained outside railway’s direct influence. Construction for a line through the township itself did not come until 1871, and it is unclear when the line was actually serviceable. More than that, the line was not constructed towards the actual town! Rather, the railway cut through the center of the township on the prairie, where there had been little settlement. An 1868 property map labels “Shabbona Village” in segments 25 and 26, south of the future railroad and well within the defined grove.[xi] The village was not meant to stay there, however.

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[i] Thompson and Everts, 1871. Combination Atlas Map of DeKalb County Illinois. Geneva, IL. Page 6.

[ii] .E. Strand. 1905. A History of the Norwegians of Illinois: A concise record of the struggles and achievements of the early settlers together with a narrative of what is now being done by the Norwegian-Americans of Illinois in the development of their adopted country. John Anderson Publish Company, Chicago. Page 58.

[iii] See John M Faragher, 1986. Sugar Creek: Life on the Illinois Prairie. Yale University Press, New Haven.

[iv] Lewis M. Gross. 1907. Past and Present of DeKalb County, Illinois. The Pioneer Publishing Company, Chicago.

[v] Thompson and Everts, 1871. Page 6.

[vi] Henry L. Boies, 1922. “History of Shabbona, IL” in The History of De Kalb County, Illinois. O.P. Bassett, Chicago. http://history.rays-place.com/il/dek-shabbona.htm Accessed March 14, 2011.

[vii] Ibid.

[viii] Lewis M. Gross, 1907. Past and Present of DeKalb County, Illinois. The Pioneer Publishing Company, Chicago: 122.

[ix] Thompson and Everts, 1871. Combination Atlas Map of DeKalb County Illinois. Geneva, IL. Page 6.

[x] Ibid.

[xi] Boies, Henry L., 1868. History of DeKalb County, Illinois. O.P. Bassett Publishing, Chicago.

Shabbona Grove: European Fear

Lithograph from a report of the 1832 "Indian Creek Massacre".

Before White Settlement

Northern Illinois remained an impenetrable frontier much later than other parts of southern Illinois and Wisconsin. Although French settlements grew among the major waterways and trading routes throughout the 18^th century, the interior prairie remained Indian country. The Potawatomi and Sauk controlled much of this territory, including Chicago and what was to become DeKalb County. All of the reports about Indian settlement in the area prior to 1838 relate to the incidents surround Chief Shabbona himself and the Black Hawk War.

The exact origins of Shabbona the man remain clouded in a repeated history of white fantasy. Born sometime around 1775 in Michigan, Ohio, or somewhere in Canada, Shabbona married into the Potawatomi elite and fought with Tecumsah in the War of 1812. Afterwards, all of the texts agree, Shabbona had a change of heart regarding the incoming white settlers and regarded their settlement inevitable. He is credited with the quote that “the army of pale faces you will have to encounter will be as numerous as the leaves on those trees”.[i] What is clear is that he refused to join Black Hawk and his British Band in 1832. He is also credited with warning white settlers in the area of impending attacks, with some reports of him travelling over 70 miles to Chicago give notice of Black Hawk’s plan. In May of 1832, a band of Potawatomi warriors attacked a settlement about 12 miles south of the future village that was on the same tributary of Indian Creek. Although Shabbona had warned the village of tensions arising from a dammed tributary, his calls had gone unheaded. Fifteen settlers were killed, and two teenage girls were taken hostage. Fears ran high about the “savage” nature of the increased hostility between the settlers and the local peoples. The writing of William Edwards reflects this fear in his rendition of the event. “No language can express the cruelties that were committed; in less than half an hour more than one half of the inhabitants were inhumanly butchered—they horribly mutilated both young and old, male and female, without distinction of age or sex!”[ii]. News of the “Massacre at Indian Creek” spread across Illinois and beyond to warn of Indian hostilities. A lithograph was produced with the story to further sensationalize the event (See photo above).

No one wanted to live in such a place where raving bands of warriors might terrorize white settlers. Northern Illinois and the northern Mississippi watershed remained a dangerous place for white settlers until the conclusion of the fighting in spring of 1833. Shabbona achieved special respect after the outcome of the conflict and as the “Peace Chief” of his band and was allowed to stay in the area. “He effectually aided the whites in the contest [of the Black Hawk War], and in consideration of his services the government reserved a tract of land for his use at Shabbona’s Grove…and gave him a pension of $200.”[iii] Even after the fighting, the first permanent white settlers in the Shabbona Grove area did not arrive until 1836.

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[i] From: Robert Mann. 1964. “Shabbona: Friend of the White Men.” Forest Preserve District of Cook County, Nature Bulletin No. 748. http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/natbltn/700-799/nb748.htm. Other versions of the quote exist in other sources. The most common interaction (as documented on Wikipedia) as concerning the quote with Black Hawk: "Join me," Black Hawk told him, "and our warriors will number like the trees in the forests." To which Shabbona replied, "that is true, but the white men number like the leaves on those trees.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabbona. Accessed March 14, 2011.

[ii] Edwards, William P. 1832. Narrative of the Capture and Providential Escape of Misses Frances and Almira Hall, Two Respectable Young Women (Sisters) of the Ages of 16 and 18--Who Were Taken Prisoners By the Savages, at a Frontier Settlement, Near Indian Creek, in May Last, When Fifteen of the Inhabitants Fell Victims to the Bloody Tomahawk and Scalping Knife ; Among Whom Were the Parents of the Unfortunate Females. Likewise is Added, the Interesting Narrative of the Captivity and Sufferings of Philip Brigdon, A Kentuckian, Who Fell Into the Hands of the Merciless Savages on Their Return to Their Settlement, Three Days After the Bloody Massacre . New York. Northern Illinois University Libraries Digitization Projects. http://lincoln.lib.niu.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.47:2.lincoln Accessed March 14, 2011.

[iii] A.E. Strand. 1905. A History of the Norwegians of Illinois: A concise record of the struggles and achievements of the early settlers together with a narrative of what is now being done by the Norwegian-Americans of Illinois in the development of their adopted country. John Anderson Publish Company, Chicago. Page 58.

Introduction

Hello and Welcome to the Shabbona Grove Archaeological Project!

This website will show updates from an excavation located in Shabbona Grove in August and September, 2011. This historical project helps to delve into the lives of earlier inhabitants in DeKalb County and their lifeways. Shabbona Grove was founded in 1836 and quickly grew to a population over 2,000. The excavation hopes to uncover more information about a house (and the families that occupied it) that stood into the 20th century but is now without any above-ground indications of its presence. We're hoping to find some mid-late 18th century garbage!

Don't hesitate to contact me with questions or information about volunteering!