The year 1831 was known to early settlers in Illinois as “The Dry Year.” There was little rain and there were long spells of great heat, so that vegetation was parched and the crop a failure. The season of 1832 was just the opposite.14 During the first half of the month of May there were numerous heavy thunder storms with intervals of hot weather that made the grass and flowers grow very rapidly, but delayed the farmers in their planting. Also, the several Indian scares interrupted the settlers in their regular work in the fields.

As already stated, immediately after the breaking up of the Indian council after the defeat of Stillman, Shabona rode in post haste to the Davis Settlement and warned the people of the danger of an Indian massacre. The whites loaded on their wagons such articles as could be readily handled, and drove to Ottawa, the nearest fort, where there was a garrison of soldiers.

The Indians did not make the expected raid, and slowly the settlers returned to their homesteads. During this retreat some of the people tantalized Davis for running away from the Indians, and his reply was that he would never do so again.

On Monday morning, May 21st, Shabona again rode to the Davis Settlement and warned the whites that there was immediate danger of a massacre. At this time it happened that Davis was at Ottawa on some business when Shabona called. However, his family and the neighbors hastily loaded their furniture and other movable articles on wagons, and hurriedly drove off to Ottawa. They had almost reached the fort when they met Davis, who ordered his own family to return, and urged the return of his immediate neighbors, inviting them all to go to his place where they would be perfectly safe. The Halls, Hendersons and Pettigrews, with two farm hands named Henry George and Robert Norris, reluctantly returned with Davis, and arrived at his cottage about noon.

After dinner John W. Henderson, Alexander Davis and a younger son of William Davis, Edward and Greenbury Hall, and Allen Howard, went to a field about one hundred rods south of the Davis cottage, to plant corn. In the middle of the afternoon William Hall, John W. Hall, Robert Norris, Henry George and William Davis, Jr., who were working on the mill-dam, gathered into the blacksmith shop where Davis was repairing his gun, to get a drink from a pail of water which had been brought from a nearby spring. All the loaded guns and the ammunition were in the dwelling house, where Pettigrew, with his baby in his arms, was chatting with the ladies who were sewing by the open door. The afternoon was very hot and was not inspiring to great exertion. The furniture which had been loaded to drive to Ottawa, was still on the wagons that stood in the yard. The perfume of the blooming flowers filled the air which was rich in its freshness after the many days of rain and lightning. All nature seemed to instill in the little Davis Settlement a feeling of safety or at least to relieve them from alarm during the daytime. With the coming darkness, no doubt, they would have all gathered into the little cottage and some of the men would have stood guard with their guns to watch for Indians.

About four o’clock a party of sixty to seventy Indians suddenly leaped over the garden fence, filled the yard, and part of them rushed towards the house. Mr. Pettigrew leaped forward to close the door, but was instantly shot dead. Through the open door the Indians rushed with spears, and hatchets, and guns, filling the little cottage. There was no place to hide and no chance for the whites to escape. In her despair Mrs. Pettigrew threw her arms around Rachel Hall and was killed by a shot so close to Rachel as to blacken her face with the powder. Rachel jumped upon the bed, which only placed her in view of more Indians and increased the danger of being shot.

The piteous screams of the women and children were terrifying. The Indians stuck them with spears and hacked them with tomahawks without feeling or mercy, and as they fell each victim’s scalp was cut off with a big knife.

An Indian grabbed Pettigrew’s baby by the legs, rushed out doors, swung the child over his head, and dashed its brains out against a stump in the yard. There, also, an Indian on each side held the youngest Davis boy by his hands, the little lad standing pale and silent, and a third Indian shot him dead. As his limp body fell, an Indian scalped him.

In a few moments all the whites in the house excepting Sylvia and Rachel Hall, namely: Mrs. Wm. Hall, aged forty-five years, her daughter Elizabeth, aged eight years, Wm. Pettigrew, his wife and two children, and Mrs. Wm. Davis and her five children, were killed.

The sudden appearance of the Indians bewildered the men who were in the blacksmith shop, as they were cut off from their guns and ammunition. Young Davis slipped behind the shop and thence escaped down the creek. The others rushed towards the house and were met by a volley of shots. William Hall, whose breast was pierced by two bullets, with a prayer on his lips, fell dead at his son John’s feet. Davis called out to John Hall to “Take care!” and then tried to escape to the woods. Notwithstanding his prowess and that he made a desperate fight for his life by using his unloaded gun as a club, he was in a short time so overcome by Indian warriors with their spears and tomahawks that with innumerable wounds he sank dead in his yard. John Hall was so paralyzed by the awful carnage, that for a moment he did not move from where his father lay. He watched the Indians reloading their guns, then as a man awakening from a night-mare he jumped down the high bank and a volley of bullets passed over his head. By hugging closely to the bank next the Indians, he scrambled hastily down the stream and then ran as he never ran before, thus escaping. Norris and George slid down the bank and attempted to cross the creek, but a volley of bullets from the Indians killed one of them as he was climbing the bank, his body falling back into the creek, and the other fell on the green sward above.

John W. Henderson, two sons of Wm. Davis and two sons of Wm. Hall, who were at work in the cornfield when the Indians made the attack upon the Davis cottage, comprehending the situation, hastily fled to Ottawa. They had sped only about two miles when John W. Hall overtook them. By reason of his scudding from death in the great heat and his excited condition, John’s account of the massacre was incoherently told with uncontrolled emotions of grief and rage. Believing that the Indians were pursuing, he did not check his speed, but urged the others to extra efforts until they reached the fort.

Sylvia and Rachel Hall were each seized by two Indians who dragged them out of the cottage to the yard where the final acts of the massacre were taking place.

In their fiendish desire for revenge for Stillman’s treachery and to terrify the whites, the Indians cut out the hearts of some of the slain and otherwise mutilated their bodies. Of all the whites none but Rachel and Sylvia Hall remained alive to witness the closing act of the horrible tragedy. As they saw scattered in the yard the bodies of their murdered parents, their sister, and their neighbors—sixteen in all, the girls were stupefied with horror. The wonder is that the shock did not kill both of them.

The massacre has been described so often, and is so sickening in its particulars, that we drop the curtain on the tragic scene.15

15 3 Smith’s “History of Wisconsin”, 187; “History of La Salle County,” Baldwin, 95; “The Black Hawk War,” Stevens, 150; “Memories of Shabona,” Matson, 145-155; Ottawa Journal, Aug. 30, 1906; 12 Transactions Ill. State Hist. Soc., 332; Ford’s History of Illinois, 122.