Teresa Kisko - Received e-mail from G. Lovrekovic of Harriet J. Spragg Vanhorn. Obituary in Beaver County Times/Allegheny Times 2002
Harriet J. Spragg Vanhorn, 82, of Strattanville, died Tuesday, July 9, 2002, in Allegheny General Hospital. Born Feb 6, 1920, in Holbrook, a daughter of the late Okey and Nellie Kerns Roberts, she was married to the late Lloyd Elbert Spragg, in 1939, and to the late Ezra Vanhorn Jr., in 1988. She was a homemaker and enjoyed her family, camping, fishing and travel.
She was preceded in death by her first husband, Lloyd Elbert Spragg, in 1980; her second husband, Ezra Vanhorn Jr., in 1999; four brothers and a sister.
Surviving are a son and daugther-in-law, Larry Elbert and Beulah Spragg, Monaca; two daughters and a son-in-law, Ruth Ann Strowmatt, Clinton, and Connie and Jim Judy, Lucinda; a step=daughter, Jane and her husband Kelly Farmer, Akron, Ohio; a sister, Elanor Miller, Clinton; six grandchildren and their spouses; five stepgrandchildren; two great-grandchildren, and five step-great-grandchildren.
Friends will be received today from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. in the GLOBAL FUNERAL HOME OF CLARION, 330 Wood St., Clarion, where services will be held on Friday at 11 a.m.
Interment will follow in the Cedarview Memorial Park, near Strattanville.
Found at http://www.iltrails.org/madison/wrmassa.htm
Among the various incidents of the early settlements of Illinois, and those of the last war with Great Britain, that have commanded the attention of writers, there is one which I do not remember to have seen in print, that well deserves to be preserved among the records of frontier hardihood and suffering. I refer to the massacre of a woman and six children, by the Indians, in the forks of Wood river, in 1814. The following is given as an authentic sketch of the facts, taken from the lips of Captain Abel Moore and his wife, who were sufferers in the transaction.
Travellers who have passed on the direct road from Edwardsville to Carrollton will remember at a pleasant plantation on the banks of the east branch of Wood river, a short distance from the dwelling house and powder mill of Mr. George Moore, an old building composed of rough,round logs, the upper story of which projects about a foot on every side, beyond the basement. this, in times of peril, was a block house, or in the common phrase, a fort, to which the early settlers resorted for safety. Pursuing the road about two miles, to an elevated point on the bank of the west fork, where the road turns abruptly down into the creek, another farm, now in possession of a younger member of the family of Moores, exhibits the former residence of Reason Reagan; and midway betwwen those two points resides Captain Abel Moore, on the same spot which he occupied at the period to which our narraative relates. William Moore lived nearly south of Abel's on a road which passes toward Milton. Upper Alton is from two to three miles, and Lower Alton four or five miles distant from the scene of action.
It appears that while the gallant rangers were scouring the country, ever on the alert, the inhabitants, who for several years had huddled together in forts, for fear of the Indians, had in the summer of 1814, attained to such a sense of security that they went to their farms and dwellings, with the hope of escaping further depredations. In the forks of the Wood river, were some six or eight families, whose men were for the most part in the ranging service, and whose women and children were thus left to labor for and defend themselves. The block house whichI have described was their place of resort on any alarm; but the inconvenience and difficulty of clustering so thickly induced them to leave it as soon as prudence would at all permit.
Nor had the hardy inhabitants forgotten amidst their dangers the duties of social life, nor their high obligations to their Creator. The Sabbath shone, not only upon the domestic circle, as gathered around the fireside altar, but its hallowed light was shed on groups collected in the rustic edifices which the piety of the people had erected for divine worship.
It was on the Sabbath, the tenth of July, 1814, that the painful occurence took place which II now record. Reason Reagan had gone to attend divine woship at the meeting house, some three miles off, leaving his wife and two children at the house of Abel Moore, which was on the way. About four o'clock in the afternoon Mrs. Reagan went over to her own dwelling to procure some little article of convenience, being accompanied by six children, two of whom were her own; two were children of Abel Moore, and two fo William Moore. Not far from, probably a little after, the same time, two men of the neighborhood passed separately, I believe, along the road in the opposite direction to that in which Mrs. Reagan went; and one of them heerd at a certain place, a low call, as of a boy, which he did not answer, and for a repetition of which he did not delay. But he rememberd and told it afterward.
When it began to grow dark the families became uneasy at the protracted absence of their respective members; and William Moore came to Abel's and not finding them there, passed on towards Mr. Reagan's too see what had become of his sister-in-law and chilren; and nearly about the same time, hise wife went across the angle directly towards the same place.
Mr. Moore had noot been long absent from his brother's before he returned with the information that some one had been killed by the Indians. He had discerned the body of a person lying on the ground, but whether man or woman it was too dark for him to see without a closer inspection than was deemed safe. The habits of the Indians were too well known by these settlers to leave a man in Mr. Moore's situation free from the apprehension of an ambuscade still near.
The first thought that occurred was to flee to the block house. Mr. Moore desired his brother's family to go directly to thefort while he should pass by his own house to take his family with him. But the night was now dark, and the heavy forest was at that time scarcely opened here and there by a little farm, while the narrow road wound through among the tall trees from the farm of Abel Moore to that of his brother, Geo. Moore, where the fort was erected. The women and children therefore chose to accompany William Moore, though the distance was nearly doubled by the measure.
The feelings of the group as they groped theirr way through the dark woods, may be more easily imagined than described. Sorrow, for the supposed loss of relatives and children was mingled with horror at the manner of their death, fear for their own safety, and pain at the dreadful idea that the remains of their dearest friends lay mangled on the cold ground near them while they were denied the privilege of seeing and preparing them for sepulture.
Silently they passed on till they came to the dwelling of William Moore, and when they approached the entrance he exclaimed, as if relieved from some dreadful apprehension "Thank God, Polly is not killed." How do you know?" inquired one. "Because there is the horse she road." My informant then first learned that his brother-in-law had feared, until that moment, that his wife was the victim that he had discovered.
As they let down the bars, Mrs. William Moore came running out, exclaiming " They are all killed by the Indians, I expect!" The mourning friends went in for a short time, but hastily departed to the block house, whither by daybreak all or nearly all the neighbors, having been warned by signals, repaired to sympathize and tremble.
I have mentioned that Mrs. William Moore went, as well as her hsband, in search of her sister and children. Passing by different routes, they did not meet on the way, nor at the place of death. She jumped on a horse and hastily went in the nearest direction, and as she went, carefully noted every discernible object until at length she saw a human figure lying near a burning log. There was not sufficient light for her to discern the size, sex or condition of the person, and she called the name of one and an other of her children, again and again, supposing it to be one of them asleep. At length she alighted and approached to examine more closely. What must have been her sensations on placing her hand upon the back of a naked corpse and feeling, by further scrutiny, the quivering flesh from which the scalp had been torn! In the gloom of night she could just discern something, seeming like a little child sitting so near the body as to lean its head, first one side, and then the other, on the insensible and mangled body. She saw no further, but thrilled with horror and alarm, remounted her horse and hastened home; and when she arrived, quickly put a large kettle of water over the fire, intending to defend herself with scalding water, in case of an attack.
There was little rest or refreshment as may well be supposed, at the fort that night. The women and children of the vicinity, together with a few men who were at home, were crowded together, not knowing but that a large body of the savage foe might be prowling about, ready to pour a deadly fire upon them at any moment, a neighbor and six of the children of the settlement were probably lying in the wood, within a mile or two dead and mangled by that dreadful enemy! What about subjects of thought and feeling? About three o'clock a messenger was despatched to Fort Russell with the tidings.
In the morning the inhabitants undertook the painful task of ascertaining the extent of their calamity, and collecting the remains for burial. The whole party, Mrs. Reagan and six children, were found lying at intervals along theroad, tomahawked and scalped, and all dead, except the youngest of Mrs. Reagan's children, which was sitting near its mother's corpse, alive, with a gash, deep and large, on each side of its little face. It were idle to speak of the emotion that filled the souls of the neighbors, and friends, and fathers, and mothers, and husband, who gathered round to behold this awful spectable. There lay the mortal remains of six of those whom, but yeterday, they had seen and embraced, in health; and there was one helpless little one, wounded and bleeding and dying, an object of painful solicitude, but scarcely of hope.
To women and youth, chiefly was committed the painful task of depositing their dear remains in the tomb. This was performed on the six already dead on that day. They were interred in three graves, which were carefully dug, so as to lay boards beneath, beside and above the bodies-for there could be no coffins be provided in the absence of nearly all the men- and the graves being filled, they were left to receive in aftertimes when peace had visited the settlement, a simple covering of stone, bearing an inscription descriptive of their death.
It was a solemn day, observed my informant, to follow seven bodies to the grave, at once, from so small a settlement; and they, too, buried under such painful circumtances. Could we have followed that train to the grave in which their little church and cemetery were embowered, would we not feel that the procession, the occasion, the ceremony, the emotions were of a character too awful, too sacred to admit of minute observation then; or accurate description now? The seventh, however, was not then buried. The child found alive, received every possible attention; medical aid was procured with great difficulty, but in vain. It followed within a day or two at most.
On the arrival of the messenger at Fort Russell, a fresh express was hastened to Captain (now General) Samuel Whiteside's company which was on Ridge Prairie, some four miles east of Edwardsville.
It was about an hour after sunrise, on Monday morning, when the gallant troops aarrived on the spot-having rode some fifteen miles-ready to weep with the bereaved and to avenge them of their ruthless foes. Abel Moore who was one of the rangers then on duty, and of course, absent at the catastrophe, was permitted to remain at home to assist in burying his children and relatives, and the company dashed on, eager to overtake and engage in deadly conflict with the savages. I regret that I have no recent account of the particulars of this interesting pursuit; and that my memory does not hold them with sufficient distinctness to warrant an attempt at the narration. At Indian creek, in what is now Morgan county, some three or four of the Indians were seen, and one killed and it is a current report among the rangers that not one of the ten that composed the party, survived the fatigue of the retreat before the eager troop--Western Monthly Magazine. From the Sangamo Journal, April 2, 1841
Teresa Kisko- Information received from Gerry Hooten gerryrenee@aol.com states Mary "Polly" Thomas Moore you can read about her in the "wood river massacre" in wood river Illinois. Evan's other daughter Rachael and her children were killed in this massacre.
Found at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~glendasubyak/ch64.html
Chapter 64
Indian Massacre at Wood River; Rangers' Pursuit Leads to Pike Border
THE COMING OF THE ELLEDGES, and their immediate predecessors, the Scotts and Bealls (or Bells), all kindred and inter-related families, to this region in 1818-19 and the early 1820s is one of the epic adventures of the great valley. The story of this first settlement, strangely enough, has its beginning in an Indian massacre on Wood River, near present Alton, in July, 1814. Col. John Shaw, noted pioneer and founder of Coles' Grove (first Pike county justice seat), told briefly of this massacre in his narrative of Indian war on the Pike county border, reproduced in earlier chapters of this history. Said he: "In July, 1814, two families had been killed by the Indians in the Wood River settlement, east of Alton; their names were Moore and Reagan. Capt. Samuel Whitesides, who shortly after served on Major Taylor's expedition, immediately pursued the Indians with some 30 to 50 Illinois Rangers. Being then in that region seeking supplies as commissary (this was during the war of 1812), I went along as a spy and volunteer. We trailed the Indians towards the junction of the Sangamon with the Illinois and just at dusk of the evening we last saw them enter a thicket in the bottoms of the Illinois, just below the mouth of the Sangamon, where the Indians had probably left their canoes." Shaw tells of the thrilling race for life across the prairies of Illinois, until the Indians, beating the Rangers to the river by barely a rifle-shot, finally climbed the bank on the western side into what is now Pike county, whence they escaped into the wild McGee creek country. He tells of sighting the fleeing Indians at various stages of the pursuit and of an old Indian, exhausted from the hot chase, dropping on the prairies just before his comrades entered the thickets bordering the river bank, and of the killing of this old fellow by the Rangers; after which they camped for the night near the spot where they killed him, some distance below present Naples, and the next morning set out on their return to the fort on Wood River. On the east side of the river, seeking further data with reference to the episode thus briefly recorded by Shaw, the writer found much information corroborating and elaborating Shaw's account. The best account of the memorable pursuit is that of old Uncle Johnny Sample, who related the details to Judge Henderson, an early historian of the Sangamon country, which was in turn incorporated in a history of Scott county by the late Judge J. M. Riggs of Winchester. John Sample was with John Shaw in the pursuit; he was the father of Charles Sample, one time sheriff of Morgan county; he died many years ago on a farm near Jacksonville. His story: Early in the month of July, 1814, parts of three families were murdered on Wood River, near where Alton now stands, in what was then Madison county. (Note: Present Pike county was then also a part of Madison county.) Seven were killed in all. They had been up to the fort and were returning on Sunday evening. The killed were Reagan's wife and two of his children, two of Abel Moore's boys and two of William Moore's boys. All were killed except one little girl, who escaped and gave the alarm. Soon, the Wood River settlement was in arms. Rifles were hurriedly cleaned and bullets moulded. Capt. William Whitesides and 50 rangers took the trail, leaving old George Moore and the women and children in the fort. The Indians were on foot. They proceeded northward through what are now Jersey, Greene and Morgan counties. Several were along who could "trail an Indian as fast as a horse could gallop." Among them were John Shaw (know among the Indians as Es-sap-pan or the Raccoon because of his cunning and sagacity), Peter Waggoner (kinsman of the early Pike county Waggoners), and Samuel Beeman, another noted figure on the old military tract. In Indians took every advantage, threading almost impenetrable thickets and wading miry swamps. At Brown's Point, near present Manchester, Waggoner shot an Indian. The Indian had hidden behind the roots of a tree. Waggoner shot him without checking his horse from a gallop. A little further on, Samuel Beeman shot another Indian. The Indian had climbed up a grape vine and hidden among the branches of a tree. It was never known for certain whether or not these Indians belonged to the Wood River band of murderers. They may have been inoffensive hunters. The following morning, the Rangers described in the Island Grove a spot where the Indians had camped over night; the fires were still burning. (Note: Island Grove was a large body of timber, surrounded with rich prairie, 16 miles west of present Springfield, on the road to present Jacksonville.) Everything indicated the pursuing horsemen were close onto the fleeing savages. The trail led westward, toward the Illinois river and present Pike county. Now it was a race for life; the Indians trying to reach the river, the Rangers urging their jaded steeds to overtake the band. To Island Grove, pursued and pursuers had followed the "old Indian trail" that for centuries had been traveled by the tribes between Cahokia and Peoria. At Island Grove, the Indians, instead of crossing the Sangamon, turned west to take advantage of the high ground and brushy woods of the Mauvaisterre, which after starting from the headwaters afforded an unbroken line of shelter to the Illinois river. The high mounds on the prairie were used as posts of observation. On one of these mounds, northwest of present Alexander, the Indians rested and here they threw away everything that encumbered their flight. Near present Jacksonville, the Rangers were so close upon the Indians that the latter ran into the swamp for safety. All the region between what is now the city of Jacksonville and Mauvaisterre Creek was then low marsh. Into this the Rangers attempted to follow on foot, a number of their horses having mired down. Here eighteen of the Rangers turned back, the remainder dividing into two parties, one to take care of the horses, the balance pursuing into the swamps on foot. The Indians at length emerged from the swamp lands at the north part of the groves, west of modern Jacksonville, and hurried west. From here to the Illinois river the race was close. The Rangers repeatedly were in sight of the Indians. Nearing the river, south of modern Naples and north of early Philips Ferry, one of the Indians, a corpulent old fellow, gave out. He was armed with a gun and appeared ready to sell his life as dearly as possible. A rifle ball broke one of his legs and caused him to fall in the grass. Then one Ranger attracted his attention on one side, while another rose up on the opposite side and shot him. Meanwhile, the rest of the band disappeared in the thickets bordering the river. Rushing forward after dispatching the old Indian, the Rangers were just in time to see the Indians crossing the river about a mile below. Hastening down to the water's edge they discharged their guns at them as they climbed the opposite bank into present Pike county, whence they disappeared into the wilds of the McGee creek country. Among those participating in this race for life across the Illinois prairies were John Shaw, William Moore, Abel Moore, Peter Waggoner, Samuel Beeman, and John and William Sample, the latter of whom settled later at West Port, Iowa. William and Abel Moore had each lost two sons in the Wood River massacre. These men who in 1814 pursued this murdering band of Indians to the eastern border of what is now Pike county did not then know it, but they were paving the way for the first settlement of this region.
died at the age of 10
died at the age of 8.
