Fullersburg
Indian village No. 21

It has already been stated that the two principal fords of the Desplaines river where trails I & J, leading west from the Chicago crossed, were at the Indian villages of Harlem and Lyons. On these two trails were located the only Indian villages upon the plain between the Desplaines and the Fox rivers. At a distance of six miles and between these two trails we find Indian village No. 21, straggling along a confluent of the Desplains called Salt creek, seemingly to unite in one village. A few miles to the west were the remaining three Indian villages, upon the same plateau, cut up by the DuPage river.

Mr Ed. Fuller, son of David Fuller after whom Fullersburg, formerly Brush Hill, was named says that his father used to speak about an Indian mound on the west bank of the creek and that in the early days there was a house built upon it. The site of the mound could probably be traced from his fathers old log house. Carl Engle, about 1880, occupied the farm house south of David Fuller. When the Indian mound was mentioned to him says: "I had the farm and lived in the house more that ten years. David Fuller and myself were old firends and neighbors, we used to have long talks about the early pioneer days. it was then he told me about the house I lived in having been built by one Silvester Davis who left here about 1849. When making the cellar he found he was digging into an Indian mound. Then he told about the Indian cabin that was here when Davis came and about the great number of stone weapons and implements found upon the grounds. And after that Mr Davis was visited by a party of relic hunters who paid him one hundred dollars for plowing up several acres of ground around the house and for relics thus obtained." The premises here mentioned is the northeast quarter Section 35, York Township, DuPage County. The house is just south of the public road and west of the creek.

Proud Chicago, from its infancy it has had the reputation of being marshy in its approach. This of course from the first settlers who came from the east and south. But, the Chicago region received older settlers and sojourners who came from the Southwest by way of St Louis and Cahokia upon an ancient highway, which reaches Chicago over the divide between the Fox and Desplaines rivers. Governor John Reynolds, January 15th 1831, signed a bill making three new counties from the north part of Peoria county, named respectively from east to west: Cook, La Salle, & Putnam.

General Scott, as late as 1832, selected this, trail J, as one of the trails when looking for Black Hawk and his band of painted savages. "General Scott moved his quarters from Fort Dearborn to the banks of the Desplaines river, -- he sent the main body (of his army) to the present site of Beloit, then a deserted Winnebago village." "Here (the banks of the Desplaines river) instructions came from the General in Chief for the army to march to Fort Armstrong on Rock Island, to which place General Scott with his staff had arrived by a hasty march across the country by way of Naperville." History, Illinois, Blanchard page 65. Just previous to this at Indian creek, Wedron La Salle county, a few families, the Hall and others, who did not heed the warning of Shabbona to flee to the fort in Ottawa were massacred to the number of fifteen by a band of seventy Indians.

Indian village No. 21 was a series of Indian camps supplementary to those at the Desplaines river and the center of main trails entering the Chicago portage directly from the west. Two large camps were here, one (on the extension of Ogden Ave) at Brush Hill, Fullersburg. The other in the northeast quarter Sec 26, town York, DuPage county, where there is a ford and a local trail coming in from the east. From the natural mound in Sec 17 town Proviso, a view is had as far east as the six mile house, this was a place for signalling across the country. The Indian camp in the northwest quarter Sec 23 town York was located in the bed of a dried up spring. About twenty five years ago, the spring broke out afresh and is now used by the Elmhurst water works. Another Indian camp was east of the creek and north of the Warrenville Road trail in Sec 14.

At Fullersburg the remains of Indian camp sites are found and a trail of chips extending for two miles with the creek and trail J, which was crossed here by a lateral trail coming down from the north and dividing into two running south. The one to Indian village No. 23 on Flagg creek and Willow Springs, the other to Sag Island and Byrnville.

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