For Forest and Stream. 
^orting^emitmcmces off Illinois. 
I N the Forest and Stream of December 24th, I noticed 
a short letter, in which the writer states lliut Rock- 
ford is a handsome city of 14,000 souls, situnted on Rock 
River, in Northwestern Illinois, that the the Indiau name 
for this river was “Sinnissippi," and is the name selected 
for “our club just formed for the protection of fish and 
game.” 
In the Spring of 18:18 I was admitted as a member of 
the legal profession, and had just arrived at my majority. 
Having read and heard the most glowing descriptions of the 
great West, on the 3d day of May, 1838, I took a steamer 
at Pittsburgh, intending to go to Northern Illinois. At 
that lime the danger of steamboat traveling was the all 
absorbing topic of conversation. A few days previously 
the steamer “Moselle” had been torn to atoms at Cincin- 
nati by the explosion of her boilers, which resulted in the 
death and mangling of about 150 passengers. This great 
calamity was the subject of discussion in every company, 
but more especially by nervous steamboat passengers — so 
when about to leave the Port of Pittsburgh, all the travelers 
on the boat were ensconced ou the upper deck at the stern 
of the boat at the farthest possible distance from the 
boilers. 
At the end of about two weeks I found myself at St. 
Louis, and at the end of another I was at Galena. The 
only notable event which occurred on the Upper Mississip- 
pi was the capture of a splendid buck while attempting to 
swim the Mississippi from the Illinois to the Iowa side, 
our Captain having dispatched two men in a skiff in pur- 
suit. 
After prospecting the lead mines and smelting furnaces 
at Galena, I started for Rockford, traveling in a four horse 
post coach over the almost uninhabited prairies, occasion- 
ally seeing a prairie wolf skulking in the high grass of the 
sloughs, or a sand hill crane stalking on the prairie. Nearly 
the whole distance from Galena to Rockford was prairie, 
for thirty miles. We traveled through the big prairie, 
West of Rock River, not a tree or a shrub to be seen, the 
gently undulating surface of the country reminding me of 
the calmly rolling waves of the sea. In the coach was a 
young Irish girl, who a month or more previously, after a 
long and tedious journey from her native Island in a sail- 
ing vessel, had landed in New York. Our ride over this 
great prairie was so dull, so wearisome, so monotonous, 
not a tree or a shrub to be seen for so many long and te- 
dious hours, that wheu towards night of our second day’s 
journey from Galena, a passenger saw uud spoke of the 
forest in the dim distance, the poor Irish girl with the 
same feelings she experienced when she first saw the Jersey 
coast from the vessel, after her long cruise, artlessly and 
innocently, but enthsiastically exclaimed, “laud ho." That 
"evening, the third day of June, 1838, I found myself at 
Rockford, on the East bauk of Rock River. 
Two rival villages were then competing for supremacy, 
and for the location of the County Court House and other 
public buildings, one on the East and the other on the 
West bank of Rock River. The proprietor of the proposed 
site on the East bank was one Haight; of the West bank, 
the firm of Kent & Brinckerhoff. The latter were brothers- 
in-law, who having failed in mercantile business in the 
city of New York, in the great financial convulsion of 1837, 
had migrated to the Rock River Country to commence 
business anew, and to recover their lost fortunes. After 
a long and angry controversy the county seat was finally 
located on the West side of the river. 
At first I was completely enamored with the country; 
the beautiful rolling prairies were studded all over with 
wild flowers, which grew most)luxuriantly. One week the 
prairie would be all over white when a certain while 
flower would predominate; a fortnight afterwards it would 
be all blue wheu another flower would predominate, and 
so on throughout the whole Summer, when each successive 
flower in its season would be in the asccndunt, thus giving 
to us in regular succession ull the various colors of the 
rainbow, between early Summer and Autumn. My stay at 
Rockford was from the third day of June until the eight- 
eenth day of December, 1838, and having comparatively 
little else to do, I passed my time principally in the pleas- 
ures of hunting and fishing, in both of which that Summer 
I was most eminently successful, as any other novice 
might have been. It was about six years after the termina- 
tion of the Black Hawk war, but even at that time on 
traversing the prairie ou the East side of the river I could 
discern plainly and follow easily the track of our army 
which marched along the river against Black Hawk and 
his army of Indian warriors, the wheels of the heavy la- 
den baggage wagons having cut through the sod of the 
prairie. The country then was very sparsely populated; 
East Rockford was a small village; West Rockford a much 
smaller one. Of course there were few sportsmen, but 
there were some; nearly all the pioueers of the country 
were husbandmen, intent on digging a living out of old 
mother Earth. As to game, the prairies were filled with 
pinnated grouse, the thickets with ruffed grouse; and as 
for Rock River, it was literally alive with fish of the most 
magnificent proportions and of the greatest variety. Deer 
were abundant, as were also wild geese and ducks in their 
season. 
For some time after my arrival at Rockford, I amused 
myself by fishing with the rod and line, killing all the bass 
and pickerel I desired. One evening after finishing my 
afternoon sport uud about to sturt for the village, I dis- 
covered lying on the bauk a huge fishing polo, which had 
been used evidently by some stalwurt rustic. The but 
was a part of a hickory sapling, to which was spliced a long 
pole. It was of immense weight considering the use for 
which it was intended. I affixed a line to this pole, bnited 
it with a minnow, and fastening the but firmly in the 
ground, covering it with great heavy stones, I threw the 
baited line into the river. On the next morning I returned 
and found that I had hooked a monster fish in the night; 
the but of the rod was sticking firmly in the ground where 
I had placed it, the rod was broken at the point where it 
was so strongly spliced, and the fish hud made good its es- 
cape. At the time it was believed that this was the work 
of one of what we then called the Mississippi cat fish, for 
we then thought that such immense cat fish ns were then 
found in Rock River could only be grown in that great 
stream. 
During that Summer a friend of the writer constructed a 
drop line, or as it is called in this section of the country, a 
“night line;” attached to it were perhaps forty or fifty 
hooks, which being baited, the line was stretched across 
the river in the evening. The next mooting my friend 
went to the river to raise his line and to witness the suc- 
cess of his enterprise, when to his great surprise he dis- 
covered that the fish had literally carried off the whole 
line, and lie never saw a hook or a thread of it aftei wards. 
This was the first, last, und only night line set in Rock 
River during my sojourn in that couutry. And yet an- 
other mode was resorted to in order to capture the fish in 
Rock River, which I am ashamed to relate, for It was so 
destructive and so very unlike the true sportsman. Verily 
I believe that if old Isaac Walton had been present, he 
would have hung every one of us up to the first tree. Op- 
posite the town of Rockford, and above the rapids, the 
river bottom was smooth and free from all obstructions. 
We procured a seine of very considerable length, by a single 
draw of which we would supply the whole population of 
the town with fish sufficient to lost them for several days. 
The modu * opera ndi was as follows:— The seine was placed 
on the stern of a skiff, one man plied the oars, while an- 
other would drop the seine into the river, the oarsman 
would drive the skiff up stream, thence toward the middle, 
and thence down and around until he would land on the 
shore a little distance below the starting point; the seine 
was then drawn by parties at either end slowly toward the 
shore, and when within twenty or thirty feel of the bank 
the excitement began. Such a kicking and Jumping and 
splashing. There was the monster Mississippi cat fish, 
weighing from fifty to eighty pounds, the huge stureeon 
from three to four feet long, the “buffalo," weighing as 
high as forty pounds, and baas, pickerel, “rod horse," and 
other fish without number. Bat wo did not destroy ull 
these. The taste of the then residents ot Rockford was 
very refined and delicate, and the three last named fish, 
buss, pickerel and “rod horse," were t ho only onos used. 
All the rest were thrown back or rolled into the river, 
I write these linos that the “Sinnissippi Sportsman's Club," 
of Rockford may know what a grand old river they have 
for pisciculture, and how by enforcing the game laws, In a 
few years, they mny have and enjoy the sports of the pion- 
eers of their country. 
I feel to-night as though I could writo a volume upon 
my experiences in the Rock River country, during the 
Summer und Fall of 1838. But I must close this article 
without giving you the particulars, or a detailed statement 
with roferunee to a gang of horse thieves which extended 
their operations from southern and middle Illinois into 
the wilds of Wisconsin iu the Bummer of 1838, each one 
having his station on the line; how the people of Wlnnoha 
go county formed an nnll-horso thief society to break up 
the gang and defend themselves against their depredations; 
how the muttering complaints of tho people culminated in 
1830; how the President of this society was shot down one 
evening at twilight near his own barn; how the people, to 
tho number of threo hundred, rose, armed themselves, pur- 
sued the supposed murderers, overtook and captured them 
in the big prairie, West of Rock River; how they tried and 
condeinod the father und two sons to death; how the two 
sons were given fifteen minutes in which to say their 
prayers; and how a simultaneous discharge from number 
less rifles was made at the two sons, so no one person could 
be charged with their dcuth; and how after tho death of the 
two sons, the pursuers agreed to pardon tho fgray haired 
father upon his pledge to go West of the Mississippi and 
never return East of that river. Tho older citizens of 
Rockford will remember the tragedy of the Driscoll 
family. A very graphic description of this occurrence was 
written at the time by a gentleman of Rockford, and pub 
lished in the Pittsburgh Gaiotle, then edited by the venera- 
ble Neville B. Cruig, and which would bo read with great 
interest by the present inhabitants of Winnebago county. 
Nor can I tell you of how I saw the remains of “Big 
Thunder," an Indian chief, (I think that was his name,) on 
an eminence in the pruirio near Belvidere, buried above 
ground, according to the custom of his tribe, nor how u 
Chicago surgeon passing through tho country cut off the 
dead chief’s head and carried it to that city as u.trophy, or 
to ornament his office. Nor how tho inimitable Col. Blrodo, 
a gentleman of tho rarest wit and humor, always boiling 
over with hilarity and Jocoscness, a Kentuckian by birth, 
and a practicing lawyer in northern Illinois, participated 
iu the battle at Stillman’s run, South of Rockford, who at 
the time of that great stumpede made good his escape over 
the prairies, and who said that at every leap he saw a big 
Indian behind each stump and tree in the prairie. 
A. II. M 
Pittsburyh, Penn»ylmnia, February tBt/i, 1875. 
For Foreet and Stream, 
OUR CRUISE. 
W E three had met on an East River pier, abreast of 
which a trim little schooner with her maiosall 
shivering in the wind, lay heaving uneasily with the tide 
as if anxious to be off. A few moments sufficed to place 
the party and their effects safely on deck ; then, with the 
young flood under her, the sheets started, a steady hand at 
the helm, and os Jolly a crew as ever broke a biscuit, the 
“Nellie" started on her voyage. Gathering speed as she 
went, the Navy Yard with its crowd of vessels and the 
clink of busy hammers, the ship yardH of Green Point, the 
grassy lawns and picturesque villus of Ravcnswood and 
i 
