Pirates of the Prairie by Ken Lizzio

Author:Ken Lizzio
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781493036585
Publisher: Lyons Press
Published: 2018-07-22T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

The Murder of Colonel Davenport

And know this, that if the good man of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not suffered his house to be broken through.

—MATTHEW 24:43

William Fox never again set foot in Jackson County. Neither, in all likelihood, did John and Aaron Long or Robert Birch. From Bellevue, they went to Nauvoo. For the next five years, they used it as a safe haven from which to raid the borderlands, mainly Illinois and eastern Iowa. Then, in July 1845, while the Hodges were languishing on death row, they received a tip about a home where they could make a huge score: $20,000 in a Rock Island mansion belonging to Colonel George Davenport.

In the entire Mississippi Valley, few men commanded more respect and admiration than George William Davenport. Born in Great Britain in 1783, in his youth he went to sea and broke his leg rescuing a shipmate in New York Harbor. After recovering in a New York hospital, Davenport enlisted in the US Army where he served ten years, even fighting against his native country during the War of 1812. At the conclusion of the war, he went to work as a sutler, running supplies from St. Louis to Rock Island for the building of Fort Armstrong intended as a bulwark against the Sac and Fox. In 1822, Davenport established his own trading company, exchanging goods with the Sac, Fox, Winnebago, and Pottawattamie Indians. Davenport generously allowed them to trade on credit until they could conduct their winter hunt. He learned to speak the Sac language and enjoyed warm personal relationships with the Indians who regarded him as a man of integrity. So close was he with the Indians that his two sons, George and Bailey, had only Indians as playmates as children.1

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