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Henline Stockade
Lawndale Township
McLean County, Illinois

(Photos & Transcription by: Teri Moncelle Colglazier)

At the outbreak of the black Hawk War in 1832, there were only a few scattered settlements in McLean Co. The principal one in the eastern section was located along Henline Creek, a tributary of the Mackinaw. The Henlines, after whom this creek was named, came from Kentucky in the fall of 1828 and made their homes along this stream forming the nucleus for the little colony which grew up around them. Although the personal operations of Black Hawk were confined to the northern part of the state, there were tribes in this county who might easily be influenced into joining their fortunes with is. Old Masheens, chief of the Kickapoos, promised to remain friends, but it was feared that he could not control his warriors once their warlike passions were roused. For this reason and upon the advice of the Veteran Indian fighter, General Bartholomew, tow forts were built for the protection of the settlers. General Bartholomew died Nov. 2, 1840 and is buried in Clarksville Cemetery. One of these was located in the Money Creek Township, and the other, known as the Henline Stockade with which this paper shall deal, was built on the east half of the northeast quarter of Section 30 in Lawndale Township about a half mile north of the Evergreen Church. The method of construction was this. Logs a foot of more in diameter and ten or twelve feet long were split in tow, a trench was dog and logs places perpendicularly in the trench and the dirt was trampled solidly around them. Then the upright timbers were fastened together with cross-pieces making a solid wall of green timber eight or ten feet high. It was capable of resisting any Indiana bullet and likewise impervious to fire. At each corner was a block-house which projected over the wall and had loopholes through the floor, thus making it possible for the defenders of the fort to fire down upon an attacking force should they attempt an assault on the wall. The fort was situated on the bank of Henline Creek, enclosed about a half acre, and was probably the strongest one of its kind in the state. This fort was built under the direction of George Henline, a companion of Boone and Kenton and a survivor of the Battle of Blue Licks fought in the state of Kentucky in 1782. He modeled it after the ones in which he had fought with the Indians in Kentucky in the days when that state was little more than a perpetual battleground. The primary use of the fort was a refuge for the settlers should their Indian neighbors take the war-path, but it was occupied most of the time by a regular garrison. Captain Covell’s Rangers also included it in the round of scouting, arriving there once a week. The garrison was never called upon to defend itself from the Indians for they nevere appeared. This did not prevent them from enjoying the thrill of anticipated danger, however, for hardly a day passed in which there was not an alarm raised. These usually originated in the fertile imagination of the one who gave the alarm, for any unusual thing was sufficient to excite him into the belief that “the Indians were coming.” At one time a man came to the fort and reported suspicious happenings back in the woods, whereupon a party was dispatched to see about it and after much scouting found the trail of a hog. While most of the settlers were men of undaunted courage, there were a few whose natural timidity was increased threefold by the fear of the red man. One valorous member of the garrison, when an alarm was given one day, handed his gun to his companion, ran and jumped in bed beside his sick wife and declared that he also was sick and therefore unable to fight. His wife, suspecting that is was only a false alarm, seized the gun and flourished it, declaring that she was not afraid of the Indians, while her husband lay with his head under the bedclothes expecting any moment to hear an attack on the stockade. J. J. Henline, the last survivor of those who did garrison duty at Fort Henline, fired off his gun one night when the Rangers were camped outside, and the scramble to get inside the fort was perhaps more enjoyed by the perpetrators of the joke than by those who participated in it. But the fear which over shadowed the settlers of this county was soon passed away, and with the decline of this fortunes of Black Hawk and the subsequent departure of the Indians from this county, the usefulness of the fort was ended and it was abandoned. Up until twenty years ago some of its timbers were still standing, but time has done its work. Today there is no trace of where the Henlines, the Shaws and the Millers settled. The pioneers of this county marked another step in pushing back the frontier in the days when the state of Illinois was young. (We lack the date when Elmo Scott Watson (1892-1951) wrote this article, which was published in the August 1975 quarterly of the Lexington Genealogical and Historical Society.) [By: Elmo Scott Watson; History of Lawndale, Martin, And Anchor Townships And The Villages Of Colfax And Anchor - McLean County, Illinois - A Project Of The Bi-Centennial Committee Muriel Martens Hoffman Historian - April 1976]

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