represent the increase. The advance during these five years ranged from 300 to 1,000 per cent.

JAIL AT KNOXVILLE.

The new court-house had scarcely been completed before it was thought best to build a new jail. At the January term of the Commissioners' Court in 1841 they let the contract for erecting the proposed prison to Zelotes Cooley for $8,724. This contract, however, was rescinded shortly afterward and re-let to Alvah Wheeler, who in 1845 completed the building. Lot 3 of the subdivision of lot 10, block 5, the lot upon which the jail stood, together with the jail building, was exchanged some time before this to Jonathan Rice for the south half of lot 1, block 5, which is at the northwest corner of the square. Upon this lot the new brick and stone jail was erected. It is no longer used for the purpose for which it was built, but as a tenement house. It is a two-story brick, 30 by 50 feet in size, and contained six cells.

It appears that the new jail was scarcely more secure than the log one, and that the people soon wanted it replaced by one more substantial, as evinced by the following article taken from the "Knox Republican" of Wednesday, March 18, 1857:

ESCAPE OF PRISONERS.

"On Saturday evening, while the Sheriff was from home on business, five persons escaped from our insecure county jail. The prisoners were all locked up in their cells at dark. The gentleman in charge examined the lock that was put on the door,--one of the best locks about the jail and the most difficult to be picked,--and found it all safe, and left the premises for a little while; and on returning found a door opened, which he had left fastened; and, on entering the prison, found that all the doors had been opened, the prisoners had fled, and no traces of them could be found. The night was exceedingly dark. The only conjecture we can form from an examination of the circumstances and the premises is, that one of the prisoners must have had a false key and unlocked the door with his left hand, and then procured the keys from a table in the dwelling, and with them must have unlocked the rest of the doors and let his fellow prisoners free. If the county intends to hold the prisoners taken for crimes, and secure the citizens from the marauding thief, they must elect such supervisors as will have the courage to build a new and substantial jail. As some parts of the jail could not be used, from their insecurity, the

Sheriff was compelled to put two into one cell and three into another, together; and when thus permitted to associate, they were able to concoct and execute their deliverance."

HORSE-THIEVES.

The earlier settlers were greatly troubled with marauding bands of thieves. Horses were generally the desired booty. So numerous and bold had these desperadoes become that to protect themselves the citizens banded together, forming the "Knox County Society for the Detection of Thieves." Yearly meetings of this society were held in June. The Commissioners, in order to aid this society and to shield the people, in 1845 offered a reward of $50 for the detection of a person stealing a horse.

LAST MEETING.

Taxes were very light in 1845, being only 10 cents on the $100. This is perhaps the minimum per cent. of taxation ever reached in this county. The last meeting of the county Commissioners' Court was held October 12, 1849. Many weather Brown, Alfred Brown and Amos Ward, being members, were all present. After the transaction of such business as properly came before them, they adjourned "until court in course," but never re-assembled. And so passed away the time-honored and economical system of county management by three commissioners.

THE EW Yold PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LENOX AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS.

CHAPTER III.

BLACK HAWK WAR.

Happily for the few settlers of Knox county, the atrocities committed during the war with the Indians in 1832 were all enacted without its boundaries. There were, however, so many depredation's committed in adjoining counties that great fear was manifested by the settlers here lest their own homes would be the scene of similar massacres. It must be remembered that at this time all the country lying north of this county extending to Rock river was under the jurisdiction of the Commissioners of Knox county, and therefore virtually a portion of the county, which had the tendency to make the murders committed there seem the nearer. Upon Rock river the bloody battles were fought between the Indians and whites. Various and terrible depredations were committed on peaceable whites, which tended more than the war to horrify the pioneers here. A settler was shot by six Indians just over the line in Warren county. One man was killed near Princeton; another in Buffalo Grove; another between Fox River and the Illinois, and two near Ottawa. A party of about 70 Indians made a descent upon a small settlement on Indian creek, a tributary of Fox river, and massacred 15 persons, men, women and children,—and took two young women prisoners,-one 15, the other 17 years old. These people, composing three families, lived in one house. The Indians approached the house in the day time, and entered suddenly, with but little notice. Some of the inmates were immediately shot down, others were pierced through with spears or dispatched with the tomahawk. The Indians afterwards related, with an infernal glee, how the women had squeaked like geese when they were run through the body with spears, or felt the tomahawk entering their heads. All the victims were carefully scalped; their bodies were mutilated and mangled; the little children were chopped to pieces with axes; and the women were tied up by the heels to the walls of the house. The two young ladies were hurried by forced marches beyond pursuit. After a long and fatiguing journey with their Indian conductors, through a wilderness country, with but little to eat, and being subjected to a variety of fortune, they were at last rescued, $2,000 being given as a ransom.