Just Passin' Thru Freeport, Illinois

General John A. Clark
John A. Clark arrived in Freeport in 1837. He served as Clerk of the Circuit Court from its opening day on August 29, 1839 to 1852. He also served as Stephenson County Recorder from 1845-1847.

In 1840, Clark and Rev. F. C. Winslow organized a group known as the Crusaders, a temperance group fighting alcohol consumption. The first meeting was in an upstairs room at the corner of Chicago & Main Streets, above a tavern!

Much money was made and lost in the early years of our country by settlers plotting out a town. Speculation was great on which towns would prosper, and which would disappear. Ransomburg and Cedarville were touted as Stephenson County's best hopes for a city and a county seat. But the railroads determined which cities would grow. On January 7, 1847, Clark, John Addams, Dexter Knowlton and Oliver Wright traveled first to Rockford, then to Chicago to talk to railroad officials. They took with them a sum of $20,000. The railroad was diverted from its original planned route and came right through Freeport. The first Iron Horse arrived in August of 1853, assuring Freeport of its place in history.

Clark secured the land now bounded by Winslow, Broadway, Locust, Oak and Chicago Streets and the railroad tracks, and laid out streets and plots. He called his subdivision the Winneshiek Addition. He made his money there, and gained valuable experience surveying the land.

Following Freeport's incorporation as a city on February 14, 1855, an election was held on April 2 to decide its officers. Clark was elected as one of its first six Aldermen. He was reelected in 1857. He was undoubtedly one of the Freeport dignitaries to greet Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln at the 1858 debate. Perhaps he told Lincoln of his Winneshiek Addition.

With the outbreak of War, Clark volunteered and was tabbed by President Lincoln to be Surveyor General of the New Mexico and Arizona Territories. He surveyed the land that was to become New Mexico and Arizona. He was Surveyor General of New Mexico from July 26, 1861 until July 29, 1868.

In September of 1863, General Clark surveyed the the San Francisco Mountains and the Colorado River in what is now northern New Mexico and Arizona, hunting for mineral deposits, especially gold. As a result, Brigadier General James H. Carleton made plans "to take early action in legislating for such a region; to open roads; to give force to subjugate the Indians; to give mail facilities; to claim rights of seigniorage [net revenue derived from issuing currency] in the precious metals...."

A collection of Clark's papers from December 9, 1861, to August 28, 1868, are available at the Museum of New Mexico, The Palace of the Governors, Fray Angélico Chávez History Library.

On October 5, 1868, Clark moved to Salt Lake City and became Surveyor General of Utah. He served until August 2, 1869.

The Marx Brothers
The Marx family moved from New York to Chicago in 1909. The boys skipped school a lot to attend Cubs and White Sox games and vaudeville matinees. They were fascinated by vaudeville.

Their uncle, Al Shean, was partner in the famous vaudeville team Gallagher and Shean. Cousin Sadye Marx took the stage name Mary Livingston and married Jack Benny. They formed a comedy team that lasted until Jack's death in 1974. The older Marx brothers began a musical vaudeville act and gained experience in show business, but never quite caught on.

Julius (1890-1977), identified top to bottom in the photo at the left, was a grouch and got the nickname Groucho. Herbert (1901-1979) called himself Zeppo. Adolph (1888-1964) played the harp and became Harpo. Leonard (1887-1961) was a ladies man, and liked chicks, hence Chico. Milton (1892-1977) liked to wear rubber soled shoes, or "gum shoes" and was called Gummo.

In 1917, Uncle Al Shean wrote a special vaudeville show just for the five brothers called Home Again. The show opened in Freeport, Illinois, and it was an instant hit. Three weeks later the Marx Brothers were playing on Broadway.

Hollywood followed, then television. The photo at the right shows the Marx Brothers' movie, A Night in Casablanca, featuring the song, Who's Sorry Now?, which was written by Ted Snyder, who was born in Freeport, Illinois!

Zintkala Nuni
Zintkala Nuni, also known as Zintka, Lost Bird, Brings White Horse, Okicize Wanji Cinca, Maggie C. Nailor and Marguerite Elizabeth Colby, was an infant survivor of the Massacre at Wounded Knee.

Brings White Horse was born in the spring or summer of 1890 in the band of Chief Big Foot, also known as Spotted Elk. Her father was probably Black Fox, her mother Brown Hair.

They were Cheyenne River people, Minneconju, ghost dancers. Chief Big Foot was dying of pneumonia, lying in one of the wagons. They ran out of food, were fearful of militia and cowboy attacks, and they were coming peacefully, the white flag of surrender flying. They were old men, tired of battle, accompanied by women and children. More than 300 natives had already been slaughtered in the month of December 1890, their bodies stripped and scalped, their homes ransacked, artifacts stolen and sold for profit.

On December 29, 1890, the United States Seventh Cavalry massacred 300 unarmed men, women and children. The Indians ran, the soldiers followed, shooting women and children at point blank range. Eighteen soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor for butchering children and women at Wounded Knee. It remains a black mark on the military and on the Medal of Honor.

The massacre ended by about two in the afternoon. By four, a winter storm came in, driving everyone from the battlefield. The storm intensified to a blizzard that lasted for four days, stopping trains, forcing everyone to seek shelter from forty below temperatures. The military did not have time to bury their dead, all killed from 'friendly fire', caught in the cross fire of army rifles and artillery.

On January 2, the army and natives returned to the frozen field to bury their dead.

They came upon a group of five women, their bodies frozen to the ground in their own blood. They heard a baby cry. They chiseled around and turned over one woman and underneath her body was an infant, about six to eight months old. On her head was a beautiful beaded cap decorated with red, white and blue American flags beaded on the sides over a teepee; around it were the black hills of South Dakota and a little red bow. She was wearing a little bracelet.

Her patriotic cap made her a curiosity. She had lived through a massacre, had survived a blizzard, and was found under her mother's body which was covered by a snowdrift. Her survival was a miracle.

She was taken to nearby Pine Ridge, South Dakota, and given to John Yellow Bird and his wife Annie Lone Horn. Annie was a young mother and she nursed the child. The baby stayed with them, gaining strength. Annie named the little girl Okicize Wanji Cinca (Child of the Battlefield). John Yellow Bird owned a trading post, and everyone who came to buy supplies wanted to see the miracle child.

Two of the men who bought supplies that week were Buffalo Bill Cody and his press agent, Major John Burke. Burke decided to abduct the child to give to the Nailors, Buffalo Bill's former hunting partner and his wife, powerful friends in Washington, D. C.

Major Burke arranged for Okicize to be baptized, and she was given the Christian name, Maggie C. Nailor.

General Leonard Colby, an 1867 graduate of Freeport High School, was the commander of the Nebraska National Guard. His headquarters was in Nebraska, just 25 miles south of Pine Ridge. General Colby, on his own initiative, took his troops to Wounded Knee, escorted by his friends, Major Burke and Buffalo Bill.

Colby later wrote about the "wanton murders and cruel massacres of hundreds" and that it was "one of the stains upon the national honor of the United States." Colby thought that true honor came from facing armed men in declared combat. Colby had arrived just a few days after the blizzard had ended, and everywhere, even three miles from the encampment, there were dead women and children, obviously slaughtered at close range.

Major Burke had by this time acquired baby Maggie, probably for a large sum of money, and showed her to General Colby on January 5, 1891. Colby wanted the child as a living trophy of white supremacy on the battlefield.

General Colby bargained with Major Burke and Buffalo Bill, and early on the morning of January 6, they struck a deal. Annie was horrified, and after everyone retired, she took Okicize and rode away on her pony to the Ghost Dance camp. There she gave the child to other women, so the white men couldn't find her.

A newspaper reported that "the entire staff of the Brigadier General engaged in the search for Colby's papoose." On January 7, Lieutenant Edward Casey led a group of scouts to the Ghost Dance camp. A young native warrior shot him in the back of the head, probably in retribution for Wounded Knee.

Colby was not deterred by Casey's murder. Dark complexioned, he donned old clothes and an Indian blanket. He rode to the Ghost Dance camp on January 14, looking like a mixed-blood Indian. He traveled in a wagon, overflowing with food, accompanied by May, a woman familiar to all because she and her husband owned another trading post. Colby, May and her sister Elizabeth handed out food freely to the starving natives.

When they found Okicize, Colby stepped forward in disguise and told the woman holding her that his grandmother was a full-blooded Seneca, that he brought food from his tribe for their children, that he and his wife had no children, and that they would take good care of her. When Colby reached for the child, the woman cried out, "Zintkala Nuni! Zintkala Nuni!" and let go. Zintkala Nuni means Lost Bird.

The boarded the wagon, and rode off. General Colby had succeeded in kidnapping the child.

In January, 1891, General Colby gave the Nebraska State Penitentiary 700 United States Army blankets. The state legislature appropriated $3,280 to reimburse the government for the blankets. The money was paid to Colby to be paid to the government, but he kept most of it.

In 1903, Leonard Colby was indicted for embezzling $3,000, paid to him in trust by the State of Nebraska and others for equipment belonging to the United States Army.

Colby also was charged with selling small arms and other equipment to members of the National Guard and appropriating the money to his own use.

I couldn't find a resolution to this case, and since he went on to become a judge, it must be assumed that he beat the case or resolved it in some manner.

More coming as I have time.

To learn all about Lost Bird's amazing, tragic life, read Renee Sansom Flood's award-winning Lost Bird of Wounded Knee - Spirit of the Lakota, published in 1995.

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