Indian Waifs of Albany

This is the first in a series of newspaper articles that I found about Whiteside County, Illinois history. They were published in the Sterling Daily Gazette Diamond Jubilee edition printed December 9, 1929. I was given a copy of the newspaper which is very fragile and disintegrating. To preserve this resource I plan to share some of the stories and articles that I think would be of interest. 

Today's article comes from Albany, Illinois. Albany is located in western part of Whiteside County bordering the Mississippi River. Settlement in Albany began in the early 1830's. But before the white men came Native Americans called this area home going back thousands of years. Albany Mounds a Native American burial ground is located in Albany and is an Illinois State Historic Site. In the following an Albany native recalls stories of his childhood.

NELLIE BLY AND GEO. TAINTOR, 2 INDIAN WAIFS OF ALBANY

Albany was an Indian village before the white men came. Today under the administration of her competent village board, the pretty town is a picture of peace and contentment.

Charles Hoover is chairman of the board, G. W. Coleman, Frank Hugunin, Lester Sherer, Charles Beacon and M. H. Gale being the members. E. A. Fassett has been clerk of the village board since 1909.

A still older citizen who has been prominent in county affairs for many years is Charles A. Olds, banker and for a number of terms supervisor from Albany. "I remember when the hill there was covered with Indians," said Mr. Olds as he stood in the door of his bank conversing with a Gazette reporter and his old friend, Mrs. J. H. Crowell of Lyndon, who took a half day off to accompany The Gazette reporter to Albany, her girlhood home.

"The Indians," said Mr. Olds, "came down from Wisconsin to visit George Tainter and Nellie Bly, two Indian orphans who were brought to Albany on a raft by Capt. Gilbert, who took pity on their plight and raised them in his own home. A large party of Winnebago Indians on their way to hunt in the Merodocia swamps stopped off here to visit the orphans of their tribe and express their gratitude to Capt. Gilbert for his fine treatment of them, "Nellie Bly became converted to Christianity and it seemed as if she had a bright future before her, when she contracted tuberculosis and eventually died of it. George Taintor was all Indian. We children used to shiver in spite of ourselves when he would climb a tree and from the very top of it give a real Indian war whoop. He was then about 16 years old, and shortly afterward he got into an altercation with Capt. H. Short, and he got a revolver and shot Capt. Short in the hand. He was arrested and for punishment was sent back to the Indian reservation in Wisconsin.

"As soon as the ice would go out of the Mississippi in the spring we children used to watch for the Indian canoes from the north, on their way to the hunting grounds. A dozen or more of them would go by in a group at times. In the days before the white men settled in Albany, the northern Winnebagoes used to meet in conference here with the Prophet, Chief White Cloud, from Prophetstown, and there is a tradition that one of the conferences ended in war whoops and a battle royal, during which many scalps were taken on the river bank where Albany now stands."

Source: Originally printed in the Sterling Diamond Jubilee Edition of the Sterling Daily Gazette, Sterling, Illinois, 9 Dec 1929. Reprinted with permission.

http://albanymounds.com/index.html