Reminiscences: Chapter 15

Reminiscences of Early Peoria
by Odillon B. Slane

Chapter 15
pages 33-34

DANIEL PRINCE ---THE BITE OF A RATTLESNAKE

THE first white man to live among the Indians in what was afterward known as the Northern part of Peoria County, was Daniel Prince. He located at Prince's grove south of where the town of Princeville now is. This was in 1822. The town of Princeville was named after him.
Mr. Prince, as he drive into Peoria market the winter of 1832-1833, is thus described by John Z. Slane, then a small boy living in Peoria. "The men shouted that Prince was coming, and he was a nabob. Clad in a home-spun and home-wove blue jeans over coat reaching to his ankles, with an old felt hat, a comforter over his hat brought down over his ears and neck and tied in front; with long, long whiskers, and chewing tobacco, Prince came up with his three-yoke team of oxen. His load was hogs, dressed. Mounting his wagon he slung off first the hay for the cattle, then quilt after quilt, and then hurried the unloading of the meat.

"After feeding his oxen in the rail-fence enclosure, and perhaps eating his own lunch there, and perhaps lying on the floor at the Indian store over night, Mr. Prince returned to his home."

Mr. Prince is described as a modest man, tall, but stooping, with brown curly hair, red cheeks, and light eyes, probably blue.

At home he was more easy-going than when seen in the Peoria market. He was a farmer on a large scale furnishing employment to all who needed it. His nephew, George W. Prince, son of Myron Prince, was congressman from the Galesburg district for several terms.

The story is told that at one time before he had any white neighbors, Mr. Prince was bitten by a rattlesnake. There was no one to do anything for him. He rapidly grew worse. The thought of dying along where prowling wolves would come and devour his body, leaving nothing to tell the story of his tragic fate, was not a pleasant one. He determined, while strength was still left him to do so, to climb up on the roof of his cabin, out of reach of wolves and where some chance explorer or friendly Indian might find his body and give it a decent burial. Thus he remained until some passing Indians, seeing their white friend in the peculiar position of elevating his foot to relieve the pain, they stopped to make inquiries. On learning the facts, they took him down, applied the remedies they used for snake-bites and Mr. Prince soon recovered.

By 1839 the country was too thickly settled to suit Mr. Prince. His cattle roaming around, found neighbors' haystacks to hook. The neighbors, in turn "sicked the dogs" on Prince's cattle. The country was becoming too thickly settled to suit Prince.
For these reasons, as well as a restless longing for the pioneer life he so loved, he was impelled, (1839-40) to move to southwestern Missouri, a country which at that time was the wild, unimproved west.

Chapter 14 Chapter 16

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