Banditti of The Prairie - Other Activity

Other Activity

Though the banditti continued to plague areas of northern Illinois, they were largely eradicated from Ogle County following the lynching of the Driscolls. However, both the Banditti and the Regulators continued to be active. In Winnebago County, in early July 1841, the offices of the Rock River Express were ransacked, an early predecessor to the Rockford Register Star, the daily newspaper of Rockford, Illinois. The offices were likely trashed in response to a scathing editorial published by the Express speaking out against the vigilante action taken by the Regulators.

Banditti crimes continued well into the 1840s. One of the most famous incidents, outside of the lynching in Oregon, to be attributed to the Banditti was the murder of Colonel George Davenport at his home on the Rock Island Arsenal. On July 4, 1845, Colonel Davenport was assaulted in his home by Banditti men who thought he had a fortune in his safe. Beaten and left for dead, he survived long enough to give a full description of the criminals before he died that night. Five men were charged with the murder of George Davenport, and all but one, who escaped before the trial, were hung for the murder. Three more men were charged with accessories to the murder. One man was sentenced to life in prison, but escaped and was killed three months later, one man served one year in prison, and the charges were dropped against the third man, who left the area.

In Lee County, Illinois the Banditti were most active in the years 1843-1850, after the lynching in Oregon. During that period crime and gang operations were rampant throughout the Mississippi Valley but Lee County, like its neighboring northern Illinois counties, saw consistent activity. Near the Lee County village of Franklin Grove, a brutal double-murder was committed in 1848. On May 20, 1848, area resident Joshua Wingert, while searching through the grove two miles (3 km) west of town for his cattle, came upon a small log hut. Inside he discovered the bodies of two men, killed with their own axe. One of the men was nearly decapitated and the other had a large gash across his forehead. The assumed motive was robbery, as the hut was ransacked and bloody fingerprints were all about the small building. The crime's perpetrator or perpetrators were never apprehended.

Also in Lee County, the Banditti were active in and around Inlet Grove. In June 1844 the group carried out a daring robbery of a Mr. Haskell. Haskell's residence was robbed by masked men in the midst of a summer thunderstorm. The perpetrators entered Haskell's bedroom while he and his wife were asleep. The robbers dragged a trunk of money out from underneath the sleeping Haskell's bed undetected, much of the noise they made probably drowned out by thunder. The Haskell's did not discover they had been the victims of a robbery until the next morning.