Fort Payne marker - Naperville, IL
Posted by: 
adgorn
N 41° 46.245 W 088° 08.714
16T E 404814 N 4624957
Blue sign marker on the campus of Naperville's North Central College near the Mernier Field House (sits over the site of the fort) to denote location of the stockade of Ft. Payne.
Waymark Code: WM7A9J
Location: Illinois, United States
Date Posted: 09/26/2009
Views: 12
Marker text:
FORT PAYNE
Near this site in 1832 a 100 foot square stockade enclosed by wooden pickets, with two blockhouses on diagonal corners, was built. Here Captain Morgan L. Payne and his company of 45 men protected the settlers from roaming Sauk Indians during the Black Hawk War.
Erected by
The Dupage County Historical Society
and
The Illinois State Historical Society, 1964
From earlychicago.com
"Fort Payne was a trading post in Naperville, built of hewn logs by the Napier brothers in 1831; in 1832 was fortified with a stockade by a company of men from Joliet under Capt. Morgan L. Payne to protect settlers during the Black Hawk War; never saw battle and was soon used as a barnyard."
From (
visit link)
"In the spring of 1832, the prospering community (of Naperville) was threatened by the Black Hawk War. Half Day, a friendly chief of the Potawatomi, sent a messenger to Bailey Hobson advising the settlers to go to Fort Dearborn as rapidly as possible. He said that people were being massacred south of the settlement. Filled with fear and excitement, families quickly located one another in the vast prairie and packed their clothing and provisions for the journey to Fort Dearborn in Chicago. Crossing the prairie was slow and escape difficult. Roads were no more than muddy ruts. Wheels became embedded in marshy soil and fresh water was not readily available. The Hobson family's reminiscences speak of traveling thirty-six hours without food. Mrs. Hobson is said to have frequently used her shoe to dip water from the pools by the roadside in order to get a drink.
Joseph Naper was chosen as the captain of the first military organization in DuPage County to serve in defense against Black Hawk in northern Illinois. About the middle of June, General Atkinson detailed Captain Morgan L. Paine of Joliet and fifty volunteers from Danville to build a fort in Naperville. Fort Payne was a stockade about 100 feet square, surrounded by pickets set in the ground on two diagonal corners, which were blockhouses pierced with openings for a view of the prairies from all directions. While the fort was being built, there was one casualty - a soldier, William Brown, who was ambushed and killed while gathering wood for the fort in Sweet's Grove (near Odgen Avenue). No battles took place in the fort, for General Winfield Scott made a treaty with the Sauks at Rock Island, thereby ending the Black Hawk War. The settlers once more resumed the task of subduing the wilderness."
A smaller replica of Fort Payne is located now at Naper Settlement, a presentation of the community’s history as told through its historic buildings. See (
visit link)
See also (
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