Comments on: The Death of Colonel George Davenport

By: Shari Smiles

Shari Smiles — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:16:21 +0000

I’m also a decedent of this LONG family Toliver & Phipps Families. You can read an old book online called Banditi of The Prairie by Edward Bonny. The families that had relocated from North Carolina at the same time settled in Indiana first. These families were closely linked via marriage and common backgrounds. Later many of them moved west from Indiana to Illinois, Iowa and Missouri. I have done lots of research on this group. No they were not talked into anything. They were outlaws in many venues. The Phipps, Longs and Tolivers and others provided safe houses
in Iowa and Missouri. They stole horses and cattle too. A large part of the group of families who relocated to Indiana were most likely native American or half Native American. This was of course never admitted in those times. Some of the Family names are Baldwin, Tolliver, Long, Phipps. We know my GR GR GR grandmother was Native American but that was a deep family secret only whispered about. My Gr Gr Gr Grandfather was a horse trader in Missouri….Hmmmmm wonder where he got the horses? He was an Uncle of Arron and John Long and to some of the Phipps Boys too. These families left NC after our Federal Government passed the Indian removal Law. They may have wanted to avoid any confrontation or questioning. There were many Indian peoples in North Carolina that could easily passed as white settlers with made up histories.

By: Margaret (Long) Mabrey

Margaret (Long) Mabrey — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 16:14:11 +0000

As you can see, my maiden name was Long. Arron and John were distant cousins. Their families migrated from NC to Indiana, and on to Illinois. I am a genealogist and learned about these two distant cousins back in the 1980′d. I didn’t know anything about their immediate families. I wonder a lot what their circumstances were. Were they talked into it?, what was their upbringing? We probably will never know now. I just never thought that I would literally have ‘skeletons’ in my closet!

Margaret

By: SCblogger

SCblogger — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 16:09:06 +0000

If history teaches us anything, it’s to never skip a picnic. :)

Thank you for taking the time to comment!

Sarah

By: R. Clayton-Davis

R. Clayton-Davis — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 21:12:03 +0000

I came looking for this story today as a Brownlie cousin told me that Col. Davenport always went to the Brownlie 4th of July picnic and celebration except for 1845 when he felt ill. Not a good day to skip our family picnic!

By: D Hughes

D Hughes — Wed, 27 May 2009 20:25:39 +0000

Talk about people having skeletons in their closets, these bones are in my family tree!! I was given this link by a family member who does geneaology, and her mother had discovered the two brothers, but I do not think she had, at the time of her death, found the “rest of the story”, given that she did all of her research manually. At least the bones were finally buried.

By: swesson

swesson — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:47:04 +0000

Mr. Deporter,

Thank you for sharing your father’s stories with us! We’re all pretty relieved we don’t have any souveniers like that in our collections.

It certainly does help to have informed sources—we hadn’t heard about the gallows tree before! I wonder if it would appear on any of our old Rock Island maps . . .

Sarah

By: john albert deporter

john albert deporter — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 10:22:00 +0000

Well, interestingly enough, my father was a judge at the Rock Island County courthouse, and while he was still an assistant state’s Attorney (which we like to affectionately refer to as the “snake’s attorney” around his household), he had the chance to see the ‘coffin’ and the skeleton in the BASEMENT of the Rock island County Courthouse. How CREEPY a place to keep them! Can you think of a creepier place to keep a skeleton of a man that had been hanged for the murder of George Davenport? And, also, according to my father, and he even admits this part himself, as to how accurate it is – the gallows that were used to hang these men weren’t of the usual type where there is a cross-member at the top of the gallows, attached to it. Apparently there was a tree on the 15th Ave side of the county courthouse, and it was quite a tree, so they just built the staircase and platform up to the trapdoor. The rope itself was suspended from a sturdy tree-limb up above. Now that ‘s a bit of history that I’ll be it’d be hard to come by here in 2009, but none the less sometimes it pays to have a father who is a retired judge. -john a deporter

By: swesson

swesson — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 16:10:38 +0000

How fascinating!

Would you be able to share what the display looked like?

Sarah

By: s. france

s. france — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 15:03:07 +0000

One of the three that were hung, had his remains on display @ Black Hawk
State Park
Indian Museum up until the late 1960′s, I remember seeing the bones
as a child of 6 or 7….

By: SCblogger

SCblogger — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:13:52 +0000

That’s great, Adrian! The Col. Davenport Foundation has done a wonderful job of renovating and preserving the House. The porch was just redone last year, I think.

Also, if you haven’t visited the Arsenal Museum yet, it’s well worth exploring–the exhibits are terrific. A remarkable amount of history has happened on that small island!

Enjoy your picnic!

Sarah