Banditti of the Prairie

The Banditti of the Prairie or the Prairie Bandits, in the U.S. state of Illinois, were a group of rogue outlaws during the mid 19th century. Though bands of roving criminals were common in many parts of Illinois, the counties of Lee, DeKalb, Ogle and Winnebago were especially affected by them.

Banditti influence

The Prairie Bandits were quite active across northern Illinois from 1835 until events leading to their ultimate demise began on March 21, 1841. The Bandits wielded considerable influence in the area, collectively known as the Rock River Valley, following the influx of immigrants after the 1832 Black Hawk War. Former Illinois Governor Thomas Ford wrote in History of Illinois:

"... the northern part of the State was not destitute of its organized bands of rogues engaged in murders, robberies, horsestealing, and in making and passing counterfeit money. These rogues were scattered all over the north: but the most of them were located in the counties of Ogle, Winnebago, Lee and DeKalb. In the county of Ogle they were so numerous, strong, and organized that they could not be convicted for their crimes."

In the end the Prairie Bandits overstepped their bounds and the crimes that occurred in March 1841 resulted in a kangaroo court being appointed and culminated with a lynching near Oregon, Illinois.

Oregon lynching

Beginning with events on March 21, 1841 violence and retribution escalated in the area around the Ogle County city of Oregon. Illinois was still the frontier in 1841 and after large numbers of migrants began arriving in the state after the Black Hawk War it was all but inevitable that crime would follow them. The Banditti of the Prairie were part of that crime problem that plagued much of northern Illinois. As such, local citizens eventually became fed up and took the law into their own hands.

Build up

On March 21, 1841 six members of the gang were arrested on charges of counterfeiting. They were held at the Ogle County Jail in the city of Oregon. A fire broke out around midnight in the newly completed courthouse, which had yet to be utilized. The fire, set by the Banditti, was meant as a diversion to facilitate the escape of the apprehended gang members. The diversion failed, though the courthouse burned to the ground, the jail remained intact and the records concerning the case had been safely concealed at the home of the court clerk. Ford, who sat as Ogle County Circuit Judge at the time, reconvened court at a new location and the trial for the accused counterfeiters went on as planned.

The jury, as was common in Ogle County at the time, had been infiltrated by one of the Banditti who subsequently refused to convict the accused. The other jurors persuaded the rogue juror to convict by threatening to lynch him in the jury room if he failed to see the majority opinion. The rogue juror capitulated and three of the accused were convicted. The convicts, however, soon escaped and avoided their sentences.

By April the community of Oregon and Ogle County in general had reached a boiling point. During that month a group of citizens, possibly acting under direct counsel from Ford, met at a schoolhouse in White Rock Township and formed an organization aimed at driving the outlaws out of the county. Membership in the new group grew quickly, soon numbering in the hundreds, and copycat chapters sprang up all over the Rock River Valley. These makeshift bands of citizens were most often known as "Regulators." Other names included, "lynching clubs," and in Lee County one group was known as the "Associations for the Furtherance of the Cause of Justice." These groups were essentially vigilante groups.

The Regulators in Ogle County got their start by whipping two horse thieves, one of whom joined the group after the incident. However, events quickly escalated in this lawless portion of Illinois, at this pint only a state for a little over twenty years. After the first Regulator Captain's (W.S. Wellington) grist mill was destroyed by fire and his horse tortured and killed in April 1841 he decided to step aside. The new captain, John Campbell, was a resident of White Rock Township. The leaders of the Banditti were the Driscoll family. At the head, John Driscoll, who had migrated from Ohio in 1835 with his four grown sons, William, David, Pierce and Taylor. The Driscoll's lived on Killbuck Creek in northeast Ogle County. Driscoll and his son Taylor had both been convicted of arson while they lived in Ohio.

Campbell's ascension to the lead Regulator post was met with hostility from the Driscoll camp. William Driscoll immediately sent Campbell a letter offering to kill him. Campbell responded in kind, assembling 200 Regulators and marching to the Driscoll home. A small group of Banditti had gathered at the Driscoll homestead but seeing they were outnumbered fled, only to return with the DeKalb County Sheriff and other authorities in tow. The Sheriff and his compananions did not see the events as the outlaws had hoped, they sided with the vigilantes and the Driscolls promised to leave within twenty days.

Instead of leaving, the Driscolls and the other Banditti held a meeting in which they determined that Campbell and his fellow Regulator, Phineas Chaney had to be murdered.

Lynching

Nearly three months later, on June 25, 1841, there was an attempt to kill Chaney. Two days passed and on June 27 David Driscoll and his brother Taylor attacked Campbell at his farm. David fired the single, fatal shot. Campbell's son, Martin, then 13, fired at the Driscolls with a shotgun but the weapon failed to go off.

The account that states David and Taylor Driscoll were the gunmen came from Campbell's wife. Despite this claim, hoofprints at the scene of the crime indicated that there had been an additional three horses there. It was these hoofprints that the Regulators followed back to the Driscoll home. Once there, accompanied by Ogle County Sheriff William T. Ward, the angry group confronted John Driscoll. After questioning by Ward and his accompanying mob, the sheriff was satisfied that John Driscoll was involved in Campbell's murder and arrested him "on suspicion of being accessory to the murder." While David and Taylor Driscoll, the gunmen, fled that fateful day, William and Pierce Driscoll were arrested by a group of Regulators from Rockford.

Court was convened at "Stephenson's Mill", in Washington Grove, because of the courthouse fire in March. The court was organized, witnesses gathered and proceedings went forward. A crowd gathered at the mill, estimated to be as many as 500. At this point, Ogle County Sheriff Ward appealed to have the Driscolls returned to his custody. E.S. Leland presided over the makeshift court as judge, a position he would later really hold in Ottawa, Illinois. Leland directed those present who were Regulators to form a circle and 120 men initially stepped forward; nine were dismissed as not being "real" Regulators. The 111 men remaining formed the "jury."

The trial began and William Driscoll admitted to telling in his brother to kill Campbell, but only "in jest." His father, John, denied vehemently that he had anything to do with the murder, though he did admit to stealing numerous horses. Pierce Driscoll was released from custody when no evidence was found linking him to the crime. At the trial's end the guilty was described as "almost unanimous," the Driscolls were immediately sentenced to be hanged on the spot. The Driscoll's refused to be hanged and instead requested that they be shot. Before the execution was carried out William Driscoll confessed to six murders, John confessed to nothing. The Regulators then assembled a large firing squad and prepared to carry out the execution. The Regulators divided themselves into two separate squads, one for each man, of 55 and 56 riflemen. First John Driscoll was shot, by the line of 56 executioners. William, by this time trembling, was gunned down next by the line of 55 Regulators.

The desription in the 1909 Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois was somewhat more tame:

"{the Driscolls were) . . . led out, and shot, and then the other was led out, and after being shown the body of his dead relative, he was exhorted to confess that he had committed the crime charged against him. This he refused to do, but acknowledged that he had committed other crimes for which he deserved death."

The lynching of the Driscolls did not spell the end of the Regulators nor the Banditti but it did serve to greatly decrease Banditti activity in Ogle County. Events involving both groups persisted long after the execution of John and William Driscoll.

Post lynching 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 trashed, likely, 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 in Moline, Illinois on July 4, 1845.

In Lee County Banditti activity most probably continued into at least the late 1840s. 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 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.