Banditti of the Prairie

A historical marker along Illinois Route 2.

The Banditti of the Prairie or the Prairie Bandits, in the U.S. state of Illinois, were a group of loose-knit, 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. By 1841 the pattern of horse theft, murder, and robbery associated with the Banditti had come to a head in Ogle County. As the crimes continued, local citizens formed bands of vigilantes known as Regulators. The clash between the Banditti and the Regulators in Ogle County resulted in a lynching and decreased Banditti activity within the county.

Banditti and Regulator activity continued well after the lynching that occurred in 1841. Crimes continued, committed by both sides, across northern Illinois. The Banditti were involved in other notable events as well, including the 1845 murder of George Davenport, the namesake of Davenport, Iowa. The group also continued to be active in Lee and Winnebago counties following the events in Oregon.

Banditti influence

The Prairie Bandits were active across northern Illinois, especially in Lee, Ogle, Winnebago, and DeKalb counties, from around 1835 until the 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 Lee County the Banditti also had enough power to get away unnoticed. The group had enough allies that they were scattered throughout the county. The connections the Banditti had around the county made illegal activities such as counterfeiting and dealing in and concealing stolen property easy to perpetrate. It was reported that at one time every township officer in Lee County was a member of the Banditti. Acts of theft were carried on in defiance of authority. Citizens were threatened when they tried to seek redress from the thieves.

In the end the Prairie Bandits' activity in Ogle and Lee County became more than area residents were willing to withstand. In Ogle County the crimes that occurred in March 1841 resulted in a kangaroo court which culminated with the lynching of two Banditti near Oregon, Illinois. In nearby Lee County, a Vigilance Committee was formed men from throughout Lee County, and especially Lee Center Township took an active role in suppressing the Banditti activity.

Ogle County

Beginning with the events on March 21 1841 violence and retribution escalated in the area around the Ogle County city of Oregon. Illinois, still frontier in 1841, was settled by large numbers of migrants after the Black Hawk War. The settlers were followed to the area by a criminal element. The Banditti of the Prairie were part of the crime problem that plagued much of northern Illinois. As such, local citizens eventually took the law into their own hands.

Background

On March 21 1841, six members of the Banditti were arrested on charges of counterfeiting. They were held at the Ogle County Jail in the city of Oregon. That night a fire broke out in the newly completed courthouse, which was to be used for the first time the next day. 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. The court records concerning the case had been safely concealed in 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 agree with the majority opinion. The Banditti 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 bands of citizen vigilantes 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".

The Regulators in Ogle County began by whipping two horse thieves, one of whom joined the group after the incident. The first Ogle County Regulator captain, W.S. Wellington, stepped aside after his grist mill was destroyed and his horse tortured and killed in April 1841. The new captain, John Campbell, was a resident of White Rock Township. The leaders of the Banditti were the Driscoll family. At the head was 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; he assembled 200 Regulators, and marched to the Driscoll home. A small group of Banditti had gathered at the Driscoll homestead but seeing they were outnumbered they fled, only to return with the DeKalb County Sheriff and other authorities in tow. The Sheriff and his companions 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 stated 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.

Near the site of where the father and son were shot.

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 hold legitimately in Ottawa, Illinois. Leland directed those present who were Regulators to form a circle, 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 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 verdict 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. The line of 56 executioners shot first John Driscoll. William, by this time trembling, was gunned down next by the line of 55 Regulators.

The description 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.

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 in Moline, Illinois on July 4 1845.

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.