Sinsinawa Mound raid

On June 29, 1832, an assault took place at Sinsinawa Mound, close to the Sinsinawa mining settlement in Michigan Territory, in what is now Grant County, Wisconsin. The episode formed part of the broader Black Hawk War and left two men dead, while a third escaped harm by taking refuge in a blockhouse nearby. Afterward, Captain James W. Stephenson organized a pursuit of the raiders, identified as a straggling band of Sauk, though he lost their tracks once they reached the Mississippi River. Coming during a week marked by similar skirmishes and raids elsewhere, this attack added to the mounting anxiety felt throughout the region. Its impact was such that the people of nearby Platteville weighed the possibility of abandoning their settlement altogether.

Prelude

In 1827 George Wallace Jones, destined to serve Iowa as a United States Senator, made his way into the area around Sinsinawa Mound, and the following year he founded a mining camp on the spot. His own log cabin became the settlement's first building, thrown up in just two days during the spring of 1828. It stretched 49 feet (14.9 m) in length and 17 feet (5.2 m) in width, and every room inside held a single door and a single window.

Four years on, once the Black Hawk War erupted, Jones added a modest fort to the property. This structure, among the many raised throughout the region for the safety of settlers, is believed to leave traces still visible near the entrance to the Sinsinawa Dominican complex today. Enoch Robinson, a soldier who lent a hand raising the fort's blockhouse, would later take part in burying those killed during the raid on Sinsinawa Mound. When that assault occurred, Jones himself was elsewhere, riding with Henry Dodge's militia volunteers toward Lake Koshkonong, at that time a stretch of marshland, to join General Henry Atkinson, who held overall command.

Attack

On the twenty-ninth of June, 1832, a handful of Sauk warriors, likely a small detachment rather than a large force, struck three settlers laboring in a cornfield near the Jones mining settlement close to Sinsinawa Mound. Positioning themselves between the workers and their firearms, the attackers left the men with no chance to defend themselves. James Boxley and John Thompson died in the assault, their remains found afterward badly disfigured. A third victim, whose identity remains unknown, managed to flee toward Jones's blockhouse and lived through the ordeal. Historians believe these attackers were stragglers separated from the larger British Band, which at the time was making its way toward the Rock River under the leadership of Black Hawk.

Aftermath

Word of the raid soon traveled to Galena, Illinois, prompting Captain James W. Stephenson to gather thirty soldiers and set off in pursuit of those responsible. Upon reaching Sinsinawa Mound, his men laid to rest the two settlers whose bodies had been left "most shockingly mutilated." Both Thompson and Boxley bore the marks of scalping, and Thompson's heart had been cut out. From there, Stephenson tracked the Sauk trail toward the Mississippi River, but the trail disappeared once the raiders crossed to the other side. His men made their way back to Galena having caught no one. Meanwhile, Henry Dodge instructed the scattered militia units to gather at Fort Hamilton, with plans to eventually link up with General Henry Atkinson near what is now Madison, Wisconsin. George W. Jones, upon learning of the assault at Sinsinawa Mound, broke away from the volunteer force under Dodge's command and hurried back to the settlement there.

News of the killings at Sinsinawa Mound, layered atop other troubling incidents throughout the area, deepened the unease already spreading among settlers. In Platteville, located in what is now Wisconsin, residents began considering an escape south to Galena, some 25 miles (40 km) away, driven largely by fears stemming from the mound attack. In response, Colonel Dodge sent Frederick Hollman to Platteville in hopes of calming the frightened populace. By the time he got there, though, locals had already heard that nearby Ho-Chunk residents posed no threat. Combined with the arrival of supplies promised from Galena, this news eased the community's fears enough that plans to abandon the settlement were dropped.