ANOTHER SON of Joseph Collard of the American Revolution who took up his abode in Pike county, Illinois, more than
a century ago was Joseph Collard II, who brought his family to what is now Pleasant Hill township in March, 1832.
This was the year in which occurred the great migration from Missouri to the Illinois side of the river. These
settlers from Missouri, most of whom were of Kentucky or other southern origin and therefore believers in the slave
system, previously, in their migrations from the south, had passed up the free state of Illinois and had crossed
over into the slave state of Missouri. In the period 1827 to 1837 many of those who had crossed Illinois and taken
up abodes in Missouri, retraced their steps to the Illinois side of the river, most of them settling in the Bay
Creek country adjacent to modern Pleasant Hill.
Joseph Collard II was of Virginia birth, born in the Old Dominion August 29, 1794. He was early transplanted to
the soil of Daniel Boone's "Kaintuck." In Kentucky he married Mary Null, daughter of old Jacob and sister
of John and Jacob Null, who in old Indian days on the Missouri border were so intimately associated with the history
of Wood's Fort, Where now is Troy, county seat of Lincoln county, Missouri, and both of whom, in April, 1819, at
the house of Zadock Woods, served on the first grand jury at the first term of court convened in Lincoln county.
Fellow members of that jury included Samuel Hardin Lewis (whose daughter Damaris later married Felix Alver Collard),
Isaac Cannon (husband of Mary Collard, youngest sister of Joseph II), John Hunter (husband of Margaret "Peggy"
Collard, eldest sister of Joseph II). The pioneer Nulls also at a later date intermarried with the pioneer Zumwalts,
a younger Jacob Null, nephew of Mary Null Collard, marrying Elizabeth Zumwalt, daughter of the first marriage of
Pike county's pioneer, Andrew Zumwalt, ancestor of numerous of the Zumwalt family now in Pike county.
Joseph Collard II and his large family (nine children had been prior to the Pike county settlement) arrived in
Pike county at the time when the frontier settlements were much agitated by Indian outbreaks. In November, 1830,
a band of fifty or sixty of the Sac and Fox tribe came down from the north and camped for some time on Bay Creek,
where once had been their hunting ground. They belonged to Black Hawk's tribe then living on the Rock river. Trouble
occurred between the Indians and the white settlers in the Bay Creek region because of the disappearance of hogs.
The settlers turned out, caught some of the Indians, tied them up and administered a severe flagellation with withes,
after which the Indians left the country, never to return again in any considerable numbers.
In the fall of 1831, Black Hawk and his tribes began committing depredations in the northern part of the state.
News of Indian difficulties reached the settlers in Pike county and there was general alarm. Settlers of Rock river
and vicinity petitioned Governor John Reynolds (a former justice of the Illinois Supreme Court who had held court
at Atlas), asking for aid, stating that "Last fall the Black Hawk band of Indians almost destroyed all of
our crops, and made several attacks on the owners when they attempted to prevent their depredations, and wounded
one man by actually stabbing him in several places. This spring they acted in a more outrageous and menacing manner."
Another petition set forth that "The Indians pasture their horses in our wheat fields, shoot our cattle and
threaten to burn our houses over our heads if we do not leave." These petitions placed the numbers of the
Indians at from 300 to 600 or 700.
In answer to these petitions, Governor Reynolds in May, 1831, called for 700 mounted men. Beardstown was designated
as the place of rendezvous, and such was the feeling of the settlers against the Indians that those offering themselves
were almost three times as many as called for. They left Rushville for Rock Island June 15, 1831 and on the 30th
of the same month, in a council held for the purpose, Black Hawk and 27 chiefs and warriors on the one side and
General Edmund P. Gaines of the United States Army and Governor John Reynolds of Illinois on the other side, signed
a treaty of peace and friendship under a capitulation which bound the Indians to go and remain west of the Mississippi
river.
Shortly after the arrival of Joseph Collard and his family in Pike county, the Indian troubles were renewed. He
had scarcely more than settled his family in the Bay Creek country when, one morning, a lone horseman stopped at
his cabin door with a message from William Ross, captain of the First Rifles of Pike County, at Atlas. The messenger
bore a summons to arms against Black Hawk. This early Pike county Paul Revere, spreading the Indian alarm and summoning
the settlers to arms, was undoubtedly Benjamin Barney, the Atlas blacksmith, who, at the order of Captain Ross,
laid down his hammer and tongs at the forge where he was engaged in making a plow, untied his leathern apron, left
his fire to smolder and die, mounted his horse and carried the order for military assembly to the scattered cabins
throughout the county. This was Friday, April 20, 1832, about a month after the Collard family's arrival in the
county.
Joseph Collard II, then in his 38th year, was among those who assembled at Atlas pursuant to Captain Ross's call.
There at Atlas occurred the famous "whiskey enlistment," theme of pioneer Pike county story. The story
of the early historian is that the assembled men did not "enthuse" to the martial music of the occasion
as their leaders had anticipated. It was discovered that something more potent was needed. Thereupon, two buckets
of whisky were produced. "The men were formed in two lines facing each other, and wide enough apart to admit
of two men walking up and down the line between them. Captain Ross and Lieutenant Seeley started down the line,
each with a bucket of liquor; two boys following with water, and then came the music. It was understood that those
who would fall in after the music would enlist for service."
It is related that by the time the third round was made, one hundred men were in line, which was more than the
quota of the county under the call received by Captain Ross from Governor Reynolds. William Ross was elected captain
and Benjamin Barney first lieutenant. Ross was later to be made colonel, Barney succeeding him as captain.
In the war that followed, known in history as the Black Hawk War, Joseph Collard served in Captain Benjamin Barney's
company of the Third Regiment, commanded by Colonel Abram B. Dewitt, of the Brigade of Mounted Volunteers commanded
by Brigadier General Whitesides. Among those who served with him in this company were Lewis Allen, pioneer Baptist
preacher and first settler in what is now Detroit township, he a grandson of Jonathan Boone, brother of Daniel;
Jonathan Boone Allen, pioneer of the Milton neighborhood and also a son of Jonathan Boone; Chedister B. Lewis,
a son of Samuel Hardin Lewis, who also had arrived in Pike county from Missouri just before the outbreak of the
Black Hawk War; Hawkins Judd, one of the commissioners who later founded Pittsfield; Eli Hubbard, who later was
one of the three founders of Fairfield, now Pleasant Hill, and Meredith W. Coffey, one of the noted family that
settled Coffey Hill, north of Griggsville.
Mrs. Mary Ann (Emert) Mitchell of Portland, Oregon, now about 94, a granddaughter of Joseph Collard II, says that
her grandfather Collard was killed in the Black Hawk War, his head being shot off by a cannon. Mrs. Mitchell is
a daughter of Jacob and Eliza (Collard). Emert, the latter a daughter of the second Joseph.
The circumstances of Joseph Collard's death are unknown and it may be that he met death in the manner stated by
Mrs. Mitchell but this could not have been in the Black Hawk War. The records show that Joseph Collard was mustered
out of the Black Hawk War service at the mouth of the Fox river, May 27, 1832, at a point 250 miles distance from
Atlas, the place of enlistment. Also, on December 1, 1833, Joseph Collard became the father of a tenth child, a
son, William Marion Collard, who in the 1880s was a member of the legislature of the state of Oregon. William Marion
was the only one of Joseph's ten children who was born in Pike county. He was born a year and a half after his
father was mustered out of service at the close of the Black Hawk War.
Joseph Collard II and Mary Null were married in Kentucky in 1814. They came to Missouri shortly after their marriage
and resided in Lincoln county until early in 1832. Most of their children were born in Missouri, two (possibly
three) being of Kentucky birth and one a native of Illinois. The first child, Joseph, and the second, Mary, were
born in Kentucky in 1815 and 1816 respectively. Their birth dates are missing from the family Bible record in possession
of Nathan Jay Collard of Vandalia, Missouri, a grandson of Joseph Collard and Mary Null.
Other children of Joseph and Mary (Null) Collard, as shown by this Bible record, were:
John Newton Collard (Black John of early Pleasant Hill history), born March 23, 1817; Abigail H. Collard (later
the wife of Jacob Turnbaugh of Pleasant Hill), born February 21, 1819; Nancy Collard (who married Lewis Parrack
in Pike county in 1838), born October 19, 1821; Ann Collard (who married Theodore Kessler of Greene county, Illinois),
born January 23, 1824, Margaret Collard (who married James V. Harpole in Pike county in 1845), born November 25,
1826; Eliza Collard (who married Jacob A Emert in Pike county in 1844), born December 19, 1828; Charles Collard,
born May 19, 1831, died young, and William Marion Collard, born in Bay Creek (now Pleasant Hill) township, December
1, 1833.
A number of descendants of Joseph Collard II and Mary Null are residents of Oregon and prominent in the affairs
of that state. Allen A. Bynon, Oregon state senator from Multnomah county, is a great great grandson of the second
Joseph Collard, his mother, Mrs. Fred Bynon of 1025 Garnet Street, Salem, Oregon, being a daughter of 93-year-old
Mrs. Mary Ann (Emert) Mitchell of Portland, she a daughter of Joseph Collard's daughter, Eliza (Collard) Emert,
wife of Jacob Emert, so well known in early Pleasant Hill.
Mrs. Elizabeth (Harpole) McCann, who died in Oregon November 20, 1936, aged upwards of 70, was a granddaughter
of Joseph Collard, being a daughter of James and Margaret (Collard) Harpole, the latter a daughter of Joseph. Mrs.
McCann's husband, John A. McCann of 100 Washington Street, Dallas, Oregon, and daughter Gwendolyn (McCann) Collins
of 1555 North Capitol Street, Salem, Oregon, are attendants at the annual Oregon Collard family reunions.