The Birch Gang

Terry Bullock, a cornucopia of information, photos, and newspaper articles about the Wabash Valley Sanders and their Tapscott connections, often distracts me with interesting stories that refuse to release me from their grip until I research them and commit the findings to paper. Once again she has pulled me away from family history grunt work with her tale of Sebastin (also “Sebastian”) Fox and his possible encounter with the “Birch Gang.” In this blog, let’s first take a look at the Birches.

Anderson Township

Rough, hilly, and once heavily wooded, much of Clark County's Anderson Twp, where the Wabash Valley Tapscotts finally settled, was poor for tillage. And some of the worse land was in the northwest, the area of the Tapscott homelands. The township is divided by Mill Creek, whose tributaries (Hurricane Creek, Haw Branch, Blackburn Branch, Auburn Branch) disrupt what should be unbroken prairie land.

Robert and his cohorts burying loot
(The Banditti of the Prairie, D. H. Cook
and Co, Publishers, Chicago, 1856).

Anderson Twp was once known for being wild and untamed, a reputation that may have been due as much to gossip as fact. Nevertheless, in the second quarter of the 1800s it was the home of Robert H. Birch, claimed to be a robber and murderer, though that was never proven in court. Known as “three-fingered” Birch, with a number of other aliases, Robert had arrived around 1831 in Anderson Twp as a child with his father, John, and brother Timothy. In 1832 John Birch owned property in Section 4 just north of what would be Henry’s Land.

As a youth, Robert became involved with a group of criminals who were terrorizing central Illinois. In Clark County, the group was  known as the “Birch Gang,” though little indicates that Robert was the leader. On 4 Jul 1845 near Rock Island, Illinois, Colonel George Davenport was murdered and Robert, William Fox, brothers John and Aaron Long, and Granville Young were accused of being participants. The Longs and Young were hung for the crime; William Fox and Robert Birch escaped. In later years Birch reformed and led a reputable life.

This lays the groundwork for Sebastin's tale, the subject of our next blog.