Stephen Mack was born the February 2, 1798, in Poultney, Vermont. He was formally educated in schools of Vermont and Massachusetts and attended, for a while, Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. At the age of 18 he followed his father to Detroit, Michigan. From 1816-1819 he traveled with government expedi-tions around the Great Lakes from Detroit to Green Bay.

During this time in his life, he learned from fur traders of the fertile land of the Rock River Valley. He left for this Valley with the intention of setting up a trading post there. He passed through what is today Janesville and Beloit, settling further south in what is now the Hononegah Forest Preserve. This was in the early 1820’s. Stephen Mack, being industrious and ambitious, was successful with his trading post and began trading with the Indians, taking their furs to Chicago and bringing back merchandise in exchange.

It was during this time that he married Hononegah, an Indian woman much devoted to him. In 1832 Mack and Hononegah moved to an area north of this trading post, settling for good along the confluence of the Pecatonica and Rock Rivers in 1835. He called his trading post Pecatonic but eventually it was called Mack Town. Stephen Mack lived there for the rest of his life. He and Hononegah together managed a very successful enterprise dealing with land speculators, settlers and tradesmen. Mack’s trading post became a busy community of farmers and settlers.

In 1838 Mack established a ferry across Rock River and in 1842-43 built the first bridge across the river. Mack and Hononegah produced a large family of nine children, two of whom died in infancy. The family lived in harmony with the prosperous village until Hononegah’s death in 1847 and Stephen Mack’s in 1850. Legend and romance are part of the Stephen Mack story but he seems to have been a good citizen, a generous friend and a man of integrity who was well respected.