She is first seen as living in a village along the Rock River in what is now Ogle County, Illinois, and at the time of her birth, there is no evidence of the Winnebago living in this area until 1824 when Thomas Forsyth reports the existence of twelve to fourteen Winnebago villages located on the Rock River and its tributaries south of Lake Koshkonong.
After the death of her father and mother, Hononegah and her sister were raised by her uncles Conosaipkah, Estche-eshesheek, and Horohonkak, and her family moved to Illinois to a Winnebago village on the site of modern-day Grand Detour.
Mack became somewhat of an advisor to the local chief, but it is believed he was despised by the inhabitants because he refused to sell alcohol and firearms to the people and hadn't taken one of their own as a wife.
The inhabitants pledged to protect them, and there Mack established a new trading post near where Dry Run Creek meets the Rock River.
It was then that Mack announced his intentions to found a community on the south bluff overlooking the confluence of the Rock and Pecatonica rivers, which he wanted to call Pecatonic.
The following autumn when the Talcotts returned to the area with their families, Mack had relocated at the site of his proposed community.
By June 1838, Jean Baptiste Beaubien, a veteran trader in Chicago, and John P. Bradstreet had become partners with Mack and began selling lots in Pecatonic.
Mack made out very well in the 1837 treaty between the government and the Winnebago, and in 1839 he used some of the money he received to build a two-story frame house with a cellar.
There are also traditions among some Rockton families that when their ancestors were small boys, they paddled the canoe while Hononegah speared fish.
In a letter to his sister Lovicy Cooper, dated October 6, 1847, Mack describes her final illness and expresses a deep and heartfelt tribute to her: "I have the melancholy duty to inform you that the death published in the paper I sent you was that of my wife.
My house is large, but it was filled to overflowing by mourning friends who assembled to pay the last sad duties to her who had set them the example how to live and how to die."
George Stevens, the postmaster, one of the parties, said most impressively, 'The best woman in Winnebago County died last night', the neighbors all nodding in agreement."