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Title: The Story of Old Fort Dearborn
Author: Currey, J. Seymour
Language: English
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Transcriber Note
Text emphasis denoted by _Italics_.
[Illustration:
_Henry Dearborn was born in New Hampshire in 1751. He was an officer in
the American army, took part in the battle of Bunker Hill, was present
at the capture of Burgoyne's army, and remained in the service until the
end of the war. In 1801 he was appointed Secretary of War under President
Jefferson, and held that office for eight years._
_In 1812 Dearborn was appointed Major-General and did excellent service
on the Niagara frontier during the Second War with Great Britain. John
Wentworth said of him that "history records no other man who was at the
battle of Bunker Hill, the surrender of Burgoyne and Cornwallis, and then
took an active part in the War of 1812."_]
THE STORY
OF
OLD FORT DEARBORN
BY
J. SEYMOUR CURREY
WITH ELEVEN ILLUSTRATIONS
[Illustration]
CHICAGO
A. C. McCLURG & CO.
1912
Copyright
A. C. McCLURG & CO.
1912
------
Published August, 1912
W. F. HAL PRINTING COMPANY, CHICAGO
This Volume is Dedicated to
NELLY KINZIE GORDON
_PREFACE_
THERE were two Fort Dearborns, the first one having been built in 1803.
This was occupied by a garrison of United States troops until 1812, when
it was destroyed by the Indians immediately after the bloody massacre of
that year. The second Fort Dearborn was built on the site of the former
one in 1816, and continued in use as a military post, though at several
intervals during periods of peaceful relations with the surrounding
tribes the garrisons were withdrawn for a time. In 1836 the fort was
finally evacuated by the military forces. The events narrated in the
succeeding pages of this volume concern the first or Old Fort Dearborn.
The name "Chicago," as descriptive of the river and its neighborhood, was
in use for more than a century before the first Fort Dearborn was built;
it appears on Franquelin's map printed in 1684 as "Chekagou," and is
mentioned in various forms of spelling in the written and printed records
of that and succeeding periods. It has been said that Chicago is the
oldest Indian town in the West of which the original name is retained;
thus its name enjoys a much greater antiquity than that of Fort Dearborn,
familiar as the latter name is in our local annals.
In the course of its history Chicago has existed under three flags;
first, under the domination of the French kings, from the period of
its discovery to the year 1763, when, after the French and Indian War,
it passed into the possession of the English. As British territory it
remained until the close of the Revolutionary War, when the Western
Territories were ceded by the English to the Americans at the treaty of
peace concluded in 1783; and thus the region in which Chicago is situated
finally came under the Stars and Stripes.
CONTENTS
Preface
PAGE
I Wilderness Days 3
II Fortifying the Frontier 17
III The Tragedy 95
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
General Henry Dearborn _Frontispiece_
Chicago from 1803 to 1812 3
The Wild Onion Plant 12
Bird's-Eye View of Old Fort Dearborn 27
Residence of John Kinzie 32
Mr. and Mrs. John H. Kinzie 47
Rebekah Wells Heald 58
Captain William Wells 58
Hardscrabble 74
Facsimile of Letter of General Hull to Captain Heald 103
Memorial Monument to the Massacre 136
Franquelin's Map of 1684 165
Map of Chicago in 1812 165
[Illustration: CHICAGO FROM 1803 TO 1812
_This broad view, while not accurate, gives a good general idea of
the appearance of the site of Chicago, with old Fort Dearborn and the
surrounding region, in the years from 1803 to 1812. Some of the details
are out of proportion, for instance the long sand-bar extending to the
south opposite the mouth of the river is much exaggerated, and the view
of the Kinzie house is not correct._
_Reproduced from a lithograph in the possession of The Chicago Historical
Society._]
THE STORY OF
OLD FORT DEARBORN
--------------
I
WILDERNESS DAYS
AT the time that Fort Dearborn was built the site of Chicago had been
known to the civilized world for a hundred and thirty years. The Chicago
River and the surrounding region had been discovered by two explorers,
Joliet and Marquette, who with a party of five men in two canoes were
returning from a voyage on the Mississippi, which they were the first
white men to navigate.
Joliet was the leader of the party, and he was accompanied, as was the
custom in French expeditions into unknown countries, by a missionary, who
in this case was James Marquette, a Jesuit priest. Both were young men,
Joliet twenty-eight years of age and Marquette thirty-six. The expedition
had been authorized by the French Government, the purpose being to
penetrate the western wilderness in an endeavor to reach the "Great
River," of which so much had been heard from wandering tribes of Indians,
and to find the direction of its flow. Many conjectures were made by the
men of that time as to the course of this river and where it reached
the sea, some believing that it emptied into the "Sea of Virginia,"
others that it flowed into the Gulf of Mexico, and still others that it
discharged its waters into the "Vermilion Sea," that is, the Gulf of
California; and if the latter conjecture should prove to be correct a
passage might thus be opened to China and India.
In the event of such a discovery being made, great honor would naturally
accrue to its projectors. The instructions to undertake such an expedition
came from Colbert, the minister of Louis XIV, who wrote in 1672 to Talon,
the Intendant at Quebec, that an effort should be made "to reach the sea";
that is, to discover and explore the "Great River" and solve the mystery
of its outlet.
Father Dablon, in the _Jesuit Relations_, thus wrote of the enterprise
about to be undertaken: "The Count Frontenac, our Governor, and
Monsieur Talon, then our Intendant, recognizing the importance of this
discovery, ... appointed for this undertaking Sieur Joliet, whom they
considered very fit for so great an enterprise; and they were well
pleased that Father Marquette should be of the party."
The expedition was accordingly organized, and started from the Mission
of St. Ignace on the 17th of May, 1673. In due course the party reached
the mouth of the Fox River (of Wisconsin), at the head of Green Bay. From
this point the party passed up the Fox and soon after crossed the portage
into the Wisconsin River. They were now far beyond the farthest point
reached by any previous explorers. On the 17th of June the explorers
paddled their canoes out on to the broad bosom of the Mississippi.
Marquette wrote in his journal that when he beheld the great river it was
"with a joy that I cannot express."
It was while carrying out the purposes of this expedition that the
explorers passed through the Chicago River from the west. They had
reached the Mississippi as they had planned to do, had floated down its
current as far as the mouth of the Arkansas, and on the way back had
ascended the Illinois and Desplaines rivers, made a portage into the
Chicago River, and, passing out on Lake Michigan, pursued their journey
to the point on Green Bay at the mouth of the Fox River from which they
had started at the beginning of June, after an absence on the journey of
almost four months.
It should not be forgotten that De Soto, a Spanish explorer, had
discovered the Mississippi at a point not far from the present city of
Memphis, in the year 1541, a hundred and thirty-two years before the
voyage of Joliet and Marquette; but the knowledge of that discovery had
faded from men's minds. They actually passed over the spot where De
Soto had crossed the river in the previous century, though apparently
they were not aware of that fact, for no mention is made in Marquette's
journal of De Soto or his discovery.
The chief significance of the Chicago portage to the explorers when they
passed it was the view of the lake which they had as they descended the
stream towards its mouth. Lake Michigan, indeed, had been discovered long
before, but it was known only along its northern shores extending as
far as Green Bay, which had been entered by the missionaries, a station
being established at its farthest extremity. The southern extension of
Lake Michigan was unknown until Joliet and Marquette paddled into it with
their canoes as they left the Chicago River.
No date was mentioned by Marquette in his journal of the arrival of
the party in the river, but it must have been about the beginning of
September, 1673. Joliet also kept a journal, but unfortunately he lost
all his papers in a canoe accident before he reached Quebec on his
return. That the site of the future Chicago, situated as it was on so
important a portage connecting the lake with the river systems of the
interior, possessed advantages of a striking kind was plainly perceived
by Joliet, who afterward wrote that an artificial waterway could easily
be constructed by cutting only a half league of prairie, "to pass from
the Lake of the Illinois into St. Louis River."
Thus, upon reaching the mission station of St. Francis Xavier, situated
near the mouth of the Fox River, from which they had started, the
explorers had completed a journey of about twenty-five hundred miles in a
period of four months, had opened to the eyes of the world the wonderful
river of the West, had incidentally discovered the site of the future
great city of Chicago, and had made the complete circuit back to Green
Bay without the loss of a man or the occurrence of a single untoward
accident.
La Salle's first appearance on Lake Michigan was in September, 1679, six
years after Joliet's expedition. La Salle came down through the Straits
of Mackinac with a party of seventeen, skirted the western shore of the
lake toward the south, but believing he could reach the Illinois River by
a more favorable route than that over which Joliet had passed, he coasted
around the southern end of the lake until he reached the mouth of the
St. Joseph River. Ascending that river he found the portage into the
Kankakee and readily made his way to the Illinois, where he established
a fort near Peoria. He returned to Canada the following year, and
recruiting another party he once more passed over the St. Joseph-Kankakee
route to the same destination as before.
Again returning to Canada he started near the end of the year 1681 with
a much larger party, and this time he chose the Chicago-Desplaines route
to the interior. He continued on down the Illinois to its mouth, thence
down the Mississippi, passed the farthest point reached by Joliet, and at
length arrived at its mouth and issued forth upon the waters of the Gulf
of Mexico. This event took place on the 7th of April, 1682.
La Salle was thus the first white man to pass down the Mississippi River
from the mouth of the Illinois to the Gulf. De Soto's followers after his
death had indeed returned from their ill-starred expedition by way of the
lower Mississippi, but it remained for La Salle to arrive at a certain
knowledge of the course taken by the river throughout the long distance
over which he passed and to determine its flow into the Gulf of Mexico,
and moreover to establish the first substantial claim in behalf of a
European power to the soil of Louisiana.
La Salle had entered upon an extensive system of colonization, and
through many dangers and difficulties he had secured footholds for the
French in the western country. He passed frequently back and forth
between the forts he had established and his base of supplies at
Montreal. In the summer of 1683 he was in Chicago and wrote a letter to
his lieutenant, Tonty, whom he had left in command of Fort St. Louis,
on the Illinois River, dating the letter "Portage du Chicagou, 4 Juin,
1683." During the next three years he spent the larger part of his time
in attempting to found a colony on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, and
while in the midst of his activities he was foully assassinated by some
of his followers. His death occurred on March 19, 1687.
Parkman sums up the character of La Salle in this fine passage: "Serious
in all things, incapable of the lighter pleasures, incapable of repose,
finding no joy but in pursuit of great designs, too shy for society and
too reserved for popularity, often unsympathetic and always seeming so,
smothering emotions he could not utter, schooled to universal distrust,
stern to his followers and pitiless to himself, bearing the brunt of
every hardship and every danger, demanding of others an equal constancy
joined to an implicit deference, heeding no counsel but his own,
attempting the impossible and grasping at what was too vast to hold,--he
contained in his own complex and painful nature the chief springs of his
triumphs, his failures, and his death."
The Chicago-Desplaines portage was used to a constantly increasing degree
in the following years. Missionaries, traders, and military people found
it a convenient point for residence or as a thoroughfare to the Illinois
River. But on account of divided counsels among the French authorities at
Quebec there were no adequate measures taken to protect the whites from
the encroachments and hostility of the savages, so that early in the next
century the portage declined in importance and fell into disuse, other
routes to the interior being preferred.
The name "Chicago," in some of the numerous forms of spelling employed,
is met with on the maps of successively later dates, occasionally in the
reports of French commandants at Detroit or Mackinac, and more frequently
in the letters of the missionaries preserved in that extensive collection
known as the _Jesuit Relations_. After the victory of Wolfe over Montcalm
and the fall of Quebec, the French ceded in 1763 all their western
possessions to the English, which "left France without a foothold on the
American main."
[Illustration: THE WILD ONION PLANT.
_That the name "Chicago" was derived from an Indian word meaning "wild
onion," is believed by most authorities. Schoolcraft tells us that the
word was Chi-kaug-ong, meaning wild leek or onion._
_Cadillac, the French commandant at Mackinac in 1695, mentioned in a
report the name of Chicagou as one of a chain of posts on Lake Michigan,
and said that the name signified "river of the wild onion;" and in an
Indian treaty of 1773, the river was referred to as "Chicagou, or Garlick
Creek." Gurdon S. Hubbard, in his Memoirs, states that the name was
derived from the wild onion, and Colonel Samuel A. Storrow, who visited
this site in 1817, refers in his letters to "the River Chicagou, or in
English, Wild Onion River."_
_The wild onion plant may be seen at the present day growing luxuriantly
on the prairies near Chicago._]
But so far as the portage at Chicago was concerned this change of
sovereignty made little difference. What with the constant strife among
the savage tribes whose normal condition was that of warfare, and the
dangers to the whites caused by the neglect of military protection, the
region was left a solitude; and the few references to its existence
during a hundred years indicate confused relations between the tribes and
the few whites who ventured to visit the region. The sovereignty of the
western country again changed in 1783, this time from the British to the
American Government. A few cabins were built in the vicinity in later
years, and when the American Government proceeded to the erection of a
fort in 1803 these cabins constituted the only evidences of civilization
that existed on the spot.
II
FORTIFYING THE FRONTIER
IN the early summer of 1803, the schooner "Tracy," a transport vessel
belonging to the United States Government, left Detroit with a cargo of
building material and supplies, and in due time arrived off the mouth of
the Chicago River. The purpose was to build a fort at this point. About
the same time a company of sixty-six men and three commissioned officers
took their departure from Detroit to take part in building the fort and
to occupy it after its completion. Because of the diminutive size of the
schooner the men composing this force did not sail in her, except the
commanding officer, Captain John Whistler, accompanied by several members
of his family. The soldiers marched overland, conducted by Lieutenant
James S. Swearingen, and reached Chicago about the same time that the
vessel arrived. On its way, the vessel stopped at St. Joseph, Michigan,
where Captain Whistler and his family disembarked; they continued their
journey to Chicago in a rowboat. The family of Captain Whistler consisted
of himself and his wife, their son, Lieutenant William Whistler, and his
wife, recently married, and a younger son, George Washington Whistler,
who was about two years old.
General Henry Dearborn was at that time Secretary of War in the cabinet
of President Jefferson. His orders to the commanding officer at Detroit
were to send a body of men to construct and garrison a fort at the mouth
of the Chicago River. This locality had long been considered a suitable
one for the construction of a frontier military post. A tract "six miles
square, at the mouth of the Chikago River," had been ceded by the Indians
to the United States at the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, evidently with
a view to its favorable location as the site of a fort.
William Burnett, a trader at St. Joseph, writing to a firm in Montreal
under date of August, 1798, said that it was understood that a garrison
would be sent to Chicago in that year. This expectation, however, was not
realized until five years later.
The Treaty of Greenville referred to was concluded by General Anthony
Wayne with the tribes in 1795, after they had been disastrously defeated
at the battle of Fallen Timbers in the previous year. A part of the
description of the tract ceded was that it was "where a fort formerly
stood." There was no trace of such a fort, however, when the builders
of Fort Dearborn arrived upon the scene. The Miami Indian chief, Little
Turtle, well known to the whites at that period and a man familiar
with this region, said in later years when questioned about it that he
remembered nothing of any fort that had ever stood on the spot before the
building of Fort Dearborn.
There is evidence, however, that a fort, perhaps several of them at
different periods, had been erected in this vicinity and occupied by
the French; but having been built in a temporary fashion they utterly
disappeared after the French had ceased to occupy the country.
The tract "six miles square" mentioned in the Treaty of Greenville
was never surveyed, and as the treaties of later years included the
locality within other descriptions of ceded lands, it did not become
necessary to make a survey. For that reason the exact boundaries of the
six-mile-square tract were never determined and are not shown on official
maps now recognized in title abstracts, though on some maps an outline of
the tract is shown as an illustration, but without any authority as to
the precise position occupied.
It has been stated that commissioners from Washington had selected as
the site of a proposed fort on Lake Michigan a location at the mouth of
the St. Joseph River where the city of St. Joseph now stands, but as the
Indian tribes would not give their consent for its construction at that
point, the commissioners had been obliged to decide on a site at the
mouth of the Chicago River. In commenting on this statement a writer in
the _Michigan Pioneer Collection of Historical Publications_ says:
"We conclude that had the fort been built at St. Joseph there would have
been no Chicago." Mr. Edward G. Mason, a writer of acknowledged authority
on subjects pertaining to western history, refers to this statement,
and rather humorously observes: "This matter of a fort seems to have
been peculiarly disastrous to the St. Joseph country. When it had one it
constantly invited capture, and caused the inhabitants to spend more or
less of their lives as prisoners of war, and when it did not have one it
thereby lost the opportunity of becoming the commercial metropolis of the
Northwest. I know of no such tract of land in all this section which has
been so singularly unfortunate as the St. Joseph region."
Mr. Mason alludes in this passage to the vicissitudes suffered by the
small military post or "tomahawk fortress," as such posts on the frontier
were sometimes called, at the mouth of the St. Joseph River, which during
the troublous period of the eighteenth century had frequently changed
masters. At the time of which we are writing, the fort, or the remains
of a fort, at that point was in such a condition that a new structure
would have been necessary if that site had been determined upon by the
authorities.
Building operations for Fort Dearborn began on the Fourth of July, under
the direction of Captain Whistler. The soldiers cut the timber required
from the neighboring forests and, as there were no horses or oxen
available in the vicinity, the men dragged the logs with ropes from the
woods to the banks of the river, and floated them to the site chosen.
At that period a forest of considerable density covered the land on the
north side of the river, and there was also a fringe of trees along the
South Branch throughout its entire length; but the extensive area in
the South Division, excepting the woodland on the margin of the river,
was open prairie. In fact, the Grand Prairie of Illinois, extending for
hundreds of miles into the interior of the state, here reached the shore
of the lake for a space of three or four miles along the water, and it is
a singular fact that at no other place does the Grand Prairie border on
Lake Michigan. It was on the line of this famous tract that the massacre
occurred, which will be described in the following pages.
The portion of the Grand Prairie between the mouth of the river and a
point some three or four miles south along the lake shore was mostly
devoid of trees, a scanty growth of cottonwoods and pines, however,
maintaining a precarious existence among the sand-dunes. A mile or two
south of the river's mouth these low sand-hills became the predominant
feature of the landscape, just as may be found at the present time along
the low shores of the lake beyond the city limits toward the south and
east. Behind the sand-hills the level prairie stretched away as far as
the eye could reach. Schoolcraft, in one of his early voyages, related
that as one approached the shores from the southern end of Lake Michigan,
the appearance of these sand-dunes--between which was occasionally seen a
scanty growth of stunted pines--gave a desolate aspect to the scene, in
wonderful contrast with the rich and abundant verdure of the far-reaching
prairie land lying just beyond them.
When the schooner "Tracy" arrived at Chicago she anchored half a mile
from shore and discharged her cargo by boats; for a long sand-bar, with
its surface slightly higher than the lake level, forced the current of
the river to follow the shore toward the south before finding an outlet
into the lake, and even then over a broad stretch of shallow water, thus
preventing the entrance of the vessel into the river channel. "Some two
thousand Indians," said an eye-witness in an interview reported many
years later, "visited the locality while the vessel was here, being
attracted by so unusual an occurrence as the appearance in these waters
of 'a big canoe with wings.'"
But notwithstanding the astonishment of the Indians, it was probably
not the first time that sailing vessels had visited the shores of the
future site of Chicago. William Burnett, the trader at St. Joseph before
referred to, in writing to a merchant in Mackinac in 1786, makes a
request that a vessel be sent to St. Joseph to take on board a quantity
of grain, and further says regarding the expected vessel, "If she is to
come to Chicago you can very likely get her to stop at the mouth of the
river"--that is, the St. Joseph River. It is probable enough, however,
that the great majority of the Indians around Chicago, who gazed with so
much interest at the sight of the wonderful "canoe with wings," had never
before seen a craft with sails spread to the breeze.
The "Tracy" was a vessel of ninety tons' burden, and belonged to the
United States Government. After the goods were unloaded they were placed
in tents to await the completion of the buildings. At the end of five
days the vessel departed on her return voyage to Detroit, and on board of
her Lieutenant Swearingen took passage.
Later in the summer the fort was ready for occupancy, and its garrison
of United States regulars took possession of the barracks and dwellings
within the stockade. The fort was named in honor of General Henry
Dearborn, who had been a distinguished officer of the Revolutionary War,
as well as Secretary of War at the time of the building of the fort.
The fort was located on the south bank of the Chicago River near the
present Rush Street bridge, somewhat north of the spot marked by a
tablet placed in recent years upon a building at the intersection of
Michigan Avenue and River Street. The river, as is well known, is
deflected from its general east and west direction at a point just east
of the present State Street bridge. Owing, however, to the construction
of the drainage canal a few years ago, the river now flows _from_ the
lake so that when it reaches the point mentioned, its course, instead of
northeast forty rods, as formerly, is now southwest.
But at the time the fort was built the bend in the river reached much
farther toward the north. In later years the south bank was partially
dredged away, and the bend was therefore considerably lessened. Thus
the site of the fort, being close to the river bank, was some distance
farther north than the building upon which the tablet is placed; in fact,
the northern portion of the fort extended over ground now covered by the
bed of the river.
[Illustration: BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF OLD FORT DEARBORN.
_1. Main entrance of the fort passing beneath building, the upper
story of which was directly over the passageway._
_2. Location of the "sally-part," or underground passage, running
from the interior of the fort to the river._
_3. Gateway to the west._
_4. Blockhouse at the northwest corner of the fort._
_5. Blockhouse at the southeast corner of the fort._
_6. Officers' quarters._
_7. Barracks for the troops._
_8. Magazine._]
It may be well to remark here that in the year 1833 a channel was dredged
through the bar directly in line with the river's course. The old channel
between the sand-bar and the shore gradually became filled up in the
course of years, and at the present day it is which covered by a mass of
earth, and forms a part of the area enclosed in Grant Park.
In the construction of the fort there were two blockhouses erected, one
at the southeast and the other at the northwest corner of the stockaded
enclosure. These blockhouses projected partially beyond the line of
pickets so that their defenders could command the approaches from the
open spaces without the fort. On the north side of the fort there was a
sally-port with a subterranean passage, leading from the parade ground
within to the river bank, designed as a means of escape in case of
emergency, or of obtaining a supply of water if needed, though a well was
sunk for the ordinary uses of the garrison within the fort enclosure.
Beyond the main line of pickets another similar line was placed at a
different angle converging toward the blockhouses, thus providing two
strong palisades entirely surrounding the fort.
A plan for the construction of frontier forts was prepared by the War
Department and this plan was referred to in a letter of instructions
written by General Dearborn under date of June 28, 1804. While it thus
appears that the letter was written a year later than the building of
Fort Dearborn, it was an outline of the general principles by which the
department had been governed in all such works.
"Being of the opinion," wrote General Dearborn, "that for the general
defense of our country we ought not to rely upon fortifications, but
on men and steel, and that works calculated for resisting batteries of
cannon are necessary only for our principal seaports, I cannot conceive
it useful or expedient to construct expensive works for our interior
military posts, especially such as are intended merely to hold the
Indians in check."
He added that he had directed stockade works "aided by blockhouses" to
be erected at Vincennes, "Chikago" and at other places, "in conformity
with the sketch herewith enclosed." The details of the plan are further
described in the letter as follows: "The blockhouses to be constructed
of timber slightly hewed," and the magazines to be of brick "of a conic
figure," each capable of receiving from fifty to one hundred barrels of
powder. "The blockhouses," he continued, "are to be so placed as to scour
from the upper and lower stories the whole of the lines."
The plan thus outlined was followed in the construction of Fort Dearborn
as well as of other forts generally along the frontier.
Three pieces of light artillery composed the armament of the fort, until
at a later time another gun was added, and in a magazine constructed for
the purpose was stored the necessary ammunition.
Directly west of the fort, fronting toward the river, was built a double
log house, between the two parts of which an open passage was left,
though the roof was made continuous over both portions as well as over
the open passage. Along the front and rear a veranda extended the full
length of the structure. This building was the Agency House, or United
States Factory, used for storing goods to be sold to the Indians under
Government regulations. For a number of years, from 1796 to 1822, the
United States supplied goods to the Indian tribes at many places on the
frontier in exchange for their furs. In these exchanges the Government's
policy was to deal with the Indians on an equitable basis, providing them
protection against the rapacity of the traders, many of whom swindled
them unmercifully.
It may be said in passing that this benevolent purpose on the part of the
Government was completely frustrated. The traders supplied their savage
customers with liquor, which the Government agents were not at liberty
to do, and thus the Indians preferred to do business with the former in
spite of the lower prices and superior quality of the goods furnished
by the latter. In 1822, the "Factory System," as it was called, was
discontinued entirely.
For many years previous to the building of Fort Dearborn a substantial
dwelling had been standing on the opposite side of the river, near the
present foot of Pine Street. This house was built by a man named Jean
Baptiste Point de Saible, a native of San Domingo and a negro, some time
before 1779, as appears from a report made by Colonel De Peyster, the
commander at Michilimackinac during the British occupation.
De Saible was an Indian trader. One of the pioneers who remembered him
said of him that he was "pretty wealthy and drank freely," and the
British commander above referred to wrote that he was "much in the French
interest," which gave occasion to that officer to keep a close watch
on his activities, situated as he was at the principal portage between
the Lakes and the Mississippi. De Saible resided in this house for over
eighteen years, and in 1797 sold it and returned to the Peoria Indians,
among whom he had previously resided, and remained with them the rest of
his life.
The purchaser of the house was a man named Le Mai, a French trader. Le
Mai made some improvements and occupied the house until 1804, when he
in turn sold it to John Kinzie, who arrived with his family at Chicago
in the fall of that year. After the house came into the possession of
John Kinzie he repaired it, added a veranda, and planted four Lombardy
poplars at the foot of the slope on which the house stood. The house
faced toward the south, having the river directly in front and the lake a
short distance to the east.
This house became known as the "Kinzie Mansion" and is a familiar and
picturesque object in the views of early Chicago. The house escaped
the general destruction at the time of the massacre and remained the
residence of John Kinzie and his family until the time of his death, in
1828, except during the four years of his enforced absence, from 1812 to
1816. The house was finally demolished in the early thirties after more
than a half-century's existence.
There was also the less pretentious cabin of Antoine Ouilmette, situated
close in the rear of the Kinzie house. Ouilmette was a Frenchman with an
Indian wife, and had lived here since 1790. His wife, being a member of
the Potawatami tribe, was awarded, at one of the Indian treaties many
years later, a tract of land on the north shore about fourteen miles
from the mouth of the Chicago River, which became known as the "Wilmette
Reservation," and is now the site of the village of Wilmette.
[Illustration: RESIDENCE OF JOHN KINZIE.
_The house in which John Kinzie and his family lived from 1804 to 1813,
and again from 1816 to 1828, as it was lithographed by Sarony from a
sketch made by Mrs. John H. Kinzie, the author of Wau-Bun._]
A man named Pettell also had a small cabin near the Kinzie house. Over on
the North Branch another trader named Guarie had a trading house which
had been there from a time previous to the year 1778. Guarie's house was
situated on the west bank of the river, about where Fulton Street now
ends. The North Branch was called by the Indian traders and _voyageurs_
of those days the "River Guarie," and the South Branch "Portage River,"
the name Chicago River being confined to that part of the river below the
confluence of those two streams.
Captain John Whistler, after serving seven years as commandant at Fort
Dearborn, was ordered to another post early in the summer of 1810, and
his successor was Captain Nathan Heald, of whom we shall have much more
to say in the following pages. In bidding adieu to Captain Whistler it
is proper to add a few particulars concerning him. He was a native of
Ireland, and had come to America as a British soldier at the time of the
War of the Revolution. He was in Burgoyne's army and was taken prisoner
by the Americans when that army was surrendered after the battle of
Saratoga in 1777.
After the war he decided to remain in America and took up his residence
in Maryland, where he married, and where his son William was born. Later
he enlisted in the American army, taking part in the campaigns against
the Indians in the West. His loyalty to his new allegiance is shown in
the naming of his youngest son after the "Father of His Country."
Captain Whistler served in the army of General Arthur St. Clair and
afterward in that of General Anthony Wayne, and in time was promoted to
be a captain of infantry. After leaving Fort Dearborn he was transferred
to Fort Wayne and the rank of major was bestowed upon him. He died in
1827.
John Whistler was a brave and efficient soldier and the progenitor of
a distinguished posterity. His son William was, as we have seen, a
lieutenant in his father's company, and long after the events we are here
treating of was placed in command of Fort Dearborn (in the year 1832),
and his daughter became the wife of Robert A. Kinzie, one of the sons of
John Kinzie, the pioneer. George Washington Whistler, the infant son of
Captain John Whistler, was brought to Fort Dearborn in 1803, as we have
already narrated, and afterward was graduated at West Point. Eventually
he resigned his commission in the United States army and entered the
service of the Russian Government as an engineer, where he rendered
distinguished services.
The eminent painter, James A. McNeill Whistler, was a descendant of
Captain John Whistler. In the life of Whistler, the artist, by Joseph and
Elizabeth Pennell, it is mentioned that Whistler once said to a visitor
from Chicago that he (Whistler) ought to visit the place some day, "for,"
said he, "you know, my grandfather founded the city."
John Kinzie has been called "The Father of Chicago," and also "Chicago's
Pioneer." He was born at Quebec about the year 1763, and he was
therefore about forty years of age when he arrived in Chicago, in 1804.
His father was a Scotchman named John McKenzie, but instead of retaining
his patronymic in the usual manner, John of Quebec changed it to conform
to a usage established by his boyish companions and others, who called
him "Little Johnny Kinzie."
Young John's father died while he was yet an infant; the widow married
William Forsyth, and soon thereafter the family moved to New York. Here
he was placed in school, but at the age of ten he ran away and took
passage on a sloop bound for Albany, with the purpose of finding his
way back to his old home at Quebec. By good fortune he found a friendly
fellow traveler bound for the same destination, who assisted him on
the way. Arriving at Quebec he found employment with a silversmith and
learned the trade. He remained with the silversmith three years, at the
expiration of which time he returned to his parents, who had in the
meantime removed to Detroit.
John Kinzie had an active and enterprising disposition which led him
as he grew older to live much upon the frontier. He entered the Indian
trade while he was yet very young and became an adept in his intercourse
with the Indians. He learned their language and was esteemed by them as
a reliable and fair-dealing trader. He soon began trading on his own
account, and before he came to Chicago he had trading establishments
at Sandusky and Maumee, and pushing farther west, he established a
post at St. Joseph. It was in the pursuance of a general policy of
business expansion that he bought the Le Mai house at Chicago, a house
which afterward became historic. Kinzie himself has become of historic
importance to a degree he could never have dreamed of, and which would
not have been possible but for the fact that the place he chose for his
residence has since become one of the world's great cities.
While by no means the first settler at Chicago, John Kinzie is generally
accorded the title of "Chicago's Pioneer," although it is quite probable
that there were traders, hunters, and trappers residing here for longer
or shorter periods even earlier than De Saible and Le Mai.
"I doubt if any known person can safely be called the 'earliest settler'
of Chicago," writes Thwaites. "The habitants and traders went back and
forth like Arabs. No doubt there was a succession of temporary visitors
residing any time from a few months to several years at this site during
the entire French régime, but especially in the eighteenth century,
concerning which period the records are unfortunately scanty."
When John Kinzie arrived here he found Ouilmette, Pettell, Le Mai,
and Guarie, all of whom were permanent residents. Mr. Kinzie was a
man of character and influence. He had been well educated for those
times, and possessed civic virtues in an eminent degree. Through all
the vicissitudes of frontier life he maintained and brought up a large
family, assisted those who were related to him as step-children and
half-brothers, and his descendants became honorable members of the
community with which they were identified.
Mr. Kinzie was generally known as the "Indians' Friend," and had
received from them the name of Shaw-ne-aw-kee; that is, _Silverman_,
on account of his having learned the trade of a silversmith, which he
practiced on occasion.
When he came here from Detroit Mr. Kinzie was accompanied by his family,
consisting of his wife and son, John Harris Kinzie, then an infant one
year old, and his step-daughter, Margaret McKillip. Three other children
were born to Mr. and Mrs. Kinzie during the next few years, and at the
time of the massacre these children as well as their parents escaped harm
through the assistance of several friendly Indian chiefs.
Excepting the four years following the massacre, the Kinzie family
resided here until the death of Mr. Kinzie, in 1828, at the age of
sixty-five years. His widow and some of his children continued their
residence in Chicago until long after the middle of the century.
A few words concerning the earlier life of the remarkable woman who was
the wife of John Kinzie will be appropriate in this place. Previous to
her marriage to Mr. Kinzie, in 1800, Mrs. Kinzie was a widow, her first
husband having been a Captain McKillip, serving in the British army,
who had been killed in the year 1794. Her daughter, Margaret McKillip,
afterward became the wife of Lieutenant Linai T. Helm, one of the
officers at Fort Dearborn.
Mrs. Kinzie's maiden name was Eleanor Lytle, and when a child she lived
with her parents in Western Pennsylvania. When but nine years of age she
was carried off by Indians and adopted as a sister by a chief of the
Seneca tribe. After four years of captivity she was safely restored to
her parents. Writing of her experiences at this time, so similar to those
of thousands of other children captives, the author of _Wau-Bun_ (who
it will be remembered was a daughter-in-law of Mrs. John Kinzie) says:
"Four years had now elapsed since the capture of little Nelly. Her heart
was by nature warm and affectionate, so that the unbounded tenderness
of those she dwelt among had called forth a corresponding feeling of
affection in her heart. She regarded the chief and his mother with love
and reverence, and had so completely learned their language and customs
as almost to have forgotten her own.
"So identified had she become with the tribe that the remembrance of her
home and family had nearly faded from her memory; all but her mother--her
mother whom she had loved with a strength of affection natural to her
warm and ardent character, and to whom her heart still clung with a
fondness that no time or change could destroy."
The peace of 1783 between Great Britain and the United States was
followed by a general pacification of the Indian tribes, and the chief
who held little Nelly captive was invited to a council fire at Fort
Niagara by Colonel William Johnson, a man celebrated for his wonderful
popularity and influence with the Indians of New York State, and the
chief was requested to bring the little captive with him. The invitation
was accepted, but not before a promise was made that there should be no
effort to reclaim the child.
The parents of the child were anxious to behold once more the form and
features of their offspring, and came to Fort Niagara for the purpose.
"The time at length arrived," runs the narrative, "when, her heart
bounding with joy, little Nelly was placed on horseback to accompany her
Indian brother to the great council of the Senecas. She had promised
him that she would never leave him without permission, and he relied
confidently on her word.
"As the chiefs and warriors arrived in successive bands to meet their
'father,' the agent, at the council fire, how did the anxious hearts of
the parents beat with alternate hope and fear! The officers of the fort
had kindly given them quarters for the time being, and the ladies, whose
sympathies were strongly excited, had accompanied the mother to the place
of council, and joined in her longing watch for the first appearance of
the band from the Alleghany River.
"At length they were discerned, emerging from the forest on the opposite
or American side. Boats were sent across by the commanding officer to
bring the chief and his party. The father and mother, attended by all
the officers and ladies, stood upon the grassy bank awaiting their
approach. They had seen at a glance that the little captive was with
them."
The chief held the little maiden's hand while crossing the river, and
when the boat touched the bank he saw the child spring forward into the
arms of her waiting mother from whom she had been so long separated. When
the chief witnessed this outburst of affection he was deeply moved, and
could no longer continue steadfast in his resolution to retain possession
of the child.
"She shall go," said he. "The mother must have her child again. I will go
back alone."
"With one silent gesture of farewell," says the writer, "he turned and
stepped on board the boat. No arguments or entreaties could induce him to
remain at the council; but having gained the other side of the Niagara,
he mounted his horse, and with his young men was soon lost in the depths
of the sheltering forest."
Soon afterward the parents of Eleanor Lytle removed to Detroit and it was
there when but fourteen years of age that she met and married Captain
McKillip.
The writer of the narrative from which the above sketch has been derived
was Mrs. Juliette A. Kinzie, the wife of John Harris Kinzie, who was
the oldest child of John Kinzie and Eleanor (Lytle) McKillip Kinzie.
Mrs. John H. Kinzie wrote a book, already mentioned, called _Wau-Bun_,
which was published in 1856, in which are a number of sketches of
Chicago's early settlers, and an account of the period extending over
the occupation and destruction of the first Fort Dearborn. Her book is
the earliest and most substantial contribution to Chicago history of the
period referred to that we possess.
It is gratifying to be able to state that the granddaughter of the
"little Nelly" of the narrative, who was so wonderfully restored to her
own people after all those years of captivity, is Mrs. Nelly Kinzie
Gordon, now residing in Savannah, Georgia. Though now nearly eighty years
of age, Mrs. Gordon is in possession of all her faculties to a remarkable
degree, and seems indeed to have preserved the freshness of her youth in
body and mind. She takes a sympathetic and intelligent interest in all
the historical writings having to do with the early history of Chicago,
where she was born and where she lived many years of her life, and she is
always ready to aid inquirers with advice and suggestions.
The interior arrangements of the Kinzie house were described by Mrs.
Elizabeth Baird, who as a child visited the Kinzies at Chicago in company
with her mother. The family of which Mrs. Baird was a member lived on the
island of Mackinac and came to Chicago in a lake vessel loaded with a
cargo of supplies.
The account written by Mrs. Baird in her old age is printed in the
Wisconsin Historical Society's collections. She remembers distinctly the
house and its surroundings. "It was a large, one-story building," she
said, "with an exceptionally high attic. The front door opened into a
wide hall that led through to the kitchen, which was spacious and bright,
made so by the large fireplace. Four rooms opened into the hall, two on
each side, and the attic contained four rooms." There was room in the
house for all the members of the Kinzie family besides quite a number of
servants and helpers.
The only way of crossing the river, she says, was by a wooden canoe or
"dugout," which was used even by the children, who became very skillful
in navigating the deep and slow-moving stream which separated the house
from the fort. Besides amusing themselves in the canoe, often called a
pirogue, the children found delight in running among the sand-hills along
the lake shore and "tumbling down their sides."
Mrs. Baird was the daughter of a half-breed mother whose mother was a
member of the Ottawa tribe of Indians. "To know we had Indian blood in
our veins," she writes, "was in one respect a safeguard, in another a
great risk. Each tribe was ever at enmity with the others. No one could
foretell what might happen when by chance two or more tribes should meet
or encamp at any one place at the same time. This, however, would be of
rare occurrence. Unless on the warpath Indians keep by themselves."
[Illustration: MR. AND MRS. JOHN H. KINZIE
_There are no pictures of John Kinzie, the pioneer, in existence. The
pictures shown are those of John Harts Kinzie, the son of John Kinzie,
and of his wife, Mrs. Juliette A. Kinzie, the talented Author of
Wau-Bun._
_John H. Kinzie was a lad nine years of age at the time the Fort Dearborn
massacre. His wife was born and brought up in Connecticut, and she did
not come to Chicago until 1833._]
John Harris Kinzie, the oldest son of John Kinzie, spent the years
from his infancy to the age of nine living with his parents in the
Kinzie mansion. There were no schools in the vicinity, and young John
had to depend upon chance opportunities of obtaining the rudiments of
an education. It is related that among the supplies consigned to John
Kinzie, arriving by the "annual schooner," there was found a spelling
book inside a chest of tea which the elder Kinzie gave to his son. With
the aid of his father's step-brother, Robert Forsyth, then a member of
Mr. Kinzie's family, young John learned his first lessons. In later years
he said the odor of tea always reminded him of the spelling book he used
to study in his boyhood.
The children of the Kinzie family, as well as those of the officers and
soldiers at the fort who had their families with them,--as a number of
them did,--were formed into classes and taught by a soldier of some
education whose term of service had expired, but on account of his
irregular habits the school was discontinued after some months.
A brief sketch of General Henry Dearborn, already referred to in this
history, should be given in this place. The name of Dearborn is often met
with among Chicago localities and institutions; and the city is honored
in thus perpetuating the name and memory of a man who, though he had
never visited this vicinity, held positions of responsibility and honor
in the affairs of the country.
General Dearborn was a native of New Hampshire, and at the time of the
establishment of Fort Dearborn was a man somewhat past fifty years of
age. After passing through the best schools of the State in which he was
born he studied medicine and practiced that profession for some years
before the breaking out of the Revolutionary War. At an early period
in that struggle he raised a company of militia and joined a regiment
commanded by Colonel John Stark, who afterward became the hero of the
battle of Bennington. As a captain young Dearborn took part in the battle
of Bunker Hill, and at a later time was with Arnold on his unsuccessful
expedition to Canada, where he was taken prisoner by the British. He was
exchanged and again entered the service, and as major assisted in the
capture of Burgoyne's army at the battle of Saratoga.
It is related in a recent history:
During this campaign he kept a journal, which is now preserved in the
Boston Public Library. The entry made the day of the surrender is as
follows:
"This day the great Mr. Burgoyne with his whole army surrendered
themselves as prisoners of war with all their public stores; and
after grounding their arms marched off for New England--the greatest
conquest ever known."
At a later period of the war Dearborn was promoted to be
lieutenant-colonel and was present at the surrender of Lord Cornwallis
at Yorktown in 1781. After this event he wrote in his journal: "Here
ends my military life." He was, however, afterwards commissioned a
major-general of militia by the State of Massachusetts, of which State he
was a citizen. He became a member of Congress in 1801, and was appointed
Secretary of War by President Jefferson. He remained in the cabinet of
President Jefferson throughout the eight years of his administration.
In the War of 1812 General Dearborn was appointed senior major-general
by President Madison, and rendered distinguished services on the Niagara
frontier during that war. He died in Boston at the advanced age of
seventy-nine years.
A portrait of General Dearborn is at the present time in the possession
of the Calumet Club of Chicago, painted by Gilbert Stuart. John Wentworth
once said: "One of the highest compliments paid to General Dearborn is
the fact that whilst the names of so many of our streets, have been
changed to gratify the whims of our aldermen, no attempt has been made
to change that of Dearborn Street. Not only is this the case but the
name Dearborn continues to be prefixed to institutions, enterprises, and
objects which it is the desire of projectors to honor."
There was an interpreter at the fort, John Lalime by name, who was at
enmity with John Kinzie, the Indian trader. One afternoon early in the
year 1812, Mr. Kinzie had occasion to be at the fort, and when the gates
were about to be closed for the night he passed out to return to his home
across the river. Just after his departure Lalime also passed out at the
gate, and knowing the state of feeling between the two men, Lieutenant
Helm, who was the officer on duty, called out to Mr. Kinzie to beware of
Lalime. The latter was following the other closely and his actions were
threatening.
Lieutenant Helm had married Mr. Kinzie's step-daughter, Margaret
McKillip, some years before, and the relationship thus existing doubtless
caused a feeling of natural anxiety on the part of the officer for Mr.
Kinzie's safety. When Mr. Kinzie heard the warning shout he turned
suddenly upon the man following him and at the same time saw that he
was armed with a pistol in his hand and a knife in his belt. Mr. Kinzie
himself was totally unprovided with weapons, but notwithstanding, he
grappled with Lalime at once. In the course of the struggle which ensued
the pistol was discharged, though without harm to either antagonist. Both
men attempted to get possession of the knife and both were wounded by
it. Mr. Kinzie, however, succeeded in inflicting a fatal thrust upon his
adversary, while he himself was covered with blood as a result of the
encounter. Lalime fell dead upon the ground.
This tragic affair was witnessed by the people at the fort, and by a
half-breed woman who was a servant in the Kinzie family from the door of
the Kinzie house. As Lalime had many friends at the fort who at first
thought that Mr. Kinzie had attacked him without provocation there was a
movement to take Kinzie into custody; and fearing that a squad would be
sent for this purpose, he concealed himself in the woods near his house,
and soon after embarked in a boat with an Indian guide for Milwaukee,
where one of his trading posts was located.
An inquiry into all the circumstances of the affair was made by the
officers of the garrison, and a verdict of justifiable homicide was
reached. Mr. Kinzie, hearing of this, returned to his home as soon as he
had sufficiently recovered from his wound to do so.
It was said by Gurdon S. Hubbard in later years that Mr. Kinzie deeply
regretted the killing of Lalime, and further, that he firmly believed the
deed was committed in self-defence. Lalime was an educated man and was a
favorite with the military people. He was buried on the north side of the
river, and for many years thereafter the grave was enclosed with a small
picket fence, which was cared for by Mr. Kinzie and his family.
When Captain Nathan Heald assumed command at Fort Dearborn, in succession
to Captain Whistler, he entered upon his duties with much reluctance,
owing to the remoteness of the post and the loneliness of its situation.
He was a much younger man than his predecessor, being at the time
thirty-five years of age and unmarried, and found himself associated with
officers still younger than he was. A few days after his arrival at his
new post he wrote Colonel Jacob Kingsbury, commandant at Detroit, that he
was not pleased with his situation and could not bear to think of staying
there during the winter. "It is a good place," he wrote, "for a man who
has a family, and can content himself to live remote from the civilized
part of the world."
Two years previous to this time Captain William Wells had taken his
niece, Rebekah Wells, daughter of his brother. Captain Samuel Wells of
Louisville, Kentucky, to Fort Wayne on a visit, and while there she met
Captain Heald, who was on duty at that point. In the summer following
Heald's arrival at Fort Dearborn he obtained a leave of absence for
the purpose of going to Louisville to be married to Rebekah Wells. The
marriage followed his arrival there and was doubtless the result of the
acquaintance formed at the time of the Fort Wayne visit, the first of
many romantic episodes.
The journey of the newly wedded couple from the old Kentucky home to
their new place of residence at Fort Dearborn was made in May, 1811, and
it is interesting to learn that the whole distance was covered in six
days. There were three in the party--the captain, his bride, and a little
slave girl who begged to be taken along. Each had a horse to ride, and
an extra horse carried the baggage; they traveled by compass.
On their arrival the garrison turned out to receive them with military
honors. Rebekah was much pleased with her reception, and found everything
to her liking; she liked the wild place, the wild lake, and the wild
Indians, then indeed friendly enough, but soon to become fierce enemies.
Everything suited her ways and disposition, "being on the wild order"
herself, she said; and we can well imagine Captain Heald becoming, in his
changed circumstances, quite reconciled to the situation with which he
was so much displeased the year before.
Captain Heald was a martinet in the matter of military discipline, and
during the two years or more that elapsed between his arrival and the
evacuation of the fort he became unpopular by reason of his strict
insistence upon every detail required by the military regulations. It
had become the recognized practice in isolated garrisons at lonely posts
to relax somewhat the discipline usually found necessary where large
numbers of troops were assembled.
But while Captain Heald was so exacting in the affairs of the post,
he applied the same principles to his own conduct where the orders of
his superior officers were concerned, even when conditions would have
warranted independent action.
Heald would have been an ideal officer on the staff of a general where
it was necessary to render instant and implicit obedience to orders, and
in such a position his services would have been without doubt faithful
and efficient. But when serving at a distant post, where much latitude
in complying with instructions might have been permitted and justified,
he failed to use the discretion that he was unquestionably entitled to
exercise under such circumstances. Heald was not able to see beyond
the letter of his instructions, and to the literal manner in which he
construed them may be attributed in great measure the disasters that
overtook the fort and its occupants.
Captain William Wells, the hero of the story we are here relating, was
born about 1770, in Kentucky. His career throughout is surrounded with
an atmosphere of romance. When Mr. Roosevelt was writing his _Winning of
the West_, he did not fail to see the picturesque figure of Captain Wells
among the pioneer scenes which he there delineates with characteristic
vigor and sympathy. We commemorate his name and deeds in our street
nomenclature of the present day, and the historical interest which
attaches to the name of Wells Street would be worthily supplemented by
the people of Chicago in the erection of a statue to his memory.
William Wells and Samuel Wells, the noted Indian fighters, were brothers
living in Louisville, Kentucky, belonging to a family of early settlers
in that region. When twelve years of age, William was carried off by a
band of Miami Indians, whose chief, Little Turtle, adopted him in his
family. With this tribe William remained some years, and when he arrived
at manhood the chief gave him his daughter in marriage. He became greatly
attached to the people of the tribe, and in the disastrous campaigns
of Generals Harmer and St. Clair, in 1790 and 1791, when those two
generals were successively defeated, he fought with his tribe against the
Americans.
The Wells family learned of William's presence with the Indians and of
the attachment he had formed for savage life and society, and during one
of the intervals of peaceful relations they endeavored to win him back to
his early home and family connection. Messages were sent to him begging
him to abandon his savage life and return to his family. Referring to
this period in the life of William Wells, Rebekah Wells, his niece, said:
"We all wanted Uncle William, whom we called our 'Indian Uncle,' to leave
the Indians who had stolen him in his boyhood, and come home and belong
to his white relations. He hung back for years, and even at last when he
agreed to visit them the proviso was made that he should be allowed to
bring along an Indian escort with him, so that he should not be compelled
to stay with them if he did not want to do so."
[Illustration: REBEKAH WELLS HEALD
_The wife of Captain Heald was a niece of Captain Wells and a child of
the frontier. She was married to Captain Heald two years before the Fort
Dearborn massacre._]
[Illustration: CAPTAIN WILLIAM WELLS
_Captain William Wells, the hero of the Fort Dearborn massacre._]
Accordingly he came with a company of his Indian friends, and after
seeing the old places and meeting once more with his relatives, he became
convinced that he ought to remain with them, though he decided first to
return to his father-in-law. Little Turtle, for whom he felt a strong
attachment, and acquaint him with his determination. He frankly told the
chief that though he had lived happily among his tribe for many years,
had fought for them in the past against the whites, the time had now come
when he was going home to his relatives, thereafter to live with and
fight for his own flesh and blood.
He was permitted to depart, and soon after joined the army of General
Anthony Wayne, who had been sent into the Western country by President
Washington to repair the disasters that had overtaken the Americans in
the previous campaigns. He was made captain of a company of scouts, and
performed effective service in the march of Wayne's army through the
wilderness, ending with the battle of Fallen Timbers, in the fall of 1794.
Mr. Roosevelt, in the work to which we have already referred, relates
some of Wells's trilling adventures while engaged in this service, among
others the following:
On one of Wells's scouts he and his companions came across a family
of Indians in a canoe by the river bank. The white woodrangers were
as ruthless as their red foes, sparing neither sex nor age; and the
scouts were cocking their rifles when Wells recognized the Indians
as being the family into which he had been adopted, and by which
he had been treated as a son and brother. Springing forward he
swore immediate death to the first man who fired; and then told his
companions who the Indians were. The scouts at once dropped their
weapons, shook hands with the Miamis, and sent them off unharmed.
After the campaign had terminated in the utter defeat of the tribes,
Captain Wells was joined by his Indian wife and children. Wells settled
on a farm and was made a justice of the peace and appointed Indian agent
at Fort Wayne. His children "grew up and married well in the community,"
says Roosevelt in his history, "so that their blood now flows in the
veins of many of the descendants of the old pioneers." One of these
descendants, writing to the Hon. John Wentworth at Chicago, said of his
ancestors: "We are proud of our Indian (Little Turtle) blood, and of our
Captain Wells blood. We try to keep up the customs of our ancestors,
and dress occasionally in Indian costumes. We take no exceptions when
people speak of our Indian parentage." Referring to the later services
of Captain Wells in the Tippecanoe campaign and of his tragic end at
the Fort Dearborn massacre, this letter-writer further says: "We take
pleasure in sending to you the tomahawk which Captain Wells had at the
time of his death, and which was brought to his family by an Indian who
was in the battle. We also have a dress sword which was presented to
him by General William Henry Harrison, and a great many books which he
had, showing that even when he lived among the Indians he was trying to
improve himself."
Wells was indeed a man of fair education for those times, as his
correspondence, preserved in the _American State Papers_, shows.
Wentworth, in one of his lectures, printed in the _Fergus Historical
Series_, says that all of Captain Wells's children were well educated,
one of them, William Wayne Wells, having graduated at West Point in 1821.
Little Turtle, the Miami chief, and father-in-law of Captain Wells,
became reconciled to the Americans after Wayne's victory at the battle
of Fallen Timbers, and indeed became their fast friend to the end of his
life. In 1797, three years after the battle. Captain Wells accompanied
Little Turtle on a visit to the East, and no doubt met President
Washington himself at the seat of government, which was at that time
in Philadelphia. Little Turtle was frequently at Chicago during the
following years, but lived near Fort Wayne, where he died in July, 1812.
This was only a few weeks before the dreadful massacre of that year.
Wells himself was also a frequent visitor at Chicago during these years
and was thoroughly familiar with the surrounding country.
Some account of the Indian tribes and their chiefs will aid the reader in
obtaining a clearer knowledge of the conditions and surroundings of the
garrison and the few civilian traders dwelling at this remote outpost of
the frontier, during the next few years after the establishment of Fort
Dearborn.
The Potawatamis were the principal tribe of Indians met with by the
whites in the vicinity of Fort Dearborn in 1803, and they continued here
until their final removal to their new reservations in 1835. Other tribes
were represented by occasional parties camping in their wigwams on the
banks of the river near the fort. Among such visitors were Winnebagoes,
Miamis, Ottawas, and Chippewas.
When the early explorers passed over the Chicago Portage more than a
century before, they found the Illinois Indians in possession of most
of the territory of what is now the northern portion of Illinois; but
their country was frequently invaded by the Iroquois Indians from the
East and their allies, and their numbers rapidly diminished, until the
last remnant of the tribe was exterminated, about the year 1770, at
Starved Rock, on the Illinois River. It is worthy of notice here that
more Indians perished and more tribes were exterminated in intertribal
conflicts than in all the wars that have taken place between the white
race and the red.
The Potawatami tribe had formerly made their abiding-place near
the shores of Green Bay, except when roaming in quest of game into
neighboring regions. A portion of the tribe, which was scattered over
the southern peninsula of Michigan and continually advancing toward the
south, began to press upon the Illinois tribes, which included, besides
the Illinois, the Kickapoos and Miamis. The Indians from Michigan in time
succeeded in reaching the region of the Chicago Portage, where they met
the southward advance of their former friends from Wisconsin, from whom,
they had been long separated. The Michigan Indians, when they appeared in
this region, became known as the "Potawatamis of the Woods," or "Woods
Indians," while those who had come from Wisconsin more recently, having
in their movements wandered over the prairie country, became known as
the "Potawatamis of the Prairies," or the "Prairie Band." The latter
were also often referred to as "Plains Indians." The two divisions of
the tribe, having thus met after so long a separation, had become quite
different from each other in their habits and customs, and also in their
disposition and character.
The Woods Indians were engaged in agriculture to some extent, and were
susceptible to the influences of civilization and religion; the Prairie
Indians "despised the cultivation of the soil," says Judge Caton, "as
too mean even for their women and children, and deemed the captures of
the chase the only fit food for a valorous people." In other respects
the two divisions were regarded as a single tribe. The northern portion
of Illinois was particularly the possession of the Potawatamis, over
which they ranged freely, though Chicago and its immediate vicinity was
the most important point in their territory where councils were held and
trading was carried on.
Caton writes:
The relations existing between the Potawatamis and the Ottawas were
of the most harmonious character. They lived together almost as
one people, and were joint owners of their hunting grounds. Their
relations were quite as intimate and friendly as existed among the
different bands of the same tribe. Nor were the Chippewas scarcely
more strangers to the Potawatamis and the Ottawas than the latter
were to each other. They claimed an interest in the land occupied, to
a certain extent by all jointly, so that all three tribes joined in
the first treaty for the sale of their lands ever made to the United
States.
The relations existing between the whites in and around Fort Dearborn and
their Indian neighbors were generally harmonious throughout the interval
of time from the first occupation of the fort in 1803 until 1811, when
Tecumseh became active in stirring up the Western tribes to oppose the
settlement of Western lands by the whites. Tecumseh was a chief of the
Shawnee tribe, whose country was on the lower Wabash. He believed that
this country was created by the Great Spirit for the exclusive use of the
Indians, and that the grants of land made by the tribes in their treaties
with the United States Government were not valid or binding unless the
consent of "all the tribes of the continent" had been obtained.
This contention was regarded as preposterous, and Tecumseh was informed
that such a principle could not be allowed. He then succeeded in forming
a league of several tribes under his leadership, and hostilities soon
after began against the settlers and the United States Government. In
November, 1811, the battle of Tippecanoe was fought between General
William Henry Harrison, Governor of Indiana Territory, and commander of
the American forces, on the one hand, and the tribes under Tecumseh's
brother, the "Prophet," on the other, Tecumseh himself being temporarily
absent. The Indians were badly defeated. Tecumseh took refuge in Canada,
where he joined the British, who were soon afterwards at war with the
United States. He was killed while fighting on the side of the British at
the battle of the Thames October 6, 1813.
Many of the Indians of the Potawatami tribe sympathized with Tecumseh,
and it was well known that some of the chiefs and many of the Indians
were present at the battle of Tippecanoe among the enemies of the
Americans. But in spite of the malign influence of Tecumseh, the Indians
conducted themselves generally in a peaceable manner while in the
vicinity of Fort Dearborn, and seemed anxious to be regarded as friendly
toward their white neighbors.
The Indians continued to come and go on their nomadic excursions
according to their habit, and while in this vicinity they lived in their
wigwams near the river, their favorite camping place being at a point on
the south bank near the present State Street bridge. A swale or gully
opened into the river there, reaching back as far as the present line of
Randolph Street. The movements of the Indians were regarded with great
interest by the traders located in the neighborhood, who were anxious to
sell them supplies in exchange for the furs brought in by them; they were
regarded with interest also by the officers and men of the garrison, who
desired to maintain peaceable relations with their savage neighbors.
But while furs were the principal article offered in payment for goods
obtained from the traders, the Indians also brought in quantities of
maple sugar put up in birch-bark packages, which usually found ready
sale among the settlers. These packages were called "barks" by some
and "mococks" by others, each of them containing from twenty-five to
fifty pounds. Birkbeck says, in his _Letters from Illinois_, written in
1818, that maple sugar could be purchased from the Indians for about
twenty-five cents a pound, which was about the same price as the coarse
brown or "muscovado" sugar from Louisiana was sold for. In his book of
reminiscences of early Chicago, Gale tells us that he remembers as a boy
how he prized the granulated maple sugar which he bought from the squaws,
"put up in small birch-bark boxes, ornamented with colored grasses, and
in large baskets made of the same material, holding some twenty-five
pounds." It was often called "Indian sugar." When the Indians visited the
settlements it was their custom to wander about the streets in an aimless
manner, stopping from time to time and taking a look into the window
of any house they happened to be passing. The Indians, whether men,
women, or children, would cover the tops of their heads with blankets to
exclude the light, and press their faces against the window panes and
gaze intently into the houses for long periods at a time, to the great
discomfort and even terror of the people within. If they wished to enter
a house they did not pause to knock, but stalked in and squatted on the
floor, and none dared to resist them or to order them to depart from
the premises. "You always heard a man come in," says Mrs. Baird, in her
narrative, "as his step was firm, proud, and full of dignity. The women,
however, made no sound."
There were several chiefs of the Potawatami tribe whose names are
well known in the historic annals of that time. One of them was Black
Partridge, often called "the Partridge"; there were also Winnemeg, or, as
he was sometimes called, Winamac; Waubansee; Topenebe; Billy Caldwell,
otherwise known as Sauganash or "the Sauganash," meaning Englishman, as
he was an educated half-breed; and Alexander Robinson.
On account of the close and friendly relations existing between the
whites and the Potawatamis, the latter were usually spoken of as "our
Indians," to distinguish them from those tribes whose hunting grounds
were at a greater distance. The Winnebagoes from the north were
occasional visitors to the neighborhood, as were also tribes from the
south,--Miamis and others,--who were generally referred to as "Wabash
Indians."
When councils were held between the representatives of the Government and
the tribes, to agree on a treaty, all those tribes were in attendance
which could be allowed to have any claims to ownership of lands that
were the subject of the treaties about to be made. At such assemblages,
whenever they were held in the Western country, the Potawatamis were
always found fully represented by their chiefs and a large number of
their followers, insisting upon recognition of their claims; and they
thus succeeded in getting the lion's share in the distributions made
by the Government; and even though their claims were often vague and
ill-defined they were always noisy and forward in asserting them. It thus
happened that the Indians of the Potawatami tribe were greatly interested
in keeping on good terms with the whites.
The Indians in their harangues described an assemblage held for purposes
of deliberation as a place where a council fire was lighted; and in
referring to the United States Government the Indian orators spoke of
the States of the Union--which in 1811 were seventeen in number--as the
nation of "the Seventeen Fires," that is, seventeen council fires.
In a former generation the Potawatamis were "French Indians" in their
sympathies and trade relations; and this allegiance continued up to and
even after the close of the French régime in 1763. They were reluctant
to acknowledge the sway of the British during the period of their
possession, but through the commanding influence of the New York Indians
(the Iroquois or Six Nations) they kept the peace that was guaranteed
by the Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768. This treaty was made between
the English and the Iroquois with "their dependent tribes"; and it
was understood that the said treaty bound the Western Indians, though
afterwards the latter resented the proceedings. Narrowing the view to
the Potawatami tribe, it appears that even while maintaining friendly
relations with the Americans after the latter had succeeded to the
sovereignty of the Western territories, the tribe was still to a certain
extent under British influence. They shared in the gratuities annually
distributed by the English at Maiden, Canada; and, as the event will
show, they at length became the enemies of the Americans after the War of
1812 had begun.
There was a tract of land under cultivation some four miles southwest of
the fort, situated on the west bank of the South Branch of the Chicago
River, about where at the present time the old Illinois and Michigan
Canal opens into that stream. This tract was owned by a man named Charles
Lee, and the farm was known as "Lee's place."
On this tract stood a log cabin in which a number of men employed by Lee
lived and carried on the work of the farm. Lee himself lived with his
family in a house near the fort on the bank of the river opposite where
it discharged into the lake; which was near the present intersection of
Madison Street and Michigan Avenue. It will be remembered that in those
days a long sand-bar prevented the river from finding an outlet directly
in line with its course, and the current was forced to creep along close
to the shore for some distance toward the south.
Lee's place was also known as "Hardscrabble," a name which continued to
be applied to that neighborhood for many decades thereafter. "The name
of 'Hardscrabble,'" it is said in a recent history of Chicago, "has
always been a favorite one among pioneers to describe a place in which
conditions of existence were hard and difficult. A place of that name
was situated near Lewiston, New York, on the Niagara River, about the
same period, and is mentioned in military despatches during the ensuing
War of 1812; and in the State of Illinois the town of Streator was thus
colloquially known during its earlier history." Before the Civil War,
General Grant lived on a farm near St. Louis, where he built a log cabin
with his own hands and called it "Hardscrabble." The same name was given
to a work of fiction by Major John Richardson, with the subtitle "A Tale
of Indian Warfare." This work takes the events which occurred at Lee's
place and bases upon them a romance the details of which the author
supplied largely from his imagination. Many other examples of the use of
this name might be given.
[Illustration: HARDSCRABBLE.
_There was a farmhouse standing on the west bank of the South Branch of
the Chicago river some four miles from the mouth of the river, built some
time after Fort Dearborn had been established This house and the farm
adjoining it was owned by a man named Charles Lee, who, however, did not
live on the premises, but occupied a house near the fort. The house and
farm were known as Lee's Place, or Hardscrabble._
_It was here that two men in the employ of Lee were killed by Indians in
the April preceding the evacuation and destruction of Fort Dearborn and
the massacre of the troops._]
On the seventh of April of the fateful year 1812 the log house at
Hardscrabble was occupied by three men and a boy. The man who seems to
have been in charge of the work at the farm was one Liberty White, and
with him were a discharged soldier, also a Frenchman named Debou, and the
boy, a son of Mr. Lee's. Communication between the farm and the fort was
usually maintained by means of canoes. The products of the farm found
a ready market at the fort, thus supplementing the supplies for the
garrison coming in the regular way by lake schooners.
On the afternoon of the day mentioned a party of soldiers from the fort,
consisting of a corporal and six men, had obtained leave to go up the
river to catch a supply of fish, with which the stream at that time
abounded. The party went up the South Branch, passing Lee's place, with
the usual exchange of greetings, and at length reached a point some
two miles beyond, where they remained engaged in fishing until nearly
dark. Suddenly they were startled by hearing the dull boom of a cannon
which they knew at once to be a danger signal from the fort, and as they
surmised was caused by some manifestation of Indian hostility.
Hastily starting on their return, they soon came to Lee's place, which,
they observed, was silent and deserted. It was now quite dark, and the
party drew up to the bank, meantime calling and shouting, but receiving
no answer. The mysterious silence which enveloped the place seemed to
indicate that the occupants whom they had seen there a few hours before
had suddenly become alarmed and had perhaps fled toward the fort, if
indeed something worse had not befallen them. The corporal knew that
the commandant would require a full report of the matter, and he at
once began an investigation. Stepping ashore, the corporal and his
men cautiously advanced toward the house, in which there was not a
glimmer of light, and from which issued no sound of human voice. As they
groped their way along they stumbled upon the body of a man lying on
the ground, and by the sense of touch the corporal quickly ascertained
that the head was without a scalp and the body mutilated. "The faithful
dog of the murdered man," says the account from which the narrative is
derived, "stood guarding the lifeless remains of his master." The party
now reëmbarked and proceeded on their way to the fort without further
adventure, where they arrived about eleven o'clock at night and made a
report to the commandant of what they had seen.
We now return to the log house at Hardscrabble and to the dreadful
occurrences which took place there on that eventful afternoon. After the
fishing party had passed up the river beyond the farmhouse a wandering
band of Indians appeared at the door of the cabin, and according to
the custom of savages they entered and seated themselves on the floor
without ceremony. Their deportment was sullen and unfriendly, and this
circumstance aroused the suspicions of the men in the cabin. One of
them, the Frenchman Debou, remarked to Liberty White: "I do not like the
appearance of the Indians; they are none of our folks. I know by their
dress and paint that they are not Potawatamis." Another one of the white
men, the discharged soldier, then said to the boy Lee: "If that is the
case we had better get away from them if we can. Say nothing, but do as
you see me do."
As the afternoon was then far advanced, the discharged soldier passed out
of the house and walked in a deliberate manner down the path toward the
canoes tied up at the river bank, accompanied by the boy Lee. Some of the
Indians inquired where they were going. The soldier pointed to the cattle
standing among the haystacks on the opposite side of the river and made
signs that they must go over and fodder them and that they would then
come back and get supper for them all.
The boy got into one of the canoes while the man took possession of the
other. The stream was narrow and they quickly passed over to the eastern
side. Here they pulled some hay from the stacks for the cattle, and made
a show of collecting them together, and when they had gradually made a
circuit so that their movements were concealed by the haystacks they made
a run for the woods which were near at hand and directed their course
toward the fort as fast as their legs could carry them.
When they had covered a distance of a quarter of a mile in their flight
they heard the sound of two gunshots, which they readily conjectured
were fired by the strange Indians upon the two men, Liberty White and
the Frenchman Debou. The man and boy did not slacken their speed until
they had reached the river somewhere near the present location of State
Street bridge. Here they paused long enough to call out to John Burns,
then living in a cabin on the north bank of the river near that point,
to hasten to the fort with his family, as the Indians were killing and
scalping up the river at Lee's place.
Mrs. John Kinzie was at the Burns house at that moment to render what aid
she could to Mrs. Burns, who but a few hours before had been delivered
of a child. She instantly left the house and ran to her own home, a
quarter of a mile distant, to give the alarm and procure help for the
sick woman. She found the family awaiting her return, the table spread
for supper, while Mr. Kinzie was playing on his violin and the children
dancing before the fire.
Rushing into the house, quite out of breath and pale with terror, she was
only able to exclaim: "The Indians! the Indians!"
"The Indians? What? Where?" they all demanded at once. Recovering herself
for a moment, she replied: "Up at Lee's place, killing and scalping!"
She then proceeded to relate that while she was at Burns's house a man
and boy were seen running with all speed along the opposite bank of the
river; that they had called across the river, warning the Burns family
to save themselves, for the Indians were at Lee's place, killing and
scalping, and that they themselves had barely been able to make their
escape. The man and boy had then continued on their way as fast as they
could toward the fort, where they reported the terrifying news to the
officers of the garrison.
"All was now consternation and dismay," says the author of _Wau-Bun_,
from which these particulars are gathered. The Kinzie family hurried to
the river side and, by means of two old pirogues, or dugouts, that were
kept moored near the house, made all possible haste across the river and
took refuge in the fort.
We can but faintly realize what a consuming terror seized upon the
pioneers when the cry was heard that hostile Indians were coming. Often
the alarm and the attack were simultaneous, for however quick and
resourceful the whites might be, the savages were superior to them in one
respect at least: their stealthy advance and cat-like spring upon their
foes usually gave them the advantage at the beginning, which was followed
by brutal ferocity and unsparing cruelty in the treatment of their
victims.
It was no wonder that Mrs. Kinzie was terrified at the mention of the
approach of hostile Indians. In her childhood, as previously related,
she had been stolen by a tribe of Seneca Indians in New York State and
had lived among them for four years. She knew Indian ways in peace and
warfare, and she knew that now at any moment the war-whoop might be heard
and the savages be upon them. Not until she had crossed the threshold of
the fort gates with her family about her could she feel a sensation of
even temporary security.
After the fugitives from Lee's place had reached the fort and related
their adventures the order was given to fire the alarm gun for the
purpose of giving notice to any who were at a distance from the fort, and
especially to the boat party, who were far up the South Branch of the
river, that danger was impending.
Energetic measures were at once taken to secure the safety of the
helpless Mrs. Burns and her infant. It was the gallant young Ensign Ronan
who volunteered for this duty and, with five or six others who joined
him, navigated an old scow up the river to the Burns house, took the
mother and her infant child, together with the mattress upon which they
lay, placed them on the scow, and soon had them within the walls of the
fort, where they were tenderly cared for, and where all gathered felt
perfectly safe.
The anxiety felt by all regarding the safety of the still absent boat
party was at length relieved by its appearance at a late hour. Their tale
was soon told, confirming and amplifying the alarming details related by
the fugitives who had so narrowly escaped with their own lives.
On the morning following the events just narrated a party of volunteers
made up of soldiers and civilians went up the river to Lee's place.
There they found the bodies of Liberty White and the Frenchman Debou
pierced with many wounds, the former having received the two shots heard
by the fugitives, and the latter bearing the marks of numerous knife
thrusts. The scalps of the murdered men had been taken by the Indians.
The scalping process, which was practised by all the tribes of American
Indians, has always added an element of horror to the outrages committed
by them. The bodies of the murdered men were brought to the fort and
buried in its immediate vicinity.
The few inhabitants of the place living outside the fort, consisting
of discharged soldiers and half-breeds, now took measures to defend
themselves against a possible attack from the Indians, which they fully
expected to follow. They planked up the long piazzas of the Agency
House, which stood a short distance west of the fort on the bank of the
river, and cut loopholes through the planks for use of musketry. Greater
watchfulness was exercised by the garrison, and every preparation was
made to resist attack.
It was afterward learned through traders out in the Indian country that
the perpetrators of this bloody deed were a band of Winnebago Indians
who came into this neighborhood to "take some white scalps." Their plan
had been to massacre all the men at the farm and then proceed down the
river and kill every white man who could be found outside the walls of
the fort. This plan they had partially carried out as we have seen, but
hearing the sound of the cannon fired at the fort, which they knew would
alarm all the whites of the neighborhood, and having no further hope of
coming upon them by surprise, they thought it best to remain satisfied
with what they had already accomplished, and hastily returned to their
villages on Rock River.
The tragedy at Lee's place was no doubt the result of the hostility
awakened among the Indians of the western country by the malign influence
of Tecumseh communicated through the various tribes of the Wabash
Indians, among whom he was regarded as the champion of Indian rights.
The battle of Tippecanoe, which had apparently crushed his power, was
fought in the previous September; but he had renewed his activity from
the safe shelter of the British dominions in Canada, where he had taken
refuge, and as it was plain to all observers at this time that war
between England and the United States was inevitable, the friendship of
that chief was regarded as desirable by the former. Indeed, he and his
tribesmen became an integral part of the British forces.
But as the days and weeks passed by, and the friendly Indians of the
neighborhood explained that the attacking party at Lee's place were
Winnebagoes, with whose hostility they had no sympathy, the tension of
feeling was gradually relieved and more dependence came to be placed
on the peaceable disposition of the Potawatamis. The vigilance of the
garrison was relaxed, as it seemed to all that no further outbreak was
likely to occur. The whites became convinced at length that no connection
existed between the Winnebagoes concerned in the attack at Lee's place
and the other tribes in the vicinity, and that no concert of action was
apparent between the different tribes. Thus the memory of the bloody
deed was permitted to slumber, and no serious attempt was made to bring
the perpetrators to account. In fact, the feeling of unrest among the
savages in general throughout the country was such that it seemed the
part of wisdom to postpone any schemes of reprisal or punishment that the
whites might have entertained until the times were more propitious. The
excitement and fear which such an outrage usually inspired among the
people of the frontiers wore off by degrees, and the ordinary activities
of life were resumed.
Thus for a year or more there had been intermittent alarms of Indian
attacks and outrages before the final catastrophe. Besides the murders
committed in this region and in other parts of the western country,
the horses and cattle of settlers had been stolen. On one occasion,
when marauders failed to find horses in the stable near the fort, they
wantonly killed a number of sheep found on the premises.
A significant incident occurred within the walls of the fort a few months
preceding its destruction. It is related that two Indians from a northern
tribe had been admitted to the fort as visitors. They noticed Mrs. Heald
and Mrs. Helm playing at battledore on the parade ground opposite the
officers' quarters. One of the Indians turned to the interpreter and
said: "The white chiefs' wives are amusing themselves very much; it will
not be long before they are hoeing in our cornfields!"
Not much importance was attached to the remark at the time but it was
afterward bitterly remembered.
The following is a brief summary of the important national events which
occurred during the years from 1803 to 18 12, concurrent with and of
especial interest to this narrative.
The Louisiana Purchase, consummated on April 30, 1803, added a vast
extent of territory to the American possessions beyond the Mississippi,
and greatly increased the responsibilities of the general Government. The
public men of that day but faintly realized the consequences that would
follow the immense addition to the territories of the United States thus
brought about, though with characteristic energy and good sense they set
about the task of developing the new domain.
"The winning of Louisiana," says Roosevelt, in his _Winning of the West_,
"followed inevitably upon the great westward thrust of the settlerfolk, a
thrust which was delivered blindly, but which no rival race could parry,
until it was stopped by the ocean itself."
The entire area of what is now the State of Illinois was, in 1803, a
part of Indiana Territory, which had been organized three years before,
with William Henry Harrison, then a young man of twenty-seven, as first
Governor. It was not until February, 1809, that Illinois Territory was
organized, with Ninian Edwards as the first Governor. No civil government
was in existence at Chicago; the first authority, as at all frontier
posts, was military. The only people here during the period of which we
are writing, besides the few traders we have mentioned and their helpers,
were the officers and soldiers of Fort Dearborn, and they were of course
under military authority and discipline. All orders came to the captain
commanding at the fort through the commandant at Detroit, Colonel Jacob
Kingsbury, until the breaking out of the war with England, when General
William Hull, previously the Governor of Michigan Territory, was placed
in command of the Northwestern army then assembling at Detroit. Orders
thenceforth issued from the commanding general.
The southern portion of the territory now within the bounds of the State
of Illinois had been settled in some few localities during the French
period of domination, and the population of the towns of Kaskaskia,
Prairie du Rocher and Cahokia were predominantly French, being composed
of a few native born French, but mostly of French Canadians and Creoles.
Even under British domination (1763 to 1783) there were practically no
English-speaking people among the inhabitants of the places mentioned
except the garrisons in the forts at those points; and after the
conquering march of Colonel George Rogers Clark and his Virginians in
1778 and 1779 the English authority ceased altogether, the forces forming
the garrisons having become prisoners in the hands of the Americans.
The result of the stream of emigration that set in from Kentucky and
the States farther east, after the creation of the Northwest Territory
in 1787, was that in a few years the Americans outnumbered the earlier
inhabitants.
At the time Fort Dearborn was built almost the entire State of Illinois,
as at present constituted, was included in a county called St. Clair
County. It was not until long after Illinois had become a State in the
Union that county government began to be effective in any way in the
affairs of the little community at Chicago; and indeed, it did not matter
in the least to the inhabitants what the name of the county might be in
which the place was situated. It is quite likely that no one there even
knew that he was living within the limits of St. Clair County, which in
any case was merely a geographical expression carrying no exercise of
jurisdiction whatever.
Thomas Jefferson was President of the United States from 1801 to 1809; in
the latter year he was succeeded by James Madison, who was President for
the ensuing eight years.
III
THE TRAGEDY
THE echoes of the Napoleonic wars raging throughout Europe during the
period before and after our war with Great Britain were heard even in
this far-away region of the western frontier. England and her continental
allies were engaged in a gigantic struggle with France under Napoleon,
then at the height of his power. For the purpose of crippling her
adversary England issued, in 1807, her famous Orders in Council, which
declared that the vessels of neutral nations were liable to seizure if
engaged in trade with the enemy. Napoleon retaliated by issuing the
equally famous Decrees of Berlin and Milan, which declared Great Britain
to be in a state of blockade, and that all vessels bound to or from
British ports were liable to capture.
To enforce the Orders in Council was a comparatively easy task for the
English navy, then as now the most powerful among the nations; and in
consequence the ocean commerce of the Americans suffered severely, for at
that time every ocean highway was thronged with the merchant ships of the
United States. The interference with our commerce was greatly aggravated
by the high-handed action of the English in forcibly taking away from
our ships many of their seamen and pressing them into the service of the
English navy. This grievance especially became so exasperating that the
war spirit of the American people was aroused from one end of the land to
the other.
But the protests of the Americans, though made to both England and
France, were disregarded, and it was realized that war could not be
avoided with one or the other of those nations. Indeed, the proposal was
frequently made in the press and in Congress that the country ought to
declare war against both powers in view of the outrages suffered by our
people. "The insolence of the powerful belligerents toward the young
republic of the United States was hard to endure," says Larned, though
"the conduct of the French Government was more insulting, if possible,
and more injurious, than that of Great Britain." But the American people,
still inspired by the feelings inherited from the Revolutionary strife,
seemed more incensed at the treatment they received from the English than
from the French.
The sparse settlements of the West and the isolated posts on the frontier
were confronted with a more serious and imminent menace to their safety
than were the inhabitants of the older portions of the country on the
Atlantic seaboard. They beheld the war cloud gathering, with a dreadful
apprehension of the certainty that it would bring upon them a sanguinary
conflict with the savages of the wilderness.
The increasingly hostile relations between the Americans and the Western
tribes, extending over a period of some years previous to the time of
which we are writing, was brought to a climax through the disturbing
influence of Tecumseh; but at the battle of Tippecanoe in the fall of
1811, where the savages met with disastrous defeat, it was thought that
at length an era of peace on the frontier was about to follow. And this,
no doubt, would have been the case had it not been for the activity of
British agents along the Canada border.
It soon became manifest that Indian hostility was once more increasing,
and it was generally regarded as due to the machinations of the British
at Maiden in Canada, where they gave welcome and shelter to the
discontented chiefs and their followers who sought their protection.
Forays and attacks, sporadic expeditions of the savages for purposes
of plunder or the taking of the scalps of settlers, were continually
reported throughout the years 1811 and 1812. One of the causes of war
recited by President Madison in his message to Congress just previous to
the declaration of war against England was the attacks of the savages
upon the frontier settlements incited by British traders, "a warfare,"
said the President, "which is known to spare neither age nor sex, and
distinguished by features peculiarly shocking to humanity."
When at length the Indian tribes became assured that war between the
English and the Americans was about to follow, it was readily seen that
they would act for their own interests, and that they would be found
opposed to the Americans. The sympathies of the tribes were plainly with
the English by reason of the fact that the latter were more liberal in
making presents to them than the Americans were. Every year the Indians
gathered at Maiden, opposite Detroit, to receive presents both useful and
ornamental. Besides blankets and provisions, a large quantity of objects
suitable for the adornment of their persons were distributed among them
for the purpose, as it was alleged, of "stimulating trade."
Thus the Western Indians passed by the American trading posts at Chicago,
St. Joseph and other stations, and traveled over the old Sauk Trail,
which extended from the Mississippi at Rock Island around the southern
shore of Lake Michigan, loaded with furs, which they sold to the English
traders at Maiden. In addition to the goods received in barter by them,
they were shown many favors by the English Government officials, and the
friendship thus cultivated proved of immense value to the English when
war broke out. In that war the Indians were generally found fighting on
the side of their English friends.
Another cause of the hostility shown by the Indians toward the Americans
was the constant irritation created in their minds after treaties had
been concluded. These treaties, though formally agreed to by the chiefs
representing their tribes, were often regarded by the Indians as without
validity for one reason or another. Indeed, the Indians were not without
grievances against the Americans, some real and others conjured up and
distorted by wrong-headed leaders among them.
Added to this was the difficulty of restraining the squatter and the
bushranger, who defied all treaties, trampled upon the rights of the
Indians, and disregarded the treaty obligations of the Government. The
frontiersman had scant consideration for the red man, whom he looked
upon as his natural enemy and the principal obstacle to his safety and
well-being. This feeling constituted a natural antagonism which was
not allayed until the final removal of all the tribes to Government
reservations many years later.
In the summer of the year 1812 the officers on duty at Fort Dearborn were
Captain Nathan Heald, the commanding officer; Lieutenant Linai T. Helm,
Ensign George Ronan and Surgeon Isaac Van Voorhis. Captain Heald was at
that time thirty-seven years old and the other three officers were all
well under thirty; Ronan was the youngest of them all, having graduated
from West Point only the year before.
The force composing the garrison consisted, according to Captain Heald's
own account written a couple of months afterward, of sixty-six enlisted
men, fifty-four of whom were regulars, and twelve militia. In addition to
these there were nine women and eighteen children. This makes a total,
including the officers, of ninety-seven persons. Some accounts, however,
give a different enumeration, but we shall make no attempt to reconcile
them, as the variations are not many.
The news that the United States had declared war against Great Britain
was received at Fort Dearborn on the seventh day of August, 1812. This
was fifty days afterwards, and it had taken this long time for the news
to reach the remote post on the frontier. The authorities at Detroit,
however, had been informed some three or four weeks before the messenger
was finally despatched to Fort Dearborn. If word had been sent as soon as
received at Detroit, there is no reasonable doubt that timely measures
might have been taken to prevent the terrible disaster which followed.
The despatches containing this important announcement were brought by a
chief of the Potawatami tribe named Winnemeg, also called Winamac, who
was friendly to the Americans and sent by General Hull to Captain Heald.
General William Hull, then in command of the Northwestern army assembled
at Detroit, had served with distinction in the Revolutionary War, and
had rendered excellent service as Governor of the Territory during the
previous seven years. Until he surrendered Detroit he was held in high
esteem and possessed the confidence of the administration.
A letter of instructions to Captain Heald from General Hull was the most
important among the despatches brought by the messenger. This letter gave
specific directions to the officer commanding at Fort Dearborn, and was
as follows:
It is with regret I order the evacuation of your post, owing to the
want of provisions only, a neglect of the Commandant of Detroit. You
will therefore destroy all arms and ammunition; but the goods of the
Factory you may give to the friendly Indians who may be desirous of
escorting you on to Fort Wayne, and to the poor and needy of your
post. I am informed this day that Mackinac and the Island of St.
Joseph's [in the St. Mary's River] will be evacuated on account of
the scarcity of provisions, and I hope in my next to give you an
account of the surrender of the British at Maiden, as I expect 600
men here by the beginning of Sept.
[Signed] Brigadier Gen. Hull.
The letter, the original of which is preserved in the Draper collection
of manuscripts at Madison, Wisconsin, bears the marks of having been
hastily written. Evidently Mrs. John H. Kinzie, when she wrote the
first published accounts of the events here narrated, had never seen
the letter in which is contained the order to evacuate. In her work
entitled _Wau-Bun_ she says that the order received by Captain Heald
from General Hull was "to evacuate the fort, if practicable; and in that
event, to distribute all the United States property contained in the fort
and in the United States' Factory or agency among the Indians in the
neighborhood."
Mrs. Kinzie's account of the order was doubtless gathered from those who
were participants in the affairs of that time and who gave the contents
of General Hull's letter from memory. For it must be remembered that the
author of _Wau-Bun_, in which was printed the first authentic account of
these events, was not a participant in them. She was the wife of John H.
Kinzie, the son of John Kinzie the pioneer of 1804, and she did not come
to Chicago until 1833, twenty-one years after the occurrences of which we
are writing.
[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF LETTER OF GENERAL HULL TO CAPTAIN HEALD.
_By courtesy of the Wisconsin Historical Society._]
The original letter has come to light only within the last few years;
and upon making a comparison with the _Wau-Bun_ account it is seen that
General Hull ordered the evacuation, without leaving anything whatever
to the discretion of the officer to whom the order is addressed, though
discretionary permission is implied by the conditional clause "if
practicable" in the _Wau-Bun_ account. Just how far Captain Heald would
have been justified in using his discretion and disregarding the order
to evacuate in view of the great danger there was in obeying it, is a
question upon which there were opposing views then, and regarding which
there has since been much controversy. It is plain, however, that a
strict construction of the order would have required that the post be
evacuated, no matter how serious the consequences of doing so might be;
and judging from what we know of Captain Heald's character, it is not at
all strange that he interpreted his orders literally.
The difficulties with which Captain Heald was encompassed can be but
dimly realized. Far removed, as he was, from the nearest post; surrounded
by hordes of savages who, though professing friendship, were without
doubt in sympathy with the enemy, he well knew that whatever course he
might adopt would endanger the safety of the people under his care.
His orders to evacuate were indeed positive; but if he could have been
assured of safety by remaining and holding the post, he would have been
justified without doubt in doing so; and it was the unanimous opinion of
his advisers, including the officers of the garrison, that this should be
done.
Captain Heald's problem, however, was a military one; he believed in
obeying orders, on the theory that his superiors issued them as a part of
a comprehensive plan. If he should remain at the post in defiance of his
plain instructions he might embarrass a well-planned campaign and invite
disaster in a larger field than he could be aware of. Thus, he decided
(for though slow in his judgments, he was a man of much decision of
character) that the evacuation must be made, and the many appalling risks
of a retreat through the wilderness must be hazarded.
After his arrival with the despatches, the friendly Winnemeg sought out
and conferred with John Kinzie, In whom the Indians generally placed
much confidence. Kinzie was widely known as "the Indians' friend," and
the regard felt by the savages of the neighborhood toward him and his
family had heretofore been a powerful influence in protecting the post
from their attacks. As it was, many of the young men of the tribes could
scarcely be restrained in their desire to inaugurate hostilities in spite
of their older men, who not only entertained a high regard for Kinzie and
his family, but who also realized that the friendship of the Americans
was of more value to them than that of the British. Mr. Kinzie had taken
up his residence at the fort and was soon in possession of all the
material facts contained in Winnemeg's despatches. Winnemeg, well knowing
the temper of the tribes, advised Mr. Kinzie that it would be dangerous
to evacuate the post and attempt to pass through a country infested with
hostile Indians. The garrison, he said, was well supplied with provisions
and means of defence, and the post could withstand a siege until
reinforcements arrived. But should Captain Heald decide upon abandoning
the post according to his instructions, it ought to be done immediately
by all means, before the tribes had become aware of the actual condition
of affairs.
All this was promptly communicated to the commandant, but it had little
effect upon him, and he expressed his determination to carry out his
instructions to the letter, distribute the supplies to the friendly
Indians, and evacuate the post. Mr. Kinzie strongly reinforced the advice
given by Winnemeg, but without effect, and on the following morning the
order received from General Hull was read to the troops on parade.
Five days after the receipt of General Hull's order Captain Heald called
a council of the Indians, who were then assembled in considerable numbers
in the vicinity of the fort, to acquaint them with his Intentions and
request of them an escort for the garrison on its march to Fort Wayne.
Rumors of the state of affairs at the fort had already been spread among
the Indians, and there were evidences of considerable excitement in their
actions and conduct. Some of the savages entered the fort in defiance of
the guards and making their way to the officers' quarters strode rudely
around the living apartments. On one occasion an Indian went into the
parlor of the commanding officer and, seizing a rifle, fired it, as an
expression of defiance--so it was thought, though some believed it was
the signal for an attack. "The old chiefs passed backwards and forwards
among the assembled groups," says the _Wau-Bun_ account, "with the
appearance of the most lively agitation, while the squaws rushed to and
fro in great excitement, and evidently prepared for some fearful scene."
Notwithstanding these demonstrations, the commanding officer, in a
perhaps mistaken endeavor to avoid any appearance of fear or hesitation,
attended the council which he had called, though warned against doing
so. This council was held on the esplanade adjoining the fort. He was
accompanied only by Mr. Kinzie, the officers declining to participate.
The officers had been secretly informed, they asserted, that the young
men of the tribes intended to fall upon them when they attended the
council and treacherously murder them, but Captain Heald was not
convinced that there was any truth in the information.
After the two passed out of the fort gates, the portholes of the
blockhouses were opened and the cannons were pointed so as to command
the whole assembly. This precaution no doubt saved the lives of the two
white men who attended the council. Captain Heald informed the assembled
Indians that he proposed to evacuate the fort, but before doing so it
was his intention "to distribute among them, the next day, not only the
goods lodged in the United States' Factory, but also the ammunition and
provisions, with which the garrison was well supplied."
Following this statement he asked the Potawatamis to furnish him an
escort for his troops on their march to Fort Wayne, promising that a
liberal reward would be paid to them on their arrival, in addition to the
presents he was then about to distribute. This proposal, apparently, was
well received, and, "with many professions of friendship and good will,
the savages assented to all he proposed, and promised all he required."
But Mr. Kinzie, well knowing the disposition of the Indians, did not
place reliance upon the assurance they had given. After the council he
had an interview with Captain Heald and earnestly tried to convince
him of the utter worthlessness of the promises made by the Indians. He
reminded him of the many instances of hostility shown by them during the
past year, especially by the Wabash Indians, with whom the Potawatamis
were closely associated; and that it had become the settled policy of
the Americans to withhold from the savages whatever would aid them in
carrying on warfare against the scattered white inhabitants of the
frontier; and that the distributions he was now making would directly
assist them in their bloody purposes.
Owing to the representations thus made, Captain Heald at length became
convinced that it would be dangerous to place in the hands of those who
might at any moment become enemies the ammunition he had intended giving
to them, and he determined to destroy all except what was necessary for
the use of his own troops.
A letter written by Lieutenant Helm some two years afterwards has
recently come to light. In this letter is given the amount of supplies
and war material at the fort when the order to evacuate was received. "We
had," says Helm, "two hundred stand of arms, four pieces of artillery,
six thousand pounds of powder, and a sufficient quantity of shot, lead,
etc. There was a supply of Indian corn and provisions to last three
months, exclusive of a herd of two hundred head of horned cattle, and
twenty-seven barrels of salt."
The next day after the council was held, the thirteenth, there was a
general distribution of blankets, broadcloths, calicoes, paints, etc.,
among the Indians of the neighborhood; but in the evening the ammunition
was thrown into a well and the liquors emptied into the river. The
Indians, who were particularly eager for the ammunition and the liquors,
had observed that neither of these articles was forthcoming in the
distribution of the day, and under cover of darkness crept as near to the
fort as possible in order to ascertain if any attempt was being made
to destroy them, as they strongly suspected there would be. A guard had
been placed, however, so that the Indians could not approach close to the
scene. But though the prowling savages may not have actually witnessed
the proceedings, the work of destruction was accomplished. The Indians
were well convinced that all this had been done, especially as the river
was so impregnated with the liquors that its waters had the taste of
strong grog for some time afterward. All the weapons of warfare not
necessary for the use of the soldiers were broken up and thrown into the
well, along with quantities of powder, shot, flints and gunscrews.
The eight days intervening between the arrival of the order to evacuate
the fort and the actual departure of the garrison were filled with
forebodings and anxiety. The inmates of the fort, which now included not
only the garrison but the civilian inhabitants of the neighborhood as
well, believed that an appalling fate--death at the hands of a savage
foe--inevitably awaited them. The one exception was Captain Heald, who
still had faith that the Indians would be true to their promise and
furnish an escort on the "march through." He was convinced that he had
succeeded in creating an amicable feeling among the savages, and that
the safely of all was assured. The officers of the garrison, finding
that Captain Heald failed to call a council with them and that he had
expressed an intention of abandoning the fort and proceeding to Fort
Wayne with an Indian escort, drew up and presented a remonstrance to him
in which it was recited that it was highly improbable that the command
would be permitted to pass through the country in safety to Fort Wayne.
For although it had been said that some of the chiefs had opposed an
attack upon the fort, planned the preceding autumn, yet it was well
known that they had been actuated in that matter by motives of private
regard to one family, that of Mr. Kinzie, and not to any general friendly
feeling toward the Americans; and that at any rate it was hardly to be
expected that these few individuals would be able to control the whole
tribe, who were thirsting for blood.
In another clause of the remonstrance it was added that the march of the
troops must be necessarily slow, as their movements must be accommodated
to the helplessness of the women and children, of whom there were a
number with the detachment; and that their unanimous advice was to remain
where they were and fortify themselves as strongly as possible.
The reply made by Captain Heald to the remonstrance was that his force
was totally inadequate to an engagement with the Indians;--that is,
in withstanding a siege;--that he should unquestionably be censured
for remaining when there appeared a prospect of a safe march through;
that, upon the whole, he deemed it expedient to assemble the Indians,
distribute the property among them, and then ask of them an escort to
Fort Wayne, with the promise of a considerable reward upon their safe
arrival;--and that he had "full confidence in the friendly professions of
the Indians."
The gathering perils that now environed the fort and its inmates
were rapidly approaching a climax. A fatal mistake had been made in
disregarding Winnemeg's advice to begin the retreat without delay if that
course was determined upon. Winnemeg had advised that in such an event
everything about the fort should be left standing as it was, and while
the Indians were engaged in plundering the abandoned fort the troops
might be well on their way to Fort Wayne, and perhaps escape attack
altogether. John Kinzie likewise strongly urged the necessity of prompt
action if the movement was to be made at all.
The officers held aloof from Captain Heald after the distribution of the
supplies had taken place, convinced at length that further efforts to
dissuade him from his course were useless. They denounced his purpose as
"little short of madness." There were many evidences of insubordination
observed among the soldiers, and an atmosphere of gloom pervaded the
minds of all in the fort.
On the fourteenth, the day before that decided upon for the evacuation,
the general despondency was relieved by the arrival of Captain William
Wells from Fort Wayne at the head of a band of about thirty friendly
Indians of the Miami tribe mounted on ponies. Captain Wells will always
be classed among the heroic figures of the time. He was then in the
prime of life, a man about forty years of age, and known throughout the
frontier as a "perfect master of everything pertaining to Indian life
both in peace and war, and withal a stranger to personal fear."
When General Hull had sent the order to Captain Heald to evacuate his
post, he also sent an express to Major B. F. Stickney, Indian agent at
Fort Wayne, advising him of the order and requesting him to render to
Captain Heald all the information and assistance in his power to give.
In accordance with this request. Major Stickney had promptly despatched
Captain Wells with a party of Miami warriors. A warm attachment existed
between Wells and Heald, and upon the arrival of Wells with his Miamis he
was hailed with joy, and the hopes of the people at the fort were revived.
It was Wells's intention to prevent if possible the abandonment of the
fort, aware as he was of the hostility of the Potawatamis, for he knew
that certain destruction awaited the garrison if it should make the
attempt. Possessing a perfect knowledge of the character and disposition
of the Indians, derived from his long residence among them, Wells foresaw
that the savages would take quick advantage of the whites should they
leave the shelter of the fort walls and expose themselves in the open on
their long slow march of a hundred and fifty miles to Fort Wayne.
When Wells reached the fort he found to his dismay that most of the
ammunition had been destroyed, and that the provisions, blankets and
other goods in the factory had been distributed to the Indians. He
perceived at once that the means of defence having been so seriously
reduced there was now no other course to pursue, and that the march must
be attempted.
During the day another council with the Indians was held, and on this
occasion the savages were found to be in an angry mood. They immediately
reminded the commanding officer that they were aware of the destruction
of the ammunition and the liquors and that they regarded it as an act
of bad faith. It was with the utmost difficulty that the chiefs could
restrain the young men of the tribe from carrying out their sanguinary
designs at once. For although there were several of the chiefs who shared
the generally hostile feeling of the tribe toward the whites, yet they
entertained a regard for the men of the garrison and the traders of the
neighborhood.
The evening of the last day at the fort, Black Partridge, a prominent
chief of the Potawatamis, of whom further mention will be made, came to
the officers' quarters and addressed Captain Heald as follows: "Father,
I come to deliver up to you the medal I wear. It was given me by the
Americans, and I have long worn it in token of our mutual friendship.
But our young men are resolved to imbrue their hands in the blood of the
whites. I cannot restrain them, and I will not wear a token of peace
while I am compelled to act as an enemy."
The language of this speech cannot, of course, be accepted as the
verbatim utterance of Black Partridge. He spoke in his own tongue, and
the speech was translated by the interpreter, who at that time was
John Kinzie. The utterance has, however, become a classic in all the
historical accounts pertaining to the events of that time.
An observer taking a survey from the walls of the fort at this time would
have beheld the river to the north flowing in a sluggish current toward
the lake, then bending to the south until it reached its mouth over a
shallow bottom nearly opposite the present Madison Street. On the bank
of the river, near its mouth, stood the house of Charles Lee, the owner
of "Lee's Place," the farm some four miles up the South Branch where two
men were murdered by the Indians in the previous April. Toward the west
was the Agency House, standing near the bank of the river, beyond which
were the groups of Indian wigwams clustered along the creek that formerly
flowed into the main stream at the present State Street. Opposite this
point, on the north bank, was the house of John Burns; and further
eastward was the most pretentious residence of the place, the house
of John Kinzie. A little in the rear of it stood the cabin of Antoine
Ouilmette.
Taking a more distant view toward the west, the observer might have seen
the point where the North and South branches of the river met and formed
the main body of the stream. The north banks of the river were wooded to
the water's edge except where clearings had been made around the cabins
mentioned.
Looking eastward, the broad expanse of Lake Michigan stretched away
beyond the limits of vision. At the season of year in which the events of
which we are writing took place the lake was usually devoid of storms and
rough weather.
Lake Michigan at this point has a breadth of fifty miles between the
mouth of the Chicago River and the opposite or Michigan shore; and
there being no eminence of sufficient height to rise above the horizon,
the prospect was like looking off to sea where there is an offing of
thousands of miles.
Northward the shores were fringed with a white oak forest, with a line
of sand-hills near the beach. Looking southward, the shore of the lake
trended away in a curve toward the southeast, and on its margin could
be traced the sand-hills characteristic of the shores as far as the eye
could reach.
It is a remarkable fact that most of the details of the Chicago massacre
are derived from the accounts furnished by the two women who were
eye-witnesses of the scenes described. Neither of these accounts was
directly written by the two women referred to, but are preserved through
secondary reports.
The narrative of Mrs. Helm, who was only seventeen years old at the
time, was taken down from dictation apparently by Mrs. John H. Kinzie
and incorporated in _Wau-Bun_. While this account, as given in the work
mentioned, is enclosed in quotation-marks as if in the language of the
narrator, it was evidently rendered by Mrs. Kinzie in her own words.
Mrs. Kinzie was not present at the massacre, not having come to Chicago
until twenty years thereafter, but she was diligent in procuring all the
information available at the time of writing her book. In her later years
she no doubt talked the matter over at length with Mrs. Helm, who was a
half-sister of her husband.
It is important, in obtaining a clear understanding of this narrative,
that the names of Mrs. John Kinzie, the wife of the pioneer of 1804, and
of Mrs. John H. Kinzie, the author, be not confused.
The narrative of Mrs. Heald reaches posterity through the story of her
son, Darius Heald. A portion was given in John Wentworth's address at
the unveiling of the memorial tablet on the site of old Fort Dearborn,
delivered May 21, 1881; and another portion is quoted in Joseph
Kirkland's book. _The Chicago Massacre_, published some years later.
Darius Heald was not born until ten years after the massacre, and his
testimony, written from his dictation, was derived entirely from the oral
account of his mother.
Comparing the account with that given by Mrs. Helm a number of
discrepancies in details is observed, though the main events are related
in both accounts in practically identical form.
The accounts of both Mrs. Helm and Mrs. Heald were written from
dictation. Mrs. Helm's account appeared in print twenty-four years after
the event which it describes, while Mrs. Heald's did not appear until
seventy-five years thereafter, having in the meantime been preserved only
in the form of a family tradition. It can therefore hardly have as much
historical value as the older published narrative of Mrs. Helm.
The morning of the fifteenth of August, 1812, dawned clear and the day
was oppressively warm. There was scarcely a breath of air stirring and
the surface of the lake was unruffled, stretching away, as one expressed
it, "like a sheet of burnished gold." The preparations for the departure
went actively forward. At nine o'clock Captain Wells took a place at the
head of the column on horseback, his face blackened, according to the
Indian custom, "in token of his impending fate."
Wells was under no illusions. He knew that at any moment the crisis would
be upon them, and he clearly realized how hopeless in the presence of
hordes of savages in the neighborhood, bent on blood and plunder, any
resistance would be, and how faint a chance there was for escape. But
brave and resolute he calmly went forward with the fixed purpose of doing
his duty in the face of inevitable destruction.
Following him rode half of his Miami band, and behind them the musicians
came, and as the march began they played the Dead March. Then came the
soldiers, each carrying twenty-five rounds of ammunition, all that had
been reserved from the general destruction, though a totally inadequate
supply for such a campaign as they might reasonably look forward to in
these threatening circumstances.
Next came a train of wagons in which the camp equipage and provisions
were carried, and in the wagons were also placed the women and children.
The rear of the column was brought up by the remainder of the Miami
escort. The wives of the married officers, Mrs. Heald and Mrs. Helm,
accompanied the procession on horseback.
The escort promised by the Potawatamis in council was on hand and moved
with the procession, a few hundred yards to the west, keeping a parallel
course. There was a lingering hope among the whites that the Indians
would be true to their promise and continue with them throughout their
journey as a protecting force, and in this hope the movements of the
Indians were watched with the greatest interest, though with painful
forebodings and suspicions.
Among the people thus hoping against hope "there were not wanting gallant
hearts who strove to encourage in their desponding companions the hopes
of escape they were far from indulging themselves."
Early in the morning of the day of the departure of the garrison John
Kinzie had received a message from Topenebe of St. Joseph's band
informing him of what he already was well convinced of, that the
Potawatamis who were to act as escort on the march had treacherous
designs, and would without doubt attack the column. Topenebe was a chief
in the Potawatami tribe, but a firm friend of the whites and especially
of the Kinzie family. He warned Mr. Kinzie not to accompany the troops
when they left the fort, but rather to take passage in a boat with his
family and proceed directly to St. Joseph, where he might rejoin the
troops if they were successful in passing through the country.
Mr. Kinzie, however, decided to place his family in the boat, while he
himself accompanied the troops, in the hope and belief that his presence
would operate as a restraint upon the fury of the savages in case of an
attack. This brave action on the part of Mr. Kinzie, who thus cast in his
lot with those who were going forth to almost certain destruction, must
be regarded as an exhibition of rare personal courage notable even among
many other instances of a similar kind seen on that fatal day.
The party in the boat which left the Kinzie house about the same time
that the troops marched out of the fort consisted of Mrs. Kinzie and her
four children, the eldest of whom by her second marriage was John Harris,
then nine years old. The others were: Ellen Marion, six and a half years
old; Maria Indiana, four years old, and Robert Allen, two and a half
years old. In addition there were Josette La Framboise, a French-Ottawa
half-breed, a nurse in the family; Chandonnais, a clerk in the employ of
Mr. Kinzie; two servants, a boatman, and the two Indians who had brought
the message from Topenebe. This made a party of twelve persons in the
boat.
Upon Mrs. Kinzie now devolved the responsibility and direction of the
party in the boat, since her husband had chosen to accompany the troops.
Proceeding to the mouth of the river, the boat was detained for a time
while the party beheld the passage of the column just beginning its
march. Mrs. Kinzie "was a woman of uncommon energy and strength of
character," says the author of _Wau-Bun_, "yet her heart died within her
as she folded her arms around her helpless Infants, and gazed upon the
march of her husband and eldest child to certain destruction." It will
be recalled that Mrs. Kinzie's eldest child was Mrs. Margaret Helm, who
was with her husband on the march.
Antoine Ouilmette and his family did not abandon their dwelling as did
all the other residents of the village. A sister of his wife, known
in the accounts as Mrs. Bisson, was a member of this same household.
Ouilmette was regarded by the Potawatamis as belonging to their tribe,
and he felt no apprehension of danger in remaining on the ground.
Renegade whites living among the savages usually maintained their
standing among them by offering no opposition to any atrocities committed
by them, and sometimes even participating in the warfare against their
own race.
The line of march lay along the shore of the lake toward the south.
In the absence of roads through the country at that early period the
traveling was difficult for wagons, and the margin of the lake was
usually preferred for that kind of locomotion wherever it lay in the
desired direction. For a considerable distance toward the southern end of
the lake the route of the proposed march would be along the sandy beach,
usually firm and smooth near the water's edge.
Boat navigation was the main reliance for transporting men and goods,
though as yet there was not a sufficiently large number of boats of any
description on Lake Michigan to have moved so large a body of men and
women at one time as composed the procession leaving the fort. And even
if there had been enough of such as were used by the traders, it is not
likely that the people would have been permitted by the hostile Indians
even to embark in them.
The fort was no sooner vacated than the Indians rushed in and began to
plunder the place of everything that was movable. In an adjoining field
there had been a herd of cattle kept for the use of soldiers, such as
milch cows, oxen, etc., and these were allowed to run at large when the
troops departed. The Indians gave chase and shot them all, seemingly for
the satisfaction they found in the mere act of killing, and the deed was
quite in keeping with their usual improvident habits. Mrs. Helm, in her
account, said that she well-remembered a remark of Ensign Ronan as the
shooting of the cattle went on. "Such," said he, "is to be our fate,--to
be shot down like beasts."
In taking their departure from the fort there was little in the conduct
of the savages to indicate the hostility which was so soon to manifest
itself. Mrs. Heald gave an account of the scene many years later, and
she said in her narrative that "the fort was vacated quietly, not a
cross word being passed between soldiers and Indians, and good-byes were
exchanged."
In fact, it was generally believed that those Indians who gathered about
the entrance of the fort, prepared to rush in the moment the last men
passed out, took no part in the later events of the day, being fully
occupied in their work of plundering and cattle-killing. John Wentworth
in one of his lectures on the subject went further, and declared that the
Indians who had lived a long time in the immediate vicinity of the fort
were friendly to the whites and "did their best to pacify the numerous
warriors who flocked here from the more distant hunting grounds."
The column had not proceeded very far on its course before it was noticed
that the Potawatami escort was diverging from the direction in which both
columns started out and that at the distance of a mile from the fort
there was a considerable distance between them.
A range of sand-hills and sand-banks of no great height skirted the
shore dividing the sandy beach from the prairie beyond them. Among these
sand-hills were a few trees and bushes supporting a precarious existence.
Westward of this range of sand-hills which began to rise about a mile
from the fort the Indians continued their course and were soon lost to
view.
Suddenly, far in the advance, Captain Wells was seen to turn his horse
and ride furiously back along the marching men, who quickly came to a
halt. Wells was swinging his hat in a circle around his head, which meant
in the sign language of the frontier, "We are surrounded by Indians!"
As he approached the commanding officer he shouted, "They are about to
attack us; form instantly and charge upon them." The Potawatami escort
had in fact become the attacking party, choosing to murder the whites
rather than join in looting the fort.
The Indians could now be seen in great numbers coming into view from
behind the mounds of sand, their heads bobbing up and down "like turtles
out of the water." The troops were promptly formed and they had no sooner
taken position than the Indians began firing upon them with deadly
effect, the first victim being a veteran of seventy years of age.
After firing one round the troops charged up the slopes of the
sand-hills, driving the Indians from the position. However, they
scattered in both directions and presently began to envelop the flanks
of the line according to the usual practice in savage warfare. At this
juncture the mounted Miamis would have been of the greatest service in
preventing such a manoeuvre, but they had all fled across the prairie
after the first shot was fired, quickly disappeared in the distance, and
were seen no more.
Captain Heald, in a letter written a few weeks after the event, said:
The situation of the country rendered it necessary for us to take the
beach, with the lake on our left, and a high sand-bank on our right,
at about one hundred yards' distance. We had proceeded about a mile
and a half when it was discovered that the Indians were prepared
to attack us from behind the bank. I immediately marched up with
the company to the top of the bank when the action commenced; after
firing one round we charged, and the Indians gave way in front and
joined those on our flanks.
The horses upon which Mrs. Heald and Mrs. Helm were riding became almost
unmanageable after the firing had begun. The explosion of a charge in an
old flint lock musket was a terrific outburst of noise. It produced a
volume of sound which we can scarcely realize when comparing it with the
report of a service rifle in use at the present day. It was little wonder
that the horses pranced and bounded when these thundering volleys were
heard.
Mrs. Helm said that she drew off a little and gazing upon her husband
(Lieutenant Helm) and her father (Mr. Kinzie), whom, although he was
her step-father, she was always fond of calling father, she saw that
they both were yet unharmed. But she felt that as for herself her hour
had come, and she endeavored to forget those she loved, and to prepare
herself for her approaching fate.
It was the endeavor of the savages to close upon their victims whenever
they found an opportunity to bring their tomahawks and scalping knives
into use. While some were firing upon the troops from cover, others were
seeking to attack those who had become separated from their friends.
These they could quickly overcome owing to their skill in the use of
those murderous weapons.
One Sergeant Holt, who was accompanied by his wife, had received a ball
in his neck in the early part of the engagement. He handed his sword to
his wife, who was on horseback near him, and told her to defend herself.
The Indians were desirous of obtaining possession of the horse and at
the same time sparing her life, for generally they wished to take the
women captives. Mrs. Holt resisted vigorously when the savages attempted
to seize the horse; she broke away from them and dashed out on the open
prairie. Still pursuing, they overtook her and succeeded in dragging
her from her horse. She was then made a prisoner and later taken to the
Illinois River country, where she received kind treatment. Ultimately she
was ransomed and restored to her friends.
Mrs. Helm was attacked by a young Indian, who raised his tomahawk,
intending to deal her a blow, but she avoided the murderous weapon
and seized her assailant around the neck. This is the moment that the
sculptor of the bronze group, now situated at the intersection of
Eighteenth Street and Calumet Avenue, chose for his representation.
Mrs. Helm tried to get possession of the scalping knife which hung in a
scabbard over his breast, but another and an older Indian dragged her
away with a strong grasp. Struggling and resisting, she was then borne
toward the lake, plunged into the water and firmly held, as if it were
the intention to drown her. She soon perceived, however, that the object
of her captor was not to drown her, as he held her in such a position as
to keep her head above water. She began to gather courage, and looking
the savage full in the face, she saw at once, notwithstanding the paint
with which he had disguised himself, that it was Black Partridge, the
chief who had surrendered his medal to the commandant the evening before.
[Illustration: MEMORIAL MONUMENT TO THE MASSACRE
_This monument marks the spot where the battle and massacre of the troops
and others took place on the 15th of August 1812. The monument was
designed by Mr. Carl Rohl-Smith. It consists of a bronze group placed
on a pedestal of granite, upon the sides of which are panels depicting
scenes in relief connected with the events of that day. It is situated
at the foot of Eighteenth street, adjoining the tracks of the Illinois
Central Railroad, and was the gift of Mr. George M. Pullman to the people
of Chicago._
_The scene represents Black Partridge rescuing Mrs. Helm from death at
the hands of a frenzied savage, the prostrate figure being that of the
unfortunate Dr. Van Voorhis, the post surgeon, who met his death on that
occasion. The child stretching out its arms in an appeal for help recalls
the fiendish massacre of infants which was the terrible feature of the
day._]
When the firing was nearly over, the chief brought her out of the water
and placed her on a sand-bank. "It was a burning August morning,"
she said, "and walking through the sand in my drenched condition was
inexpressibly painful and fatiguing. I stooped and took off my shoes to
free them from the sand with which they were nearly filled, when a squaw
seized them and carried them off, and I was obliged to proceed without
them."
As she gained the prairie she was met by Mr. Kinzie, who informed her
that her husband (Lieutenant Helm) was safe, and but slightly wounded.
She was led back to the Indian encampment on the banks of the Chicago
River. "At one time," she continues in her story, "I was placed upon a
horse without a saddle, but finding the motion insupportable, I sprang
off. Supported partly by my kind conductor, Black Partridge, and partly
by another Indian, Pee-so-tum, who held dangling in his hand a scalp,
which by the black ribbon around the queue I recognized as that of
Captain Wells, I dragged my fainting steps to one of the wigwams."
Arrived at the entrance of a chief's wigwam, the wife of the chief,
inspired by a sentiment of pity for her, an exhibition of feeling rare
among Indian women, seeing her exhausted condition, took a kettle and,
dipping up some water from the small creek near by, threw in a quantity
of maple sugar, and, stirring it with her hand, gave the mixture to her
to drink. She was greatly refreshed by the draught. This act of kindness
touched the poor young woman deeply, occurring as it did in the midst of
so many horrors.
In the meantime the men in the ranks fell rapidly under the withering
fire of their savage foes, who were now on all sides of them in
overwhelming numbers. Still they continued the struggle bravely, and the
prairie was soon thickly scattered with dead and wounded. Captain Heald
himself received a wound in his hip, from which he suffered for the
remainder of his life, and which caused his death some years later. It
may be stated in passing that the bodies of those who were killed in this
bloody combat lay exposed to the elements and wild beasts for four years,
until eventually their remains were gathered up and buried by United
States soldiers arriving to rebuild the fort.
The troops behaved most gallantly while the battle lasted and seemed
determined to make as brave a defence as possible. They were soon
reduced to about one-half of their original number. After the action had
continued about a quarter of an hour Captain Heald drew off the few men
still remaining and took possession of a small elevation in the open
prairie, beyond the range of the shots coming from the sand-hills which
the Indians now held, thus having reversed the positions which the
opposing forces occupied at the beginning of the battle.
There was nothing now to prevent the savages from attacking the wagons
containing the women and children. The troops were isolated on the
prairie and could not even defend themselves, much less could they do
anything to protect the helpless people in the wagons.
Meantime Captain Wells was fighting, Indian fashion, and doing more
execution than any other man on the field. Mounted on horseback, he
freely exposed himself wherever the combat was most furious. He was
armed with a rifle and carried two pistols. His powder and bullets were
carried in belts slung over his shoulders, convenient for instant use. He
usually had the bullet needed for the next load ready in his mouth. "He
would pour in the powder," said an eye-witness, "wad it down, blow in the
bullet, prime, and fire, more rapidly than one can tell the facts."
The savages had a wholesome fear of Wells, and they fled from his aim in
all directions. They broke from him right and left. In the effort to
protect the women and children he closely watched the movements of the
Indians toward the wagons, and presently saw a young savage come up and
enter one of them in which twelve of the children had been collected.
Before he could prevent him, the savage ruthlessly tomahawked the entire
group; and when Wells caught sight of this horrid deed, he shouted in
rage: "Is that their game--butchering women and children?"
But his own end was near. He received a shot which passed through his
lungs, and realizing that it was a mortal wound, he rode up to his niece,
Mrs. Heald, still maintaining his position upon his horse. Seizing her
hand, he exclaimed, "Farewell, my child." Mrs. Heald, who, though thus
addressed, was nearly as old as her uncle, replied, "Why, uncle, I hope
you will get over this." "No, my child," he said, "I cannot." She then
saw that blood was coming from his nose and mouth, and he said that he
could not last five minutes longer. He then gave his niece his last
message in these words: "Tell my wife, if you live to get there,--but I
think it doubtful if a single one gets there,--tell her I died at my
post doing the best I could. There are seven red devils over there that I
have killed."
Wells's horse had already been shot through the body, and at that
moment fell exhausted, with his rider pinioned beneath him. Wells then
saw several Indians coming toward him, bent on taking advantage of his
apparent helplessness. He summoned his failing strength and from his
prostrate position took aim and killed one of them on the spot. The
others approached closer to the wounded lion, determined to strike a blow
or fire a shot that would instantly end his life. Mrs. Heald saw the
movement and cried out, "Uncle, there is an Indian pointing right at the
back of your head." He put his hand back and held up his head, in spite
of his failing strength, so that better aim might be taken, and then
exclaimed, "Shoot away!"
The Indian fired and Captain Wells fell dead. Thus perished the man
to whom in a greater degree than to any other person those who still
remained alive upon the scene looked for help and guidance in this awful
extremity. Without him, the thickening perils of the hour seemed the
climax of despair.
Some time later the news of the death of Captain Wells reached his widow
(the daughter of the chief Little Turtle), long before Mrs. Heald, who
survived the massacre, was able to convey the message entrusted to her.
One of the Indians present who witnessed the scene, though he took no
part in the perpetration of that dark deed, was a friend of Wells, whom
he had known in former years and whom he regarded as a brother. It was
this Indian who went to Fort Wayne after the battle was over and gave
Mrs. Wells the first intimation of her husband's death. After doing so he
disappeared, and it was supposed that he returned to his tribe, as he was
not seen again.
The two younger officers. Ensign George Ronan and Surgeon Isaac Van
Voorhis, had been all this time gallantly bearing their part in the
unequal struggle with the savage hordes that surrounded them, and both
of them had received dangerous wounds. In her account of the battle,
Mrs. Helm says that, overwrought by his fighting and pain, the surgeon
came up and addressed her. He had been wounded, his horse had been shot
under him, and he was in a state of terror. Aware of Mrs. Helm's lifelong
experience with the Indians, though she was much younger than himself,
he said to her: "Do you think they will take our lives? I am badly
wounded, but I think not mortally. Perhaps we might purchase our lives by
promising them a large reward. Do you think there is any chance?"
"Dr. Van Voorhis," said the seventeen-year-old girl, "do not let us waste
the few moments that yet remain to us in such vain hopes. Our fate is
inevitable. In a few moments we must appear before the bar of God. Let us
make what preparation is yet in our power."
"Oh, I cannot die!" he exclaimed. "I am not fit to die. If I had but
a short time to prepare! Death is awful!" Mrs. Helm pointed to Ensign
Ronan, who, though even then mortally wounded, was down on one knee and
was still fighting with desperate courage.
"Look at that man," she said. "At least he dies like a soldier." "Yes,"
replied the surgeon, "but he has no terrors of the future--he is an
unbeliever!"
The wounded surgeon's fear, thus shown under these trying circumstances,
was entirely natural. He was then only twenty-two years of age and had
entered the service on the frontier but the year before. The bravest men
have often passed through a similar experience in moments of danger. An
unbeliever, in his view, would not concern himself with the hereafter;
but he considered that he himself was unfit to appear before the bar of
God. What more natural than that this young man's heart should fail him
in that supreme moment?
There was no opportunity, however, even had he been able, to show his
mettle by a renewed effort to stem the tide of disaster, for almost
immediately afterwards he was tomahawked by one of the Indians, and was
seen dead on the ground when Mrs. Helm passed that way a little time
later as the captive of the chief Black Partridge, on their way to the
river.
In an obituary notice, published in _The Political Index_, November
17, 1812, at Newburg, New York, there is the following notice of the
unfortunate young surgeon: "Among the slain (at the Fort Dearborn
Massacre) was Dr. Isaac Van Voorhis, of Fishkill, surgeon in the army.
He was a young man of great merit, and received his early education at
the academy in this village. He possessed an enterprising and cultivated
mind, and was ardent in the support of the interest and honor of his
country."
Ensign George Ronan, who was also only twenty-two, had entered the
service on the frontier the previous year. He was a graduate of West
Point, with the rank of ensign, corresponding to that of second
lieutenant in the modern army regulations. He is always referred to as a
brave and enterprising young officer. He won the admiration of all during
the months previous to the events here narrated, and especially for the
courage and devotion shown by him in the last scene, when he perished on
the field of battle.
From his position on the battle-field, Captain Heald saw the Indians
making signs to him to approach and consult with them. Heald advanced
alone in response to this invitation. Through a half-breed interpreter,
Peresh Leclerc, he was asked to surrender to them, the Indians at the
same time promising to spare the lives of all the prisoners. A Potawatami
chief, named Black Bird, was the spokesman for the Indians. Captain Heald
in his report says that after a few moments' consideration he concluded
it would be most prudent to comply with this request, although he did
not put entire confidence in the promise. In fact, Heald was reduced to
extremities, and a parley with the Indians was his only hope. They were
surrounded by the savages. Lieutenant Helm was wounded and a prisoner
in the hands of the enemy, who indeed had possession of all the horses,
wagons, and property of every description, besides having killed or
captured all the women and children. He was obliged to make the best
terms possible, for though a surrender might be followed by treachery,
there was really no other course for him to take.
The surrender was then agreed to and the fighting ceased. The air was
filled with the shouts of the savages exulting over their victory, while
from the wounded issued moans of pain, and from the distance could be
heard the wailings of cruelly bereaved mothers.
After delivering up their arms, the survivors were taken back to the
encampment of the Indians near the fort, and distributed among the
different tribes. The number of their warriors, Heald said, was between
four hundred and five hundred, mostly of the Potawatami nation, and the
loss on their side was about fifteen. There were about sixty of the
whites killed in the battle and the massacre which followed, but when
the troops surrendered and the Indians promised that the lives of the
survivors should be spared, it was found that the savages regarded the
wounded as exempted from this condition. Accordingly, many of the wounded
were ruthlessly tomahawked after the surrender, and in the same evening
five of the soldiers were tortured to death. A number of others perished
from the privations they suffered while in the hands of the Indians
during the ensuing season.
The boat containing the Kinzie family and the servants accompanying them
at first kept near the mouth of the river, the occupants watching the
troops and the wagon train passing along the beach toward the south. They
heard the discharge of the guns when the Indians attacked, and the boat's
course was directed so as to approach as nearly as possible to the scene
of the fighting. They saw a woman on horseback led by an Indian not far
from the edge of the water.
"That is Mrs. Heald," cried Mrs. Kinzie. "That Indian will kill her.
Run, Chandonnais, take the mule that is tied there and offer it to him
to release her." The Indian was already attempting to take off her
bonnet, with the evident intention of scalping her, and she was resisting
vigorously.
The Indian paused long enough in the Struggle to listen to the offer
made by Chandonnais, who added the promise of two bottles of whiskey
as soon as they would reach their destination. "But," said the Indian,
"she is badly wounded--she will die. Will you give me the whiskey at all
events?" Chandonnais, who was well known to the Indians, promised that he
would, and the bargain was concluded. Several squaws, keen for plunder,
had followed the procession closely, and made an ineffectual attempt to
rob Mrs. Heald of her shoes and stockings. The savage had succeeded in
getting possession of her bonnet, and placed it on his own head. She was
taken on board the boat, and lay moaning with pain from the wounds she
had received.
As it was impossible to continue their journey under the circumstances,
the boat and its passengers returned to the Kinzie house, trusting to the
influence possessed by Mr. Kinzie to maintain their safety. They were
joined there by Mr. Kinzie, who had escaped injury from the savages.
Around them gathered a number of Indians still friendly to the Kinzie
family, whose Intentions were to assist them in a renewed attempt to
reach their proposed destination at St. Joseph.
Among the friendly Indians thus gathered was Black Partridge, who had
rescued Mrs. Helm and had safely brought her to the Kinzie house, where
she rejoined her family.
Thus were assembled the entire family of John Kinzie, except his
son-in-law, Lieutenant Helm. Mrs. Heald and Mrs. Helm were both suffering
from wounds. Both had been attacked by the savages while on horseback,
the former having perhaps escaped death, through the ransom negotiated by
Chandonnais, and the other having been rescued by Black Partridge.
John Burns, with his wife and infant child, had lived in the house west
of the Kinzies', on the north bank of the river, and were with the troops
at the time of the attack. It will be recalled that Mrs. Burns and her
one-day-old infant had been brought to the fort for safety at the time of
the Indian alarm in the previous April. Burns was killed while with the
troops, but his wife and child were made captives by one of the chiefs
and by him taken to his village and treated with great kindness; but his
squaw wife, excited by feelings of jealousy of the favors shown to the
captives, attempted to kill the child with a tomahawk thrown at it with
great force. The blow narrowly missed being fatal, but it inflicted a
wound the marks of which she carried through the remainder of her life.
The chief prevented further attempts of the kind by removing the captives
to a place of safety. Eventually the mother and child found their way
back to civilization.
"Twenty-two years after this," writes the younger Mrs. Kinzie, in
_Wau-Bun_, "as I was on a journey to Chicago in the steamer 'Uncle Sam,'
a young woman, hearing my name, introduced herself to me, and raising the
hair from her forehead, showed me the mark of the tomahawk which had so
nearly been fatal to her."
A somewhat similar case was that of Mrs. Charles Lee, whose husband owned
the farm on the South Branch where the two men were murdered by Indians
in the previous April. His son, a lad of twelve years, who, with the
discharged soldier, ran to the fort from the farm and gave the alarm
on that occasion, was also with the troops in company with his father.
Lee and his son were both killed in the battle, but Mrs. Lee and her
young child were captured, and later came into the possession of Black
Partridge. This "knightly rescuer of women" proved the worth of his
friendship toward the whites in the case of Mrs. Lee and her child, as he
had already done in the rescue of Mrs. Helm.
The story of John Cooper, surgeon's mate at Fort Dearborn, was similar
in many of its details to that of others in the battle. Cooper was
accompanied by his wife and two young daughters, the elder of whom was
named Isabella. Cooper was among the killed, and when the Indians made
a rush for the women and children in the wagons, a young Indian boy
attempted to carry off Isabella, but encountered so lively a resistance
that he was obliged to throw her down. He succeeded in scalping her, and
would have killed her outright had not an old squaw prevented him. The
squaw, who knew the Cooper family, took Mrs. Cooper and her children to
her wigwam and cured the girl of her wound.
The family remained in captivity two years, when they were ransomed.
They afterwards lived in Detroit. The mark of the wound on the girl's
head caused by the young Indian's scalping knife was about the size of a
silver dollar, and, of course, remained with her through her life.
An infant of six months was with its mother among the survivors of that
dreadful day. Corporal Simmons had with him on the march his wife and two
children, the eldest a boy of two years, and a little girl an infant in
its mother's arms. The mother and her children were in the army wagon,
which was entered by the Indian, who despatched the children as rapidly
as he could reach them. Mrs. Simmons, while not able to save her boy,
succeeded in concealing the baby in a shawl behind her, and the child
survived the scenes of that day. The corporal himself was among those who
were slain.
When the division of prisoners took place after the action Mrs. Simmons
was carried off by the Indians to Green Bay, the whole distance to
which she walked, carrying her child in her arms. On arriving at their
destination the captives were required to "run the gauntlet," according
to the brutal custom of the savages, but in doing so she was able to
protect her precious charge by bending over it as she held it in her
arms. She received many cruel blows and half dead she reached the goal
where a friendly squaw gave her and her child a kind reception. In the
following year, after many weary wanderings, Mrs. Simmons reached a
frontier post in Ohio and was at length set at liberty.
This child grew up and became the wife of Moses Winans, and in later
life she and her husband lived in California, but she never returned to
Chicago again. She died in 1903, at the advanced age of ninety years.
Of the nine women who set out with the troops, two were killed; the
others, except Mrs. Heald and Mrs. Helm, were carried off by the savages,
and some did not survive the hardships of the life they were compelled
to undergo. There were eighteen children, of whom twelve were killed
outright, and but few of the others were ever heard of.
The following fall and winter the British, then in possession of Detroit,
were urged by some of the American residents of that place to exert their
influence among their Indian allies to return the captives to the custody
of the British military authorities. Tardy efforts were made, and at
length the agent who was appointed for that work reported that he had
gathered at the St. Joseph River seventeen soldiers, four women, and some
children. There were, however, several other survivors not included among
those whom the British agent was able to find, as appears from some other
accounts. The soldiers were taken to Detroit and became prisoners of
war, but their condition was thus only slightly ameliorated. Young John
Kinzie, then a lad ten years of age, recalled that while his father's
family were living in their own house at Detroit during that winter,
themselves practically prisoners of war, he saw the miserable captives
suffering from exposure in the severe cold weather without adequate
shelter, and but little could be done for them by their American friends.
The perils surrounding the Kinzie family when they were once more
gathered under the family roof were of the most serious character. Here
were assembled a company of the survivors after a day of excitement,
bloodshed, and distress hardly to be paralleled in the lives of
civilized people. Across the river from the Kinzie house could be seen
the victorious savages indulging in wild antics, shouting and dancing
exultantly, ransacking and plundering the buildings within the fort, and
preparing to torture some of the prisoners to death. They had arrayed
themselves in women's hats, shawls, and ribbons, and filled the air with
their savage outcries.
Notwithstanding the fact that the house and its inmates were closely
guarded by their Indian friends, and that Black Partridge and other
friendly Indians had established themselves in the porch of the building
as sentinels, to protect the family from any evil that the young men of
the tribes might endeavor to commit, their peril was extreme. Everything
remained tranquil, however, during the day, and the following night was
passed in comparative freedom from alarms.
The next day the Indians set fire to the fort and the entire place was
consumed. A party of Indians from the Wabash arrived at this time, having
heard of the intended evacuation of the fort, and eager to share in the
plunder. They were disappointed and enraged on finding that their arrival
was too late, that the spoils had been divided, and the scalps all taken.
These Indians had no particular regard for the Kinzies, and it at once
became evident that their presence boded destruction to the devoted
inmates of the house. They blackened their faces and proceeded to the
Kinzie house as the most promising spot to carry out their plundering and
bloodthirsty designs.
Black Partridge was especially anxious in behalf of Mrs. Helm, whose
safety he wished to assure. By his directions she disguised herself and
took refuge in the house of Ouilmette. Ouilmette, being a Frenchman, and
living with an Indian wife, was never molested by the Indians at any
time, being regarded as one of themselves.
The Indians approached this house first and entered without ceremony.
Mrs. Bisson, sister of Ouilmette's wife, hastily concealed Mrs. Helm by
covering her with a feather bed. She then took her seat in front of the
bed and occupied herself with her sewing. The Indians looked into every
part of the room, but did not raise the feather mattress under which Mrs.
Helm was lying, half smothered. Mrs. Bisson was in terror for her own
safety, but bravely maintained an air of indifference during this trying
ordeal, and presently the Indians left the house.
They then went over to the Kinzie dwelling, entered the principal room,
and seated themselves on the floor in ominous silence. Black Partridge
then spoke in a low voice to Waubansee, who was with him as one of the
guards, and said: "We have endeavored to save our friends, but it is in
vain--nothing will save them now."
At that moment a friendly whoop, loud and clear, was heard from the
bank of the river opposite to the house, and Black Partridge instantly
arose and ran toward the landing, calling out, "Who are you?" "I am the
Sauganash," came the reply. Black Partridge replied, "Then make all speed
to the house; your friend is in danger, and you alone can save him."
Sauganash, also known as Billy Caldwell, was a half-breed and was a chief
of the Potawatami tribe, and a man of great influence among the Indians.
He was not present at the evacuation and massacre of the day before, but
had come in time to save the lives of many of the prisoners. With him had
come the chief Shabbona, who also used his influence in moderating the
brutality of the younger members of the tribes.
The Sauganash hastened across the river, while the threatening savages
waited in wonder for his appearance. He calmly entered the room, stood
his rifle behind the door, and gazed about him at the silent savages
squatting on the floor. He boldly asked them why they had blackened their
faces. "Is it that you are mourning for the friends you have lost in
battle?"--thus purposely misunderstanding their evil designs, which he
easily penetrated. "Or is it," he continued, "that you are fasting? If
so, ask our friend here, and he will give you to eat. He is the Indians'
friend, and never yet refused them what they had need of."
The savages were taken by surprise at this speech, and none among them
had the courage to say what the purpose was in their minds. One of them
answered that they had come to ask for some white cotton cloth in which
they might wrap the bodies of their dead friends before placing them in
their graves. As soon as this was said they were provided with a quantity
of cloth, and to the relief of everyone they took their departure
peaceably.
Quartermaster Sergeant William Griffith escaped the general massacre by
a series of remarkable strokes of good fortune. While the troops were
leaving the fort it was discovered that the horses carrying the surgeon's
apparatus and medicines had strayed off. Griffith went to search for
them and bring them up, but being unsuccessful, he hastened to join the
column on foot. Before he had proceeded very far he was met and made a
prisoner by the chief Topenebe, who was friendly to the whites. The chief
took him to the river and put him in a canoe, paddled it across the river
and told him to hide himself in the thick woods on the north side.
The next day he cautiously appeared in the vicinity of Ouilmette's house,
and the place seeming to be quiet, he entered the cabin at the rear. This
was just after the Wabash Indians had left the house for that of Mr.
Kinzie.
The family were greatly alarmed at his appearance, and he was at once
stripped of his army uniform; he was arrayed in a suit of deerskin, with
belt, moccasins, and pipe, like a French engagé. His dark complexion
and black whiskers favored the disguise, and all were instructed to
address him in French, although he was ignorant of the language. In this
character he joined the Kinzie family and with them eventually reached a
place of safety.
After the surrender Captain Heald was kept unmolested, quite fortunately
being given into the custody of an Indian from the Kankakee, who, it
seems, had known him previously, and who had formed an attachment for
him. The Indian at once made plans for his escape, and soon Captain
Heald was placed in a canoe and taken to St. Joseph. Here he was joined
by Mrs. Heald, and they both pursued their journey up the east coast of
Lake Michigan to Mackinac, where Captain Heald delivered himself up as a
prisoner of war to the British commandant, by whom he was well treated
and released on parole. Later in the season he found means to reach
Louisville, where Mrs. Heald's father, Colonel Samuel Wells, resided.
It had been supposed that both Heald and his wife had perished in the
massacre, and their appearance was as if they had awakened from the dead.
In due course of time Heald was exchanged, and again entered the service
with the rank of Major. He never got rid of the effects of his wound,
and in 1817 he resigned his commission in the army and removed with his
family to a small town in Missouri, where he died a few years later.
Lieutenant Helm, who was among the wounded at the time of the surrender,
had the good fortune to fall into the hands of some friendly Indians,
and was taken to Peoria. He was liberated through the intervention of
Thomas Forsyth, the half-brother of Mr. Kinzie, who was the Indian agent
at that place. Forsyth had great influence with the Potawatamis. "He had
been raised with this nation," says Reynolds, "spoke their language well,
and was well acquainted with their character." He advanced the amount
demanded by the Indians for Helm's ransom, and had him sent to St. Louis
in safety. In this important and dangerous service Forsyth risked his
life every moment he was engaged in it, for the Indians at that time were
in a highly inflamed condition.
Eventually Lieutenant Helm rejoined his wife at Detroit.
[Illustration: FRANQUELIN'S MAP OF 1684
_This section of Franquelin's large map finished in 1684 shows the
Illinois country and the Illinois river throughout its entire length,
with the location of Fort St. Louis, the colony established by La Salle
in 1682. This fort was built on that bold eminence on the southern bank
of the Illinois river, nearly opposite the present town of Utica, known
in later years as Starved Rock._
_The original map made by Franquelin was six feet in length by four and
a half in width. Parkman said of it that it was "the most remarkable of
all the early maps of the interior of North America." Franquelin was a
young engineer in the service of the French King residing in Quebec. The
information necessary for the drawing of the map was undoubtedly supplied
the young engineer by La Salle himself, who had just returned from the
Illinois country._
_It will be observed that the name Chekagou is applied to the river,
which is shown as if it were an affluent of the Illinois. The proper
location of Chicago on the lake is represented by a strange word
Cheagoumeinan, which appears nowhere else on other maps or in the early
records._
_The word Chcagou was known even before the site of Chicago was
discovered by Joliet and Marquette in 1673. In a report quoted by
Charlevoix, written in 1671, certain localities are mentioned, among
others "Chicagou at the lower end of Lake Michigan." This is the first
mention of the name in history. (See Shea's "Charlevoix," Vol. III, Page
166.)_]
[Illustration: MAP OF CHICAGO IN 1812.
_On this map is shown the location of Fort Dearborn and the Agency
house in the year 1812, the locations of the houses used as dwellings
comprising the house of Charles Lee, opposite the mouth of the river, the
Kinzie house, the Ouilmette house and the Burns house on the north side
of the river; the Indian encampment along the creek which flowed into
the river from the south (about where State street now runs), and Lee's
Place, or Hardscrabble, on the South Branch._
_A dotted line shows the route taken by the troops and wagon trains
along the lake shore to the south on the morning of August 15th, also
the situation of the sand hills which began to rise about a mile from
the fort. The attack upon the column began from the shelter of the sand
hills, and the succeeding battle and massacre extended over a further
space towards the south._]
The final scene in the story of old Fort Dearborn was the departure of
the Kinzie family and their retinue of servants on the third day after
the battle and massacre. The fort and the agency house had been destroyed
by fire on the second day, and there were now remaining only the Kinzie
house, the Ouilmette cabin near it, the house lately occupied by John
Burns and his wife and child on the north bank of the main river, and
that lately occupied by Charles Lee and his family near the mouth of the
river.
On the eighteenth the family of Mr. Kinzie, together with the servants
and clerks in his trading establishment, were placed on board of a boat
of sufficient capacity to accommodate them all, and they thus took their
departure from the scene of so many calamities. There were left in the
vicinity only Ouilmette and his family, who were the sole inhabitants of
Chicago until the arrival, some time later, of a French trader named Du
Pin, who took possession of the unoccupied Kinzie house and lived in it.
The length of his stay is not recorded.
The Indians now began to realize the folly of breaking up a station which
to them was an abundant source of supplies, where they could come and
obtain ammunition, provisions and clothing in exchange for their furs.
They would henceforth be obliged to depend upon the small resources of
the St. Joseph trading post or travel to Detroit.
All this had been foreseen by the older and wiser men among them, but
the hot-blooded young men of the tribes were intent on plunder and the
ghastly trophies represented by the scalps of their victims, and they
could not be restrained. There was now little inducement to visit the
post at Chicago; consequently the great numbers that formerly assembled
in the neighborhood scattered to remote places and eked out a precarious
existence by fishing and hunting.
The Indians also found that the friendship of the British was a poor
dependence as compared with that of the Americans, who were the only
governmental authority with whom they could make treaties, and through
whom they could obtain recognition and satisfaction for their claims of
territorial ownership.
The following episode has been relegated to this late portion of the
narrative, as belonging more to the echoes of the battle on the lake
shore than to the battle itself.
Mrs. Lee was one of the women taken by the Indians when her husband and
son had been killed at the massacre, as already narrated. She had with
her a daughter twelve years old and an infant. These were claimed by
our old friend Black Partridge under the following circumstances: The
daughter had been placed on horseback for the march and tied fast for
fear she would slip off the saddle. When the action was at its height
she was severely wounded by a musket ball; and the horse, becoming
frightened, set off at a gallop. The girl was partly thrown off, but was
held fast by the bands, and hung dangling until she was met by Black
Partridge, who caught the horse and disengaged her from the saddle. The
chief had known the family and was greatly attached to this little girl,
whom he recognized at once.
On finding that she was so seriously wounded that she could not recover,
and that, besides, she was suffering great agony, he put the finishing
stroke to her at once with his tomahawk. He said afterwards that this
was one of the hardest things he ever attempted to do, but that he did it
because he could not bear to see her suffer.
Black Partridge then took the mother and her infant to his village on
the Au Sable, where he became warmly attached to the former; "so much
so," relates the author of _Wau-Bun_, "that he wished to marry her; but
as she very naturally objected, he treated her with the greatest respect
and consideration." He was not disposed to liberate her from captivity,
however, hoping that in time he could prevail upon her to become his wife.
During the following winter the child became ill, and was not restored
by ordinary cures. Black Partridge then offered to take the child to
Chicago, where the French trader named Du Pin, who had arrived after the
massacre, was then living in the Kinzie house, and obtain medical aid
from him. Accordingly the child was warmly wrapped, and the chief carried
his precious charge all the way in his arms.
Arriving at the residence of M. du Pin, he carefully placed the child
on the floor. "What have you there?" asked the trader. "A young raccoon,
which I have brought you as a present," replied the chief. Then opening
the pack, he displayed the little sick child. M. du Pin furnished some
remedies for its complaint and when Black Partridge was about to return
he told the trader of his proposal to Mrs. Lee to become his wife, and of
the way it had been received.
M. du Pin, being a man of discernment, "entertained some fears,"
continues the _Wau-Bun_ account, "that the chief's honorable resolution
might not hold out, to leave it to the lady herself whether to accept
his addresses or not, so he entered at once into a negotiation for her
ransom, and so effectually wrought upon the good feelings of Black
Partridge that he consented to bring his fair prisoner at once to
Chicago, that she might be restored to her friends."
Mrs. Lee accordingly was brought to Chicago and had an opportunity of
expressing her gratitude to the French trader who had, without having
seen her or known her, rendered so important a service as paying a
ransom for her return to civilization. In course of time this M. du
Pin, who it seems was a man without a family when he came, proposed to
Mrs. Lee himself, and, more fortunate than the dusky chieftain, he was
accepted. "We only know," says the _Wau-Bun_ account, "that in process of
time Mrs. Lee became Madame du Pin, and that they lived together in great
happiness for many years after."
It is a relief, after narrating the events connected with the evacuation
of Fort Dearborn and the massacre which followed it, to invite the
reader's attention to this picture, as a contrast with the havoc and
dismay of that dreadful day in August, 1812, when Chicago was left with
but one white inhabitant, and he a renegade.
At St. Joseph the Kinzie family remained under the protection of Chief
Topenebe and his band until the following November. They were then
conducted to Detroit under the escort of trusty Indian friends, and
delivered up as prisoners of war to the British. Soon after John Kinzie
was paroled, though afterwards again taken into custody. At the end of
the war he was finally released, and in 1816 he again became a resident
of Chicago, when the second Fort Dearborn was built and occupied by a
garrison of United States troops.
After the destruction of Fort Dearborn, Chicago ceased for a time to be
a fit dwelling-place for white men and their families. It continued in
this condition with but little change for the following four years, and
then the troops came back. Meanwhile peace had been concluded between the
two warring nations, treaties of peace and friendship had been made with
various tribes of Indians, and a new era began.
During the winter succeeding the battle and massacre the only two
residents of Chicago who were householders were Ouilmette and Du Pin. A
pretty fair estimate may be made of the total population of the place,
including the half-breed children of Ouilmette and the _engagés_ and
helpers in the employ of Du Pin. It is safe to say that the total number
was not more than ten or twelve persons.
Bloody retribution overtook at least one of those among the savages who
on the day of the massacre showed no mercy to his victims. This was a
chief known as a deadly enemy of the whites and who bore the expressive
name of Shavehead, because of his peculiar manner of tying up his scanty
hair. Years afterwards Chief Shavehead was in company with a band of
hunters in the Michigan woods; in the party was a white man who had
formerly been a soldier at Fort Dearborn, and was one of the survivors of
the battle on the lake shore. At one of the campfires the chief, being
of a boastful disposition related, while under the influence of liquor
to those sitting about the camp-fire, the frightful tale concerning the
events of that day, dwelling upon its horrors and boasting of his own
deeds. He was not aware that one of the whites whom he had so fiercely
assailed was at that moment listening to his braggart utterances. The
old soldier, as he heard the tale, was maddened by the recall of the
well-remembered scenes.
Toward nightfall the old savage departed alone in the direction of the
forest. Silently the soldier with loaded rifle followed upon his steps.
Others observed them as they passed out of sight into the shades of
the forest. The soldier returned after a time to his companions, but
Shavehead was never again seen. "He had paid the penalty of the crime,"
says Mason, "to one who could with some fitness exact it."
The War of 1812, between the United States and Great Britain, was
actually begun some time before the date of the declaration of war
issued by the United States, on June 12, 1812; and it was continued some
time after the treaty of peace had been signed, December 24, 1814. Of
this war, the Fort Dearborn massacre on August 15, 1812, was one of the
disastrous events.
"The lives of thirty thousand Americans," says Larned, "were sacrificed
during this war of two and a half years, and the national debt was
increased one hundred millions of dollars."
Nine years cover the period of existence of Old Fort Dearborn. In
that nine years of history it witnessed the efforts of three nations
to subdue a continent, and played its part in the struggles between
those nations. Established as a frontier post, it became an important
link in the chain of western defenses, and one of those schools of
military instruction in which lessons were learned by those who had
the task of preserving by force of arms a young republic in the midst
of powerful and unscrupulous foes. A rallying point for traders and
settlers in the virgin fields of the west, it was representative of a
phase of development of the great Northwest Territory, and indeed of the
development of the United States. Its culminating disaster, which left
it a heap of ruins, was one of those temporary setbacks which do not for
long hold back the progress of such a growing nation. Within four years
after the accident of war had made the fort and those in and about it the
victims of a lingering barbarism, the foothold of the nation was secure
in the west, the beginnings of its agricultural and commercial prosperity
were laid, and upon the ruins of the old fort rose the walls of a new
Fort Dearborn.
THE END.
* * * * *
Transcriber Note
Images were moved so as to not split paragraphs.
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