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.