Transcriber Note: Text emphasis denoted as _Italics_.
CHICAGO AND THE OLD NORTHWEST
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
Agents
THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON AND EDINBURGH
THE MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA
TOKYO, OSAKA, KYOTO
KARL W. HIERSEMANN
LEIPZIG
THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY
NEW YORK
[Illustration: MARQUETTE AT THE CHICAGO PORTAGE
From the bas relief by H. A. MacNeil
(Courtesy of the Chicago Historical Society)]
CHICAGO AND THE
OLD NORTHWEST
1673-1835
A STUDY OF THE EVOLUTION OF THE
NORTHWESTERN FRONTIER, TOGETHER
WITH A HISTORY OF FORT DEARBORN
By
MILO MILTON QUAIFE, PH.D.
_Professor of History in the Lewis Institute
of Technology_
[Illustration]
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
Copyright 1913 By
The University of Chicago
All Rights Reserved
Published October 1913
Composed and Printed By
The University of Chicago Press
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.
PREFACE
There are many histories of Chicago in existence, yet none of them
supplies the want which has induced the preparation of the present
work. It has been written under the conviction that there is ample
justification for a comprehensive and scholarly treatment of the
beginnings of Chicago and its place in the evolution of the old
Northwest. I have endeavored to produce a readable narrative without
in any way trenching upon the principles of sound scholarship. To what
extent, if any, I have succeeded must be for the reader to judge. I
may, however, claim the negative virtue of entire freedom from the
motives of commercial gain and family partisanship, which enter so
largely into our local historical literature.
In preparing the work I have made as diligent a study of the sources
as practicable, at the same time availing myself freely of the studies
of others in the same field. With one exception acknowledgment of my
obligations to the latter is made in the footnotes. The manuscript of
a lecture by the late Professor Charles W. Mann on the Fort Dearborn
massacre was put at my disposal. I have used it as far as it served my
purpose without attempting to cite it in the footnotes.
In many places I have broken new ground and I can scarcely expect
my work to be entirely free from error. I am particularly conscious
of this in connection with chap, xiii on the Indian Trade, a subject
to which a volume might well be devoted. In controversial matters I
have written without fear or favor from any source. If in many cases
my conclusions seem to differ from those of other writers, I can only
say that the words of a recent historian with reference to history
writing in the Middle Ages, "Recorded events were accepted without
challenge, and the sanction of tradition guaranteed the reality of the
occurrence," apply with almost equal force to much of the literature
pertaining to early Chicago.
I desire to express my obligation for courtesies rendered, or
facilities extended, to the Chicago Historical Society, the Wisconsin
State Historical Society, the Detroit Public Library, the Division of
Manuscripts of the Library of Congress, the Bureau of Indian Affairs,
and the War Department. I am indebted also for many favors to Miss
Caroline McIlvaine, librarian, and Mr. Marius Dahl, record clerk, of
the Chicago Historical Society; to Mr. C. M. Burton, of Detroit; to
the descendants of Nathan Heald, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas McCluer and Mrs.
Arthur McCluer, of O'Fallon, Mo., Mrs. Lillian Heald Richmond and Dr.
and Mrs. Ottofy of St. Louis, and Mr. and Mrs. Wright Johnson, of
Rutherford, N.J.; and to my wife and to my father-in-law, Rev. G. W.
Goslin, for unwearied assistance in the preparation and revision of the
manuscript. Finally I wish to record my deep obligation to Dr. Otto L.
Schmidt, president of the Illinois State Historical Society, for much
sympathetic advice and encouragement.
M. M. Quaife
Chicago
September, 1913
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Chicago Portage 1
II. Chicago in the Seventeenth Century 21
III. The Fox Wars: A Half-Century of Conflict 51
IV. Chicago in the Revolution 79
V. The Fight for the Northwest 105
VI. The Founding of Fort Dearborn 127
VII. Nine Years of Garrison Life 153
VIII. The Indian Utopia 178
IX. The Outbreak of War 195
X. The Battle and Defeat 211
XI. The Fate of the Survivors 232
XII. The New Fort Dearborn 262
XIII. The Indian Trade 285
XIV. War and the Plague 310
XV. The Vanishing of the Red Man 340
Appendix I: Journal of Lieutenant James Strode Swearingen 373
Appendix II: Sources of Information for the Fort Dearborn
Massacre 378
Appendix III: Nathan Heald's Journal 402
Appendix IV: Captain Heald's Official Report of the Evacuation
of Fort Dearborn 406
Appendix V: Darius Heald's Narrative of the Chicago Massacre,
as Told to Lyman C. Draper in 1868 409
Appendix VI: Lieutenant Helm's Account of the Massacre 415
Appendix VII: Letter of Judge Augustus B. Woodward to Colonel
Proctor concerning the Survivors of the Chicago Massacre 422
Appendix VIII: Muster-Roll of Captain Nathan Heald's Company
of Infantry at Fort Dearborn 425
Appendix IX: The Fated Company: A Discussion of the Names
and Fate of the Whites Involved in the Fort Dearborn Massacre 428
Bibliography 439
Index 459
CHAPTER I
THE CHICAGO PORTAGE
The story of Chicago properly begins with an account of the city's
natural surroundings. For while her citizens have striven worthily,
during the three-quarters of a century that has passed since the birth
of the modern city, to achieve greatness for her, it is none the less
true that Nature has dealt kindly with Chicago, and is entitled to
share with them the credit for the creation of the great metropolis
of the present day. If in recent years the enterprise of man rather
than the generosity of Nature has seemed chiefly responsible for the
growth of Chicago, in the long period which preceded the birth of the
modern city such was not the case; for whatever importance Chicago then
possessed was due primarily to the natural advantages of her position.
Since this volume is to tell the story of early Chicago, concluding
at the point where the life of the modern city begins, it is not my
purpose to dwell upon the natural advantages which today contribute to
the city's prosperity. Her central location with respect to population,
surrounded by hundreds of thousands of square miles of country as
fair, and supporting a population as progressive, as any on the face
of the globe; her contiguity to the wheat fields of the great West;
her situation in the heart of the corn belt of the United States; the
wealth of coal fields and iron mines and forests poured out, as it
were, at her feet; her unrivaled systems of transportation by lake and
by rail; how all these factors, reinforced by the daring energy of
her citizens, have combined to render Chicago the industrial heart of
the nation is a matter of common knowledge. That in the days before
the coming of the railroad or the settler, when for hundreds of miles
in every direction the wilderness, monotonous and unbroken, stretched
away, inhabited only by the wild beast and the wild Indian; when only
at infrequent intervals were its forest paths or waterways traversed by
the fur trader or the priest, the representatives of commerce and the
Cross, the two mightiest forces of the civilization before the advance
of which the wilderness was to give way; that even in this far-away
period Nature made of Chicago a place of importance and of concourse,
the rendezvous of parties bent on peaceful and on warlike projects, is
not so commonly understood.
The importance of Chicago in this early period was primarily due to
the fact of her strategic location, whether for the prosecution of
war or of commerce, at the head of the Great Lakes on one of the
principal highways of travel between the two greatest interior waterway
systems of the continent, those of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence
and the Mississippi River. The two most important factors in the
exploration and settlement of a country are the waterways and mountain
systems--the one an assistance, the other an obstacle, to travel.[1]
The early English colonists in America, settling first in Virginia and
Massachusetts and gradually spreading out over the Atlantic coastal
plain, were shut from the interior of the continent by the great wall
presented by the Allegheny Mountains. The French, securing a foothold
about the same time at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, found
themselves in possession of a highway which offered ready access into
the interior. The importance of the rivers and streams as highways of
travel in this early period is difficult to realize today. The dense
forests which spread over the eastern half of the continent were
penetrated only by the narrow Indian trail or the winding river. The
former was passable only on foot, and even by pack animals but with
difficulty.[2] The latter, however, afforded a ready highway into the
interior, and the light canoe of the Indian a conveyance admirably
adapted to the exigencies of river travel. By carrying it over the
portages separating the headwaters of the great river systems the early
voyageurs could penetrate into the heart of the continent.
[Footnote 1: Farrand, _Basis of American History_, 23.]
[Footnote 2: _Ibid._]
Proceeding up the St. Lawrence, the French colonists early gained the
Great Lakes. Their advance rested here for a time, but in the last
quarter of the seventeenth century, by a great outburst of exploring
activity, the upper waters of the Mississippi were gained and eagerly
followed to their outlet in the Gulf of Mexico. Thus New France found a
second outlet to the sea, and thus, even before the English had crossed
the Alleghenies, the French had fairly encircled them, and planted
themselves in the heart of the continent. From the basin of the Great
Lakes to that of the Mississippi they early made use of five principal
highways.[3] On each, of course, occurred a portage at the point where
the transfer from the head of the one system of navigation to the other
occurred. One of these five highways led from the foot of Lake Michigan
by way of the Chicago River and Portage to and down the Illinois. The
Chicago Portage thus constituted one of the "keys of the continent,"
as Hulbert, the historian of the portage paths, has so aptly termed
them.[4]
[Footnote 3: Winsor, _Narrative and Critical History of America_, IV,
224.]
[Footnote 4: Hulbert, _Portage Paths: The Keys of the Continent_.]
The comparatively undeveloped state of the field of American
historical research is well illustrated by the fact that despite the
historical importance of the Chicago Portage, no careful study of it
has ever been made. The student will seek in vain for even an adequate
description of the physical characteristics of the portage. Winsor's
description, a paragraph in length, is perhaps the best and most
authoritative one available.[5] Yet, aside from its brevity, neither of
the two sources to which he makes specific reference can be regarded as
reliable authorities upon the Chicago Portage. Moll, the cartographer,
notable for his credulous temperament,[6] relied for his knowledge of
the Great Lakes region upon the discredited maps of Lahontan.[7] James
Logan, whose description of the portage is quoted,[8] was a reputable
official of Pennsylvania, but, in common with the seaboard English
colonists generally, his knowledge of the geography of the interior was
extremely hazy. This is sufficiently shown by the fact that he located
La Salle's Fort Miami, which had stood during the brief period of its
existence at the mouth of the St. Joseph River, on the Chicago.
[Footnote 5: "What Herman Moll, the English cartographer, called
the 'land carriage of Chekakou' is described by James Logan, in a
communication which he made in 1718 to the English Board of Trade,
as running from the lake three leagues up the river, then a half a
league of carriage, then a mile of water, next a small carry, then two
miles to the Illinois, and then one hundred and thirty leagues to the
Mississippi. But descriptions varied with the seasons. It was usually
called a carriage of from four to nine miles, according to the stage
of the water. In dry seasons it was even farther while in wet times
it might not be more than a mile; and, indeed, when the intervening
lands were 'drowned,' it was quite possible to pass in a canoe amid the
sedges from Lake Michigan to the Des Plaines, and so to the Illinois
and the Mississippi."--Winsor, _Mississippi Basin_, 24. For similar
descriptions see Hulbert, _Portage Paths_, 181; _Jesuit Relations_,
LIX, 313-14, note 41.]
[Footnote 6: Winsor, _Mississippi Basin_, 80, 104, 111, 163.]
[Footnote 7: Moll's map in his _Atlas Minor_ is simply an English copy
of Lahontan's map of 1703. For the latter see Lahontan, _New Voyages to
North America_ (Thwaites ed.), I, 156.]
[Footnote 8: For the substance of Logan's report see the British
Board of Trade report of September 8, 1721, printed in O'Callaghan,
_Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York_,
V, 621. This will be cited henceforth as _New York Colonial Documents_.]
That there should be confusion and misconception in the secondary
descriptions of the Chicago Portage is not surprising, in view, on the
one hand, of the unusual seasonal variations in its character, and, on
the other, of the dispute which very early arose concerning it. None
of the other portages between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi--if
indeed any in America--were subject to such changes as this one. The
dispute over its character goes back to the beginning of the French
exploration of this region. When Joliet returned to Canada from his
famous expedition down the Mississippi in 1673, filled with enthusiasm
over his discoveries, he gave out a glowing account of the country he
had visited. In particular he seems to have dwelt upon the ease of
communication between the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico by way of
the Chicago and Illinois rivers to the Mississippi. Joliet's records
were lost, but both Frontenac, the governor of New France, and Father
Dablon have left accounts of his verbal report.[9] Frontenac stated
that a bark could go from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, with
only a portage of half a league at Niagara. Dablon, who seems to have
appreciated the situation more intelligently than Frontenac, said that
a bark could go from Lake Erie to the Gulf if a canal of half a league
were cut at the Chicago Portage.
[Footnote 9: Winsor, _Cartier to Frontenac_, 246-47; _Jesuit
Relations_, LVIII, 105.]
Probably Dablon's report represents more nearly than that of Frontenac
what Joliet actually said, for it seems unlikely that he would ignore
utterly the existence of the portage at Chicago. Even so, however,
his description of the ease of water communication between the Great
Lakes and the Mississippi River was unduly optimistic. Its accuracy
was sharply challenged by La Salle upon his visit to Chicago several
years later. Joliet passed through Illinois but once, rather hurriedly,
knowing nothing of the country aside from what he learned of it on
this trip. He was ill-qualified, therefore, to describe accurately the
Illinois-Chicago highway and portage; at the most he could describe
only the conditions prevailing at the time of his hasty passage. La
Salle, on the other hand, was operating in the Illinois country from
1679 to 1683, seeking to establish a colony with its capital at the
modern Starved Rock, one hundred miles from Chicago. He was greatly
interested in developing the trade of this region, and, while he
looked forward ultimately to securing a southern outlet for it, for
the present he must find such outlet by way of Canada. In the course
of his Illinois career he passed between his colony and Canada several
times, and from both necessity and self-interest became thoroughly
familiar with the routes of communication which could be followed. He
himself ordinarily came by the Great Lakes to the foot of Lake Michigan
and thence by the St. Joseph River and portage or the Chicago to the
Illinois, but he became convinced that it would not be practicable to
carry on commerce between his Illinois colony and Canada through the
upper lakes, and that a route by way of the Ohio River and thence to
the lower lakes and Canada was more feasible.
In discussing this subject La Salle was led to take issue with Joliet
as to the feasibility of navigation between Lake Michigan and the
Illinois, and so to state explicitly what the hindrances were.[10]
The goods brought to Chicago in barges must be transshipped here in
canoes, for, despite Joliet's assertions, only canoes could navigate
the Des Plaines for a distance of forty leagues. At a later time La
Salle reverted to this subject, and in this connection gave the first
detailed description we have of the Chicago Portage.[11] From the lake
one passes by a channel formed by the junction of several small streams
or gullies, and navigable about two leagues to the edge of the prairie.
Beyond this at a distance of a quarter of a league to the westward is a
little lake a league and a half in length, divided into two parts by a
beaver dam. From this lake issues a little stream which, after twining
in and out for half a league across the rushes, falls into the Chicago
River, which in turn empties into the Illinois.
[Footnote 10: Margry, _Découvertes et établissements des Français dans
l'ouest et dans le sud de l'Amérique septentrionale_, II, 81-82. This
collection will be cited henceforth as Margry.]
[Footnote 11: Margry, pp. 166 ff.]
The "channel" was the main portion and south branch of the modern
Chicago River. The lake has long since disappeared by reason of the
artificial changes brought about by engineers; in the early period
of white settlement at Chicago it was known as Mud Lake. La Salle's
"Chicago River," into which Mud Lake ordinarily drained, was, of
course, the modern Des Plaines.
Continuing his description of the water route by way of the Chicago
and Des Plaines, La Salle pointed out that when the little lake in the
prairie was full, either from great rains in summer or from the vernal
floods, it discharged also into the "channel" leading to Lake Michigan,
whose surface was seven feet lower than the prairie where Mud Lake
lay. The Des Plaines, too, in time of spring flood, discharged a part
of its waters by way of Mud Lake and the channel into Lake Michigan.
La Salle granted that at this time Joliet's proposed canal of half a
league across the portage would permit the passage of boats from Lake
Michigan to the sea. But he denied that this would be possible in the
summer, for there was then no water in the river as far down as his
post of St. Louis, the modern Starved Rock, where at this season the
navigation of the river began. Still other obstacles to the feasibility
of Joliet's proposed canal were pointed out. The action of the waters
of Lake Michigan had created a sand bank at the mouth of the Chicago
River which the force of the current of the Des Plaines, when made to
discharge into the lake, would be unable to clear away. Again, the
possibility of a boat's stemming the spring floods of the Des Plaines,
"much stronger than those of the Rhone," was doubtful. But if all other
obstacles were surmounted, the canal would still have no practical
value because the navigation of the Des Plaines would be possible for
but fifteen or twenty days at most, in time of spring flood; while the
navigation of the Great Lakes was rendered impossible by the ice until
mid-April, or even later, by which time the flood on the Des Plaines
had subsided and that stream had become unnavigable, even for canoes,
except after some storm.
Thus there was initiated by La Salle a dispute over the character of
the water communication from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi by way
of the Chicago Portage which has been revived in our own day, and in
the decision of which property interests to the value of hundreds of
thousands of dollars are involved.[12] Of the essential correctness of
La Salle's description there can be no question. Considering its early
date and the many cares with which the mind of the busy explorer was
burdened, it constitutes a significant testimonial to his ability and
powers of observation. It may well be doubted whether any later writer
has improved upon--if, indeed, any has equaled--La Salle's description
of the Chicago-Des Plaines route. From its perusal may be gathered
the clue to the fundamental defect in the descriptions of the Chicago
Portage which modern historians have given us. Overlooking the fact
that the Des Plaines River was subject to fluctuation to an unusual
degree, they err in assuming that the portage ceased when the Des
Plaines was reached. The portage was the carriage which must be made
between the two water systems. Hulbert is quite right in saying, as he
does, that none of the western portages varied more in length than did
this one.[13] In fact his words possess far more significance than the
writer himself attaches to them; for the length of the carriage that
must be made at Chicago varied from nothing at all to fifty miles or,
at times, to even twice this distance. At times there was an actual
union of the waters flowing into Lake Michigan with those entering the
Illinois River, permitting the uninterrupted passage of boats from
the one system to the other. At other times the portage which must be
made extended from the south branch of the Chicago to the mouth of the
Vermilion River, some fifty miles below the mouth of the Des Plaines.
[Footnote 12: _The United States of America vs. The Economy Light and
Power Company._ The evidence taken in this case constitutes by far
the most exhaustive study of the character and historical use of the
Chicago Portage that has ever been made.]
[Footnote 13: Hulbert, _Portage Paths_, 181.]
It is doubtless true that "truth, crushed to earth, will rise again,"
but the converse proposition of the poet that error dies amid its
worshipers requires qualification. Certainly in the matter under
discussion La Salle as early as 1683 dealt the errors of Joliet with
respect to the Chicago Portage a crushing blow. Yet these self-same
errors were destined to "rise again," and in the early nineteenth
century it was again commonly reported that a practicable waterway from
Lake Michigan to the Mississippi could be attained by the construction
of a canal a few miles in length across what for convenience may be
termed the short Chicago Portage, from the south branch of the Chicago
River through Mud Lake to the Des Plaines. Even capable engineers threw
the weight of their opinion in support of this fallacy.[14] But the
young state of Illinois learned to her cost, in the hard school of
experience, the truth of La Salle's observations. The canal of half a
league extended in the making to a hundred miles and required for its
construction years of time and the expenditure of millions of dollars.
[Footnote 14: _E.g._, Major Stephen H. Long. For his report see the
_National Register_, III, 103-98.]
We may now consider the dispute between Joliet and La Salle over
the character of the Chicago Portage in the light of the information
afforded by the statements of later writers. It will follow from
what has already been said that the secondary statements, whether
of travelers or of gazetteers and other compendiums of information,
made in the early part of the nineteenth century, must be subjected
to critical examination. The only way in which this may be done
is by a resort to the sources; and our conclusions concerning the
Chicago-Illinois Portage and route must be based upon the testimony of
those who actually used it, or were familiar with the use made of it by
others. A study of these sources makes it clear that the Des Plaines
River was subject to great fluctuation at different seasons, or even as
between periods of drought and periods of copious rainfall, and that
the length and character of the portage at any given time depended
entirely upon the stage of water in the Des Plaines. During the brief
period of the spring flood boats capable of carrying several tons might
pass between Lake Michigan and the Des Plaines and along the latter
stream without meeting with obstacles other than those incident to the
high stage of the water. The extreme range of the fluctuation was many
feet.[15] Its effect upon the character of the Des Plaines was to cause
it to pass through all the gradations from a raging torrent to a stream
with no discharge, dry except for the pools which marked its course.
There were times, then, in connection with these fluctuations, when the
stream might be navigable for canoes, although it would not permit the
passage of boats of greater draft.
[Footnote 15: Schoolcraft estimated its depth in the seasons of
periodical floods at eight to ten feet (_Summary Narrative of an
Exploratory Expedition to the Sources of the Mississippi River, in
1820_, 398). See also Marquette's description of the spring flood of
1675, in _Jesuit Relations_, LIX, 181.]
The duration of the spring flood was put by La Salle at fifteen or
twenty days. At this time the flood was heavier than that of the Rhone,
and a portion of it found its way through Mud Lake and the south
branch of the Chicago River into Lake Michigan. The effect of this on
the portage, obvious in itself, is described in many of the sources.
Marquette, who was flooded out of his winter camp on the South Branch
in the latter part of March, 1675, found no difficulty, aside from
the obstacles presented by the floating ice, in passing from that
point down the Des Plaines.[16] He reports the water as being twelve
feet higher than when he passed through here in the late summer of
1673. In 1821, in a time of high water, Ebenezer Childs passed up
the Illinois and Des Plaines rivers to Chicago in a small canoe.[17]
No month or date is given for this trip, but Childs expressly states
that there had been heavy rains for several days before his arrival
at the Des Plaines. He was unable to find any signs of a portage
between the Des Plaines and the Chicago. When he had ascended the
former to a point where he supposed the portage should begin he left
it and taking a northeasterly course perceived, after traveling a
few miles, the current of the Chicago. The whole intervening country
was inundated, and not less than two feet of water existed all the
way across the portage. Two years later Keating, the historian of
Major Long's expedition to the source of the St. Peter's River, which
passed through Chicago in early June, 1823, was informed by Lieutenant
Hopson, an officer at Fort Dearborn, that he had crossed the portage
with ease in a boat loaded with lead and flour.[18] Of similar purport
to the testimony of Childs and Hopson is the account given by Gurdon
S. Hubbard of his first ascent of the Des Plaines with the Illinois
"brigade" of the American Fur Company in the spring of 1819.[19] The
passage from Starved Rock up the river to Cache Island against the
heavy current was difficult and exhausting. From this point, with a
strong wind blowing from the southwest, sails were hoisted and the
loaded boats passed rapidly up the Des Plaines and across the portage
to the Chicago, "regardless of the course of the channel."
[Footnote 16: Marquette's Journal, _Jesuit Relations_, LIX, 181.]
[Footnote 17: _Wisconsin Hist. Colls._, IV, 162-63.]
[Footnote 18: Keating, _Expedition to the Source of St. Peter's River,
... in the Year 1823_, 1, 166.]
[Footnote 19: _Hubbard, Gurdon Saltonstall, Incidents and Events in the
Life of_, 60. MS in the Chicago Historical Society library. This work
will be cited henceforth as _Life_.]
With the subsidence of the spring flood the Des Plaines fell to so low
a stage as to become unnavigable, even by the small boats ordinarily
employed by the fur traders and travelers, except at such times as the
river was raised by rains. According to La Salle, it was "not even
navigable for canoes" except after the spring flood, and it would be
easier to transport goods from Lake Michigan to Fort St. Louis by land
with horses, than by the use of boats on the river.[20]
[Footnote 20: Margry, II, 168.]
This statement of La Salle is corroborated by many other observers.
St. Cosme's party of Seminary priests which passed from Chicago down
the Illinois in the early part of November, 1698,[21] was compelled to
portage eight leagues or more[22] along the Des Plaines, in addition to
the three leagues across from the Chicago to that stream, and almost
two weeks were consumed in passing from Chicago to the mouth of the Des
Plaines, a distance of about fifty miles.[23] In describing the journey
St. Cosme states that from Isle la Cache to Monjolly, a space of seven
leagues, "you must always make a portage, there being no water in the
river."
[Footnote 21: Shea, _Early Voyages Up and Down the Mississippi_, 45 ff.]
[Footnote 22: The distances given in St. Cosme's detailed account total
this amount. La Source's general statement is that the party portaged
fifteen leagues (_ibid._, 83), but this, apparently, included the
distance between the Chicago River and the Des Plaines.]
[Footnote 23: The party left Chicago October 29, and reached the mouth
of the Des Plaines November 11.]
In September, 1721, Father Charlevoix, touring America for the purpose
of reporting to his king the condition of New France, came to the post
of St. Joseph. His ultimate destination was lower Louisiana; from
St. Joseph to the Illinois River proper two alternative routes were
presented for his consideration, the one by way of the St. Joseph
Portage and down the Kankakee River, the other around the southern end
of Lake Michigan to Chicago and thence down the Des Plaines. His first
intention was to follow the latter, but this was abandoned in favor of
the route by the Kankakee, partly because of a storm on Lake Michigan,
but also for the additional reason that since the upper Illinois, the
modern Des Plaines, was a mere brook, he was told it did not have, at
this season, water enough to float a canoe.[24] In his passage down
the Kankakee the traveler observed at the mouth of the Des Plaines a
buffalo crossing the stream. Although sixty leagues from its source,
Charlevoix noted that the Des Plaines was still so shallow that the
water did not rise above the middle of the animal's legs.[25]
[Footnote 24: Charlevoix, _Histoire et description génerale de la
Nouvelle France, avec le journal historique d'un voyage fait par ordre
du roi dans l'Amérique septentrionale_, VI, 104.]
[Footnote 25: _op. cit._, 118.]
A hundred years after Charlevoix's passage down the Illinois, in
midsummer, 1821, Governor Cass and Henry R. Schoolcraft came up that
stream in a large canoe en route for Chicago. The observant Schoolcraft
has left a careful and detailed narrative of their experiences, and a
description of the Illinois River as continued in the Des Plaines.[26]
The party was compelled to abandon the canoe at Starved Rock, and
the remainder of the journey to Chicago was made on horseback. The
route taken was in general along the banks of the river, although the
actual channel was observed only occasionally. The result of this
observation was the conclusion that the "long and formidable rapids"
seen by the travelers completely intercepted navigation at this sultry
season. This conclusion was further confirmed by meeting several
traders on the plains who were transporting their goods and boats in
carts from the Chicago River. They thought it practicable to enter the
Des Plaines at Mount Joliet, thus necessitating a portage of about
thirty miles, but Schoolcraft in recording this opinion points out
that his own party had experienced difficulties far below this point.
Although himself an enthusiast on the subject of the future commercial
importance of Chicago, and of the utility of a canal connecting the
Chicago and Illinois rivers, Schoolcraft's experience on this journey
led him to call attention to the error of those who supposed a canal
of only eight or ten miles in length would be sufficient to provide a
navigable highway between Lake Michigan and the Illinois. This opinion
was approved by Thomas Tousey of Virginia, another enthusiast on the
subject of the canal, who explored the route of the Des Plaines on
horseback in the autumn of 1822.[27] Although the water was uncommonly
high for the season, Tousey's investigation, while imbuing him with
a "more exalted" opinion of the country and the proposed canal
communication, convinced him that it would be attended with greater
expense to open than he had formerly supposed.
[Footnote 26: Schoolcraft, _Travels in the Central Portions of the
Mississippi Valley_, 313 ff.]
[Footnote 27: Schoolcraft, _Personal Memoirs of a Residence of Thirty
Years with the Indian Tribes on the American Frontiers_, 179-80.]
The conditions encountered by John Tanner in a journey from Chicago
down the Illinois River in the year 1820[28] were similar to those
described by Schoolcraft the following year. Tanner was traveling from
Mackinac to St. Louis in a birch-bark canoe. Some Indians who were
accompanying him turned back before reaching Chicago, on receiving
from others whom they met discouraging accounts of the stage of the
water in the Illinois. Tanner, however, persevered in his enterprise.
After a period of illness at Chicago he engaged a Frenchman, who had
just returned from hauling some boats across the portage, to take him
across also. The Frenchman agreed to transport Tanner sixty miles, and
if his horses, which were much worn from the previous long journey,
could hold out, one hundred and twenty miles, the length of the portage
at the present stage of water. With his canoe in the Frenchman's cart
and Tanner himself riding a horse belonging to the latter, the overland
journey began. Before the first sixty-mile stage had been completed the
Frenchman became ill. He turned back, therefore, and Tanner and his one
companion attempted to put their canoe in the water and continue their
journey. The water was so low that the members of the party themselves
were compelled to walk, the men propelling the canoe by walking, one
at the bow and the other at the stern. After three miles had been
laboriously traversed in this fashion a Pottawatomie Indian was engaged
to take the baggage and Tanner's children on horseback as far as the
mouth of the Yellow Ochre River,[29] while Tanner and his companion
continued to propel the now lightened canoe as before. On reaching
the Yellow Ochre a sufficient depth of water was found to permit the
further descent of the Illinois in the loaded canoe.
[Footnote 28: _Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John
Tanner_, 256-59. This work will be cited henceforth as _Tanner's
Narrative_.]
[Footnote 29: The similarity of names and distance from Chicago render
it probable that Tanner here refers to the Vermilion River.]
Perhaps the most interesting account of the passage of the portage in
the dry season, and in some respects the most detailed, is the one
contained in the autobiography of Gurdon S. Hubbard.[30] Beginning with
1818, for several years, with a single exception, Hubbard accompanied
the Illinois "brigade" of the American Fur Company on its annual
autumnal trip from Mackinac by way of Lake Michigan and the Chicago
Portage to the lower Illinois River. Only the first crossing of the
portage, in October, 1818, is described in detail. Leaving Chicago the
party, comprising about a dozen boat crews, camped a day on the South
Branch near the present commencement of the Illinois and Michigan
Canal, preparing to pass the boats through Mud Lake to the Des Plaines.
Mud Lake drained both ways, into the Des Plaines, and through a narrow,
crooked channel into the South Branch, and only in very wet seasons,
Hubbard states, did it contain water enough to float an empty boat. The
mud was very deep and the lake was surrounded by an almost impenetrable
growth of wild rice and grass.
[Footnote 30: Hubbard, _Life_, 39-41.]
From the South Branch the empty boats were pulled up the channel
leading from Mud Lake. In many places where there was a hard bottom
and absence of water they were placed on short rollers, and in this
way were propelled along until the lake was reached. Here mud, thick
and deep, was encountered, but only at rare intervals was there any
water. Four men stayed in the boat while six or eight more waded in the
mud alongside. The former were equipped with boat-poles to the ends
of which forked branches of trees had been fastened. By pushing with
these against the hummocks, while the men in the mud lifted and shoved,
the boat was jerked along. The men in the mud frequently sank to their
waists, and at times were forced to cling to the boat to prevent going
over their heads. Their limbs were covered with bloodsuckers which
caused intense agony for several days, and sleep at night was rendered
hopeless by the swarms of mosquitoes which assailed them. Yet three
consecutive days of toil from dawn until dark under such conditions
were required to pass all the boats through Mud Lake and reach the Des
Plaines River.
The passage down the Des Plaines and the Illinois as far as the mouth
of Fox River consumed almost three weeks more. Until Cache Island was
reached the journey was comparatively easy, although even in this
portion of the Des Plaines progress was frequently interrupted by the
necessity of making portages or passing the boats along on rollers.[31]
From Cache Island to the Illinois River the goods were carried on the
men's backs most of the way, while the lightened boats were pulled over
the shallow places, often being placed on poles and thus dragged over
the rocks and shoals. In the autumn of 1823 Hubbard was sent to a post
on the Iroquois River. To shorten his journey and "avoid the delays
and hardships of the old route by way of Mud Lake and the Des Plaines"
he resolved to travel to his destination by way of the St. Joseph
Portage and the Kankakee River. A year later he was placed in charge
of the Illinois River posts of the American Fur Company. He thereupon
proceeded to execute a plan he had long urged upon his predecessor.
The boats were unloaded on their return from Mackinac to Chicago, and
scuttled in the swamp to insure their safety until they should be
needed for the return voyage to Mackinac laden with furs the following
spring. The goods and furs were transported between Chicago and the
Indian hunting-grounds on pack horses. Thus "the long, tedious, and
difficult passage" through Mud Lake into and down the Des Plaines was
avoided.
[Footnote 31: _Ibid._]
It is evident, then, that the chief factor in determining the
character and length of the Chicago Portage was the Des Plaines River,
and that during a large part of the year the portage that must be made
extended much farther than simply from the Chicago to the Des Plaines.
Schoolcraft and Cass in 1821 were compelled to abandon their canoe
at Starved Rock, almost one hundred miles from Chicago. The traders
whom they met in the course of their horseback journey were apparently
planning to put their boats into the Des Plaines at Mount Joliet,
after a portage of thirty miles. Whether, in view of Schoolcraft's own
experience, they succeeded in entering the river at this point may
well be doubted. The transcript of names from the account books kept
by John Kinzie at Chicago[32] contains several entries of charges for
assisting traders over the portage; some of these show that the portage
was made from Mount Joliet, while one, in June, 1806, shows that it
extended to the "forks" of the Illinois. Tanner's experience presents
the extreme example, if his statement of distances can be relied on,
of a portage of one hundred and twenty miles.[33] The varying length
of the portage necessary at different seasons is well described in an
official report made in 1819 by Graham and Phillips.[34] At one season
there is an uninterrupted water communication between Lake Michigan and
the Mississippi; at another season a portage of two miles; at another a
portage of seven miles, from the Chicago River to the Des Plaines; and
at still another, a portage of fifty miles, extending to the mouth of
the Des Plaines.
[Footnote 32: Barry, Rev. Wm., _Transcript of Names in John Kinzie's
Account Books_, MS in the Chicago Historical Society library. This will
be cited henceforth as the _Barry Transcript_.]
[Footnote 33: If, as suggested above, the Yellow Ochre was the same
stream as the Vermilion River, the distance from Chicago to its mouth
was about one hundred miles.]
[Footnote 34: _State Papers, Doc. No. 17, 16th Congress, 1st Sess._
Senator Benton claimed in 1847 that he had written this report from
data supplied him by Graham and Phillips (_Niles' Register_, LXXII,
309).]
These fluctuations in the state of the Des Plaines and in the length
of the portage influenced materially the plans of the traders and
travelers who had occasion to traverse this route. For obvious reasons
in times when the Des Plaines was known to be low and the portage
correspondingly long the Chicago route would be avoided if practicable.
Thus Charlevoix preferred the Kankakee to it in 1721. A hundred years
later, the Indians who had set out with Tanner upon learning of the
low stage of the water in the Illinois, abandoned the journey and
returned to their homes. St. Cosme's party in 1698 sought to reach the
Illinois from Lake Michigan by the Root and Fox rivers, desisting from
the effort only under the belief that this would necessitate a portage
of forty leagues. Compelled to follow the Chicago route, the prospect
of the long and difficult passage down the Des Plaines to navigable
water on the Illinois induced them to leave all of their goods but one
boat-load at Chicago in charge of a member of the party. This made
necessary a return from the lower Mississippi for them the following
spring, but even this was preferred to the arduous undertaking of
transporting them over the long portage at Chicago in the dry season.
More significant, perhaps, is the fact that those who had occasion to
cross the Chicago Portage, and were informed concerning the seasonal
fluctuations of the Des Plaines, planned their business so as to take
advantage, as far as possible, of the seasons of high water. Colonel
Kingsbury, who in 1805 conducted a company of soldiers from Mackinac to
the Mississippi by way of the Illinois River to establish Fort Belle
Fontaine, was ordered to proceed to Chicago with them on the first
vessel in the spring.[35] The Illinois River traders in the employ of
the American Fur Company in the period from 1818 to 1824 so planned
their business as to bring their boats laden with furs up the Des
Plaines in the season of the spring flood.
[Footnote 35: Cushing to Lieutenant-colonel Kingsbury, February 20,
1805. This letter belongs to the collection of letter books, letters,
and other papers of Jacob Kingsbury in the Chicago Historical Society
library. Kingsbury was in command of Detroit, Mackinac, and other
northwestern posts from 1804 on, and for a time was the superior
authority in charge of a group of posts including Fort Wayne, Fort
Dearborn, Mackinac, and Detroit. His letters and papers constitute a
source of prime importance for this period of northwestern history.
They will be cited henceforth as the _Kingsbury Papers_.]
La Salle had early contended that it was more feasible to transport
goods between Chicago and Starved Rock with horses than by boats
on the river. There arose very early a demand for another means of
transportation between the two places at such times as the use of the
Des Plaines in boats was impracticable, whether from excess or from
deficiency of water. Lahontan represents, in his famous narrative of
his Long River expedition,[36] that he returned by way of the Illinois
River and Chicago Portage. To lessen the drudgery of "a great land
carriage of twelve great leagues," he engaged four hundred Indians
to transport his baggage from the Illinois village to Lake Michigan,
"which they did in the space of four days." Historians have long agreed
in denouncing the pretended Long River discovery as fraudulent, but
there is nothing improbable about the statement of the necessity of a
land carriage of twelve great leagues at the Chicago Portage.
[Footnote 36: Lahontan, _Voyages_, I, 167 ff.]
Whether Lahontan ever in fact employed four hundred Indians to
transport his baggage over the Chicago Portage may well be doubted; but
that other travelers employed Indians in a similar capacity is certain.
The companions of Cavelier, La Salle's brother, who passed from Fort
St. Louis to Lake Michigan in September, 1687, employed a dozen Shawnee
Indians to carry their goods to the lake, because there was no water in
the river at this season of the year.[37] Unable to make their way from
Chicago to Mackinac they returned to the fort to pass the winter. In
this same autumn of 1687, some Frenchmen en route from Montreal to Fort
St. Louis with three canoes loaded with merchandise and ammunition were
halted at Chicago on account of lack of water in the Des Plaines.[38]
Upon information of this being brought to Tonty he engaged the services
of forty Shawnee Indians, women and men, by whom the goods were
transported to the fort.
[Footnote 37: Joutel's Journal, in Margry, III, 482, 484.]
[Footnote 38: _Ibid._, 497.]
When horses were first employed on the Chicago Portage cannot,
of course, be stated. We have seen that La Salle advocated their
employment, but he himself was never in a position to use them. That
such use began very early, however, is indicated by a tradition
preserved by Gurdon S. Hubbard of an adventure of a trader named Cerré
on the Des Plaines.[39] The Indians sought to force him to pay toll
to them, but he defied them; the controversy ended happily, however,
and the Indians transported Cerré's goods on their pack horses from
Cache Island to the mouth of the Des Plaines. The date of this incident
is not recorded, but Cerré first came into the Illinois country in
1756. If the Indians were accustomed thus early to use pack horses to
transport the goods of travelers it is not improbable that the practice
may have originated long before.
[Footnote 39: Hubbard, _Life_, 41-43.]
The demand for transportation facilities at the portage was thus coeval
with the advent of the French in this region. In the early nineteenth
century the satisfaction of this demand afforded employment and a
livelihood to some of the inhabitants of Chicago. The transporting
of travelers and their baggage across the portage formed part of the
business of John Kinzie. That it was Ouilmette's principal occupation,
at least for a considerable period, seems probable.[40] Major Stoddard
stated in 1812 concerning the Chicago Portage that in the dry season
boats and their cargoes were transported across it by teams kept at
Chicago for this purpose.[41] Several years later Graham and Phillips
reported that there was a well-beaten road from the mouth of the Des
Plaines to the lake, over which boats and their loads were hauled by
oxen and vehicles kept for this purpose by the French settlers at
Chicago.[42] Schoolcraft and Cass procured horses to convey them to
Chicago from the point near Starved Rock where they abandoned their
canoe. John Tanner's narrative shows that the Frenchman who carried him
a distance of sixty miles from Chicago to the Illinois River in the
preceding year was commonly engaged in this business. Probably this
man was Ouilmette, although Tanner does not give his name. If it was
someone other than Ouilmette, it is evident that at least two Chicago
residents were engaged in this business.
[Footnote 40: See _Post_, pp. 143-44; _Tanner's Narrative_, 257; _Barry
Transcript_.]
[Footnote 41: Stoddard, _Sketches, Historical and Descriptive, of
Louisiana_, 368 ff.]
[Footnote 42: _State Papers, Doc. No. 17, 16th Congress, 1st Sess._]
The project of Joliet of a canal to connect Lake Michigan with
the Illinois River was revived early in the nineteenth century.
After numerous investigations and reports had been made, the work of
construction was at last begun, amid great enthusiasm, in the year
1836. Twelve years later the Illinois and Michigan Canal was completed,
and therewith the Chicago Portage ceased to be. Even without the
construction of the canal its old importance and use were about to
terminate. The advance of white settlement sounded the death knell of
the fur trade. With the advent of the railroad, trade and commerce
sought other channels and another means of transportation. The
waterways lost their old importance and the Chicago Portage passed into
history. Ere this time, however, the New Chicago had been born and her
future, with its marvelous possibilities, was secure.