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[Illustration: BRONZE GROUP. (Page 207.)]
THE
CHICAGO MASSACRE OF 1812
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS
BY
JOSEPH KIRKLAND
AUTHOR OF "THE STORY OF CHICAGO," "ZURY, THE MEANEST MAN
IN SPRING COUNTY," "THE MC VEYS, AN EPISODE,"
"THE CAPTAIN OF COMPANY K," ETC.
CHICAGO
THE DIBBLE PUBLISHING COMPANY
334 DEARBORN STREET
1893
Copyright:
Joseph Kirkland.
1893.
LIBBY & SHERWOOD PRINTING CO.
CHICAGO.
AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
History is not a snap-shot. Events happen, and the true record of them
follows at a distance. Sometimes the early report is too voluminous,
and it takes time to reduce it to truth by a winnowing process that
divides chaff from grain. This has been the case regarding every great
modern battle. Sometimes, on the other hand, the event was obscure and
became important through the rise of other, later conditions; in which
case, instead of winnowing, the historian sets himself to gleaning the
field and making his grist out of scattered bits of its fruitage. This
has been the case regarding the Chicago massacre of 1812.
It was only a skirmish and a slaughter, involving the loss of
three-score lives. But those dead men, women and children were the
fore-runners of all the dwellers in one of the greatest cities of
Christendom, the renowned city of Chicago.
Up to less than twenty years ago it was thought--by the few who
gave the matter any thought--that next to nothing could ever be
found out concerning the events which took place in and about Fort
Dearborn--now Chicago--on August 15, 1812, and the time immediately
before and after that day. All that was then known was contained in
the artless, non-historic narrative contained in Mrs. Kinzie's amusing
and delightful story of her own adventures (1831-1833), into which she
wove, as a mere episode, the scattered reminiscences of members of her
family who had taken part in the tragedy of twenty years before.
But in 1881, ten years after the Great Fire had wiped out all old
Chicago, and all records of older Chicago, the Historical Society
happily took up the task of erecting a "massacre memorial tablet" on
the ground where Fort Dearborn had stood. William M. Hoyt generously
gave the necessary money, and the Hon. John Wentworth ably and
devotedly set himself about gathering, from all over the land, every
item which could be gleaned to throw light on the dark and dreadful
event. How well he succeeded is shown by his book, "Fort Dearborn,"
published by the Fergus Printing Company as number 16 in its admirable
Historical Series; a collection of pamphlets which should form part of
every library in the city.
Exhaustive as was Mr. Wentworth's research, yet the last word had not
been said. There was--and is--still living, the Hon. Darius Heald, son
of the Captain (Nathan) Heald who commanded the whites on the fatal
day, and who, with his wife, was sorely wounded in the fray. The son
had heard, a hundred times, his parents' story of the massacre; and his
repetition of that story taken down in short-hand from his own lips,
forms the main part of the strictly new matter I offer in this book.
Much of the contents of the following pages, which has been published
before, is not marked as quotation, for the reason that it is my own
writing, having been included in my "Story of Chicago," published by
the same house which publishes this book. (Many of the illustrations
are also taken from this same source.) On the other hand, much that
is marked in quotation is also my own work; but as it is part of my
contribution to Munsell & Company's large "History of Chicago" which is
still in press, credit is invariably given to the last-named work.
All I could find, on this fascinating theme, I have faithfully
recorded. If a later gleaner shall find more, no one will be more glad
than will I, to welcome it.
Joseph Kirkland.
The Chicago Massacre of 1812.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PART I.
Saturday, August Fifteenth, 1812.
Scene at dawn; page 19:--Mothers and children; Captain Wells and his
Miamis; his niece, Rebekah Heald; why he blackened his face; the
Dead March; the Fort cattle; Indian follies; 20:--Margaret Helm, the
authority for Mrs. Kinzie's narrative in Wau-Bun; 21:--Ensign Ronan's
insubordination; Rebekah Heald's version as reported by her son,
Darius; 22:--Evacuation of the fort; Captain Heald's force; Kinzie
family; they take boat; 23:--To-pee-nee-be's warning; line of march;
24:--Pottowatomie "escort;" 25:--Wau-Bun narrative begins; the attack;
27:--Surgeon Van Voorhees; 28:--Black Partridge rescues Mrs. Helm;
scene portrayed in bronze group; 29:--John Kinzie reports safety of
Lieutenant Helm; Captain Wells's scalp; Indians are kind to Mrs. Helm;
she learns details of the struggle; a squaw tortures a wounded soldier;
30:--English blamed for Indian alliance; Mrs. Heald's narrative
begins; similar to Mrs. Helm's; the sand-ridges; 31:--Captain Wells
orders and leads the charges; the battle thus foolishly lost; signal
for surrender; 32:--The twelve militia-men; Captain Heald's wound;
33:--Mrs. Heald's six wounds; particulars of Wells's death; Indians cut
out his heart and eat it; 34:--"Epeconier!"; his noble self-sacrifice;
relics in the Calumet Club; 35:--Mrs. Heald fights for her blanket;
36:--Stripped of her jewelry; what became of it; articles redeemed and
still in existence; 37:--Chandonnais saves the Healds' lives; wounded
prisoners tortured to death; 38:--Fatal blot on the Indian race; Mrs.
Helm's report goes on at second hand; variance with Captain Heald's;
39:--The latter casts no slurs; 40:--One Indian kills twelve children
in the baggage-wagon; Mrs. Helm's incredible account of Wells's death;
41:--True-seeming tale of the Kinzies' escape; doubtful statement
about Mrs. Heald; 42:--Kinzies again in the old house; Indians burn
the fort; they guard the Kinzies, Wabash hostiles come; 44:--Peril
and panic; 45:--Saved by Billy Caldwell, the Sau-ga-nash; 46:--Sukey
Corbin's fate, as told by Mrs. Jouett; 48:--Possibility that a
narrative by Lieutenant Helm may exist, Indian traits; 49:--What is
next to be shown; 50.
PART II.
HOW THE FORT AND CITY WERE BEGUN AND WHO WERE THE BEGINNERS
Chapter I. The Dark Before the Dawn.--The French
period reluctantly passed over; Chicago reappears in 1778, after
100 years of oblivion; J. B. Pointe de Saible; 53:--Various spellings
of Chicago; meaning of the word; 54:--Treaty of 1795; building
of the "Old Kinzie House" in 1778; 55:--Who was here then?
Astor fortunes; 56:--50,000 square miles of solitude; Gurdon Hubbard's
observations in 1816; Ouillemette, now Wilmette; Gen. Dearborn
orders the fort built; 57:--John Whistler's company of the
First Infantry comes in 1804 and builds it; John Whistler; 58:--The
schooner Tracy arrives, the "big canoe with wings;" the account
given, in 1875, by Mrs. Whistler; the pioneer, John Kinzie, arrives
in 1804; 60:--State of things for the next eight years;
61:--Charles Jouett; 62:--Joe Battles and Alexander Robinson;
the Indians and Indian traders; whisky; Munsell's History of
Chicago; 63.
Chapter II. Building of the First Fort Dearborn.--William Wells
is here in 1803; 65:--Signs an Indian trader's license as
Governor Harrison's agent; Captain Anderson comes down from
"Mill-wack-ie" in 1804; what the fort was like; 66:--Agency
House; 67:--How the Chicagoans passed their time; War
Department records of Fort Dearborn, furnished in 1881 by
Secretary-of-War Lincoln to John Wentworth; 68:--In 1811 Captain
Nathan Heald marries Rebekah Wells; wild wedding journey;
69:--Gay winter for the bride; John Kinzie kills John Lalime in
self-defence; 70:--Double murder by Indians at Lee's place
(Hardscrabble), on the South Branch; 71:--Graphic narrative in
Wau-Bun; 72:--Man and boy escape and spread the alarm; 74:--Captain
Heald tells the story; Indian traits; 75.
Chapter III. English and Indian Savages.--Capt. Heald
is inclined to charge the Hardscrabble massacre to the Winnebagoes;
British alliance with Indians characterized; 77:--Its unsoldierly
results; ruin of brave General Hull; 78:--Shame to Lord
Liverpool's government; "Suppose Russia should instigate a Sepoy
rebellion;" wild alarm follows the Lee murders, 79:--Munsell's
history of it; war declared; 80:--Hull sends Winnemeg with orders
to Heald to evacuate Fort Dearborn and fall back on Detroit,
Mackinaw had already been taken; wording of Hull's order differently
given by Captain Heald and Mrs. Helm; 81:--The latter
finds fault with the former; alleges want of harmony in the fort;
82:--Mrs. Heald denies this, alleging that Ronan thought highly
of his captain; the stammering soldier; 83:--comparative authenticity
of the two narratives; how the Heald story comes to be told
now for the first time; 84.
Chapter IV. A Long Farewell.--Departure not favored
by sub-officers; soldier suggests "jerked beef;" 85:--Heald's letter
of Nov. 7, 1812, regarding the withdrawal; Wau-Bun to the
contrary; alleged disorder; 86:--Captain Heald's traits; 87:--Heald
and Kinzie have a pow-wow with the Indians; consult between
themselves; agree to distribute goods, but destroy arms and
whisky; Kinzie's liquors; plan carried out; 88:--William Wells
to the rescue; scene of his arrival; 89:--Baseless hopes aroused;
Black Partridge gives up his medal; 90:--This meant war; then
what should have been done? 92:--Mrs. Heald's story of the
preparations; 93:--Surroundings then and now; 94-96:--Saturday
having been already described, the story skips from Friday to
Sunday; 96.
Chapter V. Fate of the Fugitives.--Every word treasured;
97:--Heald's escape while wounded are being tortured; incidents
of canoe-travel; omission of record of halt on the St. Joseph's;
kindness of commandant at Mackinaw; 98;--Push on to
Detroit, Buffalo, Pittsburg, and so on home, to Louisville, meeting
with Mrs. Heald's father; unfortunate loss of her written story;
99:--Wau-Bun story; Sergeant Griffith and To-pee-nee-be; Kinzies
are taken to Chief Robinson at St Joseph's, and later to Detroit;
John Kinzie tries to save his property; 100:--Friendly Indians
helped by Thomas Forsyth to rescue Lieut. Helm and send him to
Detroit; sent on as prisoners to Fort George, Niagara; incivility
atoned for by Col. Sheaffe; the Helms reach their home and
friends; 102:--Mrs. Helm's remarks about Captain Heald; prisoners
and citizens, scattered among the Indians, are alleged to be
generally ransomed; 103:--Fate of Mrs. Burns and baby; child seen
in after years by Mrs. Kinzie; fate of the Lee family; Black Partridge
wants to marry the widow; the young raccoon; 104:--Madame
du Pin; Nau-non-gee and Sergeant Hays kill each other; 106.
Chapter VI. John Kinzie's Captivity.--America never a
mititary nation; gloomy opening of 1813; early losses and later
gains; 107:--Prisoners ransomed in Detroit; Kinzies try to help
the helpless; 108:--John Kinzie suspected of spying; repeatedly
arrested by the English and released by the Indians; ironed and
imprisoned; 109:--Catches a glimpse of Perry's victory on Lake
Erie; sent on to Quebec; 110:--Strange release; returns to Detroit,
where, with Kee-po-tah, he welcomes Gen. Harrison; 112.
Chapter VII. Contemporaneous Reports.--Progress of
the press since 1812; Niles' Weekly Register our main authority;
113:--First published statement of the massacre; the schooner
Queen Charlotte; 114:--Absurd story regarding Mrs. Helm;
115:--Still more absurd story, signed Walter Jordan; 116:--Possible
leaven of truth; 117:--Nine survivors reported arrived at
Plattsburgh from Quebec; 118:--Familiar names; harrowing tales
they told; 119:--Pitiable fate of Mrs. Neads and her child, Kinzie
family return to Chicago, where the bones of the massacre victims
are buried by the soldiers sent to build the new fort; 120:--Letter
from Fernando Jones; 121:--Solution of the Indian problem
treated; 122:--Present condition of the Pottowatomies; 123:--Wonderful
progress in five generations; speculations concerning
the renewed interest in these old tales; 124:--Sculptured mementoes
of the past slowly being provided by public-spirited citizens;
Lambert Tree, Martin Ryerson and EH Bates; George M. Pullman's
splendid bronze group of the massacre; 126:--Eugene Hall's
verses at the unveiling of the Block-house Tablet in 1881.
APPENDIX
=A.= Pointe De Saible.--First settler, 100 years after Marquette
etc.; 133:--Col. de Peyster mentions him in 1778 in his
"Miscellanies," Burns's verses to De Peyster; 134:--De P. also
mentions George Rogers Clark, 135:--De P's verses; 136:--His
foot-notes, naming Chicago; what is known about De Saible;
137:--E. G. Mason's remarks about him and Shaubena; 138--Perish
Grignon (Wis. Hist. Soc. Collection) on the same subject;
139:--Guesses as to the character and fortunes of De Saible;
140:--"_Point de Sable_," no sand.
=B.= Fort Dearborn Records at Washington.--Probable reason why
records are scanty; 143:--Letter from Gen. Dearborn, Secretary
of War; statement compiled from the adjutant-general's records;
memorandum of the destruction; order for rebuilding; successive
commanders; evacuation of 1823; 144:--Re-occupation in 1828;
Major Whistler ordered to Fort Dearborn; final evacuation in
1836; 145:--Demolition of fort in 1856; old paper found, dating
from first fort; familiar names; 146:--One building survived
until the great fire of 1871; the Waubansa stone; 147:--Daniel
Webster speaks from its summit; its later vicissitudes;
148:--Who were the victims of Aug. 15, 1812? Oblivion the usual
fate of martyrs; 149:--Muster and pay-roll of 1810, the last now
existing; 150.
=C.= The Whistler Family.--Gardner's Military Dictionary gives
items of old John Whistler, the Burgoyne soldier; suggestion
that in Heald's place he might have avoided the disaster;
his descendants; Mrs. William Whistler and her daughter,
Gwenthlean Whistler Kinzie; Mrs. General Sheridan; 153:--Mrs.
Whistler's visit to Chicago in 1875, 154:--Her reminiscences;
155:--Whistler descendants in the army; 156.
=D.= The Kinzie Family.--John Kinzie's origin and youth;
157:--The Forsyths, Blanchard's story of the McKenzie girls;
158:--Margaret, mother of some Kinzies and some Halls;
Elizabeth, mother of some Clarks and some Clybourns; 160:--The
bend sinister; John marries Eleanor (Lytle) McKillip and comes
to Chicago; 161:--Extent of his trade; his continued relations
with Detroit; 162;--His daughter-in-law, Juliette (Magill)
Kinzie, writer of Wau-Bun, return after the massacre; 163:--His
losses; pathetic letter to his son, John Harris Kinzie;
164:--His papers burned in 1871; 165:--Inestimable services
as treaty-maker; their partial recognition in treaty of 1838;
165:--His hospitality; 166:--Visit of Gov. Cass; 167:--Winnebago
scare; 168:--End of the old pioneer; Hubbard's narrative of his
closing moments; 169:--Disappearance of the ancient mansion;
170:--Mrs. Nellie Kinzie Gordon; 171:--Heroic death in battle of
John Harris Kinzie, Jr.; 172.
=E.= The Wells and the Heald Families.--William Wells's
captivity among the Indians; Wa-nan-ga-peth, daughter of
Me-che-kan-nah-quah, and her Wells descendants; 173:--William
fighting on the Indians' side; Rebekah (Wells) Heald's story of
her reclamation of her "Indian uncle;" 174:--His parting with
his red father-in-law; later history of Me-che-kan-nah-quah, or
Little Turtle; his presentation to Washington; 175:--Rebekah
meets Nathan Heald at Fort Wayne; 176:--A. H. Edwards's
anecdotes about Captain Wells; 177:--Family feeling of Wells's
descendants; the Heald massacre relics shown; 179:--Masonic
record of Nathan Heald; his letter of Oct. 13, 1813, reporting
the massacre; 180:--Letter on official business, May 18, 1812;
181:--Remarks thereon; 182:--Death of his niece, Mrs. Edwards,
while this book is printing; 183.
=F.= John Lalime.--Portents of the massacre; rivalry between
government and civilian traders; 185:--Factions in the garrison;
traits of John Lalime; 186:--His letters; retort of Main Poc;
Miss Noke-no-qua; 187:--Lalime's attack on John Kinzie; Gurdon
Hubbard's letter about it; Victoire (Mirandeau) Porthier's
story; 189:--Garrison acquits Kinzie but buries Lalime in
sight of the old house; 190:--Discovery of a skeleton in 1891;
191:--Reasons for thinking it that of Lalime; 193:--Facts
learned from Fernando Jones, Judge Blodgett, Hon. John C. Haines
and others; St. James' church-yard; 193:--Letters from Fernando
Jones, Hon. John C. Haines and Doctors Hosmer and Freer; 194-195.
=G.= Reminiscences of A. H. Edwards.--Letter to John Wentworth; story
of a girl who was one of the scalped children; bare spot on her
head; 197:--She the daughter of John Cooper who is named in the
muster-roll; 198:--Married a Detroiter named Farnum; 199.
=H.= Billy Caldwell, the Sauganash.--His traits, good and bad;
201:--He and Shabonee write a letter about General Harrison;
202.
=I.= Farewell War-Dance of the Indians.--Treaty of 1833; Latrobe's
impressions of Chicago; 203:--Ex-Chief-Justice Caton describes
the war dance; 205:--"Farewell Indians!" 206.
=K.= The Bronze Memorial Group.--Where the massacre occurred;
cumulative testimony identifying the spot; letters from Mrs.
Henry W. King, Isaac N. Arnold, A. J. Galloway, Mrs. Mary Clark
Williams, and Robert G. Clarke; 207-210:--The design of the
group, and the designer, Carl Rohl-Smith: lucky chance gives two
savages, "Kicking Bear" and "Short Bull," to serve as models
for the figures; characteristic bearing of the savage models;
bas-reliefs for pedestal, the fort interior, the evacuation,
the fight, death of Captain Wells; dedicatory inscription;
211:--Memorial fit to stand for centuries; 212.
List of Illustrations; 15.
Alphabetical Index; 213.
ILLUSTRATIONS.
Flag of distress; 14.
Chicago in 1813; 26.
Jesuit missionary; 53.
Me-che-kan-nah-quah; 55.
Gen. Anthony Wayne; 56.
Wm. Whistler; 58.
Mrs. Wm. Whistler; 59.
Charles Jouett; 62.
Redcoat of 1812; 65.
Old Fort Dearborn; 67.
Cabin in the Woods; 71.
Kinzie mansion in 1812; 73.
Human Scalp; 75.
Indian Warrior; 77.
Squaw; 86.
Black Partridge Medal; 91.
William Wells; 94.
Chief Robinson; 101.
New fort, River and Kinzie House (Wau-Bun); 111.
Massacre tree; 18th St.; 113.
Second Block-house in its last days; 120.
Block-House Tablet; 125.
Beaubien fiddle and Calumet; 127.
Emigrants with wagon; 129.
Cock crow; 133.
Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La-Salle; 134.
George Rogers Clark, late in life; 135.
Shaubena; 130.
Map of new Harbor; 148.
Drummer; 148.
Interior of Fort (1850), Lake House in distance; 145.
Waubansa stone and Great Fire relics; 147.
Wild onion; 151.
Gwenthlean (Whistler) Kinzie; 153.
James Kinzie (autograph); 160.
Samuel Miller (autograph); 161.
Juliette Kinzie; 163.
John Harris Kinzie in 1827; 164.
John Kinzie (autograph); 165.
John Harris Kinzie late in life; 166.
Robert Allen Kinzie, 167.
Kinzie Mansion as given in Wau-Bun; 168.
Mrs. Nellie (Kinzie) Gordon; 171.
John Harris Kinzie Jr.; 172.
Indian Mother and pappoose; 173.
Darius Heald with massacre relics; 179.
Massacre tree and Pullman house; 184.
Cyclone; 185.
Skeleton; 186.
The late Calumet Club-House; 196.
Sauganash Hotel; 200.
Me-tee-a, a signer of the treaty of 1821; 203.
Indian War-dance, August 18, 1885; 204.
Chi-ca-gou; 213.
The Chicago Massacre of 1812
IN TWO PARTS AND AN APPENDIX.
PART I.
Saturday, August Fifteenth, 1812--Narratives of the Massacre.
PART II.
Historical and Biographical--How the Fort and City were Begun, and Who
were the Beginners.
APPENDIX.
A.--John Baptiste Pointe de Saible.
B.--Fort Dearborn in the War Department.
C.--The Whistler Family.
D.--The Kinzie Family.
E.--The Wells and Heald Families.
F.--The Bones of John Lalime.
G.--Letters From A. H. Edwards.
H.--Billy Caldwell, "The Sauganash."
I.--Indian War Dance.
K.--The Bronze Memorial Group.
PART FIRST.
SATURDAY, AUGUST FIFTEENTH, 1812.
THE morning of Fort Dearborn's fatal day dawned bright and clear over
Lake Michigan and the sandy flat. The "reveille" doubtless was sounded
before sun-rise; and one can imagine the rattle of the drum and scream
of the fife as they broke the dewy stillness and floated away, over the
sand-spit and out on the lake; across the river to the Kinzie house and
its outbuilding, the Ouillemette house; and up stream to the Indian
encampments, large, dark and lowering. Quite possibly the tune then
prescribed was the same as that now used for the drum-fife reveille,
together with the words that have attached themselves to it of late
years:
Wake ye lazy soldiers, rouse up and be killed,
Hard tack and salt horse, get your gizzard filled.
Then go to fighting--fire your forty round--
Fall dead and lay there buried under ground.
If this time-honored (and much hated) tune has come down to us from so
long, the words had on that morning a significance even more perfect
than that ordinarily belonging to them.
Early the company cooks must have been at work, boiling whole barrels
of salt pork which had been in soak for days beforehand, and as
much fresh beef as could possibly be used before spoiling. Bread had
doubtless been baked and packed earlier in the week, and now all
imaginable preparations for a march of nearly a month must be completed
and the utensils packed and loaded into the company wagons. At each
of the other, smaller households outside the fort similar toils and
cares were going on. How were the lately weaned little ones to be cared
for? Perhaps some parents hoped that they could drive their milch-cows
with the caravan, seeing that grass was plenty and progress would be
necessarily slow. What did the prospective mothers hope and fear? The
wife of Phelim Corbin; how did she arm her soul for the month of rough
travel, with the travail of child birth as one of its terrors?
Certainly the happiest of the crowd were the unconscious little ones,
sure of love and care, full of hope and curiosity--a round dozen of
them in one wagon, beginning the first journey of their innocent
lives--the first and last. Fancy the mothers tucking them in! The eager
little faces upturned for good-bye kisses!
All the workers might have spared themselves their trouble. If they
were thinking of their cows, the crack of the Indian rifles soon ended
that care. The food was enough and to spare; not a morsel of it did
they ever eat. The journey of a month dwindled to a tramp of an hour;
and as to the precious children--
Captain William Wells had come, with thirty friendly Indians (Miamis)
to guard and help them through their long, lonely tramp to Detroit.
He was a white man, the uncle of the commandant's young wife (Rebekah
Wells Heald), but had been stolen when a boy by the Indians and brought
up by them; had married a chief's daughter and had fought on their side
until, years ago, this same young niece had gone to him and persuaded
him to come back to his own kith and kin. So any fears the helpless
settlers might have felt at first could now surely be put aside--Wells
was so strong, so brave, so well acquainted with the Indians! He could
doubtless keep them in order, either by policy or by force.
But if all was well, why had Captain Wells blackened his face--that is,
put on the Indian sign of war and death--before starting that morning?
All accounts agree that he did so, and usually it is taken as having
been a sign of consciousness of impending death. Mrs. Helm[A] seems to
have regarded it in this light. The question can never be settled, but
to me it seems to have been an act of policy; an effort to identify
himself with his Miamis and other friendly Indians. Wau-Bun adds the
gruesome and almost incredible story that the start out was made to the
music of the dead march! As Mrs. Helm was on horseback with the column
she must have known, and we can but take her word for it.
[A] Margaret Helm, wife of Lieutenant Helm, and step-daughter of old
John Kinzie, has hitherto been the main--almost the only--source of
knowledge about the massacre. She told the story twenty years after its
occurrence, to Mrs. John H. Kinzie, who embodied it in her romantic
narrative "Wau-Bun," published about twenty-two years later still.
The large herd of beef-cattle was left to the savages. This was
probably the most precious gift of all put in their hands by the
abandonment of the post. The liquor, if it had been left, would have
been their bane, and the fire-arms the mere instruments of mutual
destruction. The clothes must wear out, the flour be eaten up, the
tools and furniture useless, the paints and gew-gaws a fleeting joy;
but the herd! This would be self-sustaining, self-perpetuating, a
perennial fount of blessing and mine of wealth. Here were food,
clothing, shoes for this year and all years to come. No tribe or nation
of their race had ever possessed such a treasure. How did they avail
themselves of it? Wau-Bun answers:
The fort had become a scene of plunder to such as remained after the
troops moved out. The cattle had been shot down as they ran at large
and lay dead or dying around. This work of butchery had commenced
just as we were leaving the fort.
No more characteristic bit of Indian painting has ever been made than
that given in these few words. Here was the native savage (not ignorant
of wiser ways, for he had had the thrifty white man under his eyes for
four generations) still showing himself in sense a child, in strength a
man, and in cruelty a fiend incarnate.
Mrs. Helm continues:
I well remember a remark of Ensign Ronan, as the firing went on.
"Such," turning to me, "is to be our fate--to be shot down like
beasts."
"Well, sir," said the commanding officer, who overheard him, "are you
afraid?"
"No," replied the high-spirited young man, "I can march up to the
enemy where you dare not show your face!" And his subsequent gallant
behavior showed this to be no idle boast.
Unconsciously Mrs. Helm, in this artless tale told to glorify the
younger officer, awakens in our minds a feeling of dislike for him.
That a youth, scarce two years out of West Point, should add an
ill-timed insult to the heavy cares of his senior officer, a soldier
of thirteen years service, must be shocking to every one. Seeing that
within two hours he was to die in action, bravely doing his duty (in
company with his senior similarly engaged and sorely wounded) we can
readily forgive his error, but not without a protest against a foolish
woman's foolish effort to make it out a noble and praiseworthy outburst.
Mrs. Heald's narrative[B] (though fortified by Captain Heald's letter,
quoted later) seems less probable than the foregoing circumstantial
account in Wau-Bun. She says:
The fort was vacated quietly, not a cross word being passed between
soldiers and Indians, and good-byes were exchanged. Not an officer
objected to leaving. Nobody objected but Kinzie, who did so for
personal reasons. Everything left was divided among the Indians
who were there, and a party of them escorted the whites out of the
fort, these Indians being the ones who took no interest in the
fight, although they may have known something about it. The general
impression among the officers (and this was Captain Heald's idea
also) was that the Indians who took their share when the things were
distributed at the fort, had no part in the massacre.
[B] It is a curious fact that all our direct information concerning the
events of that day comes from two women. Mrs. Lieutenant Helm, who has
been already mentioned, and Mrs. Captain Heald. Both these young wives
will receive more detailed mention a little further on. Mrs. Heald's
account has never been published before. I give it as taken down in
short-hand from the lips of her son, the Hon. Darius Heald of O'Fallon,
Missouri, in the summer of 1892.
Captain Heald's force consisted of fifty-four regular soldiers and
twelve militia-men, and with them departed every white inhabitant of
the little settlement, men, women and children--probably about thirty
in all--ranging in social condition from the prosperous Kinzies to the
humble discharged soldiers who had married and started to make a living
by tilling the soil, etc.
The Kinzie family was to go by boat, skirting along the lake and
keeping in touch with the land column as long as it should hug the
shore; later ascending the St. Joseph's River to "Bertrand," or
"Parc-aux-vaches," as it was called, in memory of its having been the
cow-pasture of the old French-Canadian settlement and fort which had
stood on the bank of that river a century or so ago. The boat-party
consisted of Mrs. John Kinzie, her son, John H., born at Sandwich,
Canada, July 7, 1803, and her other children--Ellen Marion (later Mrs.
Alexander Wolcott), born in Chicago, December, 1805; Maria Indiana
(later Mrs. General Hunter), born in Chicago, in 1807, and Robert A.,
born in Chicago in 1810. Her daughter by a previous marriage, Margaret
McKillip, was, it will be remembered, now the wife of Lieutenant Helm,
and she bravely elected to share the perils of the land-march with her
husband. There was also in the boat the nurse, Josette (misprinted
in Wau-Bun, "Grutte"[C]) Laframboise (afterward Mrs. Jean Baptiste
Beaubien), a clerk of Mr. Kinzie's, two servants, the boatman, and two
Indians as guard. This shows that the boat must have been neither a
bark canoe nor a common "dug-out" or "pirogue," but a large bateau,
capable of carrying these numerous passengers, with corresponding
baggage and supplies.
[C] In the Story of Chicago is given the following fac simile to show
how readily the name "Josette" might have been read "Grutte."
[Illustration: Josette (signature)]
To-pee-nee-be, a friendly Indian, chief of the St. Joseph's band, early
in the morning of the fatal day, had warned John Kinzie that trouble
was to come from the "escort" which Captain Heald had bargained for
with the Pottowatomies in council, and had urged him to go in the boat
with his family. But the old frontiers-man was built of too sturdy
stuff to take such advice. If there was to be danger he must share it,
and if help would avail he must give it; so he rode with the column.
First rode out Captain William Wells, hero-martyr, marching, probably
consciously, to a doom self-inflicted under the impulse of human
sympathy and soldierly honor. Following him were half of his mounted
escort of Miami Indians, followed in their turn by the volunteers
and such of the regulars as were able to bear arms. Next came the
short train of wagons, with stores, supplies, camp-equippage, women,
children, sick, wounded and disabled. This little caravan contained all
there was to show for eight years of industry and privation. But what
mattered it? Greater savings would only have meant greater loss, and
more men, women and children would only have meant more suffering and
death.
The rear-guard was composed of the remainder of Captain Wells's
wretched Miamis, such reliance as is a broken reed. The Miamis were
mounted, as were Captain Wells, Mr. Kinzie, Mrs. Heald and Mrs. Helm,
but probably no others of the party.
The day continued bright and sunny, and the line must have stretched
from the fort (about the south end of Rush Street bridge) perhaps to
the present Madison Street, half way to the point where began the
sand-dunes or low hills which, even within the memory of the present
generation, skirted the shores down as far as the beginning of the oak
woods of Hyde Park. The bateau followed in the rear of the column and
had just reached the mouth of the river (where the foot of Madison
street now is[D]) when a messenger from To-pe-nee-be brought the Kinzie
party to a halt.
[D] The river then made a turn southward just east of the fort, and
only found an entrance to the lake across the south end of a long
sand-bar, the continuation of the shore of the North Side.
The column had marched parallel with the Pottowatomie "escort" until
both bodies reached the sand-hills. Then the whites kept by the
shore-road, while the Indians, veering slightly to their right, put the
sand-hills between their crowd and the slim, weak line of troops and
wagons.
The reports of the fight itself, given by the two witnesses on
whom we must rely, do not differ materially from each other. Mrs.
Helm's narrative naturally treats more fully of the Kinzie family's
experiences; Mrs. Heald's more fully of her own adventures and the
death of her uncle. Neither woman mentions the other; they were
probably separated early. I will give the stories in turn, beginning
with Mrs. Helm's.
[Illustration: CHICAGO, IN 1812.]
MARGARET HELM'S STORY.
The boat started, but had scarcely reached the mouth of the river,
which, it will be recollected, was here half a mile below the fort,
when another messenger from To-pe-nee-be arrived to detain them where
they were. In breathless expectation sat the wife and mother. She was
a woman of uncommon energy and strength of character, yet her heart
died within her as she folded her arms around her helpless infants
and gazed on the march of her husband and her eldest child [Mrs.
Helm] to certain destruction.
They had marched perhaps a mile and a half [Fourteenth Street], when
Captain Wells, who had kept somewhat in advance of his Miamis, came
riding furiously back. "They are about to attack us!" he shouted.
"Form instantly and charge upon them." Scarcely were the words
uttered when a volley was showered from among the sand-hills. The
troops were hastily brought into line and charged up the bank. One
man, a veteran of seventy winters, fell as they ascended.
After we had left the bank the firing became general. The Miamis fled
at the outset. Their chief rode up to the Pottowatomies and said:
"You have deceived the Americans and us. You have done a bad action,
and (brandishing his tomahawk) I will be the first to head a party of
Americans to return and punish your treachery." So saying he galloped
after his companions, who were now scouring across the prairies.
Mrs. Helm does not say that she heard these words when uttered, nor
is it probable that she could have been within hearing distance of
the very head of the column, or even could have understood the words
unless (what most unlikely) they were uttered in English. The whole
circumstance looks apocryphal--probably a later Indian fabrication.
The troops behaved most gallantly. They were but a handful, but they
seemed resolved to sell their lives as dearly as possible. Our horses
pranced and bounded and could hardly be restrained as the balls
whistled among them. I drew off a little and gazed upon my husband
and father, who were yet unharmed, I felt that my hour was come,
and endeavored to forget those I loved and prepare myself for my
approaching fate.
This seems to be the moment where her narrative diverges from that
of Mrs. Heald, who evidently followed the troops, as she was caught
between a cross-fire of the Indians, whom the advance had left on its
flanks and rear, and there received her wounds. Mrs. Helm's subsequent
narrative shows that she was, when rescued, unwounded and near the Like.
While I was thus engaged, the surgeon, Dr. Van Voorhees, came up. He
was badly wounded. His horse was shot under him and he had received
a ball in his leg. Every muscle of his face was quivering with the
agony of terror. He said to me:
"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
a large reward. Do you think there is any chance?"
"Dr. VanVoorhees," said I, "do not let us waste the few moments that
yet remain to us in such vain hopes. Our fate is inevitable. In a
few minutes we must appear before the bar of God. Let us make what
preparation is yet in our power."
"O, I cannot die!" exclaimed he. "I am not fit to die--if I had but a
short time to prepare--death is awful!"
I pointed to Ensign Ronan, who, though mortally wounded and nearly
down, was still fighting with desperation on one knee. "Look at that
man," said I; "at least he dies like a soldier."
"Yes," replied the unfortunate man, with a gasp, "but he has no
terrors of the future. He is an unbeliever."
When we read this remarkable dialogue--remarkable as occurring amid the
rattle of musketry on a battle-field where the narrators' friends were
perishing in a hopeless struggle with an overpowering force of savage
foes--we remember that Mrs. Kinzie's book did not assume to be history;
was not written as a grave and literal record of things as they were;
a statement carefully scrutinized to see that no unjust slur is cast
upon any character, even so unimportant a one as the poor wounded,
dying surgeon. Mrs. Helm, on the dreadful day, was a mere girl-wife
of seventeen years, and was a woman of thirty-seven when Mrs. Kinzie
transcribed the artless tale into Wau-Bun, a book which reads like a
romance, and was meant so to be read.
The utterance of these admirable sentiments while still in sight of
Ensign Ronan, mortally wounded, yet fighting with desperation on one
knee, again puts us in doubt as to Mrs. Helm's location on the field;
but the next part of her story shows that she was not far from the
water.
At this moment a young Indian raised his tomahawk at me. By springing
aside I avoided the blow, which was intended for my skull, but which
alighted on my shoulder. I seized him around the neck, and while
exerting my utmost efforts to get possession of his scalping-knife,
which hung in a scabbard over his breast, I was dragged from his
grasp by another and an older Indian. The latter bore me struggling
and resisting toward the lake. Notwithstanding the rapidity with
which I was hurried along, I recognized, as I passed them, the
remains of the unfortunate surgeon. Some murderous tomahawk had
stretched him upon the very spot where I had last seen him.
I was immediately plunged into the water and held there with a
forcible hand, notwithstanding my resistance. I soon perceived,
however, that the object of my captor was not to drown me, for he
held me firmly in such a position as to place my head above water.
This reassured me, and regarding him attentively I soon recognized,
in spite of the paint with which he was disguised, _The Black
Partridge_.
This picturesque narrative of the rescue of a young bride by a friendly
Indian, has been justly regarded as the one romantic story connected
with that dark and bloody day. It has been the chosen theme of the
story-teller, the painter and the sculptor, and its portrayal in
perennial bronze forms the theme of the magnificent group which has
been designed and modeled by the sculptor, Carl Rohl-Smith, cast in
bronze, and presented (June, 1893), with appropriate ceremonies, to the
Chicago Historical Society, "in trust for the city and for posterity"
as set forth by an inscription on its granite base.[E]
[E] See Appendix K.
Mrs. Helm goes on:
When the firing had nearly subsided my preserver bore me from the
water and conducted me up the sand-banks. It was a burning August
morning, 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 and bore them off, and I was obliged to proceed without
them.
When we had gained the prairie [probably at about Twelfth Street]
I was met by my father [her step-father, John Kinzie], who told me
that my husband was safe, but slightly wounded. They led me gently
back toward the Chicago River, along the southern bank of which was
the Pottowatomie encampment. At one time I was placed on 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.
The wife of Wah-bee-nee-mah, a chief from the Illinois River, was
standing near, and seeing my exhausted condition, she seized a
kettle, dipped up some water from the stream that flowed near [the
slough that emptied into the main river at about the south end of
State Street bridge], threw into it some maple sugar, and stirring it
up with her hand, gave it to me to drink. This act of kindness in the
midst of so many horrors touched me most sensibly, but my attention
was soon diverted to other objects.
The whites had surrendered after the loss of about two-thirds their
number. They had stipulated, through the interpreter, Peresh Leclerc,
for the preservation of their lives and those of the remaining
women and children, and for their delivery at some of the British
posts, unless ransomed by traders in the Indian country. It appears
that the wounded prisoners were not considered as included in the
stipulation, and a horrible scene ensued on their being brought into
camp. An old squaw, infuriated by the loss of friends, or excited
by the sanguinary scenes around her, seemed possessed by a demoniac
ferocity. She seized a stable-fork and assaulted one miserable
victim who lay groaning and writhing in the agony of his wounds,
aggravated by the scorching beams of the sun. With a delicacy of
feeling scarcely to have been expected under such circumstances,
Wah-bee-nee-mah stretched a mat across two poles, between me and
the deadful scene. I was thus spared, in some degree, a view of its
horrors, although I could not entirely close my ears to the cries of
the sufferer.
The disgrace attaching to the British government in seeking alliance
with such savages in a war against civilized beings of its own race,
is elsewhere fully treated. One can only wish that those cries might
have reached the women of all England, instead of falling fruitlessly
on those of one poor, exhausted, helpless American girl, and of the red
hell-spawn grinning and dancing with delight at the sound.
Such is the tale as first given to the world by Mrs. Kinzie in
"Wau-Bun." I will now present the narrative of the same struggle,
defeat, surrender and massacre as often told by Mrs. Captain Heald to
her son, the Hon. Darius Heald, and by him to me. The two are not, in
essentials, contradictory; each completes and rounds out the other.
After giving the account of the peaceable start from the fort
(inconsistent with Mrs. Helm's story, already quoted, and less
truth-seeming than the latter), she goes on to say:
REBEKAH HEALD'S STORY.
Captain Wells' escort was mounted on Indian ponies. Captain Wells
himself was mounted on a thoroughbred. Mrs. Heald and Mrs. Helm were
also on horseback, the former on her own beloved Kentucky horse.
They advanced, Wells and his escort getting about a quarter of a
mile ahead, and were jogging along quietly when all at once they
halted, and he turned back and got down pretty close to Captain
Heald--perhaps half the distance. He pulled off his hat and swung
it around his head once or twice, making a circle. As soon as he
saw Wells coming back, Captain Heald said to his wife: "Uncle sees
something ahead of him there. There is something wrong." And when
he made the circle around his head, Mrs. Heald understood the sign,
"We are surrounded by Indians." Captain Wells soon got close enough
to shout "We are surrounded by Indians. March up on the sand-ridges.
There are sand-ridges we ought to get in behind where we can stand
half up and not be seen." Then she saw the Indians' heads "sticking
up and down again, here and there, like turtles out of the water."
They marched up on the sand-ridges, the wagons being put back next
to the lake and the men taking position in front of them. Captain
Wells shouted to Captain Heald, "Charge them!" and then led on and
broke the ranks of the Indians, who scattered right and left. He then
whirled round and charged to the left. This move brought them well
out into the country, and they marched onward and took position about
two or three hundred yards in front of the wagons and a like distance
from the Indians. Captain Heald rather gave way to Captain Wells,
knowing his superior excellence in Indian warfare, Wells having been
trained from childhood by such warriors as Little Turtle, Tecumseh
and Black Hawk; especially by the first two.
Here to the eye of common-sense, whether soldierly or civilian, the
battle is already gone--lost beyond salvation. The onus of blame
appears to rest on poor Wells, the brave, devoted volunteer. He had
learned war in a school that took no account of the supply-train; in
the school of individual fighters, living on nothing, saving no wounded
or non-combatants; dash, scurry, kill, scalp and run away, every man
for himself--and the devil take the hindmost--in other words the Indian
system. As to this band of whites, what had it to fight for but its
train of wagons with all the helpless ones, all the stores, all the
ammunition, all the means of progress and of caring for the wounded? To
charge the centre of a brave, unformed rabble which outflanks you is
only heroic suicide at best, and when the doing so leaves the train at
the mercy of the spreading flanks of the foe, it is fatal madness.
To return to the Heald narrative:
Another charge was made which enabled Captain Wells to get a little
closer to the Indians. He had two pistols and a small gun. His
bullets and powder were kept in shoulder belts, hung at convenient
places, and he generally had an extra bullet in his mouth, which
helped him to load fast when necessary. He could pour in a little
powder, wad it down, "blow in" the bullet, prime and fire more
quickly than one can tell the facts. The Indians broke from him right
and left. The hottest part of the battle lasted but a few minutes,
but Captain Heald's little band was cut down. He gave the signal for
surrender; the chiefs came together and they made a compromise.
By this time Wells, Ronan and Van Vorhees were killed, Heald had
a bullet in his hip, Mrs. Heald had a half dozen wounds, half the
regulars were killed or wounded, and so far as we now know for certain,
all twelve militia-men. (A doubt about this last named unexplained
mortality, and suggestion as to the probable manner of their death,
will be noted later.) Darius Heald could only say:
Afterwards, in talking the matter over, Captain Nathan Heald said
that he had no confidence in the Indians, but that he had done the
best he could do; that in fifteen minutes more the last man would
have been killed, as they had no chance at all; his men were falling
rapidly, and he himself was wounded in the hip by a one-ounce ball.
That ball was never extracted, and caused his death twenty years
afterward.
In any circumstances, one cannot cast blame on a beaten commander,
negotiating with his victorious foes, while bleeding from a bullet
deep-bedded in his hip-joint. In this case, it is not likely that
blame would be due, even if Captain Heald had been unhurt. But for his
surrender, the Chicago Massacre would have been, on a small scale, the
fore-runner of the great Custer slaughter, where not a white man lived
to tell the tale. Every man, woman and child of white blood (except
perhaps the Kinzies and Lieutenant Helm), would now be in oblivion
almost as if they had never been born. Even the "massacre tree" that
stands to-day (1893) in Eighteenth street near the lake, in gaunt,
leafless old age, could only have been identified by the bleaching
skulls, great and small, which surrounded it when General Cass passed
the spot a few years afterward.
Here we take up again Mrs. Heald's personal story:
After the fighting commenced, Mrs. Heald turned back and ascended a
little elevation between the army and the wagons. She saw a young,
fine-looking officer fall [probably Lieutenant Ronan] and thought it
was her husband, and was under this impression until after the fight
was over. Just before the surrender, she got up in range of the
bullets coming from Indians on both sides of her. She did not know
whether the Indians aimed at her or not, but she was wounded in six
places, one hand being rendered helpless, the ball passing between
the two bones of her arm. Her son has seen the scar a thousand times.
I have remarked that Mrs. Heald does not mention the presence of Mrs.
Helm, nor does the latter that of the former. We judge from this, and
from Mrs. Helm's account of her being saved by being plunged in the
lake, that the latter remained nearer the shore than did the other.
DEATH OF CAPTAIN WELLS.
Captain Wells, who was shot through the lungs, rode up and took her
hand, saying: "Farewell my child." Mrs. Heald said to him: "Why
uncle, I hope you will get over this." "No my child," he said, "lean
not." He told her he was shot through the lungs, and she saw the
blood oozing through his nose and mouth. He still held her hand and
talked to her, saying that he could not last five minutes longer.
He said: "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."
His horse, which had been shot just behind the girth, then fell and
caught Captain Wells' leg under him. As he did so, Captain Wells
turned and saw six or seven Indians approaching them. He took aim and
fired, killing one of them. They approached still closer, and Mrs.
Heald said to him: "Uncle, there is an Indian pointing right at the
back of your head." Captain Wells put his hand back and held up his
head that better aim might be taken, and then cried "Shoot away!" The
Indian fired, the shot being fatal. They then pulled him out from
under his horse (Mrs. Heald still seated on her horse near by) and
cut his body open, the gashes being in the shape of a cross. They
took out his heart, placed it on a gun-stick and whirled it round
and round, yelling like fiends. The noise drew other Indians to the
spot and they then commenced cutting up the heart and eating it. They
crowded around and the bleeding heart was thrust forward at one after
another.
Finally an Indian cut off a piece, held it up to Mrs. Heald and
insisted on her eating it. She shook her head. He then daubed her
face with it. She shook her fist at him. Then they called her
"Epeconier! Epeconier!" this being their name for Captain Wells--thus
signifying that she was a Wells--a person full of pluck and fortitude.
So nobly perished one of the best and bravest frontiers-men, fighting
where he had been summoned by sympathy and affection, not by the orders
of any superior officer. No knight ever set lance in rest under a more
purely chivalric impulse than did this plain, pretending, half-educated
pioneer. Two hundred and fifty miles away he had heard the warning note
of peril, seen the fair young face of his brother's daughter (she who
long before had sought him out among his savage captors and restored
him to his kins-folk), and felt the impulse of manly self-devotion
to save her and her friends from impending doom. He obeyed the noble
impulse and--he died like a man, and somewhere beneath our thoughtless
footsteps his bones lie buried.[F]
[F] Chicago should not be without a statue of this early hero, martyred
in her service. A miniature exists purporting to give his features, and
as to his form, that could be easily reproduced from description, while
his Indian dress would serve to give grace and dignity to the work.
Among the first streets named, when the village of Chicago was laid out
(1831), was one called after him--for he was not yet forgotten. Part
of the street-the stretch north of the river--still retains the great
name, but the most important portion, that traversing the business
heart of the city, has been arbitrarily changed to "Fifth Avenue,"
there being no Fourth or Sixth Avenue adjoining it on either side to
excuse the ungrateful, barbarous innovation.
In the Calumet Club is preserved the identical hatchet worn by Captain
Wells during the last fight, with authenticating documents furnished
by James Madison Wolcott, of South Toledo, Ohio, his grandson by his
wife Wa-nan-ga-peth (daughter of Me-che-kan-nah-quah or Little Turtle)
through his daughter Ah-mah-qua-zah-quah ("A sweet breeze"), who
married Judge James Wolcott. It is related that Wa-nan-ga-peth received
the news of her husband's death from a stranger Indian who entered,
told the message, laid down the hatchet in token of its truth, and
departed, unknown as he came.
This narrative of the fight itself, as seen by Mrs. Heald and related
to me by her son, is marked by a style of severe simplicity and good
faith that seems to command confidence in the mind of the reader.
There is no point in the artless story where one is compelled to pause
and make a mental allowance for the bias of the narrator, for her
excitement and the uncertainty such a state of mind might throw over
her accuracy, or even for the errors (save those of omission) which
the lapse of years might have caused. All seems natural, unforced and
trustworthy. The story goes on:
In the meantime her horse, which had become excited during the tumult
by the smell of blood, commenced prancing around, and an Indian took
him by the bit and led him down to the corral, or Indian camp near
the fort. [This was on the banks of a slough which entered the river
at about where State Street bridge now stands.] Approaching them, an
Indian squaw caught sight of the bright-red blanket which was girted
on over Mrs. Heald's saddle, for camping purposes, and immediately
attempted to take it for her own. Mrs. Heald resisted vigorously, and
although one hand was entirely useless and the other badly injured,
she took her switch and with it struck the squaw such hard blows that
"white welts were raised on her red hide." After this exhibition of
spirit, the Indian who had hold of the horse's bit again shouted,
"Epeconier! Epeconier!" and it is probably this display of daring
which saved Mrs. Heald's life, and perhaps her husband's also.
Rebekah Wells Heald was evidently worthy of her name. Daughter of
Captain Samuel Wells, niece of Captain William Wells, wife of Captain
Nathan Heald, she was a woman whom the sight of blood could not daunt,
the smart of wounds weaken, or the fear of bereavement subdue. (For
many hours after the battle she supposed herself a widow.) Her son
Darius (her mouthpiece in this narrative) was not born until nine years
after that dreadful day; and now (1893), in his seventy-third year, he
shows the family form and spirit. Tall, stalwart, erect and dignified,
he is a typical southern-westerner, a mighty hunter in the past and a
tower of patriarchal strength in his old age.
When she was brought in, after being captured and led down among
the Indians, she was stripped of her jewelry--rings, breast-pin,
ear-rings and comb. She was badly wounded, and was cared for that
night (the fifteenth of August) as tenderly as a sister, by two or
three squaws and one French woman, who did everything in their power
to relieve her. She saw nothing of her jewelry till the next morning,
when a brave made his appearance and pranced around, taking great
pains to shew that he was wearing her comb in his scalp-lock--a
performance fraught with difficulties, as he had hardly enough hair
to keep it in, and found it necessary to push it back from time to
time to prevent it from falling to the ground. Poor black Cicely she
never saw again[G]. She had perished with the rest. Her horse, too,
was gone forever.
[G] See page 70.
This horse was a thoroughbred, the same one that Mrs. Heald, as a
bride, had ridden from Kentucky a year before. The Indians had always
looked on it with envious eyes, and had employed all means, lawful and
otherwise, to get it from the fort. Now it was theirs by conquest,
and no later efforts availed to recover it. Doubtless among its new
owners its fate was hard and its life short. One winter of starvation,
exposure and abuse would "hang its hide on the fence," even while its
wretched Indian-pony companions were living on in stubborn endurance.
It turned out afterwards that the Indians took their booty down to
Peoria, to sell and "trade" for whisky, and it found its way quickly
to St. Louis, where Colonel O'Fallon recognized a great deal as
belonging to the Healds, and redeemed it and sent it to Colonel
Samuel Wells at the Falls of the Ohio [Louisville] as a memento of
his daughter and her husband, both supposed to be dead. It reached
there before the Healds did, and the articles are now in possession
of the family; most of them were shown by Hon. Darius Heald in
Chicago, in 1892, when the before-mentioned short-hand transcript
of his mother's story was made, and he and his precious relics were
photographed, making a picture hereinafter presented. (See Appendix
E.)
The Indian who led Captain Heald down to the camp and claimed him as
his prisoner, was a half-breed named Chandonnais. He afterward found
that Mrs. Heald was still alive, and, it is supposed, ransomed her
from her captor; for, on the morning of the sixteenth, he brought
the husband and wife together. He seems to have connived at the
escape of both, for they found the matter wonderfully easy--boat
and escort at hand and all oversight withdrawn. Years afterward, in
1831, Chandonnais visited the Healds at their home, near O'Fallon,
Missouri, and Darius Heald remembers his father's meeting and
greeting the brave who had so nobly rescued them. It is thought that
the Indians went off down the lake to have "a general frolic"--in
other words, torture to death the wounded prisoners.
Here arises before the mind's eye the dim and cloudy vision of horror,
the acme of the tragedy, all the more appalling for its shrouding
mystery. It makes the flesh creep and the hair stand on end. It sears
the heart against the race whereof it was the inborn nature to feel in
the eyes a love for the sight of mortal agony, in the ears an eagerness
for the shriek of despairing anguish.
The wounded not included! The helpless picked out for torture! The
inflamed hurts to be deepened with a pitchfork and perhaps further
and mortally inflamed with a burning brand! Kindly Nature's passing
lethargy to be quickened into conscious death in frantic anguish!
The twelve militia-men are never again mentioned. They are as if they
had never been born, lived and toiled, never volunteered, never served,
fought and fell. How is this to be accounted for? Why should their
mortality be twice as great as that of the regulars? Darkness hides the
answer; but it seems not unlikely that the same hellish ingenuity which
held that "the wounded were not included," may also have held that men
not wearing the uniform were not protected by the capitulation, and so
they perished at the stake, surrounded by the "general frolic" which
occupied the savages, good and bad, friendly and inimical, during the
flight of the Healds and Kinzies.
There was no place on earth for a race which, through all its history,
had found delight in the spectacle of pain, which inflicted torture,
not as a means leading to some ulterior object, but as itself a source
of joy and gladness. The race is still in existence, but the inhuman
part of its characteristics are being refined away, leaving some of its
best traits in the more advanced of its present representatives. Later
on in this volume mention is made of its standing and its prospects at
this time.
Now to take up again the Wau-Bun narrative. The torturing incident,
already given, evidently ends the story of Mrs. Helm's personal
experiences; all that follows being what others professed to have seen.
Yet (possibly by typographical error) the quotation marks, which began
with the narration, are continued much further on, including paragraphs
wherein she is spoken of in the third person. (See later.) Mrs Helm
says:
The Americans, after the first attack by the Indians, charged upon
those who had concealed themselves in a sort of ravine intervening
between the sand-banks and the prairie. The latter gathered
themselves into a body, and after some hard fighting, in which the
number of whites had become reduced to twenty-eight, this little band
succeeded in breaking through the enemy and gaining a rising ground
not far from the oak woods.
The contest now seemed hopeless, and Lieutenant Helm sent Peresh
Leclerc, a half-breed boy in the service of Mr. Kinzie, who had
accompanied the detachment and fought manfully on their side, to
propose terms of capitulation. It was stipulated that the lives of
all the survivors should be spared and a ransom permitted as soon as
practicable.
Lieutenant Helm made the terms of capitulation? How could that be while
Captain Heald was present? And what is to be done with Captain Heald's
statement of October 7, 1812, less than three months after the event?
It reads as follows: "The Indians did not follow me but assembled in
a body on the top of the bank, and, after some consultation among
themselves, made signs for me to approach them. I advanced toward them
alone and was met by one of the Pottowatomie chief called Black Bird,
with an interpreter."
The reader will of course choose between the two statements
according to his judgement of probabilities and internal evidence of
truthfulness. Captain Heald certainly cast no slur on Lieutenant Helm,
and appears not even to have entered into the bitterness of feeling
against himself and his unhappy surgeon, which seems to have gone on
rankling through all the twenty years that elapsed between the direful
day and the telling of the story by Mrs. Helm to Mrs. Kinzie.
Mrs. Helm's expression, "Peresh Leclerc, a half-breed boy in the
service of Mr. Kinzie who had accompanied the detachment and fought
manfully on their side," leaves a possible ambiguity as to whether it
is the boy or his master who fought manfully on the side of the whites.
Next follows one of the most noteworthy parts of all Mrs. Helm's
narrative, the few words which depict the act of ferocity by which
the occasion has been given much of its picturesque and terrible
individuality:
But in the meantime, a horrible scene had been enacted. One young
savage, climbing into the baggage-wagon containing the children of
the white families, twelve in number, tomahawked the children of the
entire group.[H]
[H] See Appendix G for the story of one of the scalped children.
This harrowing tale is strongly confirmed by Captain Heald's estimate
of losses as given in his letter of Oct. seventh (already quoted),
which he states as follows: "Our strength was about fifty-four regulars
and twelve militia, out of which twenty-six regulars and twelve militia
were killed in action, with two women and twelve children. Ensign
George Ronan and Dr. Isaac V. Van Vorhees, of my company, with Captain
Wells of Fort Wayne, to my great sorrow are numbered among the dead.
Lieutenant Linai T. Helm, with twenty-five non-commissioned officers
and privates, and eleven women and children, were prisoners when we
separated."
The next part of Mrs. Helm's narrative is remarkably at variance with
the stern, true-seeming and circumstantial account of Captain Wells'
death given by Mrs. Heald. Mrs Helm says (following the statement of
the slaughter of the innocents):
This was during the engagement near the sand-hills. When Captain
Wells, who was fighting near, beheld it, he exclaimed, "Is that
your game, butchering women and children? Then I will kill too!" So
saying, he turned his horse's head and started for the Indian camp
near the fort, where had been left their squaws and children. Several
Indians pursued him as he galloped along. He laid himself flat on the
neck of his horse, loading and firing in that position as he would
occasionally turn on his pursuers. At length their balls took effect,
killing his horse and severely wounding himself At this moment he was
met by Winnemeg and Wau-ban-see who endeavored to save him from the
savages who had now overtaken him. As they supported him along, after
having disengaged him from his horse, he received his death blow from
another Indian, Pee-so-tum, who stabbed him in the back.
When we observe the incongruities of this tale (not to speak of its
contradiction by Mrs. Heald's report) such as the witnessing by Captain
Wells of the wagon slaughter (at a time when we know he was far away
inland, fighting at the head of the troops); of his alleged dastardly
flight from the field toward the Indian camp a mile-and-a-half away,
with the avowed intention of killing the squaws and pappooses; his
being overtaken on horseback by pursuing enemies on foot; his being
held up by two Indians while a third stabbed him in the back, the third
being the very one who helped Mrs. Helm to reach the fort; we are only
glad to remember that the narrator did not mean to have us understand
that she witnessed the occurrences she relates. Internal evidence
leads us to suspect that the story came to her from the lips of lying
Indians, eager to magnify to Mr. Kinzie their deeds of valor and of
kindness, and perhaps justify their treatment of poor Wells, alive and
dead. Pee-so-tum may have killed and scalped Wells, but it surely was
not under such circumstances as those above set forth. Not even the
best friends of the Indian claim for him any appreciation of the virtue
of mere veracity. Personal faithfulness of the most touching character
he often showed. Even the keeping of promises, often at the cost of
great personal sacrifice, has been known as a striking and admirable
trait. But "truth for truth's sake" is beyond him--as it is, indeed,
beyond the great mass of mankind.
The Wau-Bun story of the experiences of the Kinzie family bears
evidences of authenticity and reasonable accuracy, as might be expected
from the fact that Mrs. John H. Kinzie probably got it directly from
her husband's mother, Mrs. John Kinzie, who was alive at the time when
it was first written.
Those of the family of Mr. Kinzie who had remained in the boat
near the mouth of the river were carefully guarded by Kee-po-tah
and another Indian. They had seen the smoke, then the blaze, and,
immediately after, the report of the tremendous discharge sounded
in their ears. Then all was confusion. They realized nothing until
they saw an Indian come towards them from the battle-ground leading a
horse on which sat a lady, apparently wounded.
"That is Mrs. Heald," cried Mrs. Kinzie. "That Indian will kill her.
Run Chandonnais," to one of Mr. Kinzie's clerks, "Take the mule that
is tied there and offer it to him to release her."
Her captor by this time was in the act of disengaging her bonnet from
her head in order to scalp her. Chandonnais ran up, offered the mule
as a ransom, with the promise of two bottles of whisky as soon as
they should reach his village. The latter was a strong temptation.
"But," said the Indian, "She is badly wounded--she will die--will you
give me the whisky at all events?" Chandonnais promised he would, and
the bargain was concluded. The savage placed the lady's bonnet on his
own head and after an ineffectual effort on the part of some squaws
to rob her of her shoes and stockings, she was brought on board the
boat, where she lay moaning with pain from the many wounds she had
received in both arms.
In this narrative the Indian bargains that he shall have his booty
whether the prisoners live or die. This stipulation indicates the
savage's view of the value of a prisoner. If likely to live, and
therefore exchangeable for ransom, then his life might be spared; if
not, then he belonged to his captor and could be used for the keen
delight of torture. This is probably the idea which inspired the
hellish notion of the exclusion of the wounded from Captain Heald's
capitulation. For the unhurt they could get ransom, therefore they
would spare their lives. But the wounded! Why spare them? They are not
merchantable. Nobody will give anything for a dead man. The dying are
available for only one profit--torture.
When the boat was at length permitted to return to the mansion of Mr.
Kinzie, and Mrs. Heald was removed to the house, it became necessary
to dress her wounds. Mr. K. applied to an old chief who stood by,
and who, like most of his tribe, possessed some skill in surgery,
to extract a ball from the arm of the sufferer. "No, father," he
replied, "I cannot do it; it makes me sick here," laying his hand on
his heart. Mr. Kinzie then performed the operation himself with his
penknife.
The discrepancy observable between this account and that of Mrs. Heald
herself, which says that on that night she was cared for by squaws in
the Indian encampment, may be explained away by supposing that it was
on the following day, after the Kinzies had got back to their home on
the north bank, that Mrs. Kinzie caught sight of her friend and sent
Chandonnais to her rescue in one of the boats they always used for
passing and repassing the river, at about where Rush Street bridge now
stands. The fact that no mule could well have been tied where the boat
lay offshore, near the river's mouth, makes this seem the probable
explanation of the incongruity.
At their own mansion the family of Mr. Kinzie were closely guarded by
their Indian friends, whose intention it was to carry them to Detroit
for security. The rest of the prisoners remained at the wigwams of
their captors.
Mrs. Helm, Mr. Kinzie's step-daughter, must have been among those once
more housed at the historic building of squared logs built about 1776,
by Pointe de Saible. This house was still standing when the village had
become, in name at least, a city, which it did in 1837. Mr. Kinzie had
planted along its front four poplar trees, and they appear in the early
pictures of Chicago. Doubtless, if one were to dig in the open space on
the east side of Pine Street, at its junction with Kinzie street, the
old roots would be found to this day (1893), and there are probably a
hundred living Chicagoans who remember having seen the house itself.
The following morning, the work of plunder having been completed, the
Indians set fire to the fort. A very fair, equitable distribution
of the finery appeared to have been made, and shawls, ribbons and
feathers fluttered about in all directions. The ludicrous appearance
of one young fellow, who had arrayed himself in a muslin gown and the
bonnet of one of the ladies, would, under other circumstances, have
afforded matter of amusement.
Black Partridge, Wan-ban-see and Kee-po-tah, with two other Indians,
having established themselves in the porch of the building as
sentinels, to protect the family from any evil the young men might be
excited to commit, all remained tranquil for a short space after the
conflagration. Very soon, however, a party of Indians from the Wabash
made their appearance. These were, decidedly, the most hostile and
implacable of all the tribes of the Pottowatomies. Being more remote,
they had shared less than some of their brethren in the kindness
of Mr. Kinzie and his family, and consequently their sentiments of
regard for them were less powerful.
The Wabash Indians must have been smarting with the terrible defeat
inflicted on them only about one year before, when General Harrison,
whose confidential agent poor Wells had been, fought them at
Tippecanoe, on the banks of the Wabash River.
Runners had been sent to the villages to apprise them of the intended
evacuation of the post, as well as of the plans of the Indians
assembled to attack the troops. Thirsting to participate in such a
scene, they hurried on, and great was their mortification on arriving
at the Aux Plaines [Des Plaines River] to meet with a party of their
friends bearing with them Nee-scot-nee-meg badly wounded, and to
learn that the battle was over, the spoils divided and the scalps
all taken. On arriving at Chicago they blackened their faces and
proceeded toward the dwelling of Mr. Kinzie.
From his station on the piazza, Black Partridge had watched their
approach, and his fears were particularly awakened for the safety
of Mrs. Helm (Mr. Kinzie's step-daughter), who had recently come to
the post and was personally unknown to the more remote Indians.[I]
By his advice she was made to assume the ordinary dress of a French
woman of the country; namely, a short gown and petticoat, with a
blue cotton handkerchief wrapped around her head. In this disguise
she was conducted by Black Partridge himself to the house of
Ouilmette, a Frenchman with a half-breed wife, who formed part of the
establishment of Mr. Kinzie, and whose dwelling was close at hand. It
so happened that the Indians came first to this house in their search
for prisoners. As they approached, the inmates, fearful that the fair
complexion and general appearance of Mrs. Helm might betray her for
an American, raised a large featherbed and placed her under the edge
of it, upon the bedstead, with her face to the wall. Mrs. Bisson,
the sister of Ouilmette's wife, then seated herself with her sewing
on the edge of the bed. It was a hot day in August, and the feverish
excitement of fear and agitation, together with her position, which
was nearly suffocating, became so intolerable that at length Mrs.
Helm entreated to be released and given up to the Indians.
[I] Although this, as well as the earlier part of the account (where
Mrs. Helm speaks in the first person) appears in Wau-Bun in continuous
quotation marks, it is manifest that the whole later portion is a
separate recital. Several interesting anecdotes are given in detail,
but for them the reader must look to the delightful original volume
which, though not in the market, can be found in the Chicago Historical
Society's collection, and also in many private libraries, especially
among those Chicagoans who were not burned out in the great fire of
1871. It is to be hoped that some of Mrs. Kinzie's descendants will
cause a new edition to be published for the benefit of later comers,
who will look to it for amusement (and also instruction) concerning
times and scenes so unlike those now around them as to seem to have
happened on another planet, instead of on the very soil they tread.
(Munsell's Hist. Chic.)
The words used imply that the step-daughter had not habitually formed
part of the family of John Kinzie at Chicago.
"I can but die," said she; "let them put an end to my misery at once."
Mrs. Bisson replied: "Your death would be the destruction of us
all, for Black Partridge has resolved that if one drop of the blood
of your family is spilled, he will take the lives of all concerned
in it, even his nearest friends; and if once the work of murder
commences there will be no end of it so long as there remains one
white person or half-breed in the country."
This expostulation nerved Mrs. Helm with fresh resolution. The
Indians entered, and she could occasionally see them from her
hiding-place, gliding about, stealthily inspecting every part of the
room, though without making any ostensible search, until, apparently
satisfied that there was no one concealed, they left the house.
All this time Mrs. Bisson had kept her scat upon the side of the bed,
calmly basting and arranging the patchwork of the quilt on which she
was engaged, and preserving the appearance of the utmost tranquility,
although she knew not but that the next moment she might receive a
tomahawk in her brain. Her self command unquestionably saved the
lives of all present.
From Ouilmette's house the party of Indians proceeded to the dwelling
of Mr. Kinzie. They entered the parlor, in which the family were
assembled with their faithful protectors, and seated themselves upon
the floor in silence.
Black Partridge perceived, from their moody and revengeful looks,
what was passing in their minds, but he dared not remonstrate with
them. He only observed, in a low tone, to Wau-ban-see:
"We have endeavored to save our friends, but it is vain; nothing will
save them now."
At this moment a friendly whoop was heard from a party of new-comers
on the opposite bank of the river. Black Partridge hastened to meet
their leader, as the canoe in which they had hastily embarked touched
the bank near the house.
"Who are you?" demanded he.
"A man; who are _you?_"
"A man like yourself; but tell me _who_ you are"--meaning, "tell me
your disposition, and which side you are for."
"I am the Sau-ga-nash."
"Then make all speed to the house; your friend is in danger and you
alone can save him."
Billy Caldwell, the "Sau-ga-nash," or Englishman, was son of Colonel
Caldwell, a British officer stationed at Detroit, his mother being
a beautiful Pottowatomie girl. He was educated by his father, though
serving his mother's race as a chief of the Pottowatomies. (There were
always many "chiefs.") He fought under Tecumseh against the whites
under Wayne--"Mad Anthony," as he was often called, "Old Tempest," as
Caldwell himself calls him[J]--also at the Battle of the Thames, in
1813, when Harrison fought and defeated the combined forces of British
and Indians, and the famous chief, Tecumseh, was killed. He took part
in the treaty of Greenville, in 1796, and that of Chicago, in 1833;
a long space of historic time, covering a racial struggle of many
thrilling incidents, not a thousandth part of which can ever see the
light. They are buried in blood, smoke, flame and darkness. At this
time, it will be observed, Caldwell was an ally of the English.
[J] See Appendix H.
Billy Caldwell, for it was he, entered the parlor with a calm step,
and without a trace of agitation in his manner. He deliberately took
off his accoutrements and planed them, with his rifle, behind the
door, and then saluted the hostile savages.
"How now, my friends? A good day to you! I was told there were
enemies here, but I am glad to find only friends. Why have you
blackened your faces? Is it that you are mourning for those friends
you have lost in battle?" (purposely misunderstanding this token of
evil designs) "or is it 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."
Thus taken by surprise, the savages were ashamed to acknowledge their
bloody purpose. They therefore said modestly that they came to beg of
their friends some white cotton in which to wrap their dead before
interring them. This was given to them, with some other presents, and
they took their departure peaceably from the premises.
The remainder of both the Wau-Bun and Heald narratives is devoted to
the flight from Chicago and the later fate of the fugitives. Before
closing this part of my story, I will give the following bit coming
from another source.
Near the (present) north end of State Street bridge stood a log house
known to history and tradition as "Cobweb Castle;" a name probably
given to it after the rebuilding of the fort in 1816, and after it
had become superannuated and superseded. Mrs. Callis, daughter of Mr.
Jouett, who came here with him about 1817, says of it: "The house in
which my father lived, was built before the massacre of 1812; I know
this from the fact that 'White Elk,' an Indian chief, the tallest
Indian I ever saw, was frequently pointed out to me as the savage
who had dashed out the brains of the children of Sukey Corbin (a
camp-follower and washerwoman) against the side of this very house.
Mrs. Jouett told her daughter of a frantic mother (perhaps the same
Mrs. Corbin), a former acquaintance of hers, who, on that occasion
fought the monster all the while the butchery was going on, and who, in
her turn, fell a victim herself."
This would indicate that some of the citizens (beside the Kinzies,
Healds and Helms) got back to the settlement after the collision at the
sand-hills, and that they found at their old homes no sanctuary, no
rest, no mercy, no hope.
It is to be observed that, as the Jouetts were not on the spot at the
time of the massacre, this part of the story has not the degree of
authenticity attaching to the reports of the Healds and Helms. The
treaty of 1817 gives, among the Pottowatomie signers, the Indian name
of "the White Elk" as "Wa-bin-she-way."
* * * * *
Everything connected with the massacre itself, so far as existing
testimony has come to light, has now been told. There is a possibility
that one other document may be hidden away; an account written
by Lieutenant Helm. But this, if ever found, will necessarily be
identical, in all important particulars with the story told by his
widow and printed in Wan Bun.[K]
[K] Lieutenant (then Captain) Helm is said to have died at or near
Bath, Steuben Co., N. Y., about 1817. His widow married, at St. James
church, Chicago, in 1836, Dr. Lucius Abbott, of Detroit. Therefore any
papers left by the Helms should be sought for in the last named city.
Edward G. Mason tells me that there is, or was, among the papers of the
Detroit Historical Society, a letter from Lieutenant Helm to Augustus
B. Woodward, Esq., at Washington City, in which the writer says that he
has nearly completed the history of the Chicago massacre, and that he
(Woodward) may expect it in two weeks. The letter was dated Flemington,
New Jersey, June 6, 1814. Mr. Mason thinks the letter intimates that
the publication of the history may subject the writer to court-martial.
Possibly this note may bring to light the lost history in question; a
thing much to be desired.
The day which dawned so bright has dragged through its bloody hours
and come to its dark and hideous close. The dead, men, women and
children, are at peace. The wounded are suffering the torments of the
pit, the rest are shuddering in the uncertainties that lie before them.
The Indians are riotously happy; for have they not done harm? Have
they not killed, scalped, destroyed, wasted, life and property? Have
they not annihilated the source whence they had been getting arms,
ammunition and blankets, and driven off the men who tried to keep
whisky from them? Have they not made a solitude and called it war? The
goods are scattered. The fort is burned. The cattle are dead or dying.
The soldiers are defeated, slain or held as prisoners, for ransom
if unhurt, for torture if disabled. The babes are brained and their
mothers dead or desolate. What more "happy hunting ground" is possible
to them this side of hades itself?
In "Wau-Bun," one seems to hear them telling of their individual good
deeds and attributing all evil deeds to each other. For the Indian's
hand was against every man, even all other Indians. Their bloodiest
wars have been between themselves; wars of absolute extermination for
the beaten party Every tribe held its lands by conquest and by force.
Even if we had taken them by the sword, without compensation (which we
never did), they would only have lost their holdings by the selfsame
means by which they had gained them.
Well is it for the kindlier folk that the cruel did not stick together.
If they had done so, we should be a hundred years in time and a
thousand miles in space further back in our territorial progress. But
they could not combine. "You might as well try to boil flints into a
pudding."
* * * * *
It still remains to me to trace, so far as it is not shrouded in
oblivion, the fate of the survivors. But as this leads some distance
into the future, I have thought best to treat the matter separately;
prefacing the story of what followed the tragedy by a short sketch of
what preceded and led up to it. Why did those brave and hapless beings
come here? How came they here? What brought their few and scattered
footprints to the ground since then trodden by millions?
The following pages will try to answer these questions, beginning with
the very earliest permanent settlement of what is now Chicago.
[Illustration]
PART SECOND.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL
HOW CHICAGO BEGAN AND WHO WERE ITS BEGINNERS.
PART SECOND.
CHAPTER I.
THE DARK BEFORE THE DAWN.
[Illustration: EARLY JESUIT.]
RESOLUTELY, though unwillingly, I pass over the romantic history of
the first century of Chicago's annals, the French period beginning
about 1678, embracing the thrilling story of La Salle, Marquette and
their brave fellow Catholics. Let us take up the tale when, in 1778,
during the Revolutionary war; just as the great George Rogers Clark
was capturing Indiana, Illinois and in fact the whole Northwest, from
the English; one Colonel Arent Schuyler de Peyster (a New York officer
of the British army, in command of Fort Mackinac) wrote some doggerel
verses which bring Chicago into modern history and literature.[L] In
one of his poems he speaks of "Eschikagou" and of Jean Baptiste Pointe
de Saible who lived there, and in a footnote he describes the place
as "a river and fort at the head of Lake Michigan," and the man as "a
handsome negro, well educated, but much in the French interest."
[L] See appendix A. After the peace. Colonel de Peyster retired to
Scotland and lived in or near Dumfries; and it is in his honor that
Burns wrote his verses "To Colonel de Peyster," beginning
"My honored Colonel, much I feel Thy interest in the poet's weal."
The fort spoken of by Colonel de Peyster, if it had any existence, must
have been a mere stockaded trading-post, for neither by English nor by
French forces had it been built, and as to American forces, there were
none west of the Alleghanies except Clark with his few score of heroic
frontiers-men. Fort Dearborn came twenty-six years later, as we shall
see.
The word "Chicago" in some of its many forms of spelling[M] had been
in recognized existence for a century, being found in the scanty and
precious records left by Marquette, La Salle and their contemporaries,
though they first call the stream the "Portage River."
[M] Hurlbut's "Antiquities" discusses the name with great and
amusing particularity Here are some of the variations he gives in
its spelling and its meaning. Chicagowunzh, the wild onion or leek;
(Schoolcraft). Checaqua; a line of chiefs of the Tamaroa Indians,
signifying strong. Chigaakwa, "the woods are thin." Checagou, Chicagou,
Marquette and La Salle. Shikakok, "at the skunk." Chi-ka-go, wild
onion. Chikagou, an Indian chief who went to Paris (before 1752) where
the Duchess of Orleans, at Versailles, gave him a splendid snuff
box. Chicagou, M. DeLigny in a letter to M. DeSiette. Checaqua, "the
Thunder God." Chacaqua, "Divine River." Chicagua or Skunk river (in
Iowa). Chicago, skunk, onion or smelling thing; (Gordon S. Hubbard).
Chicagoua, equivalent of the Chippewa Jikag; "bête puante." Zhegahg,
a skunk. Eschikagou; (Col. De Peyster). Portage de Chegakou. Chikajo.
Chi-kaug-ong; (Schoolcraft). Chicazo, corruption of Chickasaw.
Much discussion has arisen about the word and its meaning, but the
preponderance of testimony seems to point to the conclusion that the
river took its name from the wild onion, leek or garlick that grew
in profusion along its banks in all this region, and is still to be
found in many neglected spots of original soil. Bold Tonti, La Salle's
faithful lieutenant, speaks of having been nourished during his long
tramp from the Illinois River to Green Bay by a weed much like the
leek of France, which they dug up with their fingers and ate as they
walked--surely the chi-ca-gou.
The first official mention of the word "Chicago" was in the "Treaty
of Greenville;" a compact made in 1795 between the Indians and "Mad
Anthony" Wayne, who had lately whipped them into a treaty-making frame
of mind. This treaty placed the boundary line between the whites and
the Indians east of the entire state of Indiana, but excepted and
retained for trading posts several isolated sections west of the line,
among them "one piece of land six miles square at the mouth of Chicago
River, emptying into the southwestern end of Lake Michigan, where a
fort formerly stood."
"Me-che-kan-nah-quah" or "Little Turtle," who took a prominent part in
the making of the treaty, was the father-in-law of William Wells, the
hero-martyr of the massacre, as has been set forth in Part I.
[Illustration: LITTLE TURTLE--ME-CHE-KAN-NAH-QUAH.]
Baptiste Pointe de Saible, some time in the last century, built a log
house on the north bank of the Chicago River, near Lake Michigan,
just where Pine street now ends. This modest dwelling existed through
vicissitudes many and terrible. When built, it stood in a vast
solitude. North of it were thick woods which covered the whole of what
is now Chicago's proud "North Side." In front of it lay the narrow,
deep and sluggish creek which forms the main river; and, with its two
long, straggling branches, gives the city its inestimable harbor,[N]
with twenty-seven miles of dock frontage. Beyond it, stretching
indefinitely southward, lay the grassy flat now the "South Side," the
business centre and wealthiest residence portion. Westward, beyond
the north and south branches of the river, stretched the illimitable
prairie, including what at the present time is the "West Side," the
home of manufacturing enterprise and of a population larger than that
of the two other portions put together. And to the eastward lay the
lake; the only thing in nature which Jean Baptiste could recognize if
he should now return to the scene of his long, lonely, half savage,
half civilized sojourn.
[N] The city has, besides, another harbor along the Calumet lake and
river, some ten miles to the southward, which, when fully improved,
will exceed the first named in extent and value.
[Illustration: From "Cyclopædia of United States History."--Copyright
1881, by Harper & Brothers.
GENERAL ANTHONY WAYNE.]
Suppose him to have built his log dwelling in 1778, the very year
when Colonel de Peyster luckily makes a note of his existence; all
about him must have been a waste place so far as human occupation is
concerned. Bands of roaming Indians from time to time appeared and
disappeared. French trappers and voyageurs doubtless made his house
their halting-place. Fur-traders' canoes, manned by French "voyageurs,"
"engages" and "coureurs des bois," paddling the great lakes and
unconsciously laying the foundation of the Astor fortunes, called,
from time to time, to buy the stores of peltry which he had collected,
and leave him the whisky of which he was so fond, but the rest of his
time was spent in patriarchal isolation and the society of his Indian
wives and their half-breed offspring. So far as we know, scarcely a
civilized habitation stood nearer than Green Bay on the north, the
Vermilion branch of the Wabash on the south and the Mississippi on the
west; a tract of nearly fifty thousand square miles.
Pointe de Saible's occupation ended about with the century, when
he sold the cabin to one Le Mai. Before this time, however, other
settlements had been begun nearer than those above mentioned; and
even in the very neighborhood there were a few neighbors. One Guarie
had settled on the west side of the North Branch; and Gurdon Hubbard
(who came here in 1818) says that that stream was still called "River
Guarie" and that he himself saw the remains of corn-hills on what must
have been Guarie's farm. (The South Branch was called "Portage River"
because it led to the Mud Lake connection with the Des Plaines and so
onward to the Mississippi). Pointe de Saible, Le Mai and Guarie have
died and left no sign, but there was another pioneer of pioneers in the
beginning of the present century who was more lucky. He was Antoine
Ouillemette, a Frenchman who took to wife a Pottowatomie squaw and thus
obtained a grant of land on part of which the pretty suburb of Wilmette
now stands. He did not die till 1829, six years before the final
departure of the Pottowatomies for the further West.
[Illustration: WILLIAM WHISTLER.]
The far-seeing plans which inspired our forefathers in making the
treaty of Greenville took shape in 1804, when General Henry Dearborn,
Secretary of War under President Jefferson, ordered the building of a
fort[O] and a company of soldiers arrived to build it, having marched
overland from Detroit under Lieutenant (afterward Colonel) James S.
Swearingen. Their Captain, John Whistler, had led an eventful life.
Hurlbut in his delightful "Chicago Antiquities" says he was "an officer
in the army of the Revolution," and adds: "We regret that we have so
few facts concerning his history; nor have we a portrait or signature
of the patriot." In fact he did serve during the Revolutionary war,
but it was on the British side in the army of General Burgoyne, being
taken prisoner with the rest, and paroled; joining the American army
later in life.[P] With Captain John Whistler came his son, Lieutenant
William Whistler, the latter accompanied by his young wife (of her and
her daughter we shall hear more hereafter), all of whom came around the
lakes on the schooner Tracy. The passengers left the Tracy on arriving
at St. Joseph's, Michigan, and came across the lake by a row-boat.
When the schooner arrived she anchored outside and her freight was
discharged by bateaux, as the river (which made a sharp turn southward
just below where Rush Street Bridge now stands and debouched over
a shallow bar at about the present foot of Madison Street) was not
navigable for lake vessels at that time, or for thirty-one years
afterward. Mrs. William Whistler said that some two thousand Indians
visited the locality, during the schooner's stay, to see the "big canoe
with wings."
[O] See Appendix B.
[P] See Appendix C.
[Illustration: MRS. WILLIAM WHISTLER.
From a photograph taken during her visit to Chicago in 1875.]
We further learn from Mrs. Whistler that there were then in the place
but four rude huts or trader's cabins, occupied by white men, Canadian
French with Indian wives. She adds:
"Captain Whistler, upon his arrival, at once set about erecting a
stockade and shelter for his protection, followed by getting out the
sticks for the heavier work. It is worth mentioning here that there was
not at that time, within hundreds of miles, a team of horses or oxen,
and as a consequence, the soldiers had to don the harness and, with the
aid of ropes, drag home the needed timbers."
This would indicate that the soldiers had made their long march from
Detroit (two hundred and eighty miles) without wagons or pack animals
to carry tents and rations; or, what is more probable, that the
transportation had been hired, and the outfit had returned to Detroit.
Next steps upon the scene the true pioneer of the Chicago of to-day;
John Kinzie.[Q] This first of citizens had learned of the proposed
establishment of the military post. Fort Dearborn, and, foreseeing
with his usual boldness and sagacity the advantages to spring from it,
had come over from his residence on the St. Joseph's river, and bought
from Le Mai the old Pointe de Saible log-cabin. Shortly after the
establishment of the fort he brought his family to the place wherein
the name of Kinzie has been always most distinguished. The family
consisted of his wife, Eleanor (Lytle), widow of a British officer
named McKillip, her young daughter Margaret, who afterward became
Mrs. Lieutenant Helm, and an infant son, John Harris Kinzie. They
occupied the old North Side log-house up to 1827--about twenty-five
years--(except from 1812 to 1816, the years of desolation) and it stood
for more than ten years longer; a landmark remembered by scores if not
hundreds of the Chicagoans of this time (1893).
[Q] See Appendix D.
For much of our scanty knowledge concerning the years following the
building of the fort we are indebted to Mrs. Julia (Ferson) Whistler,
wife of William and therefore daughter-in-law of John, the old Burgoyne
British regular.[R]
[R] See Appendix C.
From 1804 to 1811, the characteristic traits of this far away corner
of the earth were its isolation; the garrison within the stockade and
the ever present hovering clouds of savages outside, half seen, half
trusted, half feared; its long summers, (sometimes hot and sometimes
hotter); and its long winters, (sometimes cold and sometimes colder);
its plenitude of the mere necessaries of life, meat and drink, shelter
and fuel, with utter destitution of all luxuries; its leisurely
industry and humble prosperity; Kinzie, the kindly link between the
red man and the white, vying with the regular government agent in the
purchase of pelts and the sale of rude Indian goods. In 1805 Charles
Jouett was the United States Indian Agent here. He was a Virginian,
son of one of the survivors of Braddock's defeat. How much of his
time was spent here and how much elsewhere we do not know. In Mrs.
John H. Kinzie's charming book "Wau-Bun" he is not even mentioned,
which circumstance suggests that his relations with old John Kinzie
were not cordial; a state of things to be expected, considering their
relative positions. He was an educated man and must have enjoyed the
friendship of Jefferson, Madison and Monroe, judging by his appointment
as Government Agent, first at Detroit, later at Chicago (1804), which
latter post he resigned in 1811, only to be reappointed in 1817.
[Illustration: CHARLES JOUETT.]
It is probable that the United States agent was at a disadvantage in
dealing with the Indians, as he would have to obey the law forbidding
the supplying them with spirits; which law the other traders ignored.
In Hurlbut's "Antiquities" a bit of "local color" gives with much
vividness the condition of the prairie in those days.
"In the holidays of 1808-9 Mr. Jouett (then a widower) married Susan
Randolph Allen of Kentucky, and they made their wedding journey on
horseback in January, through the jungles, over the snow drifts, on
the ice and across the prairies, in the face of driving storms and the
frozen breath of the winds of the north. They had, on their journey,
a negro servant named Joe Battles and an Indian guide whose name was
Robinson; possibly the late chief Alexander Robinson. A team and wagon
followed, conveying their baggage, and _they marked their route for the
benefit of any future travelers."_
The government had tried to befriend the Indian in every way. It did
not forbid private traders from dealing with him; but it appointed
agents whose duty it was to sell him goods at prices barely sufficient
to cover cost and expenses. At the same time it forbade, under
penalty, the supplying him with liquor in any quantity, upon any
pretext. Unhappily the last-named kindly effort thwarted the first.
The miserable savage loved the venal white who would furnish him with
the poison. For it he would give not only his furs, but his food and
shelter, his wives and children, his body and his everlasting soul. As
the grand old Baptist missionary Isaac McCoy says, regarding the treaty
of 1821, at which he was present:
"At the treaty Topenebe, the principal chief of the Pottowatomies,
a man nearly eighty years of age [a long and constant friend of the
Kinzies], irritated by the continued refusal on the part of the
commissioners to gratify his importunities for whisky, exclaimed
in the presence of his tribe: 'We care not for the land, the money
or the goods. It is whisky we want. Give us the whisky.' After the
business of the treaty was concluded and before the Indians left the
treaty grounds, seven barrels of whisky were given them, and within
twenty-four hours afterward ten shocking murders were committed amongst
them."
To quote from Munsell's History of Chicago:
Few and meagre are the records of occurrences on the banks of the
Chicago during these quiet years. The stagnation in this remote
corner of creation was in sharp contrast with the doings in the great
world, for these were the momentous Napoleonic years. Austerlitz,
Jena, Eylau, Friedland, Wagram, were fought between 1805 and 1809,
and one wonders whether even the echoes of the sound of those fights
reached little Fort Dearborn. Yet the tremendous doings were not
without their influence; for it was Napoleon's "European System" and
England's struggle against it that precipitated our war of 1812; and
one trivial incident in that war was the ruin of our little outpost.
The incidents of daily life went on in the lonely settlement, as
elsewhere.
There was the occasional birth of a baby in the Kinzie house, the fort
or somewhere about, as there were several women here, soldiers' wives,
etc. Those born in the Kinzie mansion and the officers' families we
know about. But these were not all. There were at least a dozen little
ones who first saw the light in this locality, whose play-ground was
the parade and the river bank, whose merry voices must have added a
human sweetness to this savage place; whose entire identity, even to
their names, is lost. The one thing we know about them is how they
died, and that has been told in Part I.
[Illustration]