FATE OF THE FUGITIVES.
EVERY word bearing upon the adventures of the handful of Chicagoans
left alive on Sunday, August 16th, 1812, has been carefully looked up
and faithfully transcribed. Those words are few enough; the silence and
darkness that enshroud their fate are more pathetically eloquent than
speech could well be.
To begin with the Healds, who, as we have seen, were brought again
together on the morning of August 16th, by the half-breed, Chandonnais.
Darius Heald continues his report of his mother's narrative, as follows:
It is thought that the Indians went off down the lake to have "a
general frolic;" in other words, to torture to death the wounded
prisoners. On the night of the sixteenth, Captain and Mrs. Heald,
accompanied by an Indian named Robinson [probably Chief Robinson,
well known in Chicago for many years], embarked in a canoe and,
unmolested, commenced their journey to Mackinaw. Chandonnais'
friendship was no half-way matter. They traveled all that night and
all next day, until late in the evening, when they saw a young deer
coming down to the water in a little clump of bushes to get a drink.
They drew as near the shore as possible, and the Indian lad stepped
out and waded to the shore, skipped down the bank behind the deer and
shot it. Then they pitched camp, dressed the deer, using the hide
as a kneading-board, whereon Mrs. Heald stirred up some flour (they
having brought a little in a leather bag from the fort) into a stiff
paste, which she wound around sticks and toasted over the fire; and
this Captain Heald afterward declared to be the finest bread he ever
ate.
Here should come in, (according to Mrs. Helm's account in Wau-Bun)
mention of a halt of some days at the mouth of the St. Joseph's river.
It seems to me quite probable that the lapse of time had obliterated
from Darius Heald's memory that part of his mother's narrative; or that
he passed over, in talking to the stenographer, a matter which a timely
question would have brought out. (See the Wau-Bun story, further on.)
They pushed on to Mackinaw, as Captain Heald said he had no chance
of getting clear except by going to a British officer, and it was
here that his parole was taken. It happened that Captain Heald and
the officer in command at Mackinaw were both Free Masons, and Mrs.
Heald says that they went off into a room by themselves, and that
Captain Heald told his story and asked for help. He said that the
Indians would pursue them, would not be more than twenty-four hours
behind, and that a body would overtake them, and asked the British
officer if he could protect them. The British officer said it would
be a very hard matter in the fix they were in. If the Indians came
down they might be overpowered; but that he would do this: He had a
little "sailer" [a sailing-boat], and he would put Captain Heald and
his wife in that and anchor it near the shore, and as soon as there
were signs of Indians would signal them to start. He then took out
his pocket-book and told Captain Heald to help himself "But," said
Captain Heald, "we may never meet again." "That," said the officer,
"makes no difference. You have a wife and I have no one on whom to
spend money. I can do without it. You take it and use it, and if it
is ever convenient to send it back you may do so." Mrs. Heald says
she never knew why the officer should have been so kind to them, but
laid it to the fact of their both being Masons; but said she "could
never get anything out of him" (Captain Heald), although she tried
more than once, and that she "never expected to get to know Masonic
secrets."
However, Captain Heald did not take the money of the noble and
generous enemy, for he had at that moment some two hundred dollars,
probably in gold, which his provident wife had sewn in the cuffs of
his undershirt, a circumstance which would indicate that she, at
least, foresaw possible tribulation before they left the fort.
The Indians came in sight looking one hundred strong, and the British
officer gave the sign for the little boat to move on. They went down
to Detroit, and thence to Buffalo, whence they crossed to Pittsburg
and went down the Ohio River, having procured, through an officer,
some conveyance by which to go down the river, and they then drifted
down, part of the way by boat and part of the way by raft, and in
this way reached Kentucky soil. They reached Mrs. Heald's old home by
night, past midnight, and rapped for admittance. Colonel Samuel Wells
asked, "Who's there?" "A friend," said Captain Heald. "Well, who are
you?" "Well, I am a friend." Mrs. Heald then spoke up and said, "Yes,
two friends." Colonel Wells thought he recognized a woman's voice,
and came to the door and opened it, and found himself face to face
with his daughter, whom he had not seen for nearly two years, whom he
had supposed to be dead, who left him as a bride and returned home
as a wounded prisoner. They had been two months on the way from Fort
Dearborn to Kentucky.
Before her death, in 1856, Mrs. Heald had dictated to Mrs. Kerr,
her niece, a large number of facts connected with her life. The
manuscript was foolscap, and contained, Mr. Heald thinks, some
hundreds of pages. It was in existence up to the time of the Union
War, and he remembers seeing it wrapped up in a newspaper and tied
with twine, at the Heald residence, in St. Charles County, Missouri,
near the town of O'Fallon. During one of the incursions of Union
soldiers the house was ransacked from top to bottom. Captain Heald's
sword was taken away, and, greatest loss of all, that manuscript then
disappeared, Mr. Heald thinks probably destroyed--burned among other
papers supposed to be of no value.
A negro boy, who had been raised by Mr. Heald, received word that
that sword had been left somewhere not far from home, and was then
being used as a corn-knife, and he obtained it and brought it back
to Mr. Heald, who recognized it as what was left of his father's old
sword; but alas! the manuscript has never been heard of--probably
never will be. This is the nearest approach now possible to a
reproduction of the facts it contained.
The Wau-Bun narrative is more circumstantial, if not more trustworthy,
and tends naturally in a different direction. It goes on:
Along with Mr. Kinzie's party was a non-commissioned officer who
had made his escape in a singular manner. As the troops were about
leaving the fort it was found that the baggage horses of the surgeon
had strayed off. The quartermaster-sergeant, Griffith, was sent to
collect them and bring them on, it being absolutely necessary to
recover them, since their packs contained part of the surgeon's
apparatus and the medicines for the march.
This man had been for a long time on the sick report, and for
this reason was given the charge of the baggage instead of being
placed with the troops. His efforts to recover the horses being
unsuccessful, he was hastening to rejoin his party, alarmed at some
appearances of disorder and hostile indications among the Indians,
when he was met and made prisoner by To-pee-nee-be.
Having taken from him his arms and accoutrements, the chief put him
in a canoe and paddled him across the river, bidding him make for the
woods and secrete himself. This he did, and the following day in the
afternoon, seeing from his lurking-place that all appeared quiet, he
ventured to steal cautiously into the garden of Ouilmette, where he
concealed himself for a time behind some currant-bushes.
At length he determined to enter the house, and accordingly climbed
up through a small back window into the room where the family were.
This was just as the Wabash Indians left the house of Ouilmette for
that of Mr. Kinzie. The danger of the sergeant was now imminent.
The family stripped him of his uniform and arrayed him in a suit
of deerskin, with belt, moccasins and pipe, like a French engage.
His dark complexion and large black whiskers favored the disguise.
The family were all ordered to address him in French, and although
utterly ignorant of the language, he continued to pass for a
Weem-tee-gosh,[AD] and as such to accompany Mr. Kinzie and his
family, undetected by his enemies, until they reached a place of
safety.
[AD] Frenchman.
On the third day after the battle, the family of Mr. Kinzie, with
the clerks of the establishment, were put into a boat under the
care of François, a half-breed interpreter, and conveyed to St.
Joseph's, where they remained until the following November, under
the protection of To-pe-nee-bee's band. They were then conducted
to Detroit under the escort of Chandonnais and their trusty Indian
friend, Kee-po-tah, and delivered up as prisoners of war to Colonel
McKee, the British Indian Agent.
Mr. Kinzie was not allowed to leave St. Joseph's with his family, his
Indian friends insisting on his remaining and endeavoring to secure
some remnant of his scattered property. During his excursions with
them for that purpose he wore the costume and paint of the tribe, in
order to escape capture and perhaps death at the hands of those who
were still thirsting for blood. In time, however, his anxiety for his
family induced him to follow them to Detroit, where in the month of
January he was received and paroled by General Proctor.
Captain and Mrs. Heald had been sent across the lake to St. Joseph's,
the day after the battle. The former had received two wounds and the
latter seven in the engagement.
[Illustration: ALEXANDER ROBINSON (in old age).
Chief of the Pottowatomies, Chippewas, and others.]
Lieutenant Helm, who was likewise wounded, was carried by some
friendly Indian to their village on the Au Sable, and thence to
Peoria, where he was liberated by the intervention of Mr. Thomas
Forsyth, the half-brother of Mr. Kinzie. Mrs. Helm had accompanied
her parents to St. Joseph's, where they resided in the family of
Alexander Robinson,[AE] receiving from them all possible kindness and
hospitality for several months.
[AE] This Pottowatomie chief, well known to many of the citizens of
Chicago, was residing at Aux Plaines when Wau-Bun was written.
After their arrival in Detroit Mrs. Helm was joined by her husband,
when they were both arrested, by order of the British commander, and
sent on horseback, in the dead of winter, through Canada, to Fort
George, on the Niagara frontier. When they arrived at that post there
seemed no official appointed to receive them, and notwithstanding
their long and fatiguing journey, in weather the most cold and
inclement, Mrs. Helm, a delicate woman of seventeen years, was
permitted to sit waiting in her saddle, without the gate, for more
than an hour before the refreshment of fire or food, or even the
shelter of a roof, was offered to her. When Colonel Sheaffe, who had
been absent at the time, was informed of this brutal inhospitality,
he expressed the greatest indignation. He waited on Mrs. Helm
immediately, apologized in the most courteous manner, and treated her
and Lieutenant H. with the most considerate kindness, until, by an
exchange of prisoners, they were liberated and found means to reach
their friends in Steuben County, New York.
Captain Heald had been taken prisoner by an Indian from the
Kankakee who had a strong personal regard for him, and who, when
he saw the wounded and enfeebled state of Mrs. H., released her
husband that he might accompany his wife to St. Joseph's. To the
latter place they were accordingly carried, as has been related,
by Chandonnais and his party. In the mean time, the Indian who
had so nobly released his prisoner returned to his village on the
Kankakee, where he had the mortification of finding that his conduct
had excited great dissatisfaction among his band. So great was the
displeasure manifested that he resolved to make a journey to St.
Joseph's and reclaim his prisoner. News of his intention being
brought to To-pee-nee-bee and Kee-po-tah, under whose care the
prisoners were, they held a private council with Chandonnais, Mr.
Kinzie and the principal men of the village, the result of which
was, a determination to send Captain and Mrs. Heald to the island of
Mackinac and deliver them up to the British. They were accordingly
put in a bark canoe and paddled by Robinson and his wife a distance
of three hundred miles along the coast of Michigan, and surrendered
as prisoners of war to the commanding officer at Mackinac.
This, though discordant with the shorter report received from the
Healds, certainly seems to have sound basis of truth. I have no doubt
that the Captain and his wife did halt at St. Joseph's and that John
Kinzie had something to do with their further journey to Mackinac.
Wau-Bun proceeds:
As an instance of the procrastinating spirit of Captain Heald it may
be mentioned that even after he had received certain intelligence
that his Indian captor was on his way from the Kankakee to St.
Joseph's to retake him, he would still have delayed another day at
that place to make preparation for a more comfortable journey to
Mackinac.
Mrs. Helm's acuteness in finding flaws in Captain Heald is quite
interesting. But as this Kankakee information must have come entirely
through Indian channels, and as the savage plan is ever to strike
first and warn afterward, I am prone to suspect that he applied the
"personal equation," and made light of the tale; and that there was in
fact little in it to frighten a brave man and his heroic wife. (_Per
contra_, see the Mackinaw incident.)
The soldiers, with their wives and surviving children, were dispersed
among the different villages of the Pottowatomies, upon the Illinois,
Wabash and Rock River, and at Milwaukee, until the following spring,
when they were, for the most part, carried to Detroit and ransomed.
We should like to believe the hopeful views here given regarding the
fate of the remaining prisoners. In truth, this account is as well
authenticated as is that given in the Niles' Register, as copied from a
Plattsburgh (N. Y.) newspaper, and given later in this work.
Mrs. Burns, with her infant, became the prisoners of a chief who
carried her to his village and treated her with great kindness. His
wife, from jealousy of the favor shown to the white woman and her
child, always treated them with great hostility. On one occasion
she struck the infant with a tomahawk, and narrowly missed her aim
of putting an end to it altogether.[AF] They were not long left in
the power of the old hag, after this demonstration, but on the first
opportunity carried to a place of safety.
[AF] Twenty-two years after this, as I was on a journey to Chicago
in the steamer Uncle Sam, a young woman, hearing my name, introduced
herself to me, and raising her hair from her forehead, showed me the
mark of the tomahawk which had so nearly been fatal to her. (Mrs.
Kinzie, in Wau-Bun.)
The family of Mr. Lee had resided in a house on the lake-shore, not
far from the fort. Mr. Lee was the owner of Lee's Place, which he
cultivated as a farm. It was his son who ran down with a discharged
soldier to give the alarm of "Indians" at the fort on the afternoon
of the 7th of April. The father, the son, and all the other members
had fallen victims on the 15th of August, except Mrs. Lee and her
young infant. These were claimed by Black Partridge and carried to
his village on the Au Sable. He had been particularly attached to a
little girl of Mrs. Lee's, about twelve years of age. This child had
been placed on horseback for the march, and as she was unaccustomed
to the exercise, she was tied fast to the saddle, lest by any
accident she should slip off or be thrown.
She was within reach of the balls at the commencement of the
engagement, and was severely wounded. The horse set off on a full
gallop, which partly threw her, but she was held fast by the bands
which confined her, and hung dangling as the animal ran violently
about. In this state she was met by Black Partridge, who caught the
horse and disengaged her from the saddle. Finding her so much wounded
that she could not recover, and that she was suffering great agony,
he put the finishing stroke to her at once with his tomahawk. He
afterwards said that this was the hardest thing he ever tried to do,
but he did it because he could not bear to see her suffer.
He took the mother and her infant to his village, where he became
warmly attached to the former--so much so that he wished to marry
her; but, as she very naturally objected, he treated her with the
greatest respect and consideration. He was in no hurry to release
her, for he was in hopes of prevailing on her to become his wife. In
the course of the winter her child fell ill. Finding that none of the
remedies within their reach were effectual, Black Partridge proposed
to take the little one to Chicago, where there was now a French
trader living in the mansion of Mr. Kinzie, and procure some medical
aid from him. Wrapping up his charge with the greatest care he set
out on his journey.
When he arrived at the residence of M. du Pin, he entered the room
where he was, and carefully placed his burden on the floor.
"What have you there?" asked M. du Pin.
"A young raccoon which I brought you as a present," was the reply,
and opening the pack he showed the little sick infant.
When the trader had prescribed for its complaint, and Black Partridge
was about to return to his home, he told his friend his proposal to
Mrs. Lee to become his wife, and the manner in which it had been
received.
M. du Pin entertained some fears that the chiefs resolution might
not hold out, to leave it to the lady herself whether to receive his
addresses or not, so he entered at once into a negotiation for her
ransom, and so effectually wrought upon the good feelings of Black
Partridge that he consented to bring his fair prisoner at once to
Chicago, that she might be restored to her friends.
Whether the kind trader had at the outset any other feeling than
sympathy and brotherly kindness, we cannot say--we only know that in
process of time, Mrs. Lee became Madame du Pin, and that they lived
together in great happiness for many years after.
So disappears, from earliest Chicago annals, the name of Lee. The
father had been a householder, living somewhere about where the
new Public Library is now building, and his farm was (after Père
Marquette's "cabinage") the very first settlement on the West Side of
the South Branch or "Portage River." His son escaped from the murderers
at "Hardscrabble" in spring, only to perish, with his father, during
the massacre, or perhaps in the "general frolic" that followed. Then
the widow becomes Mrs. du Pin and we hear no more of the Lees. There is
a grim completeness about the domestic drama. On Friday it has father,
mother, son, daughter and baby, on Saturday, father and son are killed
in battle (or by torture) and daughter mangled by a horse's feet and
finished by a tomahawk; a few months later the puny baby is brought
in to be "doctored" and then the widow marries again and lives on "in
great happiness."
The fate of Nau-non-gee, one of the chiefs of the Calumet village,
and who is mentioned in the early part of the narrative, deserves to
be recorded.
During the battle of the 15th of August, the chief object of his
attack was one Sergeant Hays, a man from whom he had received many
acts of kindness.
After Hays had received a ball through the body, this Indian ran
up to tomahawk him, when the Sergeant, collecting his remaining
strength, pierced him through the body with his bayonet. They fell
together. Other Indians running up soon dispatched Hays, and it was
not until then that his bayonet was extracted from the body of his
adversary.
The wounded chief was carried after the battle to his village on
the Calumet, where he survived for several days. Finding his end
approaching; he called together his young men, and enjoined them in
the most solemn manner to regard the safety of their prisoners after
his death, and to take the lives of none of them, from respect to
his memory, as he deserved his fate from the hands of those whose
kindness he had so ill-requited.
[Illustration: From: "Cyclopædia of United States History."--Copyright,
1881, by Harper & Brothers.
TECUMSEH.]