When, in 1796, the post of Detroit was evacuated by the British, according to the provisions of the treaty of 1783, many residents of English, Irish, and Scottish lineage, preferring "not to be Yankees," as Mr. Laughton said, crossed the river and settled along its Canada shore. Mr. Laughton was a member of the Kent militia in 1812; and from Sandwich he saw the white flag that proclaimed the surrender of Detroit. He was then a young man twenty-two years of age. He was afterward in the affair known as the battle of the Long Woods, in Canada; also at the battle of Chippewa, where he lost a brother killed; and at that of Niagara, where he lost his own liberty, and was sent a prisoner to Greenbush, opposite Albany. He related many interesting circumstances connected with the surrender. He spoke of the Canadian Volunteers in the uniforms of regulars, by which Hull was deceived; and said that among the Indians who followed Brock into the fort at Detroit were several Canadians, painted and dressed like the savages, who each held up a white arm to show Hull that they had defied the menace in his proclamation respecting the treatment of such offenders.

Sandwich was an exceedingly pleasant village. Around it were orchards of pear and apple trees of great size, which attested the fact that it is one of the oldest settlements in Canada. Here the disbanded French soldiers settled after the peace of Paris in 1763. The houses had pleasant gardens attached to them; and as the town was the capital of Essex County, it contained a jail and court-house, and the residence of the county officers.

It was nearly three o’clock when the steeples of Amherstburg announced its presence. I soon crossed a beautiful open plain, whereon cattle were grazing, bounded on the left by streets of neat log cottages, whitewashed and embowered, each a story in height, with two acres of land attached. The plain was a military reserve of one hundred and thirty acres, and the cottages were the dwellings of pensioners – superannuated British soldiers – who were well cared for by their government. On the right of the road, in the upper part of Amherstburg, within a high picket inclosure, was Fort Malden; its chief building (barracks) were then devoted to more humane purposes than war. It was used for the insane in Canada West, as a branch of a parent asylum for such unfortunates situated at Toronto. No part of the old fort remained. The new one was constructed during the excitement incident to the "Patriot War," or "Rebellion," as men of different bias respectively call an outbreak in the Canadas in 1838. It was constructed in 1839.

VIEW OF MALDEN, WHERE THE BRITISH SHIPS WERE BUILT.

After dinner I visited the venerable Robert Reynolds, living in a fine brick mansion, surrounded by charming grounds, on the bank of the river, just below Amherstburg. From his grounds there is a view of Elliott’s Point, where Colonel Elliott, already mentioned frequently, resided. Just below it, three or four miles from Amherstburg, is Hartley’s Point, where General Harrison landed when he invaded Canada in 1813. Mr. Reynolds was in the eightieth year of his age when I visited him. His sister, but little his junior, lived with him. They were born in Detroit. He was deputy assistant commissary general in the British army in the War of 1812, and was at the taking of Detroit. He was also at Dolsen’s on the day of the battle of the Thames. From that time until the peace he was stationed at Burlington Heights, at the west end of Lake Ontario. His sister told me that she distinctly heard the firing between the fleets of Perry and Barclay in the memorable battle of Lake Erie, in September, 1813; and that she also saw from her residence the vessels conveying Harrison’s army from the Raisin to the Canada shore. Mr. Reynolds knew Proctor and Tecumtha well, and seemed to have a very unfavorable opinion of the former as a commander. He spoke of his conduct at the Thames as "shameful," and justified the strictures of Tecumtha.

It was sunset when I left Amherstburg for Detroit. In the western sky, as I looked over the fields where Van Horne and Miller had wrestled with the mongrel foe, when the country was almost a wilderness, were seen gorgeous cloud-bars of crimson and gold. These faded into dull lead; and just as daylight yielded the sceptre to starlight, I crossed the sluggish Ta-ron-tee. It was a summer-like evening, and before I reached the slope of the highway leading up to Sandwich, the lights of Detroit gave pleasant indications that the end of the journey was near. It was nine o’clock when I entered Windsor, and on inquiring of a man, standing on the piazza of a large wooden building, for the proper turn to the Ferry, I was told that the boat had ceased running for the night. For a moment I was perplexed. I did not wish to remain all night in Windsor when Detroit was so near. "Where can I leave my horse and wagon in safety," I inquired. "At this house," the man replied. "What is the name of it?" I asked. "Windsor Castle," he answered. The name and the building were in ludicrous contrast. But my business was not to criticise; so I left the horse in care of the groom of the stables of Windsor Castle, crossed the dark and swift-flowing waters to Detroit in a light skiff hired for the occasion, and wondered all the way at my confidence in a stranger whose face I could not see in the darkness. But horse and wagon were found the next morning well cared for at "Windsor Castle."

BRITISH CANNON AT DETROIT.

I spent Wednesday, the 7th of October, in visiting places of interest in Detroit under the kind guidance of Mr. Moore, of that city. We first went to the wharves in rear of the warehouses of Messrs. Mooney and Foote, and Sheldon, to see three iron cannon that were captured from the British in the naval battle on Lake Erie, where Perry was victorious. They were then put to the more commendable use of posts for fastening vessels to the wharves. One of them was a long twenty-four-pounder, and the other two were thirty-two-pound carronades. After visiting the rooms of the Michigan Historical Society, where I found nothing of interest connected with the subject of my researches, we rode out on the noble Jefferson Avenue to Bloody Run, stopping on the way for a brief interview with the late Honorable B. F. H. Witherell, from whose local sketches quotations have been made in preceding chapters. Judge Witherell kindly placed in my hands much valuable historical material, the fruit of his own researches.

KINZIE MANSION AND FORT DEARBORN.

On the north bank of that stream, directly opposite the fort, Mr. Kinzie enlarged into a spacious but very modest mansion the house built by Jean Baptiste and his immediate successor, Le Mai. Within an inclosed green in front he planted some Lombardy poplars, and in the rear was a fine garden and growing orchard. There he lived with his young family for eight years, isolated from society excepting that of the military, but enjoying great peace, with every necessary and many of the luxuries of life, and possessing the confidence and esteem of the surrounding Indians.

All of the inhabitants of Chicago not belonging to the garrison now took refuge in the Agency House, which stood upon the esplanade, about twenty rods west from the fort, on the site of the present light-house, and there intrenched themselves. This was an old-fashioned log house, with a passage running through the centre, and piazzas extending the whole length of the building, front and rear. These were planked up. Port-holes were cut in the barricade, and sentinels were posted there every night. For some time hostile Indians hovered around the post and committed depredations; but at last they disappeared, and for several weeks the dwellers at Chicago experienced no alarm.

Win-ne-meg, who knew the purport of the order, begged Mr. Kinzie to advise Captain Heald not to evacuate the fort, or the movement would be difficult and dangerous. The Indians had already received information from Tecumtha of the disasters to the American arms, and the withdrawal of Hull’s army from Canada, and were becoming daily more restless and insolent. Heald had an ample supply of ammunition and provisions for six months; why not hold out until relief could be sent from the southward? Win-ne-meg farther urged that, if Captain Heald should resolve to evacuate, it should be done immediately, before the Indians should be informed of the order, or could prepare for formidable resistance. "Leave the fort and stores as they are," he said, "and let them make distributions for themselves; and while the Indians are engaged in that business, the white people may make their way in safety to Fort Wayne."

Heald invited the officers to join him in the council, but they refused. They had received intimations that treachery was designed – that the Indians intended to murder them in the council-circle, and then destroy the inmates of the fort. The officers remained within the pickets, and, opening the port of one of the block-houses so as to expose the cannon pointed directly upon the group in council, they secured the safety of Captain Heald. The Indians were intimidated by the menacing monster, and accepted Heald’s offers with many protestations of friendship. He agreed to distribute among them not only the goods in the public store – blankets, broadcloths, calicoes, paints, etc. – but also the arms, ammunition, and provisions not necessary for the use of the garrison on its march. It was stipulated that the distribution should take place the next day, soon after which the garrison and white inhabitants would leave the works. The Pottawatomies agreed, on their part, to furnish a proper escort for them through the wilderness to Fort Wayne, on condition of being liberally rewarded on their arrival there.

When the result of the council was made known, Mr. Kinzie warmly remonstrated with Captain Heald. He knew the Indians well, and their weakness in the presence of great temptations to do wrong. He begged the commander not to confide in their promises at a moment so inauspicious for faithfulness to treaties. He especially entreated him not to place in their hands arms and ammunition, for it would fearfully increase their power to carry on those murderous raids which for months had spread terror throughout the frontier settlements. Heald perceived his folly, and resolved to violate the treaty so far as arms and ammunition were concerned.

THE BLACK PARTRIDGE’S MEDAL.

When the morning of the 15th arrived, there were positive indications that the Indians intended to massacre all the white people. They were overwhelming in numbers, and held the fate of the devoted band in their grasp. When, at nine o’clock, the appointed hour, the gate was thrown open, and the march commenced, it was like a funeral procession. The band struck up the Dead March in Saul. Captain Wells, with his face blackened with wet gunpowder in token of his impending fate, took the lead with his friendly Miamis, followed by Captain Heald, and his heroic wife by his side. Mr. Kinzie accompanied them, hoping, by his personal influence, to soften, if he could not avert, the impending blow. His family were left in a boat, in charge of a friendly Indian, to be conveyed around the head of the lake to Kinzie’s trading station, on the site of the present village of Niles, in Michigan.

The cowardly Miamis fled at the first onset. Their chief rode up to the Pottawatomies, charged them with perfidy, and, brandishing his glittering tomahawk, declared that he would be the first to lead Americans to punish them. He then wheeled and dashed after his fugitive companions, who were scurrying over the prairie as if the Evil Spirit was at their heels.

SITE OF CHICAGO AND OF EVENTS THERE IN 1812.

The wife of Captain Heald, who was expert with the rifle and an excellent equestrian, deported herself bravely. She received severe wounds. Faint and bleeding, she managed to keep the saddle. A savage raised his tomahawk to kill her, when she looked him full in the face, and, with a sweet, melancholy smile, said, in the Indian tongue, "Surely you will not kill a squaw!" The appeal was effectual. The arm of the savage fell, and the life of the heroic woman was saved. Mrs. Helm, the stepdaughter of Mr. Kinzie, had a severe personal encounter with a stalwart young Indian, who attempted to tomahawk her. She sprang on one side, and received the blow intended for her head upon her shoulder, and at the same instant she seized the savage around the neck, and endeavored to get hold of his scalping-knife, which hung in a sheath upon his breast. While thus struggling, she was dragged from her antagonist by another Indian, who bore her, spite of her desperate resistance, to the margin of the lake, and plunged her in, at the same time, to her astonishment, holding her so that she would not drown. She soon perceived that she was held by a friendly hand. It was that of the Black Partridge who had saved her. When the firing ceased and the capitulation was concluded, he conducted her to the prairie, where she met her father, and heard that her husband was safe. Bleeding and suffering, she was conducted to the Indian camp by the Black Partridge and Per-so-tum, the latter carrying in his hand a scalp which she knew to be that of Captain Wells by the black ribbon that bound the queue.

The wife of a soldier named Corbord, believing that all prisoners were reserved for torture, fought desperately, and suffered herself to be literally cut in pieces rather than surrender. The wife of Sergeant Holt, who was badly wounded in his neck at the beginning of the engagement, received from him his sword, and behaved as bravely as an Amazon. She was a large and powerful woman, and rode a fine, high-spirited horse, which the Indians coveted. Several of them attacked her with the butts of their guns, for the purpose of dismounting her, but she used her sword so skillfully that she foiled them. She suddenly wheeled her horse and dashed over the prairie, followed by a large number, who shouted, "The brave woman! the brave woman! don’t hurt her!" They finally overtook her, and, while two or three were engaging her in front, a powerful savage seized her by her neck, and dragged her backward to the ground. The horse and woman became prizes. The latter was afterward ransomed.

On the morning after the massacre the fort was burned by the Indians, and Chicago remained a desolation for about four years. In 1816 the Pottawatomies ceded to the United States all the land on which Chicago now stands, when the fort was rebuilt on a somewhat more extended scale, and the bones of the massacred were collected and buried.

BLOCK-HOUSE AT CHICAGO.

When the work of destruction, and the final disposition of the prisoners at Chicago were completed, The Black-bird and his savage horde pressed toward Fort Wayne. The fall of Mackinack and Detroit, and the destruction of the military post at Chicago, so completely broke the power of the United States in the Northwest for the moment, that the Indians, believing that there would be perfect safety in openly joining the British, did so. Tecumtha’s hopes of establishing a confederacy of the Indians to drive the white people from the country north of the Ohio revived. The prospect of success seemed brighter than ever, and, with the energy of a patriot and enthusiast, he sent emissaries among all the tribes to invite them to take the warpath, with the sole intent of complete expulsion or utter extermination. The Winnebagoes, Pottawatomies, Kickapoos, Ottawas, Shawnoese, and less powerful tribes, gladly listened; and all over the region south of Lake Erie, far toward the Ohio, the young men were speedily engaged in the war-dance.

For several days the Indians, in large numbers, had been seen hovering in the woods around Fort Wayne, and on the night of the 5th of September they commenced a series of attacks by firing upon the sentinels, without effect. Up to that time, the Miamis in the neighborhood, who had resolved to join the British, had made great professions of friendship, hoping, no doubt, to gain possession of the fort by a surprise. This hypocrisy availed them nothing, so they cast off all disguise and opened hostilities. On the morning of the 6th they were invisible, and some of the soldiers ventured out of the fort. They had not proceeded seventy yards when bullets from a concealed foe killed two of their number. Their companions hastened back, carrying the bodies of their comrades with them.

FORT WAYNE IN 1812.

THE LITTLE TURTLE’S GRAVE.

BRIDGE AT THE HEAD OF THE MAUMEE, AT FORT WAYNE.

The chief efforts of the commander were directed to the extinguishment of the fire. General confusion reigned, and efforts for the safety of the fort were, for a while, put forth feebly. The entire garrison were either sick or faint with fatigue, and for a time the utter destruction of the whole fortification seemed inevitable. The blockhouse was consumed, and the fort was thus opened to the savage foe. This exposure and their horrid yells dismayed the little garrison, and for a moment they regarded all as lost, and gave up in despair. Two of the stoutest and most trusted of the soldiers leaped the palisades, and attempted to escape, leaving their companions to their fate. Nothing saved the fort and garrison but the presence of mind, courage, prudence, and energy of the commander. The fire was about to communicate to the barracks, when he shouted, "Pull off the roofs nearest the block-house, pour on water, and all will be well!" His voice gave new courage to his troops. Water was brought in buckets, and several of the men, led by Dr. Clark, climbed to the roof, cut off the boards, and by great exertions, in the face of bullets and arrows, they subdued the flames, and saved the menaced buildings. Only eighteen or twenty feet of the fort was opened by the fire, and up to this time only one man had been killed and two wounded. Before daylight the breach was covered by a breastwork as high as a man’s head, in spite of the incessant firing of the foe, and only one man was killed (none wounded) in the fort. At six o’clock in the morning, when the garrison returned the fire more briskly, after a conflict of almost eight hours, the savages retired beyond the reach of the guns of the fort, and then proceeded to destroy or drive off the live-stock – horses, hogs, and cattle – found in the neighborhood. Fortunately for the garrison, the standing corn around the fort was left unharmed. Their food having been destroyed with the block-house that contained it, and their cattle being driven away, they were compelled to subsist for several days on that delicious and nourishing green corn.

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ENDNOTES.

1 This is the largest of the lakes that lie wholly within the United States. It is 330 miles long, and has an average width of 60 miles. It contains 16,981 square miles, or 10,868,000 acres. Its average depth is about 900 feet, and its elevation above tide water is about 300 feet.

2 The residence of the late General Cass was on this street. It was a spacious but very modest wooden building, on the corner of Fort and Cass Streets, a little westward of the site of the old fort. His former residence – a small, low, one-storied building, with four dormer windows – was yet standing, on the west side of Larned Street, near the corner of Second Street.

3 This name is frequently written Daizell. James Dalyell had been appointed a lieutenant in the Sixtieth Regiment of Royal Americans in 1756, and obtained the command of a company in the second battalion of the First Regiment of Foot. He was a brave and efficient officer, and had performed important services during the French and Indian war.

4 Mr. Lyon was a Pension and Bounty Land Agent in Detroit. He informed me that he had in his possession complete copies of all army rolls of the War of 1812 for Michigan, Ohio, New York, and other states, besides other record evidence of service. He had also in his possession muster-rolls of the Black Hawk, Patriot, and Mexican wars. He was probably better prepared, by the amount of positive information in his possession, and the devotion of undivided attention to the subject, to serve claimants for pensions and bounties than any other man west of Lake Erie.

5 Positive statements made to me by Mr. Eberts and Judge Moran, when combined, form a curious subject for speculation. Mr. Eberts assured me that General Brock sent a hollow silver bullet (repeating Sir Henry Clinton’s famous act in 1777) from Fort George to Major Muir at Fort Malden, containing a message, and that the major sent it by Richard Eberts (whom I saw at Chatham), brother of my informant, to Colonel Askin, a British officer residing at Strahan in Canada. Askin’s son-in-law, Colonel Brush, was then one of General Hull’s aids-de-camp, and it was believed, after the surrender, that the bullet contained a communication from Brock to Brush. Judge Moran told me that on one occasion his uncle was sent by Colonel Brush to Askin, his father-in-law, with a package, and that he was made a prisoner, and detained in Canada for some time. The bullet and the package seem to have some connection in the matter.

6 Chicagou was the Indian name of the Illinois River, at the mouth of which the city stands. In the language of the Pottawatomies, who inhabited that region, the name signifies a skunk or pole-cat – some say the wild onion, both of which emit unpleasant odors, and were abundant there. It is said that the Pottawatomies wore garters of the dried skunk’s skin. – Sketch of the Early History of Chicago, by John Gilmartin Shea.

7 Fort Dearborn was erected under the superintendence of Major John Whistler, who was also the overseer of the construction of Fort Wayne, at the forks of the Maumee. Major Whistler was an Englishman. He was taken prisoner with Burgoyne at Saratoga in 1777, and remained in the United States. He settled in Maryland, and in 1790-91 joined the troops under General St. Clair, and was with him at his defeat on the Miami in November, 1791, where he was acting as adjutant and was wounded. He was commissioned an ensign of the First Infantry in the spring of 1792, and in the autumn was made a lieutenant in the first sub-legion. He passed through other grades of service until, on the 10th of July, 1812, be was breveted a major. He was disbanded in 1815, and three years afterward became military storekeeper at St. Louis. He died at Belle Fontaine, Missouri, in 1827.

In building Fort Dearborn, Major Whistler had no oxen, and the timber was all dragged to the spot by the soldiers. He worked so economically that the fort, Colonel Johnston, of Dayton (who furnished him with some materials from Fort Wayne), told me, did not cost the government over fifty dollars. For a while the garrison could get no corn, and Whistler and his men subsisted on acorns.

8 Heald, who was a native of Massachusetts, joined the army as ensign in the spring of 1799. He became a first lieutenant in November of the same year. In January, 1807, he was commissioned a captain, and held that office until the 26th of August, 1812, when, on account of his good conduct at Chicago, he was promoted to major. He was disbanded in 1815.

9 Helm, of Kentucky, entered the army as ensign in December, 1807, and became second lieutenant the following year. He was promoted to first lieutenant in January, 1813, and to captain in April, 1814. He resigned in September following.

10 Rebecca Heald was a daughter of General Samuel Wells, of Kentucky (one of the heroes of Tippecanoe), and niece of Captain William Wells, who will appear prominently in our narrative. She was with her uncle at Fort Wayne two or three years before the war, where Captain Heald became acquainted with her. Their acquaintance ripened into mutual attachment. He taught her the use of the rifle, in which she became very expert. They were married in 1810 or 1811, and she accompanied her husband to Fort Dearborn.

11 Mrs. Helm was a daughter of Colonel M‘Killup, a British officer attached to one of the companies who were stationed at Fort Miami, on the Maumee, at the time of Wayne’s appearance there in 1794. While reconnoitring one night, he was mistaken for an enemy, and mortally wounded. His widow married Mr. Kinzie, with whom, and this daughter, she removed to Chicago in 1803. Here the daughter, at the age of eighteen years, married Lieutenant Helm, of Kentucky, in 1811. She died suddenly at Waterville, in Michigan, in 1844. – Pioneer Women of the West, by Mrs. E. F. Ellet.

13 Pirogue, or piragua , originally meant a canoe formed out of the trunk of a tree, or two canoes united. A vessel used in this country as a narrow ferry-boat, carrying two masts and a lee-board, is called piragua.

14 The main facts of this narrative of affairs at Chicago, in 1812, are derived from a most interesting account from the pen of Mrs. John H. Kinzie, of Chicago, published in pamphlet form in 1844, and repeated substantially in a charming history of personal adventures on the northwestern frontier, by the same accomplished lady, in a volume published in 1856, entitled, Wau-bun, the "Early Day" in the Northwest. Mrs. Kinzie is a daughter-in-law of Mr. John Kinzie, the trader just mentioned, and much of the narrative of the events which we are considering she received from Mrs. Helm, an actor in the events. Of this infant of Mrs. Burns she gives a few words of interesting narrative. The mother and child were made prisoners at Chicago by a chief, and carried to his village. His attentions to them aroused the jealousy of his spouse, and one day she spitefully struck the infant with a tomahawk with the intention of killing it. The blow took off some of the scalp. "Thirty-two years after this," says Mrs. Kinzie, "as I was on a journey to Chicago in the steamer Uncle Sam, a young woman, hearing my name, introduced herself to me, and, raising the hair from her forehead, showed me the mark of the tomahawk which had so nearly been fatal to her." – Wau-bun, page 244.

16 The celebrated chief Black Hawk, who was among the Indians at the time of the massacre at Chicago, declared that, had the treaty been fully carried out, the white people would not have been attacked. And such has been the general impression of students. But the conduct of Black Partridge before the powder and liquor were destroyed disproves this. No doubt the massacre had been determined on as soon as the order for the evacuation was made known to the Indians.

17 When in Toledo, Ohio, in the autumn of 1860, I spent an hour pleasantly and profitably with General John E. Hunt, a brother-in-law of General Cass, whose early life was spent among the stirring scenes of the frontier. He was in the fort at Detroit when it was surrendered. He knew Captain William Wells, and from his lips the substance of the following brief notice was communicated: When a child, Wells was living with his relative, Hon. Nathaniel Pope, of Kentucky, where he was stolen by a band of Miami Indians and taken to the Maumee country. He was adopted by Little Turtle, the eminent Miami chief. He was rescued by his relatives, but had become so attached to his Indian friends and their mode of life that he returned to them. He was compelled to go upon the war-path when Harrison invaded that region, and was with the Indians who defeated St. Clair. No doubt he swayed the mind of Little Turtle when Wayne appeared in that region, for that chief was favorable to peace with the great Blacksnake, as they called him. Wells saw clearly the weakness of the Indians and one day, while in the woods, he suddenly informed his foster-father that he should leave him, to join the army of Wayne. "I now leave your nation for my own people," said Wells. "We have long been friends. We are friends yet, until the sun reaches there," pointing to a place in the heavens. "From that time we are enemies. Then, if you wish to kill me, you may; if I want to kill you, I may." At the hour named, Wells crossed the Maumee, and, asking the direction toward Wayne’s army, disappeared in the forest. In Wayne’s army he commanded a company of the spies. When peace was restored, after the treaty of Greenville, in 1795, he and the Little Turtle became good friends. He married the Little Turtle’s sister, a Miami girl, and became a chief of that nation. One of his daughters was the wife of Judge Wolcott, of Maumee City, Ohio. Wells was Indian Agent at Fort Wayne when the War of 1812 broke out. He had lived there since 1804.

18 The place of conflict at the Sand Hills was on the site of a lot (vacant when I visited it in 1860) in the rear of the house of the late Widow Clark, between Indiana and Michigan Avenues, just south of North Street, and about fifty rods from the lake.

19 Captain Heald’s dispatch to Adjutant General Cushing, October 23, 1812.

20 Mrs. Helm speaks of the terror of Dr. Van Voorhees at that time. He was badly wounded. His horse had been shot under him. "Do you think," he said to Mrs. Helm, "they will take our lives?" and then talked of offering a large ransom for existence. She advised him not to think of life, but of inevitable death. "Oh" he exclaimed, "I can not die. I am not fit to die. If I had only a short time to prepare for it – death is awful!" She pointed to the falling Ronan, and said, "Look at that man! at least he dies like a soldier." "Yes," gasped the terrified surgeon, "but he has no terror of the future – he is an unbeliever!" At that moment Mrs. Helm had a deadly struggle with a young Indian, and a moment afterward she saw the dead body of the surgeon. He had been slain by a tomahawk.

21 Statement of Colonel John Johnston, of Dayton, to the author.

22 A writer, signing his communication "An Officer," under date of "Buffalo, March 8, 1813," speaks of the arrival there of Mrs. Helm, and her narrative of sufferings at and after the massacre at Chicago. "She knows the fact," he says, "that Colonel Proctor, the British commander at Malden, bought the scalps of our murdered garrison at Chicago, and, thanks to her noble spirit, she boldly charged him with the infamy in his own house." This independence was probably the cause of the cruel treatment which she and her husband received at the hands of Proctor. She and her husband, after several weeks of captivity among the Indians, were united at Detroit, where Proctor caused them both to be arrested, and sent on horseback, in the dead of a Canadian winter, across the wilderness to Fort George, on the Niagara frontier. The writer farther says concerning the statements of Mrs. Heald, "She knows, from the tribe with whom she was a prisoner, and who were the perpetrators of those murders, that they intended to remain true, but that they received orders from the British to cut off our garrison whom they were to escort." – Niles’s Weekly Register, April 3, 1813.

23 John Kinzie, who bore so conspicuous a part in the events we are considering, was born in Quebec, in 1763, and was the only offspring of his mother’s second marriage. His father died while he was an infant, and his mother married a third time, and with her husband (Mr. Forsythe) removed to the city of New York. At the age of ten years young Kinzie was placed in a school in Williamsburg, near Long Island. One day he made his way to the North River, got on board of an Albany sloop, and started for Quebec. Fortunately for him, he found a passenger who was on his way to that city, who took charge of him. At Quebec the boy apprenticed himself to a silversmith. Three years afterward, his family, having returned to Canada for the purpose of moving to Detroit, discovered him. They had supposed him lost forever. When he grew up he loved the wilds. He became a trader, and lived most of the time on the frontier and among the Indians. He established trading-houses. He married the widow of a British officer in 1800, and settled at Chicago in 1804. There he became a captain in 1812, and in January, 1813, joined his family at Detroit. There he was badly treated by General Proctor, who cast him into prison at Malden. He was finally sent to Quebec, to be forwarded to England, for what purpose was never known. The vessel in which he sailed was compelled to put back, when he was released and returned to Detroit, where he found General Harris in possession. He and his family returned to Chicago in 1816, when the fort was rebuilt. Mr. Kinzie died there on the 6th of January, 1828, at the age of sixty-five years. This was two years before the town of Chicago was laid out into lots by commissioners appointed by the state.

24 The leader of the friendly party was Billy Caldwell, a half-breed and a chief. The Black Partridge told him of the evident intentions of the Wabash Indians. They had blackened their faces, and were then seated sullenly in Mr. Kinzie’s parlor, preparatory to a general massacre of all the remaining white people. Billy went in, took off his accoutrements, and said, in a careless way, "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 your friends lost in battle? Or is it that you are fasting? If so, ask our friend here (Mr. Kinzie), and he will give you to eat. He is the Indian’s friend, and never yet refused them what they had need of." The hostile savages were surprised and overwhelmed with shame. – Mrs. Kinzie’s Wau-bun, page 238.

25 John Cooper, M. D., of Poughkeepsie, New York, was the immediate predecessor of Doctor Van Voorhees at Fort Dearborn. They were natives of the same town (Fishkill, Dutchess County, New York) and class-mates. Van Voorhees was a young man of great powers. Dr. Cooper left the fort in 1811, tendered his resignation, and left the army. He died at Poughkeepsie in 1863, where he had been for many years the oldest medical practitioner in the place.

26 Captain Heald was quite severely wounded and made a prisoner by an Indian from the Kankakee, who had a strong personal regard for him, but who, on seeing the feeble state of Mrs. Heald, released him and allowed him to accompany her to the mouth of the St. Joseph’s, in Michigan. On returning to his village, the Indian found himself an object of great dissatisfaction because he had released his prisoner; so he resolved to go to St. Joseph and reclaim him. Friendly Indians gave Heald warning, and he and his wife went to far-off Mackinack in an open boat, and surrendered themselves to the British commander there as prisoners of war. This kept them out of the hands of the savages. – Wau-bun, page 243.

27 The Michigan Central; the Michigan Southern and Northern Indiana; the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne, and Chicago; the Chicago branch of the Illinois Central; the St.. Louis, Alton, and Chicago; the Chicago and Rock Island; the Illinois Grand Trunk; the Chicago, Fulton, and Iowa; the Galena, Chicago, and Union; the Chicago and Northwestern; and the Chicago and Milwaukee, with numerous tributaries.

28 For a full description of Chicago in 1831, the reader is referred to the seventeenth chapter of Mrs. Kenzie’s Wau-bun.

29 I am indebted to the accurate knowledge and kind courtesy of Mrs. Kinzie for the following information respecting the localities of acts in the events we have just recorded, as indicated by places to-day:

The "Kinzie mansion" was on the north side of the Chicago River, at the intersection of Pine and North Water Streets, as they now are in "Kinzie’s addition," and about eighty feet east of the Lake House.

The house of Ouilmette was between what are now Rush and Cass Streets, on North Water Street. Burns’s was near the foot of Wolcott Street, on the bank of the river. The east end of the Chicago and Galena Freight Dépôt covers the spot.

The place where the fight commenced was between the Widow Clarke’s and the lake. The trees are still standing which stood there at that day.

"Lee’s Place" was about a fourth of a mile above where Halstead Street crosses the South Branch.

Captain Wells was killed near the foot of Twelfth Street, on the Lake Shore path.

The "Oak Woods" were, in 1862, "Camp Douglas," just beyond the southern limits of the city, on the Lake Shore. "Chicago University" and the grave of the late Stephen A. Douglas, who owned the property, occupy a portion of the tract.

The place of the parley was about at the intersection of the Archer Road and Clarke Street.

32 James Rhea was a native of New Jersey, and was lieutenant and adjutant of "Rhea’s levies" in 1791. He was ensign and second lieutenant of infantry in 1799, and was promoted to first lieutenant in 1800. He was commissioned a captain in July, 1807, and resigned at Fort Wayne at the close of 1812. – Gardner’s Dictionary of the Army, page 377.

33 Jeremiah Payne and Frederick Kaupfman.

34 These were Henry Collings and his wife; the wife of Jeremiah Payne and eight of her children; Mrs. Richard Collings and seven of her children; Mrs. John Morris and her only child, and Mrs. Morris, the mother of her husband.

35 Mrs. Jane Biggs and her three children, and the aged William Collings and Captain John Morris, with two of the children (John and Lydia) of Mrs. Collings who was murdered. They all escaped to the house of Zebulon Collings. – Dillon’s History of Indiana, page 492.

36 Mr. Zebulon Collings, to whose house the fugitives from The Pigeon Roost escaped, has left on record the following vivid account of the sense of peril felt by the settlers during those dark days between the summer of 1812 and 1815:

"The manner in which I used to work was as follows: on all occasions I carried my rifle, tomahawk, and butcher-knife, with a loaded pistol in my belt. When I went to plow, I laid my gun on the plowed ground, and stuck up a stick by it for a mark, so that I could get it quick in case it was wanted. I had two good dogs. I took one into the house, leaving the other out. The one outside was expected to give the alarm, which would cause the one inside to bark, by which I would be awakened, having my arms always loaded. I kept my horses in a stable close to the house, having a porthole so that I could shoot to the stable-door. During two years I never went from home with a certainty of returning, not knowing the minute I might receive a ball from an unknown hand; but, in the midst of all these dangers, that God who never sleeps nor slumbers has kept me." – Dillon’s History of Indiana, page 493.

37 General Harrison, then at Piqua in command of Kentucky troops, sent Major William Oliver, a gallant officer, with four Shawnoese, to Fort Wayne to assure the garrison of speedy re-enforcement. They pushed through the wilderness for about sixty miles. Oliver was in Indian costume. When they approached the fort they came upon the out-guards of the savages. With great skill they evaded them, made their way through the lines of the besiegers, and, with fleet foot, gained the fort. Oliver and his companions remained there until the close of the siege. – Early History of the Maumee Valley, by H. L. Hosmer, page 32.

38 Thomson’s Sketches of the War, page 56: M‘Afee, page 127.

40 Mr. Drake, in his Book of the Indians, quotes the following notice of the Little Turtle’s death from one of the public prints of the day: "Fort Wayne, 21 July, 1812. – On the 14th instant the celebrated Miami chief, the Little Turtle, died at this place, at the age of sixty-five years. Perhaps there is not left on this continent one of his color so distinguished in council and in war. His disorder was the gout. He died in a camp, because he chose to be in the open air. He met his death with great firmness. The Agent for Indian Affairs had him buried with the honors of war, and other marks of distinction suited to his character." A writer, quoted by Mr. Drake, says that he saw the Little Turtle, soon after St. Clair’s defeat, at Montreal, and described him as about six feet in height, sour and morose, and apparently crafty and subtle. He wore Indian moccasins, a blue petticoat that came half way down his thighs, and a European waistcoat and surtout. On his head was a cap that hung half way down his back, bespangled with about two hundred silver brooches. In each ear were two rings, the upper parts of each bearing three silver medals about the size of a dollar, and the lower parts quarters of a dollar. They fell more than twelve inches from his ears. One from each ear fell over his breast, the others over his back. He also had three large nose jewels of silver, cunningly painted. Little Turtle was of mixed blood – half Mohican and half Miami. Colonel Johnston, who knew him well, called him "the gentleman of his race."

41 The French governor of Louisiana mentioned this stockade in a letter in 1751. It was situated near the St. Mary’s, probably in the vicinity of the canal aqueduct. The dim outlines of this fort were traced by Wayne in 1794, and by Colonel Johnston in 1800. – Lecture by J. L. Williams before the congregation of the First Presbyterian Church of Fort Wayne, March 7th, 1860.

42 Oral statement of Colonel John Johnston, of Dayton, Ohio, to the writer, who knew the murderess, she being a resident of the Miami village when he went to Fort Wayne in the year 1800. Colonel Johnston gave me the names of the United States commanders of the fort in regular succession, as follows: Colonels J. F. Hamtramck, and Thomas Hunt; Majors John Whistler, Thomas Pasteaur, and Zebulon M. Pike; Captains Nathan Heald, James Rhea, and Hugh Moore; and Colonel Joseph H. Vose. The fort was abandoned in 1818. Captain Vose was a citizen of Manchester, and had been commissioned a captain in the Twenty-first Infantry in April, 1812. Colonel Johnston, in a letter written in 1859, said that Captain Vose was the only army officer within his knowledge, in 1812, who publicly professed Christianity. He was in the constant habit of assembling his men on the Sabbath and reading the Scriptures to them, and conversing with them on religious subjects. – Williams’s Lecture, p. 12. Captain Vose was promoted to major during the War of 1812. In 1842 he received the commission of colonel. He died at the New Orleans barracks, just below the city, on the 15th of July, 1845.

43 Dillon’s History of Indiana, p. 403.

44 Captain Taylor’s Dispatch to Governor Harrison, dated "Fort Harrison, September 10, 1812."

45 Zachary Taylor was born in Orange County, Virginia, on the 24th of September, 1784. His father removed with his family to Kentucky the following year, and settled near the site of the present city of Louisville, then known as The Falls of the Ohio. Zachary entered the army when about twenty-five years of age as first lieutenant of infantry. Two years afterward (May, 1810) he was promoted to captain, and at about the same time he was married to Margaret Smith, a young lady of good family in Maryland. When war was declared he was in command of Fort Harrison, and for his services there in defending it, in September, 1812, he was breveted a major. He was an active and useful officer in the West during the remainder of the war. When the army was reduced at the close of the contest, he was deprived of his commission of major, and recommissioned a captain, in consequence of which he resigned. He was soon afterward called back to the service by President Madison, and commissioned a major in the Third Infantry, and placed in command of a post at Green Bay. In 1819 he was promoted to lieutenant colonel, and in that position he remained until 1832, when President Jackson commissioned him a colonel. He served with distinction in the "Black Hawk War" that year, and remained in command of Fort Crawford, at Prairie du Chien, until 1836, when he was sent to Florida to operate against the Seminole Indians. His services there were of great importance, and at the close of 1837 he was breveted brigadier general. He remained in charge of all the troops in Florida until 1840, when he was appointed to the command of the southwestern division of the army. Fort Gibson was made his head-quarters in 1841, and the same year he purchased an estate near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and placed his family there.

GENERAL TAYLOR’S RESIDENCE AT BATON ROUGE.

When, in 1845, war with Mexico was imminent, he was ordered to take post in Texas with an army of observation, as it was called. It soon became an army of invasion. In the war that ensued he gained, in quick succession, several brilliant battles; and when the conflict was ended, and he returned home, he was greeted with the wildest enthusiasm. Congress honored him with the commission, by brevet, of major general, its thanks, and also with a ponderous gold medal, "in the name of the republic, as a tribute due to his gallant conduct, valor, and generosity to the vanquished." The "Whig" party nominated him for the presidency of the grateful republic, and he was elected to that high office in November, 1848. He entered upon the exalted duties of his office on the 4th of March, 1849, and died at the presidential mansion, in Washington City, on the 9th of July, 1850, at the age of sixty-five years.

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