



Produced by Tom Cosmas from materials made available at
The Internet Archive (https://archive.org/).











Transcriber Note


Text emphasis denoted by _Italics_.



[Illustration:

_Henry Dearborn was born in New Hampshire in 1751. He was an officer in
the American army, took part in the battle of Bunker Hill, was present
at the capture of Burgoyne's army, and remained in the service until the
end of the war. In 1801 he was appointed Secretary of War under President
Jefferson, and held that office for eight years._

_In 1812 Dearborn was appointed Major-General and did excellent service
on the Niagara frontier during the Second War with Great Britain. John
Wentworth said of him that "history records no other man who was at the
battle of Bunker Hill, the surrender of Burgoyne and Cornwallis, and then
took an active part in the War of 1812."_]




                                THE STORY
                                   OF
                            OLD FORT DEARBORN


                                   BY

                            J. SEYMOUR CURREY


                        WITH ELEVEN ILLUSTRATIONS


                             [Illustration]


                                 CHICAGO
                           A. C. McCLURG & CO.
                                  1912


                                Copyright
                           A. C. McCLURG & CO.
                                  1912
                                 ------
                         Published August, 1912

                   W. F. HAL PRINTING COMPANY, CHICAGO


                       This Volume is Dedicated to
                           NELLY KINZIE GORDON




_PREFACE_


THERE were two Fort Dearborns, the first one having been built in 1803.
This was occupied by a garrison of United States troops until 1812, when
it was destroyed by the Indians immediately after the bloody massacre of
that year. The second Fort Dearborn was built on the site of the former
one in 1816, and continued in use as a military post, though at several
intervals during periods of peaceful relations with the surrounding
tribes the garrisons were withdrawn for a time. In 1836 the fort was
finally evacuated by the military forces. The events narrated in the
succeeding pages of this volume concern the first or Old Fort Dearborn.

The name "Chicago," as descriptive of the river and its neighborhood, was
in use for more than a century before the first Fort Dearborn was built;
it appears on Franquelin's map printed in 1684 as "Chekagou," and is
mentioned in various forms of spelling in the written and printed records
of that and succeeding periods. It has been said that Chicago is the
oldest Indian town in the West of which the original name is retained;
thus its name enjoys a much greater antiquity than that of Fort Dearborn,
familiar as the latter name is in our local annals.

In the course of its history Chicago has existed under three flags;
first, under the domination of the French kings, from the period of
its discovery to the year 1763, when, after the French and Indian War,
it passed into the possession of the English. As British territory it
remained until the close of the Revolutionary War, when the Western
Territories were ceded by the English to the Americans at the treaty of
peace concluded in 1783; and thus the region in which Chicago is situated
finally came under the Stars and Stripes.




                                CONTENTS


                                 Preface

                                                        PAGE
    I Wilderness Days                                      3

   II Fortifying the Frontier                             17

  III The Tragedy                                         95




                          LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


                                                        PAGE

  General Henry Dearborn                      _Frontispiece_

  Chicago from 1803 to 1812                                3

  The Wild Onion Plant                                    12

  Bird's-Eye View of Old Fort Dearborn                    27

  Residence of John Kinzie                                32

  Mr. and Mrs. John H. Kinzie                             47

  Rebekah Wells Heald                                     58

  Captain William Wells                                   58

  Hardscrabble                                            74

  Facsimile of Letter of General Hull to Captain Heald   103

  Memorial Monument to the Massacre                      136

  Franquelin's Map of 1684                               165

  Map of Chicago in 1812                                 165


[Illustration: CHICAGO FROM 1803 TO 1812

_This broad view, while not accurate, gives a good general idea of
the appearance of the site of Chicago, with old Fort Dearborn and the
surrounding region, in the years from 1803 to 1812. Some of the details
are out of proportion, for instance the long sand-bar extending to the
south opposite the mouth of the river is much exaggerated, and the view
of the Kinzie house is not correct._

_Reproduced from a lithograph in the possession of The Chicago Historical
Society._]




                              THE STORY OF
                            OLD FORT DEARBORN

                             --------------

                                    I

                             WILDERNESS DAYS


AT the time that Fort Dearborn was built the site of Chicago had been
known to the civilized world for a hundred and thirty years. The Chicago
River and the surrounding region had been discovered by two explorers,
Joliet and Marquette, who with a party of five men in two canoes were
returning from a voyage on the Mississippi, which they were the first
white men to navigate.

Joliet was the leader of the party, and he was accompanied, as was the
custom in French expeditions into unknown countries, by a missionary, who
in this case was James Marquette, a Jesuit priest. Both were young men,
Joliet twenty-eight years of age and Marquette thirty-six. The expedition
had been authorized by the French Government, the purpose being to
penetrate the western wilderness in an endeavor to reach the "Great