Part 8

The next day the Indians set fire to the fort and the entire place was consumed. A party of Indians from the Wabash arrived at this time, having heard of the intended evacuation of the fort, and eager to share in the plunder. They were disappointed and enraged on finding that their arrival was too late, that the spoils had been divided, and the scalps all taken. These Indians had no particular regard for the Kinzies, and it at once became evident that their presence boded destruction to the devoted inmates of the house. They blackened their faces and proceeded to the Kinzie house as the most promising spot to carry out their plundering and bloodthirsty designs.

Black Partridge was especially anxious in behalf of Mrs. Helm, whose safety he wished to assure. By his directions she disguised herself and took refuge in the house of Ouilmette. Ouilmette, being a Frenchman, and living with an Indian wife, was never molested by the Indians at any time, being regarded as one of themselves.

The Indians approached this house first and entered without ceremony. Mrs. Bisson, sister of Ouilmette's wife, hastily concealed Mrs. Helm by covering her with a feather bed. She then took her seat in front of the bed and occupied herself with her sewing. The Indians looked into every part of the room, but did not raise the feather mattress under which Mrs. Helm was lying, half smothered. Mrs. Bisson was in terror for her own safety, but bravely maintained an air of indifference during this trying ordeal, and presently the Indians left the house.

They then went over to the Kinzie dwelling, entered the principal room, and seated themselves on the floor in ominous silence. Black Partridge then spoke in a low voice to Waubansee, who was with him as one of the guards, and said: "We have endeavored to save our friends, but it is in vain--nothing will save them now."

At that moment a friendly whoop, loud and clear, was heard from the bank of the river opposite to the house, and Black Partridge instantly arose and ran toward the landing, calling out, "Who are you?" "I am the Sauganash," came the reply. Black Partridge replied, "Then make all speed to the house; your friend is in danger, and you alone can save him."

Sauganash, also known as Billy Caldwell, was a half-breed and was a chief of the Potawatami tribe, and a man of great influence among the Indians. He was not present at the evacuation and massacre of the day before, but had come in time to save the lives of many of the prisoners. With him had come the chief Shabbona, who also used his influence in moderating the brutality of the younger members of the tribes.

The Sauganash hastened across the river, while the threatening savages waited in wonder for his appearance. He calmly entered the room, stood his rifle behind the door, and gazed about him at the silent savages squatting on the floor. He boldly asked them why they had blackened their faces. "Is it that you are mourning for the friends you have lost in battle?"--thus purposely misunderstanding their evil designs, which he easily penetrated. "Or is it," he continued, "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."

The savages were taken by surprise at this speech, and none among them had the courage to say what the purpose was in their minds. One of them answered that they had come to ask for some white cotton cloth in which they might wrap the bodies of their dead friends before placing them in their graves. As soon as this was said they were provided with a quantity of cloth, and to the relief of everyone they took their departure peaceably.

Quartermaster Sergeant William Griffith escaped the general massacre by a series of remarkable strokes of good fortune. While the troops were leaving the fort it was discovered that the horses carrying the surgeon's apparatus and medicines had strayed off. Griffith went to search for them and bring them up, but being unsuccessful, he hastened to join the column on foot. Before he had proceeded very far he was met and made a prisoner by the chief Topenebe, who was friendly to the whites. The chief took him to the river and put him in a canoe, paddled it across the river and told him to hide himself in the thick woods on the north side.

The next day he cautiously appeared in the vicinity of Ouilmette's house, and the place seeming to be quiet, he entered the cabin at the rear. This was just after the Wabash Indians had left the house for that of Mr. Kinzie.

The family were greatly alarmed at his appearance, and he was at once stripped of his army uniform; he was arrayed in a suit of deerskin, with belt, moccasins, and pipe, like a French engagé. His dark complexion and black whiskers favored the disguise, and all were instructed to address him in French, although he was ignorant of the language. In this character he joined the Kinzie family and with them eventually reached a place of safety.

After the surrender Captain Heald was kept unmolested, quite fortunately being given into the custody of an Indian from the Kankakee, who, it seems, had known him previously, and who had formed an attachment for him. The Indian at once made plans for his escape, and soon Captain Heald was placed in a canoe and taken to St. Joseph. Here he was joined by Mrs. Heald, and they both pursued their journey up the east coast of Lake Michigan to Mackinac, where Captain Heald delivered himself up as a prisoner of war to the British commandant, by whom he was well treated and released on parole. Later in the season he found means to reach Louisville, where Mrs. Heald's father, Colonel Samuel Wells, resided. It had been supposed that both Heald and his wife had perished in the massacre, and their appearance was as if they had awakened from the dead.

In due course of time Heald was exchanged, and again entered the service with the rank of Major. He never got rid of the effects of his wound, and in 1817 he resigned his commission in the army and removed with his family to a small town in Missouri, where he died a few years later.

Lieutenant Helm, who was among the wounded at the time of the surrender, had the good fortune to fall into the hands of some friendly Indians, and was taken to Peoria. He was liberated through the intervention of Thomas Forsyth, the half-brother of Mr. Kinzie, who was the Indian agent at that place. Forsyth had great influence with the Potawatamis. "He had been raised with this nation," says Reynolds, "spoke their language well, and was well acquainted with their character." He advanced the amount demanded by the Indians for Helm's ransom, and had him sent to St. Louis in safety. In this important and dangerous service Forsyth risked his life every moment he was engaged in it, for the Indians at that time were in a highly inflamed condition.

Eventually Lieutenant Helm rejoined his wife at Detroit.

The final scene in the story of old Fort Dearborn was the departure of the Kinzie family and their retinue of servants on the third day after the battle and massacre. The fort and the agency house had been destroyed by fire on the second day, and there were now remaining only the Kinzie house, the Ouilmette cabin near it, the house lately occupied by John Burns and his wife and child on the north bank of the main river, and that lately occupied by Charles Lee and his family near the mouth of the river.

On the eighteenth the family of Mr. Kinzie, together with the servants and clerks in his trading establishment, were placed on board of a boat of sufficient capacity to accommodate them all, and they thus took their departure from the scene of so many calamities. There were left in the vicinity only Ouilmette and his family, who were the sole inhabitants of Chicago until the arrival, some time later, of a French trader named Du Pin, who took possession of the unoccupied Kinzie house and lived in it. The length of his stay is not recorded.

The Indians now began to realize the folly of breaking up a station which to them was an abundant source of supplies, where they could come and obtain ammunition, provisions and clothing in exchange for their furs. They would henceforth be obliged to depend upon the small resources of the St. Joseph trading post or travel to Detroit.

All this had been foreseen by the older and wiser men among them, but the hot-blooded young men of the tribes were intent on plunder and the ghastly trophies represented by the scalps of their victims, and they could not be restrained. There was now little inducement to visit the post at Chicago; consequently the great numbers that formerly assembled in the neighborhood scattered to remote places and eked out a precarious existence by fishing and hunting.

The Indians also found that the friendship of the British was a poor dependence as compared with that of the Americans, who were the only governmental authority with whom they could make treaties, and through whom they could obtain recognition and satisfaction for their claims of territorial ownership.

The following episode has been relegated to this late portion of the narrative, as belonging more to the echoes of the battle on the lake shore than to the battle itself.

Mrs. Lee was one of the women taken by the Indians when her husband and son had been killed at the massacre, as already narrated. She had with her a daughter twelve years old and an infant. These were claimed by our old friend Black Partridge under the following circumstances: The daughter had been placed on horseback for the march and tied fast for fear she would slip off the saddle. When the action was at its height she was severely wounded by a musket ball; and the horse, becoming frightened, set off at a gallop. The girl was partly thrown off, but was held fast by the bands, and hung dangling until she was met by Black Partridge, who caught the horse and disengaged her from the saddle. The chief had known the family and was greatly attached to this little girl, whom he recognized at once.

On finding that she was so seriously wounded that she could not recover, and that, besides, she was suffering great agony, he put the finishing stroke to her at once with his tomahawk. He said afterwards that this was one of the hardest things he ever attempted to do, but that he did it because he could not bear to see her suffer.

Black Partridge then took the mother and her infant to his village on the Au Sable, where he became warmly attached to the former; "so much so," relates the author of _Wau-Bun_, "that he wished to marry her; but as she very naturally objected, he treated her with the greatest respect and consideration." He was not disposed to liberate her from captivity, however, hoping that in time he could prevail upon her to become his wife.

During the following winter the child became ill, and was not restored by ordinary cures. Black Partridge then offered to take the child to Chicago, where the French trader named Du Pin, who had arrived after the massacre, was then living in the Kinzie house, and obtain medical aid from him. Accordingly the child was warmly wrapped, and the chief carried his precious charge all the way in his arms.

Arriving at the residence of M. du Pin, he carefully placed the child on the floor. "What have you there?" asked the trader. "A young raccoon, which I have brought you as a present," replied the chief. Then opening the pack, he displayed the little sick child. M. du Pin furnished some remedies for its complaint and when Black Partridge was about to return he told the trader of his proposal to Mrs. Lee to become his wife, and of the way it had been received.

M. du Pin, being a man of discernment, "entertained some fears," continues the _Wau-Bun_ account, "that the chief's honorable resolution might not hold out, to leave it to the lady herself whether to accept 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."

Mrs. Lee accordingly was brought to Chicago and had an opportunity of expressing her gratitude to the French trader who had, without having seen her or known her, rendered so important a service as paying a ransom for her return to civilization. In course of time this M. du Pin, who it seems was a man without a family when he came, proposed to Mrs. Lee himself, and, more fortunate than the dusky chieftain, he was accepted. "We only know," says the _Wau-Bun_ account, "that in process of time Mrs. Lee became Madame du Pin, and that they lived together in great happiness for many years after."

It is a relief, after narrating the events connected with the evacuation of Fort Dearborn and the massacre which followed it, to invite the reader's attention to this picture, as a contrast with the havoc and dismay of that dreadful day in August, 1812, when Chicago was left with but one white inhabitant, and he a renegade.

At St. Joseph the Kinzie family remained under the protection of Chief Topenebe and his band until the following November. They were then conducted to Detroit under the escort of trusty Indian friends, and delivered up as prisoners of war to the British. Soon after John Kinzie was paroled, though afterwards again taken into custody. At the end of the war he was finally released, and in 1816 he again became a resident of Chicago, when the second Fort Dearborn was built and occupied by a garrison of United States troops.

After the destruction of Fort Dearborn, Chicago ceased for a time to be a fit dwelling-place for white men and their families. It continued in this condition with but little change for the following four years, and then the troops came back. Meanwhile peace had been concluded between the two warring nations, treaties of peace and friendship had been made with various tribes of Indians, and a new era began.

During the winter succeeding the battle and massacre the only two residents of Chicago who were householders were Ouilmette and Du Pin. A pretty fair estimate may be made of the total population of the place, including the half-breed children of Ouilmette and the _engagés_ and helpers in the employ of Du Pin. It is safe to say that the total number was not more than ten or twelve persons.

Bloody retribution overtook at least one of those among the savages who on the day of the massacre showed no mercy to his victims. This was a chief known as a deadly enemy of the whites and who bore the expressive name of Shavehead, because of his peculiar manner of tying up his scanty hair. Years afterwards Chief Shavehead was in company with a band of hunters in the Michigan woods; in the party was a white man who had formerly been a soldier at Fort Dearborn, and was one of the survivors of the battle on the lake shore. At one of the campfires the chief, being of a boastful disposition related, while under the influence of liquor to those sitting about the camp-fire, the frightful tale concerning the events of that day, dwelling upon its horrors and boasting of his own deeds. He was not aware that one of the whites whom he had so fiercely assailed was at that moment listening to his braggart utterances. The old soldier, as he heard the tale, was maddened by the recall of the well-remembered scenes.

Toward nightfall the old savage departed alone in the direction of the forest. Silently the soldier with loaded rifle followed upon his steps. Others observed them as they passed out of sight into the shades of the forest. The soldier returned after a time to his companions, but Shavehead was never again seen. "He had paid the penalty of the crime," says Mason, "to one who could with some fitness exact it."

The War of 1812, between the United States and Great Britain, was actually begun some time before the date of the declaration of war issued by the United States, on June 12, 1812; and it was continued some time after the treaty of peace had been signed, December 24, 1814. Of this war, the Fort Dearborn massacre on August 15, 1812, was one of the disastrous events.

"The lives of thirty thousand Americans," says Larned, "were sacrificed during this war of two and a half years, and the national debt was increased one hundred millions of dollars."

Nine years cover the period of existence of Old Fort Dearborn. In that nine years of history it witnessed the efforts of three nations to subdue a continent, and played its part in the struggles between those nations. Established as a frontier post, it became an important link in the chain of western defenses, and one of those schools of military instruction in which lessons were learned by those who had the task of preserving by force of arms a young republic in the midst of powerful and unscrupulous foes. A rallying point for traders and settlers in the virgin fields of the west, it was representative of a phase of development of the great Northwest Territory, and indeed of the development of the United States. Its culminating disaster, which left it a heap of ruins, was one of those temporary setbacks which do not for long hold back the progress of such a growing nation. Within four years after the accident of war had made the fort and those in and about it the victims of a lingering barbarism, the foothold of the nation was secure in the west, the beginnings of its agricultural and commercial prosperity were laid, and upon the ruins of the old fort rose the walls of a new Fort Dearborn.

THE END.

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Transcriber Note

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