USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > Discovery and conquests of the Northwest, with the history of Chicago, Vol. I > Part 29
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The next point to be discussed was, where to locate the boundary line between the two nations. The United States demanded the Pacific ocean as their western limits, and that the boundary line between them should run on the forty-first degree of latitude as far east as the 100th meridian, thence south to the Arkansas river, thence east along its banks, thence south to the Red river, thence east along its banks, thence south to the Sabine river, and down its banks to the Gulf of Mexico. This demand relinquished all claims to Texas, but it was far from meeting the views of the Spanish minister. He contested every inch of territory west of the Louisiana purchase, but after many con- cessions on his part, and a concession of one degree- the difference between forty-one degrees and forty-two degrees-on the part of the United States, a treaty was signed on the 22d of February, 1819, by John Quincy Adams on the part of the United States, and Luis de Onis on the part of Spain.
By the second article of this treaty Spain ceded the Floridas to the United States.
By the third article the boundary line between the two nations was to begin at the mouth of the Sabine
330
Franquelin's Map of 1684.
river, running northwardly on its western bank to the latitude of thirty-two degrees, thence due north to the Red river, thence westwardly on that river to the longi- tude of 100 degrees, thence crossing that river and run- ning due north to the Arkansas river, thence west along its southern bank to its source in the latitude of forty- two degrees, or north or south of its source till said latitude is reached, thence west by the latitude of forty- two degrees to the Pacific ocean.
By the ninth article both Spain and the United States reciprocally renounced all claims for damages that the subjects of either nation may have suffered up to the present time.
By the tenth article the United States agreed to make satisfaction to her own subjects by remunerating them for spoliation by Spanish cruisers to an amount not exceeding $5, 000, 000.
Except during the discussion to establish the rightful owners of West Florida and Texas, no attempt was made to locate the boundaries of Louisiana, in deter- mining where the dividing line should run between the two nations.
In a letter from John Quincy Adams to the Spanish minister, dated March 12, 1818, he declined further to discuss the question as to the boundaries of Louisiana. (See annals of fifteenth congress, second session, page 1776.)
To this the Spanish minister replied that the bound- ary line between Louisiana and the Spanish province of Texas was well known until the line reached the Red river, thence, to use his own words, "it is the bound- aries between French Louisiana and the Spanish posses- sions after that line has crossed the Rio Roxo [Red river], which have never been fixed." (See page 1793, same volume.)
The original claim of La Salle as to the extent of Louisiana included the country drained by the Missis- sippi, and no more, and this province was put down on Franquelin's map, published in Paris in 1684, limited on the west by a range of mountains, and on the east ·
33I
The Columbia River Discovered.
by the dividing ridge that turned the waters of this val- ley in another direction.
By a decree of Louis XIV, dated at Fontainebleau, September 14, 1712, Louisiana was ceded to M. Crozat, limited on the west by "the South sea." This grant was made without a knowledge of the country, and neither Crozat nor any subsequent proprietor or nation who came in possession of it, ever attempted to make it good. It was mentioned in the discussion as to Texas, but produced no more commotion than a revival of the still older grants from the British crown to her Atlantic colonies would have done, which covered the same territory, but were never respected any farther than they were utilized.
The Spanish claims to the Pacific coast north of forty-two degrees, which rested on the voyages of their early mariners who sailed along the coast, have been subordinated by the explorations of the Columbia river by Capt. Robert Gray .* On the 7th of May, 1792, in a vessel owned by Barrell, Bulfinch & Co., of Boston, he entered the mouth of this river, and sailed up its channel on the IIth. He named it the Columbia after the vessel whose eventful career, directed by his enterprising pur- pose, had revealed the grandeur of Oregon to the world and established an American claim to it as good as that by which La Salle had vested France with Louisiana. Its area extended from the Rocky mount- ains to the Pacific ocean, and as far south as the paral- lel of forty-two degrees, except a small corner of south- western Oregon, drained by the Rouge and Umpqua rivers, too diminutive to angle a national boundary line for. The rule applied to national territorial rights growing out of priority was to concede to the discoverers such territory as was drained by the water courses by means of which the country was entered and explored. This right has its foundation in principles of justice, and the comity of nations made it an unwritten law, from whose binding force there was no appeal short of conquest.
* Capt. Gray returned to Boston by a western route by way of the Cape of Good Hope, thus having the honor of being the first one to carry the stars and stripes around the world.
332
Northern Limits of Louisiana.
At the peace of Utrecht, in 1713, both France and England wishing to fix a definite boundary separat- ing their respective possessions in North America, it was agreed that the line should begin on the Atlantic coast in the latitude of fifty-eight degrees and thirty minutes, whence it should run in a southwesterly direc- tion, along the dividing ridge between the waters of Hudson's bay and those of the St. Lawrence river, till it reached the water-way connecting the Lake of the Woods with Lake Superior at the intersection of the forty-ninth parallel, and thence indefinitely westward on that parallel.
The establishment of this line extended the limits of Louisiana to the north beyond its original extent, and it formed the basis of the Ashburton treaty subsequently entered into between the United States and England. -Added to the discovery of the Columbia river by Capt. Gray were the not less important explorations of Lewis and Clark to the Pacific coast, by order of the president of the United States in 1804, and the trading posts of John Jacob Astor established at the mouth of the Colum- bia river in 1811, taken by the English in the war of 1812, and restored to the United States by the provisions of the treaty of Ghent. The supremacy of the American claims to the Pacific coast north of forty-two degrees made it impossible to run the boundary line with Spain on any parallel excluding the valley of the Columbia river, without doing lasting injustice to the fame of American explorers and sacrificing both the interests and honor of the nation.
When the Oregon boundary dispute subsequently came up between Great Britain and the United States, Ameri- can rights to the country were claimed by priority of discovery; nor was any right, supposed to be obtained through France, mentioned in the long and acrimonious debate with the British cabinet on the subject.
It is therefore clear that our title to Oregon came not through the purchase of Louisiana, but through a contingent ultimatum of that purchase many years later, of which more will be said in future pages.
333
Orders to Build a Fort on the Lake.
The augmentation of Louisiana to the territory of the United States brought increased responsibilities, and demanded preparations wherewith to utilize it. The British influence among the countless Indian warriors along the upper lakes had been gathering strength by means of half-civilized courtesies, adapted to their tastes, ever since the days of the revolution; and a demonstration of American power to offset this influence was necessary to guarantee safety to the frontier settle- ments already made, as well as to bring the northern portions of Louisiana at least within hailing distance of its new owners. Already the project of building a fort at the southern extremity of Lake Michigan had been entertained by congress, while negotiations for the purchase of Louisiana were pending, but now its imme- diate necessity was apparent, and commissioners were promptly sent from Washington to select a suitable place for it.
The mouth of the St. Joseph river, on the east bank of Lake Michigan, was first selected, and preparations. made to build the fort, when the Indians of the country withheld their consent for its construction, and the commissioners were obliged to select another place, as they had no power to enforce their demands-the Indian title here never having been extinguished, Across the lake was the portage of Chicago, where six miles square had been ceded to the United States by the Indians in the treaty of Greenville, in 1795. It was a bold push into the interior to establish a fort here, but there was no other available spot, and orders for its construction were issued from the war department early in the summer of 1803. Detroit and Michilimack- inac were then the extreme western outposts of the Americans along the lakes. A company of United States soldiers were stationed at the former place, under command of Capt. John Whistler, an officer of the revolution, and to him was intrusted this service. Under his command were two young lieutenants- William Whistler, his oldest son, and James S. Swear- ington, from Chillicothe, Ohio. To the latter he gave orders to conduct the soldiers across the forests of
.
334
Fort Dearborn Built.
Michigan to Chicago, while he and his wife, his son William and his wife-a young bride-took passage on the United States schooner "Tracy," for the same destination, there to set up the American standard at a spot venerable with the memories of 130 years of transient French occupation, though now inhabited by only three rude huts of French fur traders, each with their usual adjuncts-the Indian wife and the inevitable brood of half breed sprites.
The schooner arrived on the 4th of July, and anchored outside the bar, for the mouth of the river was choked with a sand drift. Here she discharged her freight of ammunition, arms and provisions into small boats, in which they were rowed into the river and landed on the spot where the fort was to be built. Two thousand Indians were assembled, who, with many a grunt of surprise and approbation, beheld these preparations so fatal to their security.
The schooner was the especial object of their admira- tion. They called it the big canoe with wings. After the freight and passengers were landed, Capt. Tracy, the commander, gave orders to set sail for Detroit, and the ship soon vanished into the distant dip of the sky, and left the new comers among their swarthy associates, cut off from the outside world. Their first business was to build the block house-an easy task but for the haul- ing of the logs to the ground selected for its site. They had neither oxen nor horses with which to do this, but the soldiers geared themselves with ropes, and per- formed the onerous toil.
The summer and autumn of 1803 were spent before the fort was finished, but comfortable quarters were secured for the garrison before cold weather had com- menced. The defenses consisted of two block houses, one on the southeast and the other on the northwest corner of the grounds inclosed. These were large enough for a parade ground, and were surrounded by a substantial palisade. A sallyport connected the inclosure with the river by means of a subterranean passage. Immediately north of the fort, the main branch of the Chicago river rolled its quiet waters to
OLD FORT DEARBORN, ERECTED IN 1803-4.
336
Armament of Fort Dearborn.
the lake, and on the west, half a mile of wet prairie intervened between the fort and the south branch of the Chicago river. On the east were the shifting sand drifts through which the river found its way to the lake by a detour southwardly along the shore half a mile south of its present outlet. Three pieces of light artillery and small arms constituted the armament. Attached to the fort was a two-story log building, sided with clapboards, riven from logs like barrel staves. This was called the United States factory, which meant a place to store goods belonging to the government designed for gratuitous distribution among the Indians. It stood outside of the palisade to the west, and was under the charge of an agent who was sutler to the fort, and was subject to the orders of its commander. The garrison of the fort consisted of one captain, one second lieutenant, one ensign, four sergeants, one sur- geon and fifty-four privates. *
This small force established a nucleus, at no distant day to become a great metropolis, enriched by tribute from the growth of the entire territory westward to the Pacific coast. Without this, Chicago would have been a town on the western verge of a nation; with it, the commercial center of a nation. This unchal- lenged truth adds interest to the intricate web of fate and fortune woven into the impending issues of three nations, of which America reached the fruitage and Chicago the golden prize.
Says Hon. Zebina Eastman, in his history of Chicago: "This fort then occupied one of the most beautiful sites on the lake shore. It was as high as any other point, overlooking the surface of the lake; commanding as well as any other view on this flat surface could; the prairie extending to the south to the belt of timber along the south branch and on the north side, and the white sand hills both to the north and south, which had for ages past been the sport of the lake winds."
This lonesome hermitage soon became a nucleus around which the restive spirits which forest lite had brought into being gathered, not to enrich themselves
* American State Papers, Vol. I, pages 175, 176.
1
337
Captivity of Margaret and Elizabeth.
and live in luxurious ease, but to follow the bent of an ambition that led their way into an untrodden path.
What matter if dangers lurked beside it? These were so many stimulants to variegate the path of life and give point to its smoother surface by contrast with its rougher. Daring and muscle then held a high place in frontier accomplishments. They were necessary in order to push the American "idea" far into the forest in advance, to pave the way for other graces which were some day to follow.
Demand begets supply in every essential want of humanity ; and when pioneers are wanted to face danger plenty are willing to enlist under an assurance that they will be fully remunerated on the spot by that immunity from restraint which the forest secures to its tenants, and by that dashing style of good fellowship which is ever present between themselves and their comrades. Whatever may be the rough exterior of such men, they are heroes in the estimation of even the most cultured leaders of society, and even the prude regards them with charity, and accepts even their eccentricities without censure. Chicago was unlike Bos- ton, which was settled by Winthrop and the Puritans. She (Chicago) began under the naive elements of frontier life, and after many years graduated under the influence of the seed they (the Puritans) planted on the eastern fringe of the continent, somewhat modified, however, in its march across the intervening country.
Among the venturesome pioneers of Virginia was a backwoodsman named Mckenzie. He, with a number of his comrades settled at the mouth of Wolf's creek, where it empties into the Kanawha, in Giles county.
During Dunmore's war on the frontier, the Shawan- ese, then the great formidable power of the forest, in one of their border forays came suddenly upon the home of Mckenzie, killed his wife, and led two of his children into captivity. The names of the young captives were Margaret, ten years old, and Elizabeth, eight years old. They were taken to old Chillicothe, the great Indian town of the Shawanese, where they were adopted into the family of a high bred Indian chief, and raised under
338
Margaret Rejects an Indian Lover.
the tender care of his obedient squaw, according to custom.
Ten years later, when the girls were in the full bloom of maidenly beauty, Margaret was allowed to accompany her foster father on a hunting excursion to the St. Mary's river, in the present state of Indiana, near Fort Wayne, under the special care of a matronly squaw who was one of the party. Arriving at the place, a young chief of the same tribe became enamored by the graces and accomplishments of the young captive. But
Margaret, who retained vivid memories of her youth, with all the tender associations that clustered around the hearthstone of civilization, recoiled from the savage attentions of her swarthy lover, and determined not to yield her heart to one who had no higher destiny for her than to ornament his leggings with porcupine quills, as one of the highest accomplishments of which a squaw was capable.
Whatever else may be the gifts of an Indian, he knows not how to play the rejected lover with the manly graces by which the impassioned young civilian gently tones up the affections of his hesitating fair, and he (the Indian) attempts by force what he cannot win by grace. Margaret's audacious lover was no exception to this rule, and at midnight approached the camp, where she was sleeping, intending to force her to become his wife. According to the Indian custom a din of yells and the rattle of an Indian drum announced the inten - tions of the would-be bridegroom to the terrified victim.
Aroused to a full sense of danger, the heroine leaped from her couch and fled into the gloom of the forest for a protection that her friends could no longer give her. Fortunately her dog followed her as she fled down the bank of the St. Mary's river to the stockade, half a mile distant, where the horses were kept. Ere she reached the place, the footsteps of her detestable lover were heard close behind. She turned, set her dog upon him, and while the noble animal was grappling with the wretch, she reached the stockade, unhitched a horse, leaped on his back, and took flight through the wilderness, seventy-five miles to her Indian home at
339
John H. Kinsie.
Chillicothe. The fate of the faithful dog was never known, but he was probably killed while fighting in defense of his mistress. The horse died the next day after he had performed so wonderful a feat without rest or sustenance. This heroic girl and her sister Elizabeth afterward became the mothers of some of the first pioneers of Chicago.
In the eventful year of 1763 was born at Quebec a boy destined not only to participate in the romantic riot of forest life as it then was in the great interior, but to fix his name on the page of history, with the honor- able distinction as the father of Chicago. This was John Kinzie. His father died in his infancy, and his mother married a Mr. Forsyth, and removed to New York. At the age of ten or twelve, John determined to go back to his native place, and armed with this resolution, went aboard a sloop ready to sail for Albany. The bark was under way before the young truant was missed from the nursery.
The poor mother had lost a former child by her first husband, the remains of whom had been picked up in the woods of Canada, lost and starved to death; and now her heart bled afresh for what she supposed to be the awful fate of Johnny. Fortune, however, had ordered it otherwise. The lad made the acquaintance, on board the sloop, of a gentlemen going to Quebec, who paid his fare, and landed him safely at the place. Here the young adventurer soon got employment as an apprentice to a silversmith,* and won his way to dis- tinction among the restive spirits of his eventful age, and next we find him a fur trader in Detroit during the English occupation of the place.
After the adventure of Margaret, the captive, as just told, she with her sister Elizabeth, were taken to this place by their foster father, who felt proud of his adopted children, and here they became acquainted with John Kinzie. It is not strange that the brilliant young advent- urer beheld the beautiful captive Margaret with the eye of a lover, nor that the heroine felt a similar sentiment for him, and they were soon married. Elizabeth at
* Wabum, page 193.
THE OLD KINZIE MANSION.
341
Archibald Clybourn.
the same time met a Scotchmen named Clark, and married him, and their swarthy foster parent took his path back to Chillicothe alone. The two young couples lived in Detroit about five years, during which time Margaret had three children, William, James and Eliza- beth, and Elizabeth had two children, John K. and Elizabeth.
· The treaty of Greenville, in 1795, having restored peace to the border, Mr. Isaac Mckenzie, the father from whom the captives had been taken almost a quarter of a century before, received tidings of his children, and went to Detroit to see them. As might be sup- posed, the sight aroused tender emotions that had slumbered for years in painful suspense. Nor were the hearts of the children less moved at the sight of their aged parent, whose memory had never been obliter- ated, even during their savage training in the tumult of an Indian camp. Under this strong pressure of filial devotion the two mothers, with their children, returned with their father to the old home, to which arrangement both of their husbands consented. A final separation was not intended, but time and distance divorced them forever. Mr. Kinzie afterward removed to Saint Josephs, where he married a Mrs. McKillip, the widow of a British officer. Margaret married a Mr. Benjamin Hall, of Virginia, and Elizabeth married Mr. Jonas Clybourn, of the same place. David, the oldest son of Benjamin Hall and Margaret, made a journey to Chicago in 1822, where he remained three years.
Here a wilderness of shining waters, as the upper lakes then were, nestled amidst an unlimited wilderness of woodland and prairie teeming with fertility hidden beneath a forest studded with overgrown trees, or a prairie ornate with tall grasses and thrifty shrubbery. On his return to Virginia, his flattering account of the place and its future destiny, which he foreshadowed with a truthful forecast, induced a number of persons to emigrate thither. The first of these was Archibald Clybourn, the oldest son of Elizabeth, who remained a permanent resident and an esteemed citizen, well known to thousands of the present inhabitants of Chicago.
342
Benjamin Hall.
His mother was Elizabeth, the captive, who with her second husband, Mr. Clybourn, soon afterward came to Chicago. More will be said of them in future pages. Mr. Benjamin Hall was another one of Chicago's pion- eers who emigrated to the place in consequence of Mr. David Hall's commendations of its future promise. Margaret, the captive, was his aunt, and to him the writer is indebted for the detail of Margaret's and Elizabeth's history .* Mr. Hall is now a resident of Wheaton. He came to Chicago in 1830, and was the proprietor of the first tannery ever established there. He married the sister of the Hon. J. D. Caton, and raised an esteemed family of children, who are now scattered in the west. Elizabeth Kinzie, daughter of John Kinzie, by Margaret, became the wife of Samuel Miller, from a respectable Quaker family of Ohio. This woman was highly esteemed by all who knew her for her excellent traits. Her husband kept the Miller house at. the forks of the Chicago river, and is still remembered by a few of Chicago's old settlers as a respected citizen. Mrs. Miller died at this house in 1832, leaving three. very promising children.
James Kinzie came to Chicago about 1824, and was well received by his father, who assisted him in his first efforts to establish himself in the place. He amassed considerable wealth, but lost the most of it in the crash of 1837, when he removed to Wisconsin, where he died about the year 1860.
We will now return to the early days of the fort, where a few superannuated soldiers stood guard at this frontier post through the winter of 1803-4, like hermits in a wilderness. If they obtained any tidings of what was going on in the outside world, it must have been through the agency of some chance pedestrian messen- ger, and any news he might bring would lack authen- ticity. But even this satisfaction was probably not afforded them, in their wild seclusion. The next spring, however, was destined to bring an arrival to their post. of a permanent character, whose presence should help
* A partial history of Margaret's captivity is given in Howe's Histori- cal Collections of Virginia, pages 278 and 279.
CHICAGO IN 1812.
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