USA > Illinois > Cook County > Growth of Cook County; a history of the large lake-shore county that includes Chicago, Vol. I > Part 2
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Lower-Joliet and Marquette, discoverers of the site, wouldn't know the place today (1959). It's Chicago's skyline ..
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Was this the first Chicago building constructed by civilized man? Artist T. A. O'Shaughnessy here has recreated in oil his conception of cabin occupied by ailing Father Jacques Marquette during winter of 1674-75. Altho Indians were known to have built log cabins in those times, probability exists that this cabin was constructed by French fur traders. Site was present West 26th and South Leavitt streets, close to small west fork (now filled in) of south branch of Chicago river. Courtesy Chicago Historical Society.
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admonishing the neighboring Indians that Marquette "owned" the cabin.
The following spring (1675) Marquette accompanied the fur traders to their post on the Illinois river and began preach- ing to the Illinois Indians with whom he readily made friends. Because of recurring illness, however Marquette had to cut short his mission work after a few weeks and started back for Mackinac, dying enroute. He was 38 years old.
In referring to the discovery of the Chicago river shortcut and the visualization of a canal, Historian Alvord in 1920 wrote:
"This plan of communication between the two great water systems by way of the Chicago river has been a vision seen by many statesmen from Jolliet's1 day down to the present time; but to Jolliet belongs the honor of first proposing it, and to him also must be ascribed the glory of first visualizing the future greatness of the country of the Illinois."2
What Joliet saw and what he visioned eventually were to become Chicago, second largest city on the continent, and Cook county, the most populous county of the most powerful nation in the world.
Following close upon the heels of Joliet and Marquette came the fabulous Sieur de la Salle, possibly the greatest of all French explorers.
La Salle's heroic work in exploring and attempting to colo- nize and hold the great Mississippi Valley for France was so stupendous that this outline of the growth of Chicago and Cook county cannot go fully into all of its details, interesting and important as they are. A sketch, however, is needed to show that La Salle's exploits had a bearing upon the develop-
1. Alvord's spelling.
2. The Illinois Country, Alvord, Vol. 1, p. 65 of the Centennial History of Illinois, 1920.
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ment of the area that later was to become Chicago and Cook county.
Having obtained from Louis XIV, king of France, an "order of knighthood, land grant, and permission to explore, colonize and take possession of the Mississippi Valley in the name of the King of France,"1 LaSalle, in 1678-79, constructed a sailing boat, the Griffon, above Niagara Falls. This vessel was meant to be used in carrying supplies to La Salle on the Great Lakes, and in transporting furs for France on its return trip to the falls.
In the late summer of 1679 La Salle sailed in this vessel up the Great Lakes to Green Bay on Lake Michigan where he ordered the boat loaded with furs for its return. Meanwhile, La Salle and 14 followers paddled in canoes down along the west shore of Lake Michigan, past the Chicago river, which La Salle termed a "channel" of the lake, and on to the mouth of the St. Joseph river in what now is Lower Michigan where, within weeks, they built Fort Miami.
There La Salle anxiously awaited the arrival of his faithful lieutenant, Henri de Tonty, whom he had left behind at Mack- inac while coming into Lake Michigan on the Griffon. Tonty's orders had been to come down to the mouth of the St. Joseph as soon as the Griffon had passed the straits on its return voyage.
When Tonty and his 20 men finally arrived at Fort Miami on Nov. 12 (1679), after having come by canoe down the east shore of Lake Michigan, they reported that the Griffon had not arrived from Green Bay, apparently having been wrecked by storm. (Because no trace ever was found of the fur-laden vessel, it is safe to presume that it had sunk.)
La Salle added to his retinue the Tonty party and paddled up the St. Joseph river to a point that now is South Bend, Indi- ana. There they portaged their canoes some seven miles south- west over the water divide to the Kankakee river, floated down
1. From The Location of the Chicago Portage Route, Knight and Zeuch, 1928.
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the Kankakee to its confluence with the Des Plaines river, and there entered the Illinois river.
From that point they floated down the Illinois, past what is now Starved Rock, to the site of present Peoria where, on the bluffs, they constructed Fort Crevecoeur.
Leaving Tonty in command of the new fort, La Salle, on Mar. 1, 1680, started a return trip to Fort Frontenac (now Kingston, Ontario) to secure supplies which the ill-fated Grif- fon had been designed to bring.
As he was going up the Illinois river on this return, La Salle noted again the strategic position of the commanding bluff at Starved Rock and decided he should have built his fort there instead of at Peoria.
This would be the place from which he better could make his bid for the retention of the Great Lakes to Gulf waterway, for the subjugation of those among the Indians who were hostile, and for the eventual colonization of the new continent's fabulously wealthy interior.
But for all this dream of empire that was racing within his blood, La Salle had working against him the forces of inade- quate help from his own France, the hostility of the mighty Iroquois Indians, the might of the English, and his own human errors.
When he arrived at Fort Miami, La Salle sent word back to Tonty to abandon Fort Crevecoeur and build a new fort at Starved Rock, naming it Fort St. Louis. This Tonty did while La Salle was away.
The activities of La Salle for the next seven years-up to the time of his murder at the hands of a mutinous follower- must be condensed. But during this period La Salle made trips to Fort Frontenac and even to France, there to regain com- mand which he had lost temporarily, and to obtain approval for his dream of establishing a fort and colony at the mouth of the Mississippi.
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Tonty's valiant work and ability to carry out directives mark him as one of the heroes of American history, tho he has been woefully overlooked. He organized about him at Fort St. Louis the friendly Illinois Indians and attempted to hold off the powerful Iroquois whose frequent attacks were urged on by the English.
Massacre of a portion of his men and many of the friendly Indians gathered about his fort, as well as destruction of the fort, was to follow, but Tonty escaped with a bare handful of followers and remained in the Great Lakes area to assist La Salle later in exploring the Mississippi and in rebuilding and holding Fort St. Louis.
La Salle familiarized himself during this time with the por- tage route over the water divide between the Chicago and Des Plaines rivers, and in 1682 wrote about the subject, discussing the advisability of cutting a canal across the divide, as previously suggested by Joliet.
Joliet, it will be recalled, had envisioned a short canal carry- ing only enough water to float canoes or other light craft, but La Salle declared this would not do for the size ships needed in carrying furs down to the mouth of the Mississippi for reship- ment to France. (Apparently La Salle could not visualize such huge projects as the Illinois and Michigan canal, or the Sanitary and Ship canal, which were to become practical realities one and one-half and two centuries later.) In any event, La Salle was not optimistic about the canal idea, possibly because he had not been the first to think of it.
La Salle decided to explore the Mississippi all the way to its mouth, so using Fort Miami as a base, sent Tonty on ahead for the first part of the trip.
Tonty and a small group began their journey on Dec. 21, 1681, skirting the southern end of Lake Michigan to the Chi- cago river and portaging their canoes over to the Des Plaines. La Salle, who had finished supervising the storage of supplies
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at the fort, followed on foot a week later, overtook Tonty on Jan. 6, and together, with some 50 French and Indian followers, dragged their equipment on sleds over the now frozen streams until they reached open water at Peoria.
On April 9, 1682, they reached the mouth of the Missis- sippi, thereby becoming the first white men of record to travel the full length of the Mississippi waterway. There they took possession of the entire Mississippi valley in the name of the King of France.
La Salle no doubt saw even then that if France could estab- lish a fort and colony at the river's mouth, it would aid mate- rially in holding the new empire and in keeping open this great interior trade route. Here, tho, he was to make the greatest error of his life-he took improper compass readings, the disas- trous effect of which we soon shall see.
La Salle and Tonty returned north the following winter, rebuilt Fort St. Louis, and gathered about them some 20,000 Illinois Indians, including braves and their families. Their promise to the friendly Illinois tribe was that the French would help hold off the hostile Iroquois, furnish them a market for their furs, and bring them supplies of cloth, hunting knives, and axes.
Late in 1683 a new French governor, De la Barre, who had replaced Frontenac, relieved La Salle of his authority and re- placed him with another commander. But La Salle, not to be denied, went back to France, appealed to Louis XIV, and not only succeeded in ousting his political enemies, but gained per- mission to establish the colony at the mouth of the Mississippi.
In 1684, with four ships and 175 colonists, La Salle sailed from France on what was to be his last great venture. After entering Gulf waters his ships encountered heavy storms, there was quarreling aboard that may or may not have had anything to do with their sense of direction, and above all, there was the matter of the error in the reckoning of longitude that La
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Salle, himself, had made when he had been at the great river's mouth two years earlier. At any rate, they could not find the Mississippi.
Realizing they were lost, La Salle landed his colonists on the shores of east Texas, 400 miles west of the Mississippi. There they founded their ill-fated colony and for two years La Salle wandered in vain search of the river's mouth.
Tonty, meanwhile having heard of La Salle's successes with the King, floated down the Mississippi in 1686, fully expecting to find his commander with a prospering colony at the river's mouth. One can imagine his disappointment at finding no trace of La Salle. Tonty had to turn back.
With his Texas colony floundering and nearing extinction because of hunger, disease, and internal strife, La Salle in des- peration took the remaining followers, whose numbers now had dwindled to a mere 17, and on Jan. 12, 1687 started walking north to Canada!
On Mar. 20 at Trinity river in Texas mutiny broke out within the little band and one of them murdered La Salle. The murderer was avenged, but the other mutineers, refusing to go further, stayed behind with the Indians while the piteous handful of loyal followers, numbering seven, struggled on northward, led by La Salle's own brother, the Abbe Cavelier. The ragged band straggled into Fort St. Louis (Starved Rock) on Sept. 14, 1687 with their dreadful story.
Tonty struggled on bravely but futilely in trying to hold Fort St. Louis for the French, but in 1702 the French were compelled by the Iroquois to give it up. Thereafter, for nearly 100 years, the portage called Chicago was to be held by tribes of warring Indians. This period was like a century out of the dark ages.
This does not mean, however, that there were no civilized men in the area. Fur traders, whose presence was subject to the whims of the Indians, came and went during this period, and one of them, Jean Baptiste Point DeSable, a Negro with
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possibly some French blood, was to become, toward the latter part of the eighteenth century, Chicago's first civilized settler of record, as is described later in more detail.
The British gradually acquired control of the fur trade of the Northwest territory during the earlier part of the eighteenth century, but title to the lands east of the Mississippi was given to the American Colonies by the Treaty of Paris in 1783 which officially terminated the Revolutionary War.
The British, however, still were reluctant to give up their fur trade in this territory and even after the war encouraged the Indians of the region north of the Ohio river to resist all attempts at American colonization. Thus it was that the young United States had to conduct a series of wars with the Indians to make the new country safe for settlers.
One of the phases of the Indian wars that bore directly upon the history of Chicago came at the conclusion of the Battle of Fallen Timbers in which General Anthony Wayne on Aug. 20, 1794 decisively defeated the Indians on the Maumee River near Toledo.
Chicago Land Grant
In the Treaty of Greenville which followed on Aug. 10, 1795, the Indians relinquished claim to the territory of eastern Ohio and to three small parcels of strategically located land, one of which was "six miles square at the mouth of Chicago river emptying into the south end of Lake Michigan where a fort formerly stood."
Another was a piece of similar size at Peoria, and the third, 12 miles square at the mouth of the Illinois river where it empties into the Mississippi. The United States also was granted "free passages of the portages and rivers connecting these grants."
The treaty reference to the "mouth of Chicago river .. . where a fort formerly stood" has caused some confusion in
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history, but there is evidence that the French had a small fort here prior to 1700-more than a century before the first Fort Dearborn.
We go back in history here for the explanation. In the spring of 1684 Tonty, learning the Iroquois were gathering to attack him· at Fort St. Louis, sent to Mackinac for assistance. Duran- taye, who commanded the fort there, came with 60 men to Tonty's relief, Father Allouez accompanying them.
Tonty repulsed the attack before Durantaye arrived, but Durantaye apparently built a fort at Chicago during 1684, as indicated by a passage in Tonty's memoirs. Having returned to Mackinac in 1685 to obtain news of La Salle, and hearing that La Salle supposedly was at the mouth of the Mississippi, Tonty resolved to go in search. Later he wrote:
"I embarked, therefore, for the Illinois, on St. Andrew's Day (30th of October, 1685); but being stopped by ice, I was obliged to leave my canoe, and to proceed on by land. After going 120 leagues, I arrived at the fort of Chicagou, where M. de la Durantaye commanded; and from thence I came to Fort St. Louis, where I arrived the middle of January (1686)."
How long the French maintained this fort at Chicago is not clear, but in all probability it was for only a few years, and garrisoned only a portion of that time. There also was an Indian village and a Catholic mission here at the time. St. Cosme, a missionary, wrote that when he visited Chicago in 1699 he found a tribe of Miami Indians dwelling in "over 150 cabins." The Miami were affiliated with the Illinois Indians, and were friendly to the French.
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CHAPTER 2
DE SABLE WAS HERE
L ITTLE historical evidence remains concerning the person generally accepted as being the first civilized settler on the site that later was to become Chicago.
Excluding from consideration an undetermined number of French fur traders who came and went across the Chicago por- tage during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, some of whom for short periods even resided in the Chicago area with their Indian wives and families, Chicago's first permanent resi- dent could reasonably be regarded as Jean Baptiste Point De- Sable.
Unfortunately no recorded evidence has been found that shows beyond any shadow of doubt the origin of DeSable, or how he got to Chicago. There is evidence, however, that he either was Negro or mulatto, possibly with some French blood in his veins, and there is strong tradition that he came from Santo Domingo in the West Indies. Moreover, the name, De- Sable, tho variously spelled, is found throughout Santo Do- mingo history.
According to this tradition, DeSable, the free Negro, sailed
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from San Domingo to establish fur trade at New Orleans, then made his way up the Mississippi and the Illinois rivers, stopping for a while at Peoria before coming on to the shores of Lake Michigan.
Another angle relative to the origin of DeSable stems from research done by Historian Quaife.1 In this Quaife found that the name DeSable (again spelled variously) crops up repeat- edly in families of French origin that were living in Canada one and two generations before DeSable's time. He advanced the theory that DeSable could have been an illegitimate son of a French-Canadian of good family and a Negro slave woman, there being a few slaves in Canada at that time. From such a geographical background DeSable, the trader, could have come into the territory at the head of Lake Michigan.
It is possible that DeSable operated a trading post near the present site of Michigan City (Ind.) at the same time or even before coming to Chicago, for he was there in 1779 when the British, still fighting the Revolutionary war, arrested him on suspicion of helping the American colonies.
DeSable was imprisoned at Fort Mackinac, but in a short time made friends with his captors and was placed in charge of a hitherto mismanaged British trading establishment, The Pinery, near Port Huron, Mich., where he remained for three or four years.2
Whether the year was 1779 or 1782 or 1783 that DeSable built a combination house and trading post at the mouth of the Chicago river is difficult to ascertain. In any event, he lived there with his family until 1800, getting along well with all Indian tribes.
It is an established fact that he took a young Indian woman as a common-law wife, that they raised a respected family, and that years later the couple had themselves married by a priest.
1. Quaife, Checagou, chapter 3.
2. Ibid, chapter 3.
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His establishment was on the north bank at a point where the river turned southward a few hundred feet to enter Lake Michigan. It overlooked both the river and the lake.
With this understanding of the geographical location of DeSable's place, one should not ignore the possibility that the "Point DeSable" portion of the name was merely the address of Jean Baptiste. In French "point de sable" means point of sand, and that was exactly where the settler's house was located.
(Several years later a portion of this point of sand, jutting out between the lake and the river, was dredged out by the army to permit large boats to enter the river's mouth, thereby giving the settlement a satisfactory harbor.)
Concerning DeSable, August Grignon of Butte des Morts, Wis., in writing his "Recollections," published by the Wiscon- sin Historical Society, said:
"At a very early period there was a negro lived there (Chi- cago) named Baptiste Point DeSaible. My brother, Perish Grignon, visited Chicago about 1794, and told me that Point DeSaible was a large man; that he had a commission for some office, but for what particular office or from what government, I cannot now recollect. He was a trader, pretty wealthy, and . drank freely. I know not what became of him."
DeSable sold his trading post in May of 1800 to Jean Lalime, a French fur trader, and went to Peoria, then to St. Charles, Mo., where he died at the home of a daughter in 1818. His wife is believed to have died while they were living in Peoria.
An interesting aftermath of this sale of property by DeSable to Lalime was recounted by Wm. H. Stuart in the Sept. 4, 1954 issue of his Heard and Seen news letter. Stuart wrote:
"Alexander F. Beaubien, great-grandson of Mark Beaubien, Chicago pioneer, came down Green Bay road from Waukegan to make a notable contribution to history. He recorded (Aug.
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26, 1954) with Joseph F. Ropa, Cook county recorder, what is believed to be the first transfer of real estate in Chicago history.
"The document records the sale in 1800 by Jean Baptiste Point Sable to Jean Lalime of a frame house, smaller buildings, furnishings, livestock and farm implements on the north bank of the Chicago river opposite (what was to become) the site of Fort Dearborn. John Kinzie, who later acquired the prop- erty, was a witness to the transaction. The original document was recorded in Detroit in the seat of the territory that included Chicago.
"This historic deed became the 16 millionth document filed in the Cook county recorder's office since the present numbering system was started in 1874. It was in French which Recorder Ropa, for supplementing the record, had translated by the Berlitz School of Languages.
"Making the historic filing the more impressive was the presence, as special guest, of Paul Angle, director of the Chicago Historical Society, who received for his files a photostatic copy of the document. Virgil Berg, in charge of plats in the recorder's office, did considerable research in helping to locate the deed in Detroit."
One could hope by this recorded bill of sale to see the actual handwriting of DeSable, but the names of Point Sable, Jean Lalime, J. Kinzie, and Wm. Burnet (the latter two witnesses) all appear to be in the same handwriting as that in which the bill of sale, itself, is written, and which is signed by Joseph Yoyez, a justice of the peace of Detroit's Wayne county.
That DeSable could even write his name is problematical, tho one would suspect that a trader of his day would have some degree of literacy. It also is possible that the spelling of the name, Point Sable, might be the guesswork of the writer of the document.
It was a fitting tribute to Chicago's first settler that in 1935
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one of the city's fine high schools, DuSable, should be named in his honor. (Here again, the ones who chose the name also had to settle upon a spelling, and no one can say, with cer- tainty, that the form chosen was either correct or incorrect, nor does it make any difference. )
The Kinzies Arrive
Lalime enlarged the DeSable house and occupied it as his home and trading post until 1804 when John Kinzie, who had been living near Niles, Mich., bought the property and, with his wife and infant son (John H.) moved to Chicago, becom- ing the first white family of record to reside here.
Kinzie, with a flair for organization and business, enlarged the trading post and set about establishing a trade empire of his own. He built branch posts at Milwaukee and on four rivers of the hinterland-the Rock, Illinois, Kaskaskia, and Sanga- mon, all of which were routes connecting indirectly with the Chicago portage.
Tho Kinzie apparently operated as an independent trader at first (he also was a silversmith), there is evidence1 that he established a working agreement with the great American Fur Company, of which John Jacob Astor was founder, obtaining from that concern such items as knives, guns and ammunition, blankets, cloth, tobacco, trinkets and whiskey used in barter with the Indians for their furs. And the furs, in turn, apparently were sold to the Astor company and shipped eastward via the Great Lakes, land portages, and Canadian rivers. The Erie canal, which was to shorten the route, was not to come until later (1825).
Kinzie also became sub-agent for the Indian agency estab- lished in Chicago in 1804 and re-established in 1816, and was an Indian interpreter. He died in 1828.
It is of some interest to note here that tho Chicago was in
1. Illinois Centennial Publications, Introductory Vol., p. 27.
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Illinois territory, its Indian affairs were under the direction of the governor of Michigan territory, whose headquarters were at Detroit; this because Chicago was more easily accessible by way of the Great Lakes than from the headquarters of the Illinois territory at Kaskaskia on the Mississippi. The same was true for the Indian agency at Green Bay.
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Up to this point in this outline of the why, where, and how of Chicago and Cook county the significant events have fol- lowed, more or less, in chronological order, with little over- lapping in time element. But from now on, with the advent of settlers, expanding trade, and the establishment of govern- ment, separate phases of the history often are occurring at the same time. There will be some backtracking to pick up neces- sary threads for different parts of the story.
Fort Dearborn Established
The young United States government realized the need for a fort at Chicago. Protection was necessary for the strategic portage. Savage Indians were a menace to the settlement, and the trade-covetous British in Canada were reluctant to accept the spirit of the treaty terms following the Revolution. Accord- ingly, President Thomas Jefferson, immediately after the pur- chase of the Louisiana territory in 1803, ordered the fort's construction on the land ceded by the Treaty of Greenville as previously mentioned.
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