History of Chicago. From the earliest period to the present time, Part 23

Author: Andreas, Alfred Theodore
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Chicago, A. T. Andreas
Number of Pages: 1340

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The widow of Dr. Wolcott married, in 1836, Hon. George C. Bates of Detroit, and died in that city August 1, 1860, leaving a husband and one son, Kinzie Bates, U. S. A.

Ellen de 1Balès

Colonel Thomas I. V. Owen succeeded Dr. Wolcott. and served as Indian agent during the years 1831-32-33. Gholson Kercheval and James Stuart served under him

* 1."tter published in Schoolcraft'. " Travels in the Central Partions of the' Mi-st sippi Valley."

+ C'optain Henry Whiting, smiler .nt Fort Dearborn in 18/1 -. 2.

; A wing account oof the construction of the Potlawstone language Ilion - here .

as sub-agents ; Billy Caldwell Sauganash , as interpre- ter : David Mckee as blacksmith, and Joseph Porthier as striker. Colonel Owen was born in Kentucky. April 5, 1801. He was appointed Indian agent in the winter of 1830-31, but did not arrive in Chicago until the spring of 1831, the sub-agent, Mr. Kercheval, attending to the duties of the office until that time. When the Town of Chicago was incorporated in 1833, Colonel Owen was chosen President of its first board of trustees. He died at Chicago, October 15, 1835.

THE FUR TRADE AND TRADERS.

Before priest or explorer found his way to the Chicago River, the fur-trader was dealing with the Indians on its banks. Father Marquette found them-evidently not strangers to the soil or its savage inhabitants-when in the winter of 1674-75 he lay sick in his cabin on the prairie of the portage. They were here before him, were awaiting his coming, and had prepared to receive him hospitably when he should arrive at their wintering- ground below the great Indian village. When they found that his ill health would compel him to pass the winter in " their cabin " at the portage, they sent him supplies from their own stores, and by their influence with the Indians made his hard winter more safe and comfortable.

Until the friendly Illinois were driven from their river, French traders passed freely to and fro over the " Chicagou route " from Canada to Louisiana, and colo- nists came to build their cabins around the Fort St. Louis. When the tribes of the Illinois were driven from their country, and Fort St. Louis had been abandoned and finally destroyed, this path became for a time too dangerous for even the daring voyageurs, and this route of the Canadians to the French settlements and to the interior of the country was exchanged for one more safe.

From the first settlement of New France, the most lucrative business of the colonists was the traffic in furs. and the Canadian voyageurs were, after Nicolet, the first explorers of the Northwest. The fur trade on the St. Lawrence was licensed by the French Government, the paper being drawn somewhat in the form of a colonial commission, conferring on the holder the authority of a military officer over the voyageurs in his employ. The early French traders were sometimes by the terms of their licenses made Colonial agents, with power to make treaties with the Indians and arrange terins of commer- cial intercourse. Their Canadian engages were a won- derful class of men, maintaining by their hardihood a traffic in furs with the savages of the Northwest, which gave to the region its only great value in the eyes of the French Government. The patience, tenacity of pur- pose, courage and resolution displayed by these hardy, cheerful servants are almost without parallel in the his- tory of exploration of savage countries. With their packs of merchandise, or " outfits," they left Quebet: or Montreal in their frail bark cannes. traversed lakes and rivers to their destined post, penetrated to the win- ter haunts of the savages, toiling up the streams in their canoes, and at each portage taking both the canoe and its load on their backs from one stream to another, until a favorable spot for a " wintering-ground " was reached. Then, with their savage companions, they passed the winter in the wilderness, to secure for their employers the annual load of peltries. Sometimes they learned to love their savage life so well that they ceased to return to the St. Lawrewe. but following the Indians in their wandering's, engaged in an illicit trade on their own . . count, and became couriers de bois. These fur-trader-

HISTORY OF EARLY CHICAGO.

of the woods became so numerous by the last of the seventeenth century that a royal declaration was issued against them-their vocation interfering materially with the profits of the licensed French traders. When French domination ceased in the Northwest there was an essen- tial change in the manner of carrying on the fur trade. At a later day the corageurs of the American Fur Com- pany, and private traders were employed under written contracts, executed in Canada for a term of from three to five years-their wages from two hundred and fifty livres (fifty dollars , to seven hundred and fifty livres per year. To this was added their " outfit," consisting usually of a Mackinaw blanket, two cotton shirts, a cap- ote and a few other articles. with the necessary goods for their Indian customers. In the fall they left Mack- inac, or other headquarters of their employer, to spend the months until spring at their " wintering-ground." Their food, when with savages, consisted principally of salt pork, corn and tallow. The furs collected by the voyageurs employed by the American Fur Company were taken to Mackinac in the spring, and there re- packed for New York. The early population of Chicago was, in a great measure, made up of fur-traders. Aside from the military, almost every inhabitant was connected with this traffic, in some form or other. The first trace of white occupation of the site of Chicago after it be- came the home of the l'ottawatomies, is by a French trader named Guarie, who located on the west side of the North Branch of the Chicago River, near the forks. Gurdon S. Hubbard, whose personal knowledge of Chi- cago dates back to 1818, says of this trader :*

" Prior to ISoo, the North Branch of the Chicago Kiver was called by the Indian traders and voyageurs ' River Guarie,' and the South Branch, ' Portage Kiver.' On the west side of the North Branch a man by the name of Guarie had a trading house, situated on the bank of the river about where Fulton Street now is. This house was enclosed by pickets. Ile located there prior to 1778. This tradition I received from Messrs. Antoine Deschamps and An- toine Besom, who from about 1775 had passed from Lake Michigan to the Illinois River yearly ; they were old men when I first knew them in 1818. This tradition was corroborated by other old voya geurs. The evidences of this trading-house were pointed out to me by Mr. Deschamps ; the corn-hills adjoining were distinctly trace- able, though grown over with grass."

Baptiste Pointe de Saible doubtless traded in furs with the Indians, during his long residence on the Chi- cago River, but whether white traders were settled here during those years is unknown. Wm. Burnett, a trader at St. Joseph, whose wintering-ground in 1790-91, was on the Kankakee, says in a letter written at St. Joseph, May 6, 1700 :+ " I received a letter yesterday from Chicago, wherein it is said that nothing is made in the Mississippi this year." February 6, 1791, he writes : "The Pottawatomies at Chicago have killed a French- man about twenty days ago. They say there is plenty of Frenchmen." Whether these Frenchmen were traders with headquarters at Chicago, or merely passing voy- ageurs, is not known ; neither is there any clew to the name of Mr. Burnett's correspondent. He again writes, in the summer of 1798, to Mr. Porthier, a merchant at Mackinac : 1

" In the course of- last winter I wrote you that it is expected that there will be a garrison at Chicago this summer, and from late accounts I have reason to expect that they will be over there this fall, and shoukl it be the case, and as I have a house there already, and a promise of assistance from headquarters, I will have occasion for a good deal of liquors, and some other articles for that post. Therefore, should there be a garrison at Chicago this fall. I will write for an addition of articles to my order."

On the arrival of Major Whistler to build and gar- rison Fort Dearborn, he found at Chicago, as the only

* Blanchard's " History of Chicago," p. 757.

$ Communty spelled Mackinaw front about 1812.

residents in the summer of 1803, three French fur- traders ; LeMai, who bought the cabin of De Saible in 1796, and had probably been a resident since that time ; Antoine Ouilmette, who lived near him, and a trader by the name of Pettell, of whom nothing more is known. A year latter Le Mai sold his cabin to John Kinzie, and Antoine Ouilmette entered the service of the latter, and long remained his employé. Onilmette's house was just north, and within a very short distance of Mr. Kinzie's. At the time of the Fort Dearborn massacre, it became the hiding place of Mrs. Helm, where she was preserved from the furious savages who sought her life by the courage and coolness of Mrs. Bisson, a sister of Mrs. Quilmette. It was in Ouilmette's garden that William Griffith .* the Quartermaster at the fort, hid himself behind the currant bushes, and when discovered by the family was disguised as a Cana- dian voyageur and helped to escape with the Kinzies.

After the departure of the boat containing his em- ployer's family, Ouilmette was left the sole white inhab- . itant of Chicago. After the arrival of Alexander Rob- inson, who probably came to Chicago to live in 1814. Ouilinette and he cultivated the field formerly used as the garden of the fort, raising there good crops of corn. The crop of 1816 was sold to Captain Bradley after his arrival to rebuild the fort. At the treaty made at Prairie Du Chien in 1829 with the tribe of which his wife was a member, Ouilmette was granted, on her account, a reservation at Gros Point. now Wilmette. There he made a farm and remained until the Potta- watomies were removed to the West. He accompanied them with his family, and both himself and wife died at Council Bluffs, Iowa. His daughter Elizabeth mar- ried Michael Welch. of Chicago, and after his death. Lucius R. Darling, of Silver Lake, Kansas. Another daughter, 'Josette, mentioned in " Waubun " married John Derosche, and with the other children of the fam- ily-Michell, Lewis, Francis, Sophie and Joseph-set- tled on the banks of the Kansas River, with the tribe.

Before the rebuilding of the fort, one other trader settled in Chicago. This was M. Du Pin, who married the widow of Mr. Lee ( the former proprietor of the cahin and garden on the lake shore near the fort . and lived in the Kinzie house during the absence of the family. After his removal to Chicago in 1804 John Kinzie became a very successful trader. His trading- house apparently absorbed all the rival establishments- except the United States Factory. A description of its grow and success is given in " Waubun " as fol- lows :

" By degrees more remote trading-posts were established by him, all contributing to the parent one at Chicago ; at Milwaukee with the Menomonies ; at Kock River with the Winnebagoes and the Pottawatomies : on the Illinois Kiver and Kankakee with the l'ot- towatomies of the l'rairies, and with the Kickapoos in what was called 'Le large.' being the widely extended district afterward erected intn Sangamon County. Each trading-post had its super- intendent, and its complement of engagés-its train of pack-horses, and its equipment of boats and canoes. From most of the stations the fury and peltries were brought to Chicago on pack-horses, and the goods necessary for the trade were transported in return by the same method The vessels which came in the spring and fall (seldom more than two or three annually ). to bring the supplies and groods for the trade took the fur- that were already collected to Mackinac, the depot of the Southwest and the American Fur Companies. At other seasons they were sent to that place in boats. coasting around the lakes. "

When the fort was rebuilt in 1816, Government re- established the United States Factory connected with it. Soon after this a tradin ;- house was established by Conant and Mack, wealthy merchants of Detroit, at the

* Afterward Caption William Griffth of General Harrison's " spies. "

THE FUR TRADE AND TRADERS.

point formerly known as " Lee's Place " four miles up the South Branch from the fort. This was on govern- ment land, being included in the " six-miles-square tract." and these merchants having bought the old cabin where Mr. White and his man were murdered in the spring of 1812, sent John Crafts with a large sup- ply of Indian goods, to take possession of the place and establish there a branch house. The location was directly in the path of the Indians of the interior as they brought their furs from the Illinois, Desplaines and Kankakee, and crossed the portage to the factory at Chicago. The establishment was a decided success. The Indians had no great love for United States factor- ies, and the house at the "portage " secured almost a monopoly of the furs of the region, until the American Fur Company decided to swallow both the factory and the establishment owned by Mr. Crafts. This was ac- complished by the close of 1822-the factory had ceased to exist, and Mack and Conant had transferred their interests in the fur trade of the region about Chicago to its prosperous rival.

THE AMERICAN FUR COMPANY AND ITS TRADERS IN CHICAGO .- When the military possession of the Northwest passed from France to Great Britain in 1760, the Hudson's Bay Company, which had been chartered by Parliament as early as 1670, acquired almost an ex- clusive monopoly of the fur trade. Its success excited the envy of other capitalists, and in 1783, the North- west Fur Company was organized at Quebec, and estab- lished its posts at various points on the upper lakes and throughout the interior. The new company, contrary to the custom of the older one, employed voyageurs for its extended trade, and soon diminished the profits of the Hudson's Bay Company. Other organizations were formed-among them an association of British mer- chants called the Mackinaw Company, which became a successful rival to the older companies.

In 1809, John Jacob Astor organized the American Fur Company, which was chartered by the New York Legislature-Mr. Astor being the Company. In con- nection with the Northwest Company he bought out the Mackinaw Company in 1811, and formed the South- west Company. The War of 1812 temporarily inter- rupted the existence of that organization, but it was re- vived. In 1815 Congress prohibited foreigners from dealing in furs in the United States and Territories. The Southwest Company, composed mainly of British merchants, sold out its interest to Mr. Astor soon after, and the company was known as the " American Fur Company " after the spring of 1817 .*

" Having entire charge of the management of the company in the West were Ramsey Crooks and Robert Stuart. To William Matthews was entrusted the engaging of voyageurs and clerks in Canada, with his headquarters in Montreal. The voyageurs he took from the habitant ( farmers ); young, active, athletic men were sought for ; indeed, none but such were engaged, and they passed under inspection of a surgeon. Mr. M. also purchased at Montreal such goods as were suited for the trade to load his boats. These boats were the Canadian hatteaux, principally used in those days in transferring goods to upper St. Lawrence River and its tributaries, manned by four oarsmen and a steersman, capacity about six tons. The voyageurs and clerks were under indentures for a term of five years. Wages of voyageurs Stoo, clerks from $120 to $500 per annum. These were all novices in the business. The plan of the company was to arrange and secure the services of old traders and their voyageurs, who at the ( new ) organization of the company were in the Indian country, depending on their in- fluence and knowledge of the trade with the Indians ; and as fast as possibile secure the vast trade of the West and Northwest within . the district of the United States, inter-persing the novices brought from Canada, so as to consolidate, extend and monopolize as far as possible over the country, the Indian trade. The first two years they had succeeded in bringing into their employ seven-eighths of * Gurdon S. Hubbard, in " Chicago Antiquities."

the old Indian traders on the upper Mississippi, Wabash and Illi- nois rivers, Lakes Superior and Michigan, and their tributaries as far north as the boundaries of the United States extended. The other eighth thought that their interest was to remain independent ; toward such, the company selected their best traders, and located them in opposition, with instructions so to manage by underselling as to bring them to terms. At Mackinaw, the trader's brigades was organized. the company selecting the most capable trader to be the manager of his particular brigade, which consisted of from five to twenty batteaux laden with goods. This chief or manager, when reaching a country allotted to him made detachments, locat- ing trading-houses with districts clearly defined, for the operations of that particular post, and so on, until his ground was fully occu- pied by traders under him, over whom he had absolute authority."

The law excluding foreigners from trading in the Indian country seemed designed to apply to companies and not individuals. The American Fur Company, controlled by an American, was considered an exclu- sively American company, arid was allowed for the suc- cessful prosecution of its business, certain privileges which did not conform to the letter of the law. The various Indian agents at the western posts were directed through the Governor of Michigan Territory. to grant licenses to such traders as the agents of Mr. Astor should designate. The British traders formerly con- nected with the Southwest Company were familiar with the fur trade, and were trusted by the Indians, over whom their influence was unbounded. The Canadian voyageurs were indispensable to the successful prose- cution of the business, and it was not long before licenses were in the hands of British traders, who sent their engagés to every part of the Indian country, boldi- ing that they were American citizens under the provi- sions of Jay's treaty, and that the form of naturaliza- tion was unnecessary.

RAMSEY CROOKS, agent of the American Fur Company, was born in the town of Greenock, Scotland, January 2, 1757. When sixteen years of age he migrated to Canada, and was for awhile employed as junior clerk in the mercantile house of Maitland, Garden & Auldjo, in Montreal. In ISos, he engaged in the ser- vice of a merchant named Gillespie, and went to the then frontier village of St. Louis, where he remained two or three years, after- ward trading with the Indians on the Missouri River on his own account. Rohert McClellan was one of his associates and friends while in Missouri, and the two young traders fought manfully for their rights against the arrogance and tyranny of the Missouri Fur Company, which with Manual Lisa at its head, did not scru- ple to instigate the Sioux to acts of violence against rival traders. In 1809. John Jacob Astor conceived the design of establising a chain of trading-posts on the Missouri and La P'latte rivers to the Rocky Mountains, and thence to the l'acific. Mr. Crooks relin- quished his busines- on the Missouri, and at the desire of Mr. Astor joined the party of traders and trappers which, starting from St. Louis, was to traverse the country to the Pacific, and at the mouth of the Columbia River establish the principal station of the company. After much suffering and many wanderings, the party reached Astoria in May, 1812. Mr. Crooks returned to St. Louis in IS13, and the following year, through the capture of the station by the British, and the failure of our government to give protec- tinn to the American fur-traders. Mr. Astor relinquished all opera- tion on the Pacific coast. In 1817, at the re-formation of the American Fur Company, Mr. Crooks again joined Mr. Astor, and was the agent of the company at Mackinaw for the ensuing five years. Although his residence was in New York, he spent much time at Mackinaw, and was well known, and personally esteemed by the many traders connected with the company, at the stations at Chicago, Green Bay, Milwaukee and elsewhere in the North- west. The partnership with Mr. Astor was dissolved in 1$30, when Mr. Crooks resumed his former position as a salaried employé of the company, but in 1834. Mr. Astor, beginning to feel the infirmities of age, sold out the stock of the company, and transferred thecharter to Mr. Crooks and others, and this gentleman was there- upon elected president of the company. However, the business did not continue prosperous, and in 1542, the American Fur Com- pany made an assignment and passed out of existence. In 1:45. Mr. Crooks opened a commission house, for the sale of furs and skins in New York. This business, which proved very successful, he continued until h': death, which occurred at his residence in New York city on the 6th of June 1559, in the seventy-third year of his age. Mr. Crooks was noted for his extreme modesty and

HISTORY OF EARLY CHICAGO.

unobtrusiveness, his sterling integrity, and purity of life, and the kindness, patience and humanity he exhibited to all those with whom he had to deal-both white man and red.

Ramsey Crooks left New York to assume the duties of agent of the American Fur Company at Mackinaw, in March, 1817. From that time he was intimately con- nected with many of the Chicago traders-furnishing goods both to the traders connected with his company and those who acted independently. In a collection of his letters, now in the possession of Gurdon S. Hubbard, there is much to be found relating to the early trade and traders of Chicago and to the general operations of the company. The following extracts are from these letters. On the 22d of June, 1817, Mr. Crooks writes from " Michilimackinac " to John Kinzie of Chicago :

" Dear Sir :- Since my arrival seven days ago, no opportunity of communicating with you has presented itself. By the arrival of Mr. Lamorandiere I am happy to learn your success in the iate campaign, and sincerely hope it may continue. I look for a visit from you soon, but should that be inconvenient yet for some time, any communication you may, in the interim, favor us with shall be duly attended to.

"Enclosed is a letter to Mr. Daniel Bourassa,# who appears to have been shamefully imposed upon by Mr. Buisson and asso- ciates; however being averse to forming an opinion injurious to any one without proof, I have requested Mr. Bourassa to avail himself of the first conveyancet to this place, in order that on the arrival of these gentlement a foll investigation may take place, which, with- out his presence must be imperfect and unsatisfactory. Bourassa may perhaps dread the consequences of putting himself in my power, but his general character hitherto does not permit my entertaining any suspicions of his honesty, and he may come here without ap- prchension. Should Mir. Buisson and his friends have acted as basely as report says, they may possibly try to intimidate Bourassa so as to prevent his coming here, but 1 trust you will assure him my only wish for his presence is to state before them the circum- stances attending this transaction in its different stages **

In a letter enclosed to Mr. Bourassa in the above, and which is written in French, Mr. Crooks says:

" I am very sorry to learn the arrangements you have thought proper to make with the goods given you by Mr. Rocheblave for the Southwest Company, bot as I am persuaded that you have not been well treated in this affair, it is for your advantage to take the first opportunity to come here (Mackinaw) where, when Mr. Buis- son arrives, the difficulty will be settled in the most equitable manner."

On the 23d of June, 1817, in a letter to Mr. Astor, Mr. Crooks says:

"In Lake Michigan the complexion of our adventures are various-only one person we equipped (on his own account) has yet come in. He has done pretty well. Kinzie at Chicago is said to have been fortunate, but at other points report speaks a more equivocal language. We hear that the people in the Illinois River have made out tolerably." "Governor Cass, although positively instructed to be guided by the orders of the War Depart- ment of last year in regard to the granting of licensing to foreign- ers, and having no directions from Acting Secretary Graham to be- stow any specific indulgences on your agents, has written Major Puthuff (Indian Agent at Green Bay, afterward dismissed) to attend particularly to our wishes : and should he act as the discretionary nature of his orders will allow, he can serve our purpose almost as effectually as if foreigners had been excluded generally and we had obtained the number of licenses in blank which you at one time so confidently expected. With this knowledge of the disposi- tion evinced hy the Governor of Michigan Territory for our suc- cess, you may well suppose no effort on our part to engage the In- ilian Agent here (Colonel Bowyer at Mackinaw) in our cause, hut his not being bound to pursue any particular system will leave all we obtain to be acquired by our own exertions. So conflicting will In. the claims on his indulgence, and so many stratagems will be tried to thwart our views, that it would be the extreme of folly to hazard an opinion of the result. but if he only remains true to the line of conduct we may prevail on him to adopt, we latter our-

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History of Chicago. From the earliest period to the present time, Part 23

Author: Andreas, Alfred Theodore Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Chicago, A. T. Andreas Number of Pages: 1340

Author: Andreas, Alfred Theodore
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Chicago, A. T. Andreas
Number of Pages: 1340