History of Chicago. From the earliest period to the present time, Part 27

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

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THE MIRANDEAL AND PORTHIER FAMILIES,-AAmong the few houses built in the north side of the river prior to 1826, was one which was built and occupied by Joseph Parthier, a blacksmith and striker for Mr. McKee. The widow of Mr. Porthier is be-

105

CHICAGO FROM 1816 TO 1830.

lieved to be the only person, now living, who saw and remembers any circumstances which transpired in Chicago, prior to the massa- cre of 1812. She is the fifth child of Jean Baptiste Mirandeau, the earliest permanent white settler in Milwaukee and a sojourner in Chicago in 1811. She is now living ( September, 1833 ) at Bay View near Milwaukee, and retains a vivid and clear recollection of very early times in Chicago, which are deemed of historic value, as they were given at two different interviews, between which suffi- cient time had elapsed to test the reliability of her recollection. Without prompting on the part of the interviewer, she corrobor- ated all statements made at the first. She is the 'good Victoire," mentioned by Mrs. Kinzie in " Waubun " ( p. 369), and the fam- ily servant of John Kinzie and Dr. Wolcott. Genevieve and Jean Baptiste, with the amusing "Tomah," who accompanied John H. Kinzie and Lieutenant Hunter to Fort Winnebago in IS33, were her sister and brothers. The family record kept by her father was destroyed after his death, and Mrs. Porthier can- not give the exact date of her birth, but from collateral evidence it is believed to have been in ISoo or ISor .* What follows is as given by Mrs. Porthier herself in August and September, IS83 :

" My mother was an Ottawa woman; iny father was a French- man. He was a good scholar, a very handsome man, and had many books. He taught us children to speak French, and we all learned to speak Indian of the tribe and mother. We had no schools nor education. I never learned to read or write. My father had his house in Milwaukee, where he traded with the In- dians and did some blacksmithing for them, and for other traders. He fixed guns and traps for them. Before the fort was burned ( August, 1812 ) my father was down to the fort-the year before -and did blacksmith work there. The family went down while he was there, and some of us lived in the Quilmette house, across the river from the fort. My sister Madaline ( afterward the wife of John K. Clark ) and I saw the fight between old John Kinzie and Lalime when he ( Lalime ) was killed.

" THE LALIME HOMICIDE .- It was sunset when they used to shut the gates of the fort. Kinzie and Lalime came out together and soon we heard Lieutenant Helm call out for Mr. Kinzie to look out for Lalime, as he had a pistol. Quick we saw the inen come together; we heard the pistol go off, and saw the smoke. Then they fell down together. I don't know as Lalime got up at all but Kinzie got home pretty quick. Blood was running from his shoulder where Lalime had shot him. lo the night he packed up some things, and my father took him to Milwaukee, where he staid till his shoulder got well and he found he wouldn't be troubled if he came back. You see Kinzie wasn't to blame at all. He didn't have any pistol nor knife-nothing. After Lalime shot him and Kinzie got his arms around him, he ( Lalime ) pulled out his dirk and as they fell he was stabbed with his own knife. That is what they all said. I didn't see the knife at all. I don't remem- ber where Lalime was buried. I don't think his grave was very near Mr. Kinzie's house. I don't remember that Mir. Kinzie ever took care of the grave. That is all I know about it. I don't know what the quarrel was about. It was an old one-business, I guess.

" After Mr. Kinzie came back (1816) he came up to Milwaukee and visited my father and took me to live with him. ( We were not there when the fort was burned-we had gone back to Mil- waukee.) I lived with him until he died, then I married Joseph Porthier. Ile was a Frenchman, and a kind of blacksmith. He worked for McKee."

Victoire Mirandeau, who has partially told her own story, above, was married at Fort Dearborn to Joseph l'orthier, by C'olo- nel J. B. Beaubien, J. P., November 5, 1828. She lived in Chi- cago until 1535, when Mr. Porthier, wife and three children, re- moved to Milwaukee, where he had bought a quarter section of land. Mr. Porthier died in 1875, and was buried in Milwaukee. Ilis widow lives near Bay View, south of the city of Milwaukee, in a small hoase built for her by the old settlers of that city. ller large family of children, like her brothers and sisters, have all died of consumption-the last daughter during the late summer of 1533-and the sorrowful old lady is indeed alone. When speak- ing of her early friends in Chicago-the Kinzies, Wolcotts, Bean biens and the many members of her tribe, her sul refrain is ever "dead-all gone." Her little home, though plain to poverty, is a model of neatness and order, and the garden, tended by her own hands, is bright with flowers and vines She speaks French, En- glish, and several Indian dialects well. It is well said of her in the " Milwaukee History : " " H she could have had the advan- tages of an education, Mrs. Porthier would have been a remarka- ble woman, as her memory is almost as accurate as a written re- ronl ; her powers of perception are wonderful, and her ideas of right and wrong rigidly and justly correct. But her closing years

* The Milwaukee History, In a foot note referring to a statement uf Dr. i n b & have, that she was podedes forums sous: " she was born in the smr7 1 1811-181, acalme In het but recollertom and the kiir family

are dreary enough-shorn as they are of relatives and friends, pinched by poverty and burdened by sorrow.' It is indeed sad that this solitary woman, forming perhaps the only living link con- necting the present with the " by-gone days" of Chicago and Mil waukee, should close her days in poverty and an ever present dread of being the recipient of public charity.

JEAN BAPTISTE MIRANDEAU, the father of Mrs. Porthier, was an educated French gentleman belonging to one of the first fam- ilies of Quebec. He studied for the prieshood, but on the eve of taking orders abandoned his intention, and about the close of the Revolutionary War left Quebec with John Vieux for the northwest. He became an employé of the American Fur Company, and traded some years in the Lake Superior region and afterward on the Wa bash. He came to Milwaukee about the year 1795. bringing with him his Indian wife whom he had recently married, and to whom

MRS. VICTOIRE (MIRANDEAU) PORTHIER .*

he was faithful until his death, which occurred in 1820. He built a house in Milwaukee and around it had a well cultivated garden.t " He was a religious man, and had prayers in his house every evening. Ilis library was quite large, and he spent all his leisure time in reading. lle was a tall fine looking man, with crisp curly hair. He was a great favorite of his wild neighbors, who prom- ised him all the land between the river and the lake as far as the North Point, when they inade the treaty for the sale of their lands, but he died before that treaty, and Mr. ( Solomon ) Juneau suc- ceeded him as the chief white man in Milwaukee. Ifis widow survived him until 1838, and was well known to many of the early settlers of Milwaukee . . Mr. Mirandean was the first white man who ever moved here, spent his married life here, died and was buried here ( Milwaukee)."

The children of Mr. Mirandeau were ten. Jean Baptiste Ist, was poisoned when a child, at the mouth of Rock River. Madaline Ist, was accidentally drowned in the Milwaukee River. Madaline 21 came to Chicago, for a time lived in the family of Lalime, the Indian Interpreter, andl afterwards became the wife of John K. Clark, and died leaving a daughter who still lives at Milwaukee. The fourth child was Joseph ; the fifth, Victoire ( Mrs. Joseph Pur- thier). Then came Louis. Jean Baptiste 2d. Rosanne, Genevieve and Thomas. Jean Baptiste and Genevieve were servants in John Kinzie's and Dr. Wolcott's families, and Thomas the youngest was

* The oldest resident of Chicago living. Taken from a photograph in August, 183 ;.

+ 1'rum address uf Dr. Enwh Chase before Ohl Settler-' Club of Milwall- kre. Dr. Chase says he has known the history of the Mirandesu family thirty.

106

HISTORY OF EARLY CHICAGO.

the " Tomah " of " Wanbun." Nearly all of the younger children died in Kansas. After the death of Mr. Mirandeau, his widow. left with no relatives or friends except among the Indians, took up her abode among them, and the papers and books of her husband were lost or destroyed Mr. Mirandean was an intimate friend of John Kinzie, and probably placed his children in his family that they might escape, as far as possible, the influence of the Indians.

STEPHEN H. SCOTT and family came to the West from Ben- nington, N. Y., a small place about twenty-eight miles from Lui- falo. Although the family did not settie, as a family, directly in Chicago, one of the sons, Willis, lived here continuunsly from 1826

Willisato

to 1832, and after removing to the neighboring town of Waukegan, returned again to Chicago about 1866-67. The daughters also mar- ried and lived in Chicago. Stephen Scott started for the West in- tending to settle at St. Joe, Mich., but on arriving at that place concluded to cross to Chicago. The schooner, bringing his family and effects, arrived at Chicago August 20, 1826. After looking about the country in the vicinity a little, MIr. Scott decided to settle at Gros Point, now Wilmette, and departed for that place with his family, by schooner, sending word to one of his sons-Willard-who had remained behind with a portion of the goods at St. Joe, to bring them to that point. The family landed at Gros Point on the 22d. and as soon as possible a log cabin was erected, in which the family lived until 1831. Willis, however, returned immediately to Chicago where he worked around the fort for a time as hostler for the Post- surgeon, Dr. Finlay, and also worked for the Clybournes. About the year 1829 or 1830, Archibald Clybourne made a journey to Vir- ginia to get a giri strong atid willing to come to Chicago and assist his mother, who was growing old and unequal to the tasks of pioneer life. He brought back with him a relative, Louisa B. Caldwell, sister of Archibald Caldwell, who with James Kinzie built the Wolf Point Tavern. Willis Scott became acquainted with this girl at Mr. Clybourne's, and on the Ist of November, 1830, she became his wife, the marriage ceremony being performed by Rev. William See. The Scott family remaining at Gros Point con- sisted of a son Willard and three daughters, all of whom were inar- ried while residing there. Wealthy Scott, married, January 23. 1827, David McKee, and lived on the north side of the river near the foot or what is now North State Street, where their son, Stephen J. Scott McKee was born September IS, 1830 .*

PERMELIA SCOTT was married, July 21, 1329, to John K. Clark whom she survived : Deborah, who was the widow of Munson Watkins when she came to the West, was married again to Josepa Bauskey, a Frenchman, May 5, 1828. Mr. Banskey died of cholera io Chicago in 1832. Willard married Caroline Hawley, July 21, 1829, and was long a resident of Naperville, III. After the family had lived at Gros Point five years, it was discovered that Mr. Scott's claim was on the reservation granted by Government to Antoine Quilmette ; and he removed to Desplaines, and took charge of a tavern owned by the Laughton brothers, where now is the site of Riverside. This tavern was quite pretentious for the times, and a favorite resort of the Chicago people. Mrs. Kinzie, ia that wonderful picture of early Chicago and the vicinity, " Wau- bun," mentions a call she made there in 1831, where she found carpets, a warm stove, and other luxuries not. commoo at that day.

MARK BEAUBIEN, a younger brother of General J. B. Beanbien. was boro in Detroit in the year 1800. Wheo very young, he mar- ried in that city, Mademoiselle Monique Nadean; the children of this union being sixteen, five of whom-Josette, Mark Jr., Oliver. Joseph aod Emily were born in Detroit. In IS26, Mr. Beanbien

came to Chicago to visit his brother, and de- cided to make the place his home. He tells the story of his arrival thus:+ "I arrived in Chicago in the year of 1826, from Detroit; came with my family by team ; no road ooly Indiao trail. I had to hire an Indian to ~how me the road to Chicago. I camped out doors and bought a log house from Jim Kinzie. There was no town laid out ; didn't expect no town. When they laid out the town, my house laid out in the street ; when they laid the town I bought two lots where I built the o.d Sauganash, the first ; frame house in Chicago." The frame build: mentioned above, and called "the Sauganash" in honor of the Chief Billy Caldwell, was at the southeast corner of the present Lake ani Market streets. The old Ing house which Mr. Beaubien bought of

* Ser Sketch of David McKer.

+ " Chntico Antiquitu's, " P. 450.

+ An error: there had been a trame house built for Billy Caldwell.

"Jim Kinzie," formed a wing of the new building which is de- scribed in "Wanbun " as "a pretentious, white two-story building with bright blue wooden shutters, the admiration of all the little circle at Wolf l'oint." MIr. Beaubien commenced hotel keeping in the log cabin which he bought of Mr. Kinzie, and continued the business in the Sauganash, remaining in the latter, which became a very famous house of entertainment, until 1834. In the latter year he completed another house on the northwest corner of Wells and Lake streets, which was called the " Exchange Coffee House." and first kept by Mr. and Mrs. John Murphy. It seems probable that the Saugaoash was afterwards called the " Eagle Exchange," as one of Mr. Beanbien's daughters, Mrs. Emily ( Beaubieo) Le Page, states that she once lived in the first frame building in Chi- cago, " called the Eagle Exchange on Market street, oear the corner of Lake." Early in IS31, at a meeting of the Commissioners Court of Cook County, Mr. Beanbien filed his bond with James Kinzie as security, agreed to pay into the county treasury fifty dollars, and was licensed to run a ferry across the South Branch of the Chicago River-the first ferry in the town. All citizens of Cook County were to be ferried frec with their "traveling apratus," but outsiders were to pay specified rates. A scow was pur- chased of Samuel Miller for sixty-five dollars, and Mark entered upon his duties. During that year the Canal Commissioners held a meeting at Chicago, and the extra lerringe oo their account was paid by Cook County. The ferryman charged for his services $7.33. He was licensed as a merchaot during 1831, and the com- bined duties of landlord and storekeeper, with occasional hours of

recreation in the way of horse-racing, caused perhaps some want of attention to the ferry, and the court accordingly ordered that the ferry should be kept running "from daylight in the morning. until dark, without stopping," for the accomodation of Cook County passengers. In the same year he received a license to keep tavern, and probably soon after opened the Sanganash. When Chicago was incorporated as a town in 1833, the first election of trustees was at the house of Mr. Beanbien, which was ever a favorite resort both for purposes of business and of amusement; the merry good-

IO7

CHICAGO FROM 1816 TO 1830.

souled landlord, and his wife, who is described as "a noble woman, and devoted Christian mother," making the Sauganash a place to be remembered by all early travelers. Mr. Beauhien married for his second and last wife Elizabeth Matthews of Aurora, by whom he had seven children. He lived in Chicago for many years, and was the last light-house keeper in the place, being appointed by President Buchanan, at a salary of $350. He was one of the lead- ers in the organization of St. Mary's Church, the first Catholic society in the city, toward the construction of which he paid liber- ally. He was a kind friend to the Indians, who at their treaty with Government in 1834 conveyed "to their good friend, Mark Beau- bien" a reservation of sixty-four acres of land at the mouth of the Calumet, of which he received the patent signed by Martin Van Buren, nearly forty years later-having been unconscious of the gift during all those years. When Mark Beaubien came to Chicago be brought with him from Detroit a fiddle, which in his hands dis- coursed sweet music in the old days, and will always be remembered io connection with the old Frenchman, who, till the last, loved his instrument, and at his death bequeathed it to the Calumet Club of Chicago, where it remains, a valued possession. Mr. Beaubien is described as being in his prime "a tall athletic fine appearing man, Frenchy and polite, frank, open-hearted, generous to a fault, and, in his glory at a horse-race." His favorite dress on "great occa- sions" was a swallow-tail coat with brass buttons, and, if in the summer, light nankeen trousers. His quaint old song, in regard to the surrender of General Hull at Detroit in IS12, of which he was a witness, was sung with as much gusto, as Monie Musk and Fisher's Hornpipe were played, and the young people of the new generation listened to his music and stories with as much pleasure as did bis companions in early Chicago. His last visits to Chicago were in 1879 and 1880, at the time of the Calumet Club receptions to old settlers, where his vivacity and enthusiasm gave no token of the approaching end, then so near. The children of Mr. Beaubien, as given in the Chicago Times, in an article entitled "By-gone . Days," March 26, 1376, were Josette, Mark, Oliver, Joseph and Emily, (born in Detroit), Soliston, David, George. Napoleon, Ed- ward, Helena, Elizabeth, Gwinny, Frances, Monique and an infant who died unnamed-children of Mark and Monique Beaubien; and Robert, Frank, Mary, Ida, Jimmy, Jesse and Slidel, children by his second marriage. He died on the 16th of April, ISSI, in Kankakee, Ill., at the house of George Mathews, who married his daughter Mary.

MADORE B. BEAUBIEN, second child of General J. B. Beau- bien and Mah-naw-bun-no-quah, an Ottawa woman, was born July 15, 1809, at Thompson's Creek, of Grand River, Mich. Be- fore General Beaubien became agent for the American Fur Com- pany and permanently settled at Chicago, in the fall of ISIS, Ma- dore had visited Chicago where his father had again married and bought a house, and as early as 1813, he says, he recollects climb- ing over the blackened ruins of old Fort Dearborn. The business of General Beaubien as Indian trader required his presence at Mackinaw, Milwaukee and Chicago during certain portions of each year aod in these trips he was usually accompanied by his family- relatives of his wife (Josette La Framboise) living in all those places. Madore had not been many years in Chicago, before his father sent him to the Baptist school established by Rev. Isaac McCoy, under the auspices of Government, at the place now Niles, Mich., then called the Carey Mission. In 1831, Madore was li- censed as a merchant, and soon after built a two roomed log house which was the first building on lot No. I, now the southwest corner of South Water and Dearborn streets. He brought a stock of goods from Detroit and opened a store in one of the rooms, while the other was occupied as a tailor's shop, by Mr. Anson H. Taylor, who had arrived in Chicago in 1829, and first opened his goods at the old Kinzie house on the north side of the river. In 1832 Mr. Taylor, assisted by his brother Charles, then landlord at the Wolf Tavern, built a wooden bridge over the South Branch of

Madone B. Beaubien

the Chicago River, near the forks-a log foot-bridge having been previously constructed over the North Branch. The following year Madure B. Benubien was appointed one of the committee to contract for repairing these bridges. Ilis store was not a success. 1.naking at the courtly ald gentleman of seventy-four-erect, hand- some, suave and polished, it is easy to see that the young man of twenty-one would hardly relish any confinement to the drudgery of trading and bartering with Indians. So he failed in business, but was ready for both the spurts and dangers of frontier life, and until the tidings of the Black Hawk War arousel him, the attrac- tions of the wolf hunt, the race or the dance, kept him from a

more useful life. He was Second Lieutenant of the Naperville militia company during the war, and showed himself brave and fearless. He was later First Lieutenant in Captain Boardman's Chicago company. Mr. Beaubien first married, in Chicago, Maria Poyer, daughter of John K. Boyer, who arrived here in the spring of IS33. This marriage was dissolved by divorce. His second wife was Keez-ko-quah, an Indian woman, and on June 2, 1854, he married for his third and present wife his cousin Therese ( La- framboise) Harden, formerly Watkins, the divorced wife of Thomas Watkins of Chicago, and widow of Mr. Harden. This marriage took place at the Baptist Indian Mission, in what is now Shawnee County, Kan. Mr. Beaubien left Chicago with the l'ot- tawatomies in the fall of IS40 ; resided at Council Bluffs unti! IS47, and then with the tribe went to Kansas. For many years he ' was one of the interpreters of the Pottawatomies, and was one of the six commissioners employed by the Nation to transact their business with the United States. In November, IS61, a treaty was made with the Pottawatomies, by which those who so elected were given laod in severalty, and those who desired to continue tribal relations were removed to a diminished reservation. At the time of this treaty Mr. Beaubien officiated as one of the " head men " of the tribe, but with many others, elected to become a citi- zen of the United States, and received an allotment of land on ac- count of his wife and mother. He now resides on a farm in Silver Lake Village, of which he and A. T. Thomas-afterward a resi- dent of Topeka, and Clerk of the United States Circuit Court- were the original proprietors. The first store in the village was started by MIr. Beaubien in connection with C. S. Palmer. Mr. Beaubien has three children by his third marriage-Philip H., John B., and George E.

THE LAUGHTONS .- David and-Bernardus Laughton were In- dian traders who early had a store at Hardscrabble on the South Branch, but about 1827-28 removed to the Desplaines, where Riverside is now. The wife of Bernardus Laughton was Miss Sophia Bates, of Vermont, a sister of the wife of Stephen Forbes, who taught the first regular school in Chicago.

RUSSEL E. HEACOCK was born at Litchfield, Conn .; in the year 1779. While yet quite young he lost his father. He after- wards Icarned the trade of carpenter, and worked at it with but little intermission until he was over thirty, and occasionally in after life, in the intervals of a profession which never occupied his whole time, and largely in the improvement of his own property. He removed to St. Louis in 1806, where he earned liberal wages, making sometimes as much as ten to fifteen dollars a day. His health becoming somewhat impaired through the prevailing mala- ria, his thoughts were turned to the legal profession through the influence of a cousin, Russel Easton, a lawyer residing at St. Louis. Mr. Easton offered him free use of his library and office, and he entered on a desultory course of study, earning money at his trade

RE Leacacho

in the more busy seasons. He was admitted to the Bar in 1816. Meanwhile he hari become acquainted with his future wife, and was married, in 1816, at Brownsville, Jackson Co., Ill., to Rebecca, second daughter of William Ozborn, a soldier of the Revolution, who had emigrated from South Carolina to settle with his family in a free state. Three sons were born to them in 1817, ISIS, and 1820. On the 24th of January, 1821, Mr. Heacock was licensed to practice by the Supreme Court of Illinois. In 1823 his fourth son was born, William O., now (1883) of Delaware, Iowa, to whom we are indebted for many of the facts here given. In that year, too, moved by the representations of a brother, Reuben B., of Buffalo, N. Y., he left Jonesboro, Union Co., Ill., for Buffalo, where he resided over three years, and where a daughter was born to him in 1825. In 1827 Mr. Hea- cock again turned his face westward, intending to settle at Fort Clark, now Penria, Ill., and arrived at Chicago, July 4. [iere he concluded to remain, and took up his residence within the enclosure of Fort Dearborn, at that time unoccupied by the military ; and here a second daughter was born early in 1:25. About May of that year he removed to a log cabin and claim, which he had purchased of Peter Lampsett. It was about the center of Section 32. Town- ship 39, Kange 14: "about three-quarters of a mile south- cast of the lock at Bridgeport, and one mile due south of Hardscrabble." At one of the elections in 183. he was judge and at another clerk ; and in t331, he was one of two commissioners appointed to lay out a road from Shelbyville to Chicago. He was licensed to keep tavern, and was one of the seven justices appointed

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History of Chicago. From the earliest period to the present time, Part 27

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