History of Cook County, Illinois From the Earliest Period to the Present Time, Part 12

Author: Andreas, A. T. (Alfred Theodore), 1839-1900
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Chicago : A.T. Andreas
Number of Pages: 875

USA > Illinois > Cook County > History of Cook County, Illinois From the Earliest Period to the Present Time > Part 12

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

The U. S. Indian Agency was established at Chi- cago in 1804, and re-established in 1816, when Mr. Kin- zie was appointed sub-agent, under Charles Jouett. He served in the same capacity under Dr. Alexander Wolcott, and also as Indian interpreter for a short time. December 2, 1823, he was recommended as a Justice of the Peace for Fulton County, and July 28, 1825, was appointed Justice of the Peace for Peoria County. After the death

THE OLD KINZIE MANSION AS IT APPEARED IN 1832.

we have hordes of Indians around us already. My best respects 10 Mr. Crooks and Stewart, and all the gentlemen of your house. " Adieu. I am your loving Father."

Mr. Kinzie's name appears as sub-agent and witness to the treaty of Chicago, August 29, 1821, which was signed in the immediate neighborhood of his residence -probably between his house and the agency-house, a little west. The accepted spelling is Kinzie, not as above.

Mr. Kinzie, appealed to by Governor Cass, spoke to the Indians, who were discontented with the annuities granted them, in the following words : "You must recollect that when I first spoke to you about the an- nuity at St. Mary's, I told you I could offer only two thousand dollars. You said it was too little. I took this answer to your father, who said that the annuity was small, because you had sold but a small tract of country ; but he authorized me to give a little more, and when I returned, I offered you five hundred dol- lars more, which you agreed to, and upon this the treaty was signed. Mr. Bertrand was also present, and can speak to this point."

of John Crafts, in the latter part of 1825, Mr. Kinzie was appointed agent of the American Fur Company, and as early as the fall of 1827, with his family, he took his final leave of the old house as a home. One of his daughters, the wife of Dr. Wolcott, lived in a building within the walls of Fort Dearborn, then without a garri- son. The residence of Colonel Beaubien was close be- side the south wall of the fort, and there Mr. Kinzie was living at the time of his death. On Monday, Jan- uary 6, 1828, while visiting his daughter, Mrs. Wolcott, he was suddenly stricken with apoplexy-his second attack -and died after a very brief struggle. The funeral services were conducted within the fort, and all that was mortal of the pioneer of Chicago, was buried on the shore of Lake Michigan near by. Subsequently his remains were removed to the north side of the river, and interred just west of the present site of the water works, They were again removed to the cemetery, for- merly on that portion of Lincoln Park near North Ave- nue and Clark Street, and once more to a final resting place at Graceland.

The esteem in which Mr. Kinzie was held by the Indians, is shown by the treaty made with the Potta- watomies, September 20, 1828, the year of his death, by one provision of which they give "to Eleanor Kinzie and her four children by the late John Kinzie, 83,500.00, in consideration of the attachment of the Indians to her

Ilgszed by Google

HISTORY OF EARLY CHICAGO.

deceased husband, who was long an Indian trader, and who lost a large sum in the trade, by the credits given them, and also by the destruction of his property. The money is in lieu of a tract of land, which the Indians gave the late Jolin Kinzie long since, and upon which he lived."

THE KINAE HOUSE .- For several years of its rarly existence, Chicago was simply Fort Dearborn, and the trading establishment and house of John Kinzie. " Only this, and nothing more." save, perhaps, a few huts inhab. ited by half-breeds, and the wigwams of the Pottawato- mies.

The cabin of LeMai was gradually enlarged and improved by Mr. Kinzic, until what was once a mere habitation became a comfortable home for his own family, and a hospitable shelter for every stranger that found its doors, The old home as remembered by John H. Kinzie, and described by his wife in " Waubun," was a " long, low building with a piazza extending along its front, a range of four or five rooms. A broad green space was enclosed between it and the river, and shaded by a row of Lombardy poplars. Two immense cotton- wood trees stood in the rear of the building. A fine, well-cultivated garden extended to the north of the dwelling, and surrounding it were various buildings ap- pertaining to the establishment - dairy. bake-house, lodging- house for the Frenchmen, and stables."

A vast range of sand - hills, covered with stunted cedars, pines, and dwarf- willow trees, intervened between the house and the lake, which was, at this time, not more than thirty rods distant. Between the house and Fort Dearbarn was kept up a foot ferry-a little boat swing- ing in the river, for the use of any passenger. Directly in front of its door the river bent to the sunth, around the fort, and conkl be seen at the point where it emptied into the lake. A beautiful picture of this early Chicago home, as described by John H. Kinzie, hing years after it ceased to exist, is drawn in the old Chicago Magazine of 1857. The editor* says, speaking of Mr. Kinzie :

" Every feature of the old home is distinct in his recollection. The Lombardy poplars, which perished long ago, and the cotion. woods which once were but saplings planted by his own hand, and which have stood until the more recent days as memenloes of the pasi; the rough-hewn logs which formed the wall of his home, the garden and the shrubbery, the fence paling that surrounded in, and the green lawn at the front of the house, gently descending to the water of the river; the tiny boat Arating idly al the foot of the walk; and, as the crowning mark of the picture, standing upon the opposite shore, upon the highest part of the elevation, the old fort, The whitewashed walls of the block-houses, the barracks and the palisades, glistening in the bright suv, while a gentle slope of green grass extended from the enclosure to the very water's edge. It was a beautiful sigh1. (ver all this rose the few pulsatings of hu- man progress, as seen in an occasional stray Indian, with his canne or pony or pack of furs; a French Canadian loitering here and there: a soldier pacing his rounds about the fort, or hlly strolling over the prairies, or hunting in the woods."

In this house, the first white child of Chicago - Ellen Marion Kinzie -was born in December, 1804. The little maiden played around her home, until danger came ton near, escaped it all, and returned with her par- ents to Chicago and her birthplace, to live in the old home, until on the 20th of July, 1823, she was married under its roof to Dr. Alexander Wolcott.t then Indian Agent, became the first Chicago bride, and the Kinzie house the scene of the first Chicago wedding. Maria 1. Kinzie, afterward the wife of General David .Hunter, was born here in 1807, and Robert Allen, youngest son of John and Eleanor, on February 8, 1810.

· The late Zebina Eastman.

+ Dr. Wolentt dard al Chicago in 18jn, and in 1836 his widow married in De- trust, Mich., Hon. Geo. C. Bates, Mrs. Bates died in Detroit, August 1, 1860.

"The Kinzie honse was no gloomy home. Up to the very time of their enforced removal, the children " danced to the sound of their father's "Fiolin," and the long hours of frontier life were made merry with sport and play. Later, the primitive court of Justice Kinzie must have been held in its " spare room," if spare room there was. Iu 1829, after the old master who lived. there so long, had gone to his rest, it was used for a time as a store, by Anson H. Taylor, and later, in March, 1831, was the residence" and probably the office of Mr. Bailey, the first Postmaster of Chicago. Its best days were past when the family of Mr. Kinzie left it. and after 1831 and 1832, when Mark Noble occupied it with his family, there is no record of its being inhabited. Its decaying Ings were used by the Indians and emi- grants for fuel, and the drifting sand of Lake Michigan was fast piled over its remains. No one knows when it finally disappeared, but with the growth of the new town, this relic of the early day of Chicago passed from sight to be numbered among the things that were.

In 1808 Tecumseh and his brother Laulewasikan ( Open Door , who was related on the paternal side to the Kickapons, removed from the old home of the Shaw- nees in Ohio to a tract of land on the Wabash River given them by the Pottawatomies and Kickapoos. Tecumseh had long objected to the grants of lands made by the Indians to the whites, and, with his brother. now engaged in a systematic effort to unite the North- western tribes in a confederacy, by which each tribe should be pledged to make treaties or cede lands only with the consent of the league. During the year 1809, Tecumseh and the Prophet were actively engaged in this work, and they were exasperated almost to madness, when by the treaty made at Fort Wayne in September of that year, certain Western tribes, including the Pot- tawatomies and Kickapous, ceded to the United States, through its commissioner, General Harrison, lands ou the Wabash and White rivers, which Tecumseh claimed belonged to the Shawnces, of whom he was the princi- pal chief. Tecumseh was no party to the treaty, and maintained that the cession of land was illegal and un- just, and that he was in no wise bound by its terms. A council was appointed and held at Vincennes. August 12, 1810, to settle the difficulty if possible. It ended in a bitter and angry dispute between General Harrison and Tecumseh. The former maintained the legality of the treaty of 180g, and his determination to hold and defend the ceded lands : the latter, in an impassioned and fiery speech, denounced the whites and their aggres- sions, and declared that by the terms of the great In- dian league all lands were held in common-that all the tribes constituted one nation, and that without the consent of all no treaty of purchase and cession was valid. He left the council more than ever determined to unite the Indians against the American intruders : a purpose more readily accomplished by reason of ill feel- ing existing between Great Britain and the United States, now steadily strengthening through the intrigues of English agents and traders in the Northwest. Soon after the council at Vincennes, Tecumseh and the Pro- phet visited the various Pottawatomie hands on the Illi- nois and its waters, including those of Shawbonee. Billy Caldwell, Senachwine, Gomo. Main Poc, Black Partridge, Letourneau or the Blackbird, and others, to induce thein to join the confederacy and pledge them- selves to sell no more land to the Americans. He re- ceived from the most of them little encouragement, but the visit evidently had its effect, as attacks on the white settlers of Illinois soon followed.

* See " Wanbun."

Digitized by Google

MODERN CHICAGO AND IT'S SETTLEMENT.

In July, 1810, the Pottawatomies of the Illinois maile a raid upon a settlement in Missouri, opposite the mouth of the Gasconade, stealing property and murdering several settlers, among whom was Captain Cole. The Governor of Missouri General William Clark made a requisition upon Governor Ninian Ed- wards of Illinois, for the murderers. They had taken "refuge with Main Poc," the war chief of the tribe, then resirling near Peoria Lake, but whose village was on the Kankakee, just above the forks. They were never re- roveret. The following letter from General Harrison in relation to this affair, which has been deposited, with other papers belonging to Governor Edwards, with the Chicago Historical Society, is of interest to Chicago, as showing the dangerous proximity of hostile Indians, at the time the inhabitants believed themselves secure in the friendship of the neighboring Pottawatomies, at least. The letter is addressed to " General William Clark, Indian Agent, St. Louis : "

" VINCENNES, Toth June, 181t.

"Dear Sir; } have been exerting myself to find out where the Pottawatomies who murdered Captain Cole and his party were tu be found and the best means of apprehending them, for some months past. I will now give you the result of my inquiries on the sub. ject. The chiefs of the Pottawatomies all acknowledge that the murderers belong to their tribe. Several of the principal ones were at Fort Wayne early this spring, and informed Captain Wells that they had put themselves under the protection of Main Poc. the great war chief of the tribe, who resides upon the Illinois Kiver. One of these, however, spent the last winter with the Prophet, I sent Wellst up to the town of the latter in April last, to ascertain whether they were there and what would be the most likely means of getting hold of them, and four others of the same Iribe, who had in the beginning of that month stolen fourteen hursex from this neighborhood. In his report Wells informed me that the murderers were not there ; that they lived on the Illinois River and were only occasionally on the Wabash. I would imme. diately have communicated this information to you, but as I still had a man at the Prophet's village, I walted his return to know whether he would hring any further intelligence. A few days ago he arrived, and with him a young Indian, who formerly lived with me, and who is the son-in-law of t)noxa or Five Medals, a princi- pai l'ottawatomie chief. Onoxa desired the young man to inform me that there was no probability of the murdererx being delivered up, and that there was no way of getting them but by sending x party of men and taking them wherever they would be found. Brouilette, the young man above mentioned, says that a Pottawa- tomic was at the l'rophet's town when he left it, with one of the horses taken from Cole, but he does not know whether he was one of the party that took him. I have on the 23d April written to the Secretary of War for particular instruction on the subject of them fellows, but have not yet received an answer. I think, however. that a formal demand had better be made of Main Poc by Gov- emnor Edwards, as they are certainly within his jurisdiction, and I will cause the same thing to be done of the chiefs who attend at l'ust Wayne to receive their annuity. "There is not, however, the smallest probability of their being surrendered. I have no doubt of the good disposition of Tupennibe,; the principal chief of the tribe, Onoxa and many others, but the tribe is so large and scattered that they have no control over the distant parts, indeed very little over the young men that are about them. I am therefore certain that there is no other mode of bringing the culprits to justice but by seizing them ourselves. All the information that I receive from the Indian country confirms the rooted enmity of the Prophet to the U. S. and his determination to commence hostilities as soon as he thinks himself sufficiently strug. From the uncommon insolence which he and his party have lately manifested, I am inclined to believe that a crisis is fast approaching. A F'renchman descending the Wabash about ten days ago was robbed of his pirogue and some small quantity of goods ; but the most daring piece of insolence that they have yet ventured upon is that of seiz- ing the salt destined for the tribes above them. The pirogue which I sent up with it returned last evening and the man who had charge

* This chief, who gave the whites a great deal of Imuble, is mentioned by the daughter of Charles Jourit, the first Indian Agent at Chicago, as visiting the place after the fort was rebuilt in this. She says ber futher had an encoun- ter with him, in which the savage brandished hes scalping-knife with furie menaces betekening bloody violence ; but, confronting him sternly, Mr. Jouets ordered him to give up the knife, and he finally cumplird.

+ Captain William Wells, masacred at Chicago, August, 1817.

* Topenebe, chief of the St. Joseph band, spoken of in " Waubun," as " Topennecbre." He proved a faithful friend 10 the whites of Chicago. In all The treaties spelled Topenebe.

of her reports that he stopped at the Prophet's village and offered him three barreis of salt intended for him, and that he was ordered to stup until a council was held, and the whole was then taken from him. If our government will submit to this insolence, it will be the means of making all the tribes treat us with contempt.

" I do not recollect anything of the claim of Briam which you mention in your last. I may perhaps have received the papers and sent them to Fort Wayne but I have forgotten it. I will thank yıll to state the particulars.

"I am yours sincerely, "WM. 11. HARRISON."

Prior to the time the alxwe letter was written, Matthew Irwin, U. S. Factor at Chicago, had given notice to the Serretary of War of the machinations of the l'rophet to incite the Indians on the Illinois in hos- tilities against the whites. The following letter was written by John Lalime". Indian interpreterat Fort Dear- born, to General William Clark, at St. Louis, giving in- formation of the thefts to which General Harrison alludes int his communication to General Clark.

"C'incaco, 26th May, 1St1. ** Sir :- An Indian from the l'eorias passed here yesterday, and has given me information that the Indians abont that place hare been about the settlements of Kaskaskia and Vincennes, and have stolen from fifteen to twenty horses. It appears by the informa- tion giren me that the principal actors are two brothers of the wife of Main Poc. Ile is residing at the Peoriax, or a little above it, at a place they call Prairie du Corbeau, By the express going to Fort Wayne. I will communicate this to the agent. I presume, Sir. that you will communicate this to the Governor of Kaskaskia and to General Harrison. I amı, sir, with respect,

Hible. Servt.

Lalime

"tirs. Ww. CLARK, St. Louis.

Ind. Interpreter."

Lalime again wrote on the 7th of July, 1811, to John Johnson, U. S. Factor at Fort Wayne, giving information of the murder of young Cox and the cap- ture of his sister. The letter reads:

" Sir :- Since my last to you we have news of other depredations and murders committed about the settlement of Cahokia, The first news we received was that the brothers-in-law of Main l'ex went down and stole a number of horses, Second, another party went down, stole some horses, killed a man, and took off a young woman, but they being pursued, were obliged In leave her to save themselves. Third, they have been there, and killed and destroyed a whole family. The cause of it, or in part. is from the Little t'hief that came last fall to see Governor Harrison, under the feigned name of Wapewa. Ile told the Indians that he had told the Governor that the Americans were setiling on their lands; and asked him what should be done with them. He told the Indians that the Governor had told them they were bad people, that they must drive them off, kill their cattle and steal their horses, etc. Being the quarter ending with the 30th of June, I am busy with the factory, and have a number of Indians here paying their visit In Captain Ileald, From those circumstances, I hope, Sir, you will excuse my hurry. Please give my respects to Mrs, Johnson. " I am with respect, Sir,

" Your obedient servant, "J. LALIME."

The murders alluded to in the letter of Mr. Lalime, had recently been committed. On the zd of June, 1811, the Indians surrounded the house of Mr. Cox on Shoal Creek, and finding only a young son and a daughter at home, killed the former and carried off the datighter a prisoner-and also stole horses antl other property. On

* John Lalime was of English and Indian birth. He was called an Eng- lishmun. In an angry encounter with John Kinzie, he was accidentally killed in the spring or early nummer of 18ts. ISce Biography of John Kinzie.)

Digitized by Google

HISTORY OF EARLY CHICAGO.

the return of Mr. Cox, he assembled the settlers to the number of some eight or ten, and gave pursuit. The Indians were overtaken about fifty miles north of the present city of Springfield, and the girl was recovered. Mr. Price and Mr. Ellis, two settlers who lived where now is the city of Alton, were murdered the same month of the Cox outrage, while at work in their cornfields. In order to induce the Indians to give up these murder- ers, and restore the stolen property, as well as in the hope of preventing such depredations in the future, a council was appointed by Governor Ninian Edwards, to be hell at Peoria on the 16th of August, ISIt. Captain Samuel Levering, as representative of the Governor, started from Cahokia for Peoria July 25, 1811. He was accompanied by Captain Herbert Henry Swearin- gen and eight boatmen, who were to act as soldiers in case of emergency. On the 3d of August they arrived at Peoria, where they met Thomas Forsyth, the Indian Agent, who had long resided among the Indians, and thoroughly understood their language. He acted as in- terpreter. Gomo or Masseno, the principal chief of the Pottawatomies at l'eoria, sent out his runners to summon the various chiefs on the river and in the surrounding country to the council, which was held on the 16th of August. Among the chiefs present were the Blackbird known by the French as Letourneau, and by the sur- rounding Indians as Mucketepennese), Waubansee, Little Chief or Main Poc, Black l'artridge, Senachwine and others. The message of Governor Edwards was read to them, in which he made a formal and positive demand that the murderers of the Illinois settlers should be handed over to justice, and the stolen horses be re- stored to their owners ; otherwise, "Storins and hurri- canes, and the thunder and lightning of heaven cannot be more terrible, than would be the resentment of their Great Father,"

The chiefs were divided as to the policy of giving up the murderers, as they averred that they were under · the protection of the Prophet, or tribes hostile to the Americans. Gomo, whose village was at the head of Peoria Lake, near that of Black Partridge, thought it was possible to recover and give them up ; but Main Poc, the war chief of the tribe, who lived on the Kan- kakce, and who was alluded to as " Little Chief," by Mr. Lalime, in his letter to the " Agent at Fort Wayne," declared " they were with the Shawanoe Prophet and he · might as well kill himself as try to get them." In his speech, Main Poc said :

" You astonish me with your lalk. Whenever you do wrong there is nothing said or done, but when we do anything. you immediately lake us and tie us by the neck with a rope. You see our situation to-day, we the Pottawatomies, Chippewas and Otta- was. The Shawanne Prophet blames us to-day for not listening to him ; you do the same, and we are now on a balance which side to take. If our young men behave amiss, blame the Shawanoe Prophet for it. These young men upbraid us, for they say, 'You give the Americans your hand, and some day they will knock you in the head." This is the occasion of the late depredations among the Poltawatomies. Observe what you said yesterday : you said that you would kill our wives and children for these murders. Them men did not go from among us, but from the Shawanoe I'ro- phel. From here they went and done the mischief and returned back again, Perhaps you never heard of the Prophet before. So now 1 tell it to you ; since he has been on the Wabash he has told the young men that they will see the day that they will be ill- treated, and more than that, the Americans will be trailors to them. If you wish to make war it is altogether of yourselves. You say, what will become of our women and children in case of war ? on the other hand, what will become of your women and children ? It is better to avoidl war. There is one horse in my village. There were three-two died. I will take that horse to Chicago as it is nearer my town. The greater part of the horses stolen, were taken by the Indians who stole them, to Detroit, who intend never 10 return. Last summer the Agent at Chicago told them not to pur-

chase any stolen horses, but this summer the commanding officef has demanded the horses, and I intend taking that one and deliv- ering it to him al Chicago."

Gomo also made a speech which, though friendly, showed the increasing dissatisfaction of the Indians with the encroachments of the whites, and particularly with their building forts, from which they inferred that the Americans intended to make war upon them and' dispossess them of their country. At the final adjourn. inent of the council two horses only were delivered up,- the murderers were not found, and the council ended with still more bitter feelings on both sides.

In the fall succeeding this council on the Illinois River, Harrison took up his march for the Wabash. He had previously sent an agent to the village of the Prophet on the Tippecanoe River, to make one more effort to conciliate Tecumseh, who was there, but the interview ended in making the haughty warrior more de- termined than before, and on its termination he imme- diately set out for the South to secure the alliance of the Chickasaws, Creeks and Choctaws in the coming conflict which he anticipated.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Cook County, Illinois From the Earliest Period to the Present Time, Part 12

Author: Andreas, A. T. (Alfred Theodore), 1839-1900 Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Chicago : A.T. Andreas Number of Pages: 875

Author: Andreas, A. T. (Alfred Theodore), 1839-1900
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Chicago : A.T. Andreas
Number of Pages: 875