The Chicago Massacre of 1812 / With Illustrations and Historical Documents

APPENDIX H.

BILLY CALDWELL, THE SAUGANASH.

THE Sauganash had qualities, good and bad, appertaining to each of his parent races. He had fighting courage and coolness in danger, he had physical endurance, he had personal faithfulness to personal friends, he had a love of strong drink. There is now (1893) in this city, an account-book kept which was at a Chicago grocery store in the thirties, wherein appear many charges reading: "One quart whisky to B. Caldwell." The book is in possession of Julian Rumsey, Esq., a relative of Mrs. Juliette (Magill) Kinzie, author of "Wau-Bun."

When the inevitable separation came, and the Indians, after a grand farewell war-dance (August 18, 1835),[AW] departed on their migration toward the setting sun, Caldwell went with them, and died September 28, 1841, at Council Bluffs, Iowa. His old friend Mark Beaubien, had named after him the first and most noted of Chicago's real hotels, the "Sauganash," lovingly remembered by many of the "first families."

[AW] See Appendix I.

Letter written by the Sauganash [Billy Caldwell] and Shabonee [Chambly].

Council Bluffs, March 23rd, 1840.

To General Harrison's Friends:

The other day several newspapers were brought to us; and peeping over them, to our astonishment we found that the hero of the late war was called a coward. This would have surprised the tall braves, Tecumseh, of the Shawnees, and Round Head and Walk-in-the-water of the late Tomahawkees. The first time we got acquainted with General Harrison, it was at the council fires of the late Old Tempest, General Wayne, on the headquarters of the Wabash at Greenville, 1796. From that time till 1811 we had many friendly smokes with him; but from 1812 we changed our tobacco smoke into powder smoke. Then we found that General Harrison was a brave warrior and humane to his prisoners, as reported to us by two of Tecumseh's young men, who were taken in the fleet with Captain Barclay on the 10th of September, 1813, and on the Thames, where he routed both the red-men and the British, and where he showed his courage and his humanity to his prisoners, both white and red. See report of Adams Brown and family, taken on the morning of the battle, October 5th, 1813. We are the only two surviving of that day in this country. We hope the good white men will protect the name of General Harrison. We remain your friends forever.

Chamblee [Shabonee], Aid to Tecumseh.

Billy Caldwell and Chamblee (signature)

ME-TEE-A; A SIGNER OF THE TREATY OF 1821.

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