CHAPTER I.

THE DARK BEFORE THE DAWN.

RESOLUTELY, though unwillingly, I pass over the romantic history of the first century of Chicago's annals, the French period beginning about 1678, embracing the thrilling story of La Salle, Marquette and their brave fellow Catholics. Let us take up the tale when, in 1778, during the Revolutionary war; just as the great George Rogers Clark was capturing Indiana, Illinois and in fact the whole Northwest, from the English; one Colonel Arent Schuyler de Peyster (a New York officer of the British army, in command of Fort Mackinac) wrote some doggerel verses which bring Chicago into modern history and literature.[L] In one of his poems he speaks of "Eschikagou" and of Jean Baptiste Pointe de Saible who lived there, and in a footnote he describes the place as "a river and fort at the head of Lake Michigan," and the man as "a handsome negro, well educated, but much in the French interest."

The fort spoken of by Colonel de Peyster, if it had any existence, must have been a mere stockaded trading-post, for neither by English nor by French forces had it been built, and as to American forces, there were none west of the Alleghanies except Clark with his few score of heroic frontiers-men. Fort Dearborn came twenty-six years later, as we shall see.

The word "Chicago" in some of its many forms of spelling[M] had been in recognized existence for a century, being found in the scanty and precious records left by Marquette, La Salle and their contemporaries, though they first call the stream the "Portage River."

Much discussion has arisen about the word and its meaning, but the preponderance of testimony seems to point to the conclusion that the river took its name from the wild onion, leek or garlick that grew in profusion along its banks in all this region, and is still to be found in many neglected spots of original soil. Bold Tonti, La Salle's faithful lieutenant, speaks of having been nourished during his long tramp from the Illinois River to Green Bay by a weed much like the leek of France, which they dug up with their fingers and ate as they walked—surely the chi-ca-gou.

The first official mention of the word "Chicago" was in the "Treaty of Greenville;" a compact made in 1795 between the Indians and "Mad Anthony" Wayne, who had lately whipped them into a treaty-making frame of mind. This treaty placed the boundary line between the whites and the Indians east of the entire state of Indiana, but excepted and retained for trading posts several isolated sections west of the line, among them "one piece of land six miles square at the mouth of Chicago River, emptying into the southwestern end of Lake Michigan, where a fort formerly stood."

"Me-che-kan-nah-quah" or "Little Turtle," who took a prominent part in the making of the treaty, was the father-in-law of William Wells, the hero-martyr of the massacre, as has been set forth in Part I.

Baptiste Pointe de Saible, some time in the last century, built a log house on the north bank of the Chicago River, near Lake Michigan, just where Pine street now ends. This modest dwelling existed through vicissitudes many and terrible. When built, it stood in a vast solitude. North of it were thick woods which covered the whole of what is now Chicago's proud "North Side." In front of it lay the narrow, deep and sluggish creek which forms the main river; and, with its two long, straggling branches, gives the city its inestimable harbor,[N] with twenty-seven miles of dock frontage. Beyond it, stretching indefinitely southward, lay the grassy flat now the "South Side," the business centre and wealthiest residence portion. Westward, beyond the north and south branches of the river, stretched the illimitable prairie, including what at the present time is the "West Side," the home of manufacturing enterprise and of a population larger than that of the two other portions put together. And to the eastward lay the lake; the only thing in nature which Jean Baptiste could recognize if he should now return to the scene of his long, lonely, half savage, half civilized sojourn.

Suppose him to have built his log dwelling in 1778, the very year when Colonel de Peyster luckily makes a note of his existence; all about him must have been a waste place so far as human occupation is concerned. Bands of roaming Indians from time to time appeared and disappeared. French trappers and voyageurs doubtless made his house their halting-place. Fur-traders' canoes, manned by French "voyageurs," "engages" and "coureurs des bois," paddling the great lakes and unconsciously laying the foundation of the Astor fortunes, called, from time to time, to buy the stores of peltry which he had collected, and leave him the whisky of which he was so fond, but the rest of his time was spent in patriarchal isolation and the society of his Indian wives and their half-breed offspring. So far as we know, scarcely a civilized habitation stood nearer than Green Bay on the north, the Vermilion branch of the Wabash on the south and the Mississippi on the west; a tract of nearly fifty thousand square miles.

Pointe de Saible's occupation ended about with the century, when he sold the cabin to one Le Mai. Before this time, however, other settlements had been begun nearer than those above mentioned; and even in the very neighborhood there were a few neighbors. One Guarie had settled on the west side of the North Branch; and Gurdon Hubbard (who came here in 1818) says that that stream was still called "River Guarie" and that he himself saw the remains of corn-hills on what must have been Guarie's farm. (The South Branch was called "Portage River" because it led to the Mud Lake connection with the Des Plaines and so onward to the Mississippi). Pointe de Saible, Le Mai and Guarie have died and left no sign, but there was another pioneer of pioneers in the beginning of the present century who was more lucky. He was Antoine Ouillemette, a Frenchman who took to wife a Pottowatomie squaw and thus obtained a grant of land on part of which the pretty suburb of Wilmette now stands. He did not die till 1829, six years before the final departure of the Pottowatomies for the further West.

The far-seeing plans which inspired our forefathers in making the treaty of Greenville took shape in 1804, when General Henry Dearborn, Secretary of War under President Jefferson, ordered the building of a fort[O] and a company of soldiers arrived to build it, having marched overland from Detroit under Lieutenant (afterward Colonel) James S. Swearingen. Their Captain, John Whistler, had led an eventful life. Hurlbut in his delightful "Chicago Antiquities" says he was "an officer in the army of the Revolution," and adds: "We regret that we have so few facts concerning his history; nor have we a portrait or signature of the patriot." In fact he did serve during the Revolutionary war, but it was on the British side in the army of General Burgoyne, being taken prisoner with the rest, and paroled; joining the American army later in life.[P] With Captain John Whistler came his son, Lieutenant William Whistler, the latter accompanied by his young wife (of her and her daughter we shall hear more hereafter), all of whom came around the lakes on the schooner Tracy. The passengers left the Tracy on arriving at St. Joseph's, Michigan, and came across the lake by a row-boat. When the schooner arrived she anchored outside and her freight was discharged by bateaux, as the river (which made a sharp turn southward just below where Rush Street Bridge now stands and debouched over a shallow bar at about the present foot of Madison Street) was not navigable for lake vessels at that time, or for thirty-one years afterward. Mrs. William Whistler said that some two thousand Indians visited the locality, during the schooner's stay, to see the "big canoe with wings."

We further learn from Mrs. Whistler that there were then in the place but four rude huts or trader's cabins, occupied by white men, Canadian French with Indian wives. She adds:

"Captain Whistler, upon his arrival, at once set about erecting a stockade and shelter for his protection, followed by getting out the sticks for the heavier work. It is worth mentioning here that there was not at that time, within hundreds of miles, a team of horses or oxen, and as a consequence, the soldiers had to don the harness and, with the aid of ropes, drag home the needed timbers."

This would indicate that the soldiers had made their long march from Detroit (two hundred and eighty miles) without wagons or pack animals to carry tents and rations; or, what is more probable, that the transportation had been hired, and the outfit had returned to Detroit.

Next steps upon the scene the true pioneer of the Chicago of to-day; John Kinzie.[Q] This first of citizens had learned of the proposed establishment of the military post. Fort Dearborn, and, foreseeing with his usual boldness and sagacity the advantages to spring from it, had come over from his residence on the St. Joseph's river, and bought from Le Mai the old Pointe de Saible log-cabin. Shortly after the establishment of the fort he brought his family to the place wherein the name of Kinzie has been always most distinguished. The family consisted of his wife, Eleanor (Lytle), widow of a British officer named McKillip, her young daughter Margaret, who afterward became Mrs. Lieutenant Helm, and an infant son, John Harris Kinzie. They occupied the old North Side log-house up to 1827—about twenty-five years—(except from 1812 to 1816, the years of desolation) and it stood for more than ten years longer; a landmark remembered by scores if not hundreds of the Chicagoans of this time (1893).

For much of our scanty knowledge concerning the years following the building of the fort we are indebted to Mrs. Julia (Ferson) Whistler, wife of William and therefore daughter-in-law of John, the old Burgoyne British regular.[R]

From 1804 to 1811, the characteristic traits of this far away corner of the earth were its isolation; the garrison within the stockade and the ever present hovering clouds of savages outside, half seen, half trusted, half feared; its long summers, (sometimes hot and sometimes hotter); and its long winters, (sometimes cold and sometimes colder); its plenitude of the mere necessaries of life, meat and drink, shelter and fuel, with utter destitution of all luxuries; its leisurely industry and humble prosperity; Kinzie, the kindly link between the red man and the white, vying with the regular government agent in the purchase of pelts and the sale of rude Indian goods. In 1805 Charles Jouett was the United States Indian Agent here. He was a Virginian, son of one of the survivors of Braddock's defeat. How much of his time was spent here and how much elsewhere we do not know. In Mrs. John H. Kinzie's charming book "Wau-Bun" he is not even mentioned, which circumstance suggests that his relations with old John Kinzie were not cordial; a state of things to be expected, considering their relative positions. He was an educated man and must have enjoyed the friendship of Jefferson, Madison and Monroe, judging by his appointment as Government Agent, first at Detroit, later at Chicago (1804), which latter post he resigned in 1811, only to be reappointed in 1817.

It is probable that the United States agent was at a disadvantage in dealing with the Indians, as he would have to obey the law forbidding the supplying them with spirits; which law the other traders ignored. In Hurlbut's "Antiquities" a bit of "local color" gives with much vividness the condition of the prairie in those days.

"In the holidays of 1808-9 Mr. Jouett (then a widower) married Susan Randolph Allen of Kentucky, and they made their wedding journey on horseback in January, through the jungles, over the snow drifts, on the ice and across the prairies, in the face of driving storms and the frozen breath of the winds of the north. They had, on their journey, a negro servant named Joe Battles and an Indian guide whose name was Robinson; possibly the late chief Alexander Robinson. A team and wagon followed, conveying their baggage, and they marked their route for the benefit of any future travelers."

The government had tried to befriend the Indian in every way. It did not forbid private traders from dealing with him; but it appointed agents whose duty it was to sell him goods at prices barely sufficient to cover cost and expenses. At the same time it forbade, under penalty, the supplying him with liquor in any quantity, upon any pretext. Unhappily the last-named kindly effort thwarted the first. The miserable savage loved the venal white who would furnish him with the poison. For it he would give not only his furs, but his food and shelter, his wives and children, his body and his everlasting soul. As the grand old Baptist missionary Isaac McCoy says, regarding the treaty of 1821, at which he was present:

"At the treaty Topenebe, the principal chief of the Pottowatomies, a man nearly eighty years of age [a long and constant friend of the Kinzies], irritated by the continued refusal on the part of the commissioners to gratify his importunities for whisky, exclaimed in the presence of his tribe: 'We care not for the land, the money or the goods. It is whisky we want. Give us the whisky.' After the business of the treaty was concluded and before the Indians left the treaty grounds, seven barrels of whisky were given them, and within twenty-four hours afterward ten shocking murders were committed amongst them."

To quote from Munsell's History of Chicago:

The incidents of daily life went on in the lonely settlement, as elsewhere.

There was the occasional birth of a baby in the Kinzie house, the fort or somewhere about, as there were several women here, soldiers' wives, etc. Those born in the Kinzie mansion and the officers' families we know about. But these were not all. There were at least a dozen little ones who first saw the light in this locality, whose play-ground was the parade and the river bank, whose merry voices must have added a human sweetness to this savage place; whose entire identity, even to their names, is lost. The one thing we know about them is how they died, and that has been told in Part I.