History is not a snap-shot. Events happen, and the true record of them follows at a distance. Sometimes the early report is too voluminous, and it takes time to reduce it to truth by a winnowing process that divides chaff from grain. This has been the case regarding every great modern battle. Sometimes, on the other hand, the event was obscure and became important through the rise of other, later conditions; in which case, instead of winnowing, the historian sets himself to gleaning the field an

HOW THE FORT AND CITY WERE BEGUN AND WHO WERE THE BEGINNERS Chapter I. The Dark Before the Dawn. —The French period reluctantly passed over; Chicago reappears in 1778, after 100 years of oblivion; J. B. Pointe de Saible; 53 :—Various spellings of Chicago; meaning of the word; 54 :—Treaty of 1795; building of the "Old Kinzie House" in 1778; 55 :—Who was here then? Astor fortunes; 56 :—50,000 square miles of solitude; Gurdon Hubbard's observations in 1816; Ouillemette, now Wilmette; Gen. Dearborn

A. Pointe De Saible. —First settler, 100 years after Marquette etc.; 133 :—Col. de Peyster mentions him in 1778 in his "Miscellanies," Burns's verses to De Peyster; 134 :—De P. also mentions George Rogers Clark, 135 :—De P's verses; 136 :—His foot-notes, naming Chicago; what is known about De Saible; 137 : —E. G. Mason's remarks about him and Shaubena; 138 :—Perish Grignon (Wis. Hist. Soc. Collection) on the same subject; 139 : —Guesses as to the character and fortunes of De Saible; 140 : —" Poi

SATURDAY, AUGUST FIFTEENTH, 1812. T HE morning of Fort Dearborn's fatal day dawned bright and clear over Lake Michigan and the sandy flat. The "reveille" doubtless was sounded before sun-rise; and one can imagine the rattle of the drum and scream of the fife as they broke the dewy stillness and floated away, over the sand-spit and out on the lake; across the river to the Kinzie house and its outbuilding, the Ouillemette house; and up stream to the Indian encampments, large, dark and lowering. Qu

CHAPTER I. THE DARK BEFORE THE DAWN. R ESOLUTELY, 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

BUILDING OF THE FIRST FORT DEARBORN. D ELAYING our narrative for a moment, we here bring upon the scene another figure—the most distinguished and heroic of all who were to play a part in the terrific tragedy which formed its climax—William Wells. [S] This brave fellow, born of white parents, but early stolen by Indians, and only restored after arriving at manhood, was a friend and agent of General Harrison, who was at that time Governor of the Indian Territory. Captain Wells had come to Chicago

ENGLISH AND INDIAN SAVAGES. T HE WINNEBAGOES, we observe, are charged by Captain Heald with this outbreak of lawlessness. The Pottowatomies always averred that they had nothing to do with the great massacre, and this may be true of the tribe as a whole, but it is well known that many of its members, as well as the Winnebagoes, had been engaged with the Ottawas and Shawnees at the battle of Tippecanoe, less than a year before. The English, ever since the Revolution, had been seeking their friends

A LONG FAREWELL. T HE departure was not approved by all, if any, of the subordinate officers. It was urged on Capt. Heald that the command would be attacked; that the attack would have been made long before if it had not been for the Indians' regard for the Kinzies; that the helplessness of the women and children and the invalided and superannuated soldiers was sure to make the march slow and perilous, and that the place could well be defended. Captain Heald pleaded his orders, and alleged that

FATE OF THE FUGITIVES. E VERY word bearing upon the adventures of the handful of Chicagoans left alive on Sunday, August 16th, 1812, has been carefully looked up and faithfully transcribed. Those words are few enough; the silence and darkness that enshroud their fate are more pathetically eloquent than speech could well be. To begin with the Healds, who, as we have seen, were brought again together on the morning of August 16th, by the half-breed, Chandonnais. Darius Heald continues his report o

JOHN KINZIE'S CAPTIVITY. W e are, and always were (and I hope always will be), anything but a "military nation." 1813 opened very gloomily for the United States; but, as our quiet country has shown in several times of trial, it takes some disaster to wake up Americans to the claims of the land they love and the government they themselves have made. Bunker Hill was a defeat, in form, but the patriots only fell back a little way; then halted and quietly remarked: "We have several more hills to sel

CONTEMPORANEOUS REPORTS. T ARDLY any one institution existing four score years ago, shows so wondrous a change as does the American newspaper. The steamboat, railroad, telegraph, telephone, power-press and other mechanical aids to the spreading of news have all been invented and perfected within that time, while gas and electric light have aided in the prompt reproduction of intelligence, and penny-postage in its dissemination. So that which was then an infant—say rather an embryo—is now a giant

JEAN BAPTISTE POINTE DE SAIBLE, THE HAYTIAN NEGRO WHO WAS THE FIRST "WHITE MAN" TO SETTLE IN CHICAGO (1776-77). N OT IN JEST, but in grave, sober earnest, the Indians used to say that "the first white man in Chicago was a nigger." In their view, all non-Indians were "whites," the adjective having to them only a racial significance. Then, too the aborigines had no jests—no harmless ones. Peering into the dim past for early items concerning what is now Chicago, one comes first to the comparatively

FORT DEARBORN RECORDS AT WASHINGTON. W AR Department records, back of the war of 1812, are few and poor; partly, no doubt, for the reason that during that short struggle a British force, sailing up the Potomac, seized upon the defenceless little city of Washington and burned its public buildings with their contents. The Hon. Robert Lincoln, Secretary of War (under President Garfield) at the time of unveiling the Block House Tablet, May 21, 1881, kindly furnished to Mr. Wentworth copies of all do

THE WHISTLER FAMILY. A CCORDING to Gardner's Military Dictionary, Captain John Whistler was born in Ireland. He was originally a British soldier, and was made prisoner with General Burgoyne at the battle of Saratoga, in 1777, where our General Henry Dearborn was serving as Major. The captives were conducted to Boston, where, by the terms of the capitulation, they should have been paroled; but for some reason (which the English, by considered no sufficient excuse for not complying with the milita

THE KINZIE FAMILY. B EGINNING at a point even further back in the dim past than the building of Pointe de Saible's cabin, we take up the narrative of the lives of its latest owners, John Kinzie was born in Quebec about 1763, son of John McKenzie, or McKinzie, a Scotchman, who married Mrs. Haliburton, a widow, with one daughter, [AP] and died when his son John was very young. Mrs. McKenzie made a third marriage, with one William Forsyth, who had served under General Wolfe in the taking of Quebec.

WILLIAM WELLS AND REBEKAH WELLS HEALD. G RATITUDE to our first hero and martyr calls for a somewhat extended study of his life, and it will be found interesting enough to repay the attention. Colonel Samuel Wells and his brother Captain William Wells were Kentuckians; the family being said to have come from Virginia. William, when twelve years old, was stolen by the Indians from the residence of Hon. Nathaniel Pope, where both brothers seem to have been living. He was adopted by Me-che-kan-nah-q

THE BONES OF JOHN LALIME.—SUBSTANCE OF A PAPER READ BY JOSEPH KIRKLAND BEFORE THE CHICAGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY, ON THE OCCASION OF THE PRESENTATION TO THE SOCIETY OF CERTAIN HUMAN RELICS, JULY 21, 1891. S OME ominous threatenings were heard at old Ft. Dearborn before the bursting of the storm of August 15, 1812. Among them was the killing of the interpreter for the government, John Lalime. John Kinzie arrived at Fort Dearborn in 1804, and with his family occupied a house built of squared logs, whi

IMPORTANT REMINISCENCES OF AN OLD SETTLER (A. H. EDWARDS).—[from "FORT DEARBORN"; FERGUS' HISTORICAL SERIES, NO. 16.] Sheboygan (Wis.), May 24th, 1891. Hon. John Wentworth: Dear Sir —I have had the pleasure of reading your account and also the remarks of others in regard to Chicago and Illinois history. I am acquainted with some facts derived from conversation with one who was there, and witnessed the fight and killing of many of those who lost their lives on that memorable day. She was a daught

BILLY CALDWELL, THE SAUGANASH. T HE 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, Es

FAREWELL WAR-DANCE OF THE INDIANS. E ARLY in 1833 Indians to the number of five thousand or more, assembled at Chicago, around the fort, the village, the rivers and the portage, to treat for the sale of their entire remaining possessions in Illinois and Wisconsin. John Joseph Latrobe, in his "Rambles in North America," gives the following realistic sketch of the state of things hereabouts just sixty years ago: A mushroom town on the verge of a level country, crowded to its utmost capacity and be

THE BRONZE MEMORIAL GROUP. History places the scene of the Massacre adjacent to the shore of Lake Michigan, between the present 16th and 20th Streets. The Memorial Group, now (1893) newly erected, stands at the eastern extremity of 18th Street, overlooking the lake (nothing intervening save the right of way of the Illinois Central Railway); and is therefore in the midst of the battle-field. I think it well here to put in evidence unanswerable testimony as to the identity of the spot selected for