Chapter XI The Fate of the Survivors
Twenty-nine soldiers, seven women, and six children remained alive at the close of the battle among the sand dunes to face the horrors of captivity among the Indians. These figures do not include Kinzie, the trader, and the members of his family, who were regarded as neutrals and were not included by the Indians in the number of their prisoners. Concerning the fate of some of the survivors we have full information, but of others not even the names can be given with certainty, and of their fate we can speak only in general terms.
The student of the Fort Dearborn massacre finds himself hampered by a notable dearth of official records. This is due in part to the destruction, at the time of the massacre itself, of such as existed at Chicago; to an even greater extent, perhaps, to the destruction of the records of the War Department at the time of the looting of the Capital by the British in 1814. Finally, by a departmental ruling promulgated in 1897, The historical investigator has in recent years been denied the cold comfort of access to such fragmentary records as do in fact exist in the files of the War Department.[601] For such official documents as have been available for this study, therefore, the writer is indebted to other sources. Some of them were copied by earlier investigators in the field, before the War Department files were sealed to the student, and have been printed in various places. Others have been found in manuscripts or in printed works existing outside the government archives.
[601] This prohibition was removed in 1912, too late, however, to be of any advantage to the author in the preparation of this work. For this reason the statements made have been allowed to stand unchanged.
The last existing muster-roll of the Fort Dearborn garrison prior to the massacre has hitherto been supposed to be that for December, 1810.[602] However, the Heald papers belonging to the Wisconsin State Historical Society include the muster-roll for the period ending May 31, 1812.[603] It shows a garrison strength of fifty-five men, which was probably the number present at the time of the massacre. No list of those slain in the massacre has ever been made, nor is there any comprehensive account of the names and fate of the survivors. The attempt to construct one[604] from the various fragmentary sources of information in existence has proved more successful than could perhaps have been reasonably anticipated. Yet it reveals certain discrepancies which cannot be harmonized until additional sources of information shall be uncovered. This is not surprising in view of the confusion attendant upon the massacre, and the scattering far and wide of the survivors following it. The passage of time and the absence of records make it impossible at this date to check up the errors and fill in the gaps in our information. The hardships endured or the adventures encountered by those whose experiences have been recorded may have been no greater or more noteworthy than by those whose fate is now buried in oblivion. Yet the historian must deal with the information he can obtain, and this chapter of necessity concerns itself largely with a comparatively small number of the survivors whose story has been preserved.
[602] Printed in Wentworth, Early Chicago, 88.
[603] The muster-roll is printed for the first time as Appendix VIII.
[604] For it see Appendix IX.
The battle and the massacre proper had barely ended when the dreary work of torture began. It had been stipulated by Captain Heald that the lives of the prisoners should be spared, but this agreement was promptly violated. We cannot speak with much assurance of the details of the tortures, but concerning the main fact there is no doubt. One man. Burns, who had been wounded in the battle, was killed by a squaw about an hour after its conclusion.[605] Possibly this is the man whom Mrs. Helm refers to as having been stabbed to death with a stable fork in her presence.[606] In Judge Woodward's letter to General Proctor upon the survivors of the massacre, Burns is spoken of as a "citizen," and he is similarly designated in Helm's account of the massacre. A letter of Sergeant Griffith to Captain Heald in 1820 clears up the question of his identity.[607] It shows that he was a sergeant in the Chicago militia, enrolled by Heald after the murders at the Lee farm in April, 1812. It confirms the fact of his death at the hands of his captors after the surrender, and incidentally throws a pleasing light upon his character, recalling to Heald's mind "the Soldierlike conduct of... Burns while engaged with an unequal force of Savages, and the manner in which he was inhumanly murdered (in your presence) after he was a prisoner." The Wau Bun narrative represents the Burns family as living at the time of the massacre on the north bank of the river some distance above the Kinzie house.[608] Apparently Burns was a discharged soldier who had made Chicago his permanent home, for the Fort Dearborn muster-roll for November, 1810, shows that he was then a member of the garrison and that his term of enlistment would expire in June, 1811.
[605] Letter of Sergeant Griffith to Heald, January 13, 1820, Draper Collection, U, VIII, 88; Judge Woodward to Proctor, October 7, 1812, Appendix VII.
[606] Kinzie, Wau Bun, 176.
[607] Cited supra, note 605.
[608] Kinzie, Wau Bun, 155, 159.
The various accounts generally agree that a number of the prisoners were put to death during the night following the massacre. Judge Woodward's letter to Proctor, which, written October 7, 1812, and based on information given by Heald and Sergeant Griffith, is the most reliable source of information on this particular point, states that five soldiers were known to have been put to death at this time. The Wau Bun narrative, written many years later, makes the same statement. The Darius Heald narrative states that the Indians were believed to have gone off down the lake shore on the evening of the massacre day to have a "general frolic," torturing the wounded soldiers. Woodward gives the names of two of these victims, Richard Garner and James Latta, both private soldiers. By a process of comparison of all the sources concerning those who perished in captivity we get the names of the other three, Micajah Denison, John Fury, and Thomas Poindexter.[609] But one account attempts to tell us how they died, and this, of more than dubious validity, suggests rather than describes their fate. A half-breed Frenchwoman, who had remained in her hut on the north side of the river during the battle and massacre, made her way after its conclusion to a point opposite the Indian village north of the fort. Here she could see the "torture ground" where the squaws had three men, and the warriors one white woman, undergoing the most fearful torture and indignities, "such as she had never heard of in Canada."[610] Perhaps after all it is just as well that we have no more detailed description. The fate of the victims was no more awful than that customarily meted out to the vanquished white man in the course of his contest with the red man for the possession of this continent and it is better that the gory details should sink into oblivion.
[609] For the way in which these names are determined see Appendix IX.
[610] Head Papers, in Chicago Historical Society library.
On the day after the massacre, the fort having been burned and the plunder and the prisoners divided, the bands began to scatter to their various homes. The dreary story of the hardships endured by the captives and the indignities and cruelties meted out to them by their masters is relieved, happily, now and then by some act of kindness or generosity calculated to prove that gentleness and humanity were qualities not entirely unknown, even to the savage red man. Ultimately the majority of the prisoners were to find their way back to civilization, but for several death offered the only avenue of escape from their captivity. For some, indeed, death must have come as a welcome relief from sufferings far more dreadful.
Such must have been the case with Mrs. Needs, the wife of one of the soldiers. Her husband, her child, and herself all survived the massacre, only to die in captivity. The husband died in January, 1813; the brief record left us contains no indication of the cause of his death.[611] Annoyed by the crying which hunger forced from the child, the savages tied it to a tree to perish of starvation or to become the prey of some wild beast. Still later the wretched mother perished from cold and hunger. Another prisoner, William Nelson Hunt, was frozen to death.[612] Hugh Logan, an Irishman, unable to walk because of excessive fatigue, was tomahawked; such, also, was the fate of August Mortt, a German, and for a similar reason.[613]
[611] Niles' Register, June 4 1814.
[612] Niles' Register, June 4, 1814. The name is printed as Nelson; it does not occur in any of the other accounts of the massacre, nor on the muster-roll of Heald's company of May 31, 1812. The latter does contain the name of William Nelson Hunt, however, and he is probably the man designated as Nelson in the newspaper account.
[613] The following letter written by Thomas Forsyth to Nathan Heald, April 10, 1813, suggests a different reason for the killing of Mortt. The letter is reproduced in full for the sake of the information it gives concerning the massacre and the affairs of some of the participants in it. The original manuscript is the property of Mrs. Lillian Heald Richmond, of St. Louis, Mo.
St. Louis 10th April 1813.
Sir: I had the honor to receive from the hand of Gov. Howard, your letter to him of the 24th February last, in answer to his to you respecting Kinzie & Forsyth Claims for losses sustained 1st August at Chicago, in your letter you mention that you gave Mr. Kinzie a quantity of gunpowder for hire of horses to carry provisions, &c. to Detroit, in that case, the gunpowder was from you to us, for hire of horses for public use and of course the gunpowder became our property, after the delivery of the gunpowder to Mr. Kinzie, I understood from him (K-) that either you or the late Captain Wells, and perhaps both, told him, that if he, (K) would destroy all his gunpowder and Whiskey, that he should be paid for his losses by the U. States all of which was certainly destroyed; in your letter to Gov. Howard, you say you seen the Whiskey destroyed and that you have no doubt but the gunpowder was also destroyed; In that case I would thank you if you would forward on to me at this place, a certificate of what you know about the destruction of those articles, also the prices of gunpowder, Whiskey, mules & horses, at Chicago. I have claimed for each horse $60—Mules $90—Whiskey $2 per gallon, gunpowder $2 per lb. this you know was the current price for Whiskey and Gunpowder; I paid myself, this price for Gunpowder bought out of the Factory of that place, as for the horses and Mules they are by no means high; our losses in horn cattle, hogs, merchandise &c. are very great for which we demand nothing for. Depain and Buisson wintered at Chicago last winter with goods from Mackinaw, they have bought of[f] Mrs. Leigh and her younger child, and another woman which I expect is Mrs. Cooper or Burns, Old Mott was a prisoner, and became out of his head last Winter and was killed by the Indians.
Please give my respects to Mrs. Heald.
And Remain your most Obedt Servt
T. Forsyth
With relief we turn from these tragic details to the story of the efforts which were making to restore the captives to civilization. On September 9 Proctor communicated to General Brock the news of the massacre at Fort Dearborn, expressing regret over its occurrence and denying that the British had known anything of the intended attack, or that the superintendent of the Indian Department had any influence over the Indians.[614] At the time of writing this letter Proctor believed that Captain Heald and his wife and Kinzie were the only survivors of the massacre, and no suggestion was made by him of measures for the relief of the captives. Soon, however, Captain and Mrs. Heald and Sergeant Griffith reached Detroit, bringing information that nearly half of the garrison and a number of women and children were captives among the Indians. Detroit and Michigan being in the hands of the British, in the absence of any official representative of the American government Judge Woodward assumed the duty of procuring the initiation of measures for the relief of the prisoners. On the strength of the information furnished by Heald and Griffith he addressed a letter to Proctor, representing that over thirty Americans had been taken by the Indians.[615] He urged that immediate measures be taken for their relief, suggesting the sending a special messenger overland to Chicago, charged with the duty of collecting the captives who still survived and information of those who had perished, and supplied with the means of conveying the former to either Detroit or Mackinac. He further urged that Captain Roberts, the commander at Mackinac, be instructed to co-operate in the efforts to rescue the Americans, and assured Proctor that the funds necessary for the work would be repaid either by the American government or by private individuals.
[614] Michigan Pioneer Collections, XV, 144.
[615] The original draft of this letter is printed in Appendix VII; the statements in the text are based on the letter as actually sent. This differed in some respects from the rough draft.
In consequence of this bold and manly appeal, tardy measures were instituted by Proctor which resulted in the rescue of a number of the captives. Woodward was assured that all possible measures would be taken to secure their release, and two weeks later Proctor, in reporting the correspondence to his superior, announced that the chiefs of the tribe concerned in the massacre had been informed of his desire that the captives be brought to him.[616] Weeks passed, however, and it was not until the departure of Robert Dickson for the West in February, 1813, that any active measures were taken to recover them.
[616] Proctor to Woodward, October 10, 1812, Michigan Pioneer Collections, XV, 163; Proctor to Evans, October 28, 1812, ibid., 172.
Dickson, as we have already seen,[617] had led a motley band of northwestern Indians to the assault on Mackinac in the summer of 1812. In November he proceeded to Montreal and Quebec to lay before the authorities there a plan he had conceived for securing the active co-operation of the northwestern tribes in the prosecution of the war against the Americans.[618] He proposed that large stores of supplies be sent to Chicago and Green Bay in the spring of 1813, which points were the most convenient for rendezvous. He himself, if given the necessary authority and assistance, would proceed by way of Detroit and Chicago to the Mississippi and collect the warriors at these points, whence they could be led to the seat of war around Detroit in time to participate in the operations of 1813.
[617] Supra, p. 214.
[618] For Dickson's project see Michigan Pioneer Collections, XV, 180-82, 202-4, 208-11, 316—21 et passim.
This plan was accepted by the military authorities and Dickson set out for the West. On February 15 he was at Sandwich and a month later was among the Pottawatomies of St. Joseph.[619] Here he was informed that the Fort Dearborn captives still in the hands of the Indians numbered seventeen men, four women, and several children. He at once took steps to secure them, and expressed confidence that he would succeed in getting them all. On March 22 he was at Chicago, and here penned the description of the fort to which reference has been made in a preceding chapter.[620] From this point he hastened on toward the Mississippi. Early in June he was back at Mackinac at the head of six hundred warriors, and in addition to these he reported the dispatch of eight hundred by land to Detroit.[621] That, in the face of such exertions as these achievements imply, he should have found any time to bestow on the Fort Dearborn captives, speaks well for both his energy and his humanity.
[619] Ibid., XV, 250, 258.
[620] Supra, p. 631.
[621] Michigan Pioneer Collections, XV, 321-23.
Apparently in the press of other matters Dickson neglected to report further as to his measures for the relief of the captives. In May, 1814, however, nine surviving members of the Fort Dearborn garrison arrived at Plattsburg, New York, from Quebec.[622] The story they told was that after the massacre they had been taken to the Fox River country and there distributed among the Indians as servants. In this situation they remained about nine months, when they were brought to Chicago, where they were purchased by a "French trader" acting under the instructions of General Proctor. Doubtless the "trader" was Dickson, whose arrival at Chicago, March 22, 1813, falls in the ninth month after the massacre. From Chicago the captives were sent on to Amherstberg, or Maiden, and thence to Quebec, where they arrived November 8, 1813.
[622] Niles' Register, June 4, 1814.
The names of the nine men who were thus restored to their countrymen almost two years after the massacre deserve a place in our narrative. They were James Van Horn, Dyson Dyer, Joseph Noles, Joseph Bowen, Paul Grummo, Nathan Edson, Elias Mills, James Corbin, and Fielding Corbin. With the exception of Grummo, no record has been found of the further career of these men. His story, written down over four score years after the massacre, possesses considerable interest, and contains, moreover, certain details not preserved elsewhere.
In later life Grummo, or De Garmo, as he seems to have been known, settled at Maumee City, a few miles from Toledo, Ohio. Here on a small reservation in the early thirties was the gathering-place and council house of the surviving remnants of the Pottawatomie, Wyandot, and other tribes. Here, too, gathered various traders, among others Robert Forsyth, and James Wolcott, whose brother, Alexander, was Indian agent at Chicago until his death in 1830. From 1837 until about the year 1841 Charles A. Lamb, to whom we are indebted for the preservation of the story, was the nearest neighbor of Grummo at Maumee City.[623] He describes him as a tall, well-built man, who always insisted that he was a participant in the Fort Dearborn massacre.
[623] Letter of Charles A. Lamb, August 24, 1893, MS in Chicago Historical Society library.
As Lamb remembered his story, Grummo represented that he was employed as a scout in the summer of 1812, carrying dispatches between Fort Dearborn and Fort Wayne. After the battle he was adopted by a chief whose son he had killed in the contest. His new-found father took him, in company with others, in a northwesterly direction. After traveling many days, they crossed the Mississippi above the Falls of St. Anthony, the object of their journey being to induce the tribes to join them in the war against the Americans. Returning from this mission, Grummo's captors sold him to the British at Detroit, "or somewhere around there." By them he was taken to Louisburg where he was kept till the close of the war, when he found his way to New York.
Such, in brief, was Grummo's story as recorded by Lamb a half-century after he had heard it. In some respects it is perplexing, and many of its details are untrustworthy. There is no reason to question Lamb's sincerity. He frankly admits his liability to error in telling it after the lapse of so great a time. It is evident, too, that Grummo drew a long bow in relating his own experiences. This, however, is so common a characteristic of old soldiers' stories that it need occasion no particular surprise. Lamb further records that though Grummo, whose story he has related only briefly, added many things to prove his veracity, yet he was never able to secure a pension. Both General Cass and General John E. Hunt exerted their influence in his behalf, but on the records of the War Department he had been set down as a deserter, and this charge could not be disproved.
The fortunes of the officers, Heald and Helm, and their wives, may be followed with less difficulty, though even here we encounter at times perplexing contradictions. The Indians who secured possession of Captain Heald and his wife at the close of the battle belonged to different bands. Owing to the entreaties of Mrs. Heald, however, and the efforts of Chandonnai, the two were brought together.[624] On the day after the battle their captors set out with them for the St. Joseph River, coasting around the southern end of Lake Michigan in a canoe.[625] The trip consumed, according to Heald's journal, three days, although the distance is only about one hundred miles.
[624] The details as to Chandonnai's agency in the matter vary somewhat in the different accounts; it is clear that he exerted his influence, whether by purchasing Mrs. Heald from her captives or otherwise, to bring the Captain and his wife together, and that the Healds afterward regarded him in the light of a benefactor.
[625] The principal sources for the captivity of the Healds are the following: Heald's official report of the massacre (Appendix IV); his Journal (Appendix III); the Heald papers in the Draper Collection; the Darius Heald narrative of the massacre as reported, first, to Lyman C. Draper (Appendix V); and second, to Joseph Kirkland (Magazine of American History, XXVIII, 111-22). A brief account gained from Sergeant Griffith, the companion of the Healds until they reached Pittsburgh, is contained in McAfee, History of the Late War, 100-101.
Practically the only details recorded of this journey are contained in the narrative of Darius Heald to Kirkland in 1892. That these details, based on second-hand information and written down at so late a date, cannot be relied upon is obvious. Yet they are of sufficient interest to merit inclusion here. Both Heald and his wife were badly wounded, the former being shot in the thigh and through the right forearm, and the latter having a half-dozen wounds in all, no one of which, apparently, was dangerous. After the party had traveled for many hours around the end of the lake a young deer was seen, coming down to the water in a clump of bushes to get a drink. The travelers drew close to the shore and the deer was shot by an Indian. They then pitched camp and dressed the animal. Using the hide as a kneading board Mrs. Heald stirred some flour which they had brought along in a leather bag into a stiff paste which she wound around sticks and toasted over the fire. Captain Heald afterward declared that this was the best bread he ever ate.
At the mouth of the St. Joseph, which was reached on August 19, the party halted. The Healds were permitted to stay in the house of Burnett, the trader, and their wounds were dressed and given medical attention by an Indian doctor.[626] After a few days most of the Indians trooped off to participate in the attack on Fort Wayne. In their absence an avenue of escape opened to the captives. A friendly Indian, Alexander Robinson, was prevailed upon to conduct them to Mackinac in his birch-bark canoe. He was assisted by his squaw and, possibly, by one or two half-breeds, and for the service Heald paid him one hundred dollars.
[626] Among the Heald papers in the Draper Collection is a certificate of Captain Heald "on honor" that he paid ten dollars to an Indian for attendance and medicine while sick of his wounds at the St. Joseph River.
The distance to Mackinac was three hundred miles along the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, and the journey consumed sixteen days. The treatment accorded to the fugitives by Captain Roberts on their arrival there forms one of the bright spots in the story of the wearisome captivity. He extended them every kindness within his power to render their condition as comfortable as possible. Both Captain Heald and Captain Roberts were Masons, and, as Mrs. Heald told the story in after-years, they retired to a private room together, when Heald told his story and asked for help and for protection from the Indians, who, he feared, were in pursuit of him. Roberts felt doubtful of his ability to protect the fugitives, but Heald was given his parole and permission to proceed to Detroit. Sergeant Griffith was permitted to attend him, and Heald agreed to deliver him up to the British officer in command upon reaching Detroit. It is of interest to note that one of the witnesses of Heald's parole was Robert Dickson, the vigilant and enterprising foe of the Americans in the Northwest. Probably due to the influence of Captain Roberts, the captives secured passage to Detroit on a small sailboat, paying to Robert Irwin, the master, seventeen dollars for their transportation thither. Before parting from Captain Roberts the latter took out his pocketbook and urged Heald to help himself, saying he might repay the money if he ever reached home; if not it would not matter. It was not necessary to accept the generous offer, however, for before the evacuation Mrs. Heald had taken the precaution to sew a sum of money in her husband's underclothing, and this he had succeeded in retaining when stripped of his uniform by his captors.
On reaching Detroit at the close of September, Heald reported to General Proctor and was permitted by him to rejoin his countrymen. Griffith, also, was allowed to continue to attend him "to the U. States," on Heald's promise to do all in his power to prevent his serving in arms against the British until regularly exchanged. The party left Detroit October 4 for Buffalo, to which place they had been provided with transportation by Proctor. Curiously enough the vessel which bore them was the "Adams," Kingsbury's erstwhile "navy of the lakes," which had often journeyed to Chicago on friendly missions during the life of the first Fort Dearborn. In July Hull had attempted to fit it out for one more trip to carry provisions to Mackinac and Fort Dearborn. The successful execution of this project might have rendered Heald's present journey unnecessary. With the capture of Detroit the "Adams" had fallen into the hands of the British, and, as a British vessel, bore the defeated commander to Buffalo. From Buffalo the party journeyed by land to Erie, and thence by water to Pittsburgh, which was reached October 12. The movements of Griffith from this time are unrecorded. The Healds remained here sixteen days, during which time the commander wrote his official report of the massacre and of his subsequent movements. Resuming their journey down the Ohio on November 8 they reached Louisville, the girlhood home of Mrs. Heald, eleven days later. In their captivity and flight three months of time had been consumed, and a circuit of nearly two thousand miles had been traversed, almost all of it by water, much of the way in a canoe or open boat.[627] The distance from Chicago to Louisville by rail today is less than one-sixth as long as Heald's route, and can be traversed in thrice as many hours as the number of months he required.
[627] The estimate of the distance made by Heald in his Journal was nineteen hundred and seven miles. Of this only ninety miles, from Buffalo to Erie, were traveled by land.
At the home of Mrs. Heald's parents the fugitives were greeted as people risen from the dead. Part of the booty captured by the Indians at the time of the massacre had been taken down the Illinois River and sold to the whites. It chanced that Colonel O'Fallon, an old friend of the Healds, saw and recognized certain articles which had been their personal property. He had ransomed them and sent them to Samuel Wells at Louisville, as a memento of his brother and daughter who were both supposed to have been killed. Most of these articles, including Heald's sword, a comb, finger ring, brooch, and table spoons of Mrs. Heald, are still in the possession of her descendants.
Captain and Mrs. Heald spent the winter at her father's home, and in the spring of 1813 went to Newport where the ensuing summer was passed. They shortly returned to the vicinity of Louisville, where in 1814 they purchased some land and began the erection of farm buildings, into which they moved late that fall. Three weeks after the massacre, while he was pushing his weary flight in an open canoe along the desolate eastern shore of Lake Michigan to Mackinac, Heald had been promoted to the rank of major.[628] His wounds, which never ceased to trouble him, incapacitated him for further service, and at the consolidation of the army in 1814 he was discharged. In 1817 he was granted a pension of twenty dollars a month, to date from the time of his discharge from the army in 1814.[629] During this year he removed to Stockland, now O'Fallon, Missouri. Here he purchased a farm from Jacob Zumwalt which had been granted to the latter by the Spanish government toward the close of the eighteenth century.[630] Here Major Heald continued to reside until his death in 1832, and Mrs. Heald until her demise a quarter of a century later. Shortly before Heald's death his old benefactor, Chandonnai, paid him a visit, accompanied by a chief and a number of other Indians. The members of the party were on their way to Kansas to view the country and report to their people upon its desirability. They visited with Major Heald, who caused a sheep and a beef to be killed for their entertainment and talked over with them the story of the captivity. The Heald estate is still intact in the hands of the grandchildren. The old homestead, built by the original proprietor of hewn walnut logs, with the flooring held in place by wooden pegs, still stands. Within its walls the first Methodist sacrament in Missouri is said to have been administered in 1807, by Rev. Jesse Walker, the pioneer of Methodism in Chicago. For many years the house has been unoccupied, but it is still in a partial state of repair. Recently two of its rooms have been fitted up to serve as the meeting-place of local chapters of the society of Daughters of the Revolution.
[628] Drennan Papers, Gushing to Heald, November 9, 1812.
[629] The following letter from William Turner regarding the granting of Heald's pension discloses a creditable aspect of the latter's character. The original letter is the property of a granddaughter of Heald, Mrs. Edmonia Heald McCluer.
Washington City
25th January 1817
Dear Maj: I have taken the liberty without your approbation or knowledge with the assistance of my friend General Parker to procure you a full pension as Capt. We were at first in hopes to procure it as full pay for a Maj. but on examining the list of Officers we found that your promotion as Maj. took place eleven days after you received your wound.
It will take effect from the 10th June 1814 at twenty dollars per month which will be six hundred dollars up to the 31st Dec 1816.
You will excuse me for the liberty I have taken in procuring this pension without your knowledge and will explain that I always feel it my indisputable duty to render assistance to my fellow citizens in all cases but more particularly to a brother officer who has served his country as faithfully as you have and whose increasing friendship for myself & family have been so conspicuous.
Should you feel any delicacy in receiving the pension which I trust you will not as you are so greatly entitled to it, permit me to suggest the propriety of bestowin[g] it on your child or children, which will be of service to them at some future period.
General Parker will enclose to you the warrant or certificate for the pension with instructions how you are to obtain the money already due.
Wm. Turner
Maj. N. Heald
Louisville, Kentucky
[630] Letters of Mrs. Rebecca Heald McCluer, granddaughter of Nathan Heald, to the author, May 7 and June 1, 1912.
The fortunes of the Kinzie family after the massacre are recounted with much detail in the family narrative, Wau Bun. Unfortunately, however, the details are untrustworthy. Some of the incidents recited undoubtedly possess a certain basis of fact, and the broader outlines of the itinerary of the family may in the main be accepted as correct; but these things aside, accuracy of statement is no more to be looked for than in a medieval historical romance.[631] Several days after the battle the family proceeded by boat to the St. Joseph River[632] where it remained some weeks with the friendly Pottawatomies, when Mrs. Kinzie and her children journeyed to Detroit under the escort of Chandonnai, while John Kinzie remained behind for a time in the hope of collecting some of his scattered property.
[631] Probably there was a kernel of fact around which the story of the rescue of the family by Billy Caldwell from impending slaughter at the hands of the Wabash band of Indians was developed. Forsyth's letter to Heald, January 2, 1813 (infra, note 632), recounts the disappointment of "them murdering dogs from the Wabash," who reached Chicago shortly after Heald's departure therefrom. It is not improbable that they sought to vent their displeasure upon the Kinzies, nor, if so, that Caldwell, who was a firm friend of Kinzie, intervened to protect them. That Mrs. Helm may have sought refuge with Ouilmette's family is equally consonant with probability; but here as elsewhere it is evident from a critical reading that the bulk of the narrative is the product of the author's literary imagination. The account of the rescue of Sergeant Griffith must be regarded in a similar light. A careful reading of the story, accompanied by the reflection that Griffith was an experienced frontiersman and soldier, suffices to convince one of this. Instead of being on the north side of the river during the battle, Griffith was a participant in it. Necessarily then, the greater part of the narrative is invalid. Yet Helm's brief entry concerning Griffith, "Supposed to be a Frenchman and released," seems to indicate that Mrs. Kinzie's narrative had some incitement in fact.
[632] According to the family narrative on the third day after the battle. The following letter from Thomas Forsyth to Heald, January 2, 1813, shows that in fact it was the fifth day. The letter is primarily concerned with the property losses of Forsyth and Kinzie, but incidentally it supplies some interesting data concerning the massacre and certain of the survivors. The original manuscript is owned by Mrs. Lillian Heald Richmond of St. Louis, Mo.
St. Louis, 2nd Jany. 1813
Sir: I have forwarded on to the City of Washington our Claims against the U. States for our Whiskey Gunpowders and horses that was lost at Chicago in August last. Lt. Helm (who I got off from the Indians) has proven by affidavit, to the Quantity of Gunpowders and Whiskey, but by a neglect in drawing up his affidavit it does not say that Lt. Helm saw the Gunpowder and Whiskey destroyed, say 850 Lbs. gunpowder and 1,200 Gallons Whiskey. I therefore would thank you if you would forward on to the City of Washington, to Gov. Howard of this place, who is gone on to that city, and has our claims with him, a Certificate or affidavit stating simply the destruction of the Gunpowder and Whiskey, (as Lt. Helm has proven that he saw the Horses and Mules in possession of the Indians when he was a prisoner) will be sufficient.
The day after the horrid affair, and I believe the very day you left Chicago for St. Joseph's I arrived there (Chicago) I remained four days with Kinsie and his family, and I left Chicago the same day Kinsie left it for St. Joseph's, and I have not heard of him since, you was certainly very fortunate in getting of from Chicago the moment you did, as I can assure you that a very few days longer and probably you would never have left Chicago, as them murdering dogs from the Wabash, was very much displeased when they you was gone, and said it would be needless to follow you, as the wind was fair and they could not overtake you, was they to follow the boat.
Lynch & Suttenfield was badly wounded, and were both killed before the Indians arrived at River Aux Sable. Crosier was taken off from River Aux Sable to Green Bay by a Chipeway Indian, an old friend of his, and therefore he is free. When you send on the deposition to Gov. Howard, direct your letter to him at Lexington Kentucky and should he not be there his friends will forward it on to the Seat of Government.
Please give my respects to Mrs Heald.
And remains
Sir
Your most Obedient
Servt. Thomas Forsyth
Sdg.
Capt. N. Heald
Louisville
Mrs. Helm shared the fortunes of her mother's family as far as Detroit. Meanwhile her husband, Lieutenant Helm, was taken by his captors down the Illinois River. Before leaving Chicago, apparently, Mrs. Kinzie interceded with her son-in-law's captors in his behalf; her speech had "the desired effect," and within a few weeks Thomas Forsyth succeeded in ransoming Helm by the payment of two mares "and a keg of stuff when practicable."[633] After spending some time with his rescuer at Peoria, Helm proceeded down the river, arriving at St. Louis October 14, two months after the massacre. Thence he made his way to his father's home in New York, where he rejoined Mrs. Helm, who had arrived there shortly before. For some reason not now in evidence, five months elapsed between Helm's arrival at St. Louis and the conclusion of his journey, the reunion with Mrs. Helm occurring in March, 1813, seven months and one week after their separation.[634]
[633] Helm's narrative of the massacre, Appendix VI; letter of Forsyth to Heald, January 2, 1813, supra, note 632; Forsyth to John Kinzie, September 24, 1812, in Magazine of History, March, 1912, p. 89.
[634] In Wau Bun, p. 187, occurs a moving story of Mrs. Helm's journey from Detroit to Fort George on the Niagara frontier. It represents that Helm rejoined his wife in Detroit, where both were arrested by order of the British commander and sent on horseback in the dead of winter through Canada to Fort George. No official appeared charged with their reception, and on their arrival they were forced to sit waiting outside the gate for more than an hour, without food or shelter, notwithstanding the fact that Mrs. Helm was a delicate woman and the weather was most cold and inclement. When Colonel Sheaffe learned of this brutal inhospitality he expressed his indignation over it, and treated the prisoners kindly until they were exchanged, when they made their way to their friends in New York. Aside from the improbability that Helm, finding himself safe among his own countrymen at St. Louis, would voluntarily go to Detroit to become a prisoner of the British, the truth of Mrs. Kinzie's detailed narration is disproved by the explicit statement of Helm in his narrative of the massacre that after separating from his wife near the fort on the day of the massacre they met again at his father's home in the state of New York, "she having arrived seven days before me after being separated seven months and one week."
The story of Mrs. Simmons and her infant daughter is in some respects the most interesting and heroic of the narratives of the Fort Dearborn captives.[635] Her husband was one of the little band of soldiers who died fighting in defense of the wagons. Among the children in the wagon was his son, David, two years of age, who perished beneath the tomahawk of the young fiend who slaughtered the children collected there. Mrs. Simmons on foot survived the massacre and succeeded in preserving her daughter, Susan, a babe of six months, whom she carried in her arms. Perceiving the delight which the savages derived from tormenting their prisoners, she resolved to suppress any manifestation of anguish. If the family narrative may be credited, her resolution was promptly put to a terrible test. The slain children were collected in a row, among them the gory corpse of her son, and she was led past them in the effort to discover from her bearing whether any of them had belonged to her. She passed through the ordeal without a sign of recognition, and according to the same account, endured the long months of her terrible captivity without once shedding a tear.
[635] For the story of the captivity of Mrs. Simmons the principal source is the family narrative. Heroes and Heroines of the Fort Dearborn Massacre. A Romantic and Tragic History of Corporal John Simmons and His Heroic Wife, by N. Simmons, M.D. The book is of value only for its story of the experiences of Mrs. Simmons and her daughter. The Fort Dearborn muster-roll for May, 1812, shows that Simmons was not a corporal as stated, but only a private. In general the book must be used with great caution.
In the division of the captives Mrs. Simmons fell along with others into the hands of some savages from the vicinity of Green Bay. On the morning after the massacre they crossed the Chicago River and began the homeward march. The weather was warm and the hardship of the journey for Mrs. Simmons, aside from the fatigue of the travel, consisted mainly in being compelled to do the drudgery of her captors, such as gathering fuel and building fires. On the march she walked, carrying her baby the entire distance, two hundred miles or more. The hardships of the march were as nothing in comparison with the reception which awaited its conclusion. Runners were sent in advance to announce the approach of the war party to the members of the tribe in camp, and as it drew near the women and children streamed forth to meet it. They saluted the captives with a fusillade of insults, kicking and otherwise abusing them. Arrived at the village, they were put under close guard until the following day.
In the morning the village was early astir, and preparations were made for subjecting the captives to the ordeal of running the gauntlet. A long double line was formed by the women and children in an open space before the wigwams, and each of the soldiers was compelled to run between the lines, receiving the blows dealt out with sticks and clubs by those composing them. Mrs. Simmons' hope of being spared this ordeal proved vain, and she was led to the head of the line. Wrapping her babe in her blanket, and enfolding it in her arms to shield it, she ran rapidly down the path of torment and reached the goal, bleeding and bruised, but with the infant unharmed.
At this stage of her persecutions the mother encountered an unexpected act of kindness. An elderly squaw led her into her wigwam, washed her wounds, and gave her food and an opportunity to rest. The new-found friend continued her kindly services as long as Mrs. Simmons remained in the same camp with her; and the captive ever afterward spoke of her as her "Indian mother," and regretted her inability to repay the favors received from her.
Meanwhile Robert Dickson was collecting the western tribes to lead them to the scene of war on the Lake Erie frontier. The warriors rendezvoused at Green Bay, from which place the chieftain, Black Hawk, destined to play a prominent role in the Northwest twenty years later, led a party of live hundred southward around Lake Michigan, past the slaughtered garrison of Fort Dearborn, and onward to the frontier.[636] The band to which Mrs. Simmons belonged seems to have participated in this movement of the western tribes. The captive retraced her weary way from Green Bay to Chicago and the bones of her murdered husband, carrying her baby as before. From Chicago her captors led her around the lake to Mackinac; the length of the entire journey was about six hundred miles, and winter closed in before it was completed. Scantily clad, suffering from cold, weariness, and hunger, the mother strove desperately to save her child, and accomplished the almost incredible exploit of carrying it in safety to Mackinac.
[636] Black Hawk, Life, 40-42.
Here she was cheered by the prospect of ransom or exchange; but the sequel proved that her trials were as yet but half surmounted. To accomplish her release she was sent to Detroit. The terrible march was again resumed, this time in the dead of winter. The route led through three hundred miles of wilderness; deep snows with occasional storms impeded the progress; her clothing was in rags, and food was so scarce that she was often constrained to appease her hunger by eating roots, acorns, and nuts, found under the snow. The child, now a year old, had much increased in weight, while the mother's strength was diminishing. But the prospect of release at the end of the journey buoyed up her hopes and she continued to struggle on.
From Detroit to her parental home near Piqua, Ohio, the journey was comparatively easy. The first stage took her to Fort Meigs, then in command of General Harrison, where she arrived late in March, 1813. Here she learned that a supply train which had recently come from Cincinnati was about to return, and that it would pass within a few miles of her father's home. She accordingly secured passage in one of the government wagons. She still had over a hundred miles to travel over wet and swampy roads in early spring time; but in comparison with her earlier travels this stage of the journey must have seemed luxurious enough. About the middle of April she left the train at a point within four miles of her home, walked to the blockhouse where her parents had taken refuge from marauding Indians, and rejoined the family circle which had long mourned her as dead. Three years before, with husband and baby son, she had set out for her new home at Fort Dearborn. Both husband and son were dead and she now returned a widow, but with another child, who had been born at Fort Dearborn in February, 1812. Safe among her former friends, the brave woman at last broke down; to use her own language she "did nothing but weep for months."
There were still other dangers and trials, however, for Mrs. Simmons to pass through. In August a murderous attack was made by some marauding Indians upon the family of Henry Dilbone, who had married the sister of Mrs. Simmons. Mr. and Mrs. Dilbone were working together in the flax field, with their four young children close at hand. Near the close of the day's work their dog raised an alarm, and at almost the same instant the husband fell shot through the breast. The savage sprang forward from his place of concealment to take his victim's scalp. But the latter though mortally wounded was not dead, and gathering his remaining strength he rose, ran to the edge of the field, and leaped the fence which separated it from an adjoining swamp, where he fell among the bushes. The Indian abandoned the pursuit and turned back after Mrs. Dilbone, who had fled for concealment into the neighboring corn. Her flight was vain, however, for she was soon overcome, tomahawked, and scalped. The slayer now turned his attention to the four children, the eldest of whom was ten years of age and the youngest seven months. They, meanwhile, had been making what progress they could toward the house. Instead of pursuing them the warrior made off into the forest, fearing probably that the noise caused by the discharge of his gun and the screams of Mrs. Dilbone would attract rescuers to the spot.
The neighbors were quickly aroused and a company went in search of Mr. and Mrs. Dilbone. The corpse of the latter was found and carried together with the children to the blockhouse of the Simmons family. The search for Mr. Dilbone was given over for that night, through fear of an ambuscade. In the morning it was resumed and he was soon found, too weak to move or even to cry out. He, too, was borne to the blockhouse, where he expired the following day. Thus after her own escape from captivity and death at the hands of the savages, Mrs. Simmons found herself once more in the midst of bloodshed and slaughter—her sister and brother-in-law slain, her nephews orphaned. To such perils were the people on the northwestern frontier exposed during these troublesome and bloody years.
The story of the later career of Mrs. Simmons and her daughter can quickly be told. The latter in due course of time grew to womanhood and became the wife of Moses Winans. The couple first settled in Shelby County, Ohio, but in 1853 they removed to Springville, Iowa. Mrs. Simmons, who had previously taken up her abode in her daughter's family, removed with them to Iowa, and died at Springville in 1857.[637] Mrs. Winans' husband died in 1871, and seventeen years later she went to Santa Ana, California, to make her home with her younger daughter. She lived to become the last survivor of the Fort Dearborn massacre, dying at Santa Ana, April 27, 1900.[638]
[637] For this and the following facts concerning Mrs. Winans see the letters and affidavits pertaining to the securing of a pension for Susan Simmons Winans in the Chicago Historical Society library.
[638] Gale, Reminiscences of Early Chicago, 133.
An interesting although necessarily incomplete narrative of the fortunes of the surviving members of the Burns family may be constructed by assembling the facts contained in several widely scattered sources of information. The killing of the husband, Thomas Burns, an hour after the surrender has already been described.[639] A son of Mrs. Burns by a former marriage, Joseph or James Cooper, was also a member of the slaughtered militia.[640] To complete the tale of the mother's bereavement, her two children next in age perished in the massacre. The mother with two children, one of them an infant, alone survived to undergo the horrors of captivity among the Indians.[641] Concerning this captivity we have two accounts, both of them brief and unsatisfactory. Mrs. Kinzie relates in Wau Bun that Mrs. Burns and her infant became the prisoners of a chief, who carried them to his village. His wife, jealous of the favor shown by her lord and master to the white woman and her child, treated them with the greatest hostility, and on one occasion sought unsuccessfully to brain the infant with a tomahawk. Soon after this demonstration the prisoners were removed to a place of safety. The author further relates that twenty-two years after the massacre she encountered a young woman on a steamer, who, hearing her name, introduced herself and raising the hair from her forehead displayed the mark of the tomahawk, which so nearly had been fatal to her.[642]
[639] Supra, pp. 227, 234.
[640] Letter of Griffith to Heald, January 13, 1820, Draper Collection, U, VIII, 88.
[641] Griffith speaks of three children of Mrs. Burns. Helm's account of the massacre and the letter of Abraham Edwards to John Wentworth, which will be considered presently, mention only two, and this harmonizes with Heald's list of the survivors.
[642] Kinzie, Wau Bun, 188-89.
The other narrative was given to John Wentworth in 1861 by the son of Abraham Edwards, who was hospital surgeon in Hull's army at Detroit in 1812.[643] He settled at Detroit in 1816, and there the family made the acquaintance of Mrs. Burns. Her daughter, Isabella Cooper, became an inmate of the Edwards home, and thus the younger Edwards became familiar with the story. Together with her mother and sister she had been an occupant of one of the wagons when the evacuation of Fort Dearborn took place. A young Indian pulled her out of the wagon by her hair, but the child, though only about nine years of age, fought him to the best of her ability, biting and scratching. Finally he threw her down, scalped her, and was about to tomahawk her, when an old squaw who had frequently visited at her father's house intervened and saved her life. The rescuer later took the child to her wigwam where she cared for her and healed her wound, although a spot on the top of her head the size of a silver dollar remained bare. She and her mother and sister remained among the Indians two years, when they were taken to Mackinac, purchased by some traders, and sent to Detroit.
[643] Wentworth, Early Chicago, 54-60.
The narrative thus told by Edwards to Wentworth fifty years after the massacre is confirmed in part by a letter of Sergeant Griffith to Captain Heald in 1820.[644] Griffith had recently been to Detroit, and wrote to Heald, then living on his farm in Missouri, to enlist his support in procuring a pension for Mrs. Burns. She was then living in Detroit, supporting herself and her three surviving children by her own labor. A number of officers and others had interested themselves in the project of obtaining a pension for her. Her husband had been enrolled by Heald as a sergeant in the militia, in which capacity he had served for several months and finally given up his life. Of all this the government had no record or knowledge, however, and so Heald's certificate as to the nature of Burns's services was needed. In the absence of any knowledge concerning the success of the pension project, we may hope that the government ministered to the needs of the widow who had suffered so grievously in the Fort Dearborn massacre. Edwards records that Mrs. Burns died at Detroit about the year 1823. He also states that the daughters were living as late as 1828, at which time he left Detroit, and that he had since heard they were living in Mackinac. With this, except for the brief notice by Mrs. Kinzie of a meeting with one of them, which has already been mentioned, our knowledge of them comes to an end.
[644] Letter of Griffith to Heald, January 13, 1820, cited supra, note 640.
Hovering on the border between myth and history are a number of stories concerning the fate of others who went through the massacre. Some of these may be true, while some are certainly without foundation in fact; they are grouped together here because of the impossibility of confirming their claim to validity. The story of little Peter Bell will probably forever remain an unsolved mystery. In September, 1813, a British officer, Captain Bullock, addressed an inquiry from Mackinac to General Proctor concerning the disposition to be made of certain prisoners whom the Indians had surrendered to the British at that post.[645] Among others he mentioned Peter Bell, a boy of five or six years of age, "whose Father and mother were killed at Chicagoe." He had been purchased from the Indians by a trader and brought to Mackinac in July, 1813, in accordance with the orders of Robert Dickson. The mystery concerns the identity of the child. The time and manner of his rescue harmonizes with what is known of Dickson's work for the relief of the Chicago captives. But in none of the accounts of Fort Dearborn and the little settlement around its walls prior to 1812, is there any mention of a Bell family. The various accounts of the massacre establish conclusively the proposition that there were nine women among the whites on that day. Two of these were killed; the names of all of them are known, and the list contains no Mrs. Bell. Moreover, it is clear from the sources that six children survived the massacre. The names of all these are known, but that of Peter Bell is not among them. The only explanation of the child's identity which suggests itself is that he was taken captive at some other place than Chicago and that his captors for some reason, perhaps because of the ransom offered, saw fit to surrender him as one of the children taken at Fort Dearborn. Whatever the true explanation may be, a mournful interest attaches to the forlorn little waif who thus appears for a moment amidst the wreck of battle, only to sink again into oblivion.
[645] Michigan Pioneer Collections, XV, 392.
The fate of the Lee family is recorded in the pages of Wau Bun.[646] All of its members except the mother and an infant child were killed during the battle. The fate of the girl, twelve years of age, was particularly pathetic. On leaving the fort, she had been placed upon horseback, but being unused to riding she was tied to the saddle for greater security. During the battle her horse ran away and the rider, partially dismounted yet held by the bands, hung dangling as the animal ran. From this predicament she was rescued by Black Partridge, with whom she had been a great favorite; but finding her badly wounded, he terminated her sufferings with a blow of the tomahawk.
[646] Kinzie, Wau Bun, 189-91.
The mother and her infant child were taken by Black Partridge to his village. There the infant fell ill and Black Partridge fell in love, instituting a campaign for the hand of his captive. Unable to cure the sick child, he took it during the winter to Chicago, where a French trader had established himself since the massacre. The trader, M. Du Pin, not only prescribed for the child, but learning of Black Partridge's designs upon its mother, proceeded to ransom her and then in turn to marry her.[647] This story is repeated with embellishments by Matson, who, with curious disregard for consistency, includes an important feature not found in the original. He avers that the child who was dragged by the horse and afterward tomahawked was Lillian Lee, ten years of age; and that she had a sister two years older who escaped unharmed, was taken by her captors to the Kankakee, and the following spring was carried to St. Louis, where she married a man named Besson, and was still living in East St. Louis at the time Matson's book was written.[648]
[647] In his letter to Heald, April 10, 1813 (supra, note 613), Forsyth stated that "Dupain and Buisson wintered at Chicago last winter with goods from Mackinaw, they have bought of[f] Mrs. Leigh and her younger child, and another woman which I expect is Mrs. Cooper or Burns."
[648] Matson, Pioneers of Illinois, 257-62. The book was published in 1882. Notwithstanding the author's statement that he had interviewed Mrs. Besson and "listened to her thrilling narrative," there is much in his account to excite distrust. It recites many details which are obviously purely imaginary, and for the rest follows, in the main, the account in Wau Bun.
The story of David Kennison, a survivor of the Fort Dearborn garrison, is worthy of preservation, if only because of the remarkable career of the man.[649] Born in New Hampshire in 1736, if his own story of his age is to be accepted, a member of the Boston Tea Party, a participant in Lexington and Bunker Hill and many another battle of the Revolution, he had reached the respectable age of seventy-one when, in March, 1808, he enlisted in the army for the regular term of five years. Probably this was a re-enlistment, for Kinzie's account books show that he was at Chicago as early as May, 1804. The garrison muster-roll for May, 1812, shows that he was present for duty at that time. The supposition that he was a participant in the massacre three months later rests upon inference, for his name is nowhere expressly mentioned in connection with that event. Presumably he was one of the small number of survivors who returned from captivity concerning whom no definite record is left. In his old age Kennison told of further service in the War of 1812, but it is evident that his memory had become confused upon the subject.
[649] The account given here of Kennison is drawn from the following sources: the Chicago Democrat, November 6 and 8, 1848, and February 25, 26, 27, 1852; the Chicago Daily News, December 19, 1903; the Fort Dearborn garrison payroll for the quarter ending December 31, 1811, and the muster-roll for the period ending May 31, 1812, both among the Heald papers in the Draper Collection (for the latter see Appendix VIII); the garrison muster-roll for December, 1810, printed in Wentworth, Early Chicago, 88. Many of the details concerning the career of Kennison are, of course, of doubtful validity.
After the war Kennison settled in New York, and in the ensuing years of peace met with physical injuries far more numerous and serious than in all of his years of warfare. A falling tree fractured his skull and broke his collar bone and two ribs; the discharge of a cannon at a military review broke both of his legs; and the kick of a horse on his forehead left a scar which disfigured him for life. Notwithstanding these accidents, Kennison succeeded in becoming a husband four times and a father twenty-two, and in living to the mature age of one hundred and fifteen. Late in life he became separated from all his children, and in 1845 he came to Chicago where his last years were spent. He drew a pension of eight dollars a month for his Revolutionary services, and until 1848 eked out this means of support by manual labor. Becoming incapacitated for the latter, however, he entered the Chicago Museum; in his card to the public announcing this step he explained that the smallness of his pension obliged him to take it to provide himself with the necessary comforts of life. For the last twenty months of his life the veteran was bedridden, but his sight and hearing, which for a time had been deficient, became perfect again, and he retained his ordinary faculties to the end. His death occurred February 24, 1852.
It was fitting that such a character should receive an imposing funeral. On the day before his death, in response to a request presented in his behalf that he be saved from the potter's field, the City Council had voted that a lot and a suitable monument be provided for him in the City Cemetery. The funeral was held from the Clark Street Methodist Church, and several clergymen assisted in the services. At their conclusion a procession moved in two divisions from the church to the cemetery, to the accompaniment of cannon booming at one-minute intervals. In the procession were the mayor and the councilmen, a detachment of the United States army, the various military companies and bands of the city, companies of firemen, and others. Upon this spectacle and that of the interment, which was marked by the usual military honors, a large proportion of the population of the city gazed. The cemetery occupied a portion of the ground now included in Lincoln Park. When the use of this for burial purposes was abandoned a number of years later, nearly all of the bodies interred in it were removed. Kennison's was one of the few left undisturbed. For many years the site of his grave had practically been forgotten, when, in 1905, with appropriate ceremonies it was marked by a massive granite monument, erected by a number of patriotic societies. Thus it has come to pass that Kennison's burial place possesses a prominence of which the humble soldier in life can hardly have dared to dream. Veteran of our two wars against Great Britain, participant in the Boston Tea Party and the Fort Dearborn Massacre, he enjoys the unique distinction of a grave in Chicago's most famous park, overlooking the blue waters of Lake Michigan.
Another massacre story, concerning the mythical character of which there can be no doubt, is noticed here because of the use that has been made of it by a historian of acknowledged worth and ability. Among the beautiful sheets of water which dot the surface of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan is Diamond Lake near the town of Cassopolis. In its midst lies Diamond Lake Island, a wooded expanse of perhaps forty acres in extent. This was occupied in the early days of white settlement in Cass County by an aged recluse who bore the prosaic name of Job Wright, but who was often more romantically designated as the hermit of Diamond Lake Island. The hermit eked out a living by fishing, hunting, trapping, and basket-weaving. Since he was of an uncommunicative disposition, his neighbors were free to give rein to their imagination in constructing the story of his past, and the scars upon his face furnished a visible support for the rumor that he had been a soldier.[650]
[650] For the story of Job Wright see Mathews, History of Cass County, Michigan, 65-66; Michigan Pioneer Collections, XIV, 265-67.
Another character of note in Cass County three-quarters of a century ago was Shavehead, the erstwhile leader of a band of renegade Indians. Shavehead's peculiar cognomen was due to his fashion of dressing his head; the hair at the base of the head was shaved off, and the rest gathered in a bunch and tied at the top. He had been throughout his lifetime the persistent foe of the whites, and among the early settlers of Cass County he enjoyed a reputation for knavery and villainy which must, if he was aware of it, have delighted his heart.
With old age Shavehead fell upon evil days. His followers disappeared, and with the advance of white settlement and the disappearance of game the old chief was reduced to sore straits for food. At times, however, he succeeded in securing a supply of fire-water sufficient to obliterate for the time being the memory of his troubles. On one occasion the hermit, visiting Cassopolis to dispose of his wares, had his attention attracted by a group of men and boys on the village street who were being harangued by an Indian. Shavehead, for it was he, partially intoxicated, was gesticulating wildly, relating the warlike exploits of his stormy past. As the white man paused to listen, the old chief was describing the massacre at Fort Dearborn, and the slaughter of the women and children around the baggage wagons. As he proceeded with his boastings the hermit muttered words of recognition, and involuntarily drew his gun from his shoulder as though to terminate Shavehead's recital together with his life; he, too, had fought near the baggage wagons. Changing his mind, however, he listened patiently to the end, but when at sundown the Indian left the town the soldier followed on his track. "The red man and the white passed into the shade of the forest; the soldier returned alone. Chief Shavehead was never seen again. He had paid the penalty of his crime to one who could, with some fitness, exact it."[651]
[651] Mason, Chapters from Illinois History, 321.
Such is the story of Shavehead and the hermit of Diamond Lake Island. So complete is it in its tragic fitness that one would fain believe it. Yet, though it received the approval of Edward G. Mason, it must be pronounced purely mythical, at least so far as its connection with Fort Dearborn is concerned. That Shavehead and Job Wright are historical characters in the early settlement of Cass County is clear. That the former took part in the Fort Dearborn Massacre is possible, and even probable. But that he met his death at the hands of Job Wright there is no proof whatsoever. Various other accounts exist, in fact, having apparently an equal claim on our credulity with the one already cited, of the manner in which Shavehead met his end.[652] Furthermore there is no evidence that Job Wright was a member of the Fort Dearborn garrison in 1812. On the contrary, that he was not may be stated with a positiveness bordering on certainty. That he was not a member of Heald's company is shown by the muster-roll of the garrison for May 31, 1812, while the possibility of his belonging to the militia is negatived by the positive statements of both Heald and Helm that all of the latter were slain.
[652] Michigan Pioneer Collections, XIV, 266-67.
It remains to relate what is perhaps the strangest tale of all, concerning the survivors of the massacre. For it we are indebted to Moses Morgan, whose share in the building of the second Fort Dearborn has already been explained.[653] In October, 1816, two of the men detailed to select timber for the work of construction proceeded in a skiff far up the North Branch, when they came upon a half-concealed Indian hut. They were first apprised of its proximity by the shrill shrieks of the squaws, who had seen their boat as it approached. As they turned their skiff to retreat they heard the voice of a white man, imploring them to stop and talk with him. The man spoke good English, indifferent French, and poor Winnebago. He informed them that he was one of the members of Heald's company. He had been wounded in the battle, but was mercifully saved by an elderly squaw, whom he had often provided with something to eat. She prevented the Indians from scalping him, and with the help of her girls moved him across the river and put him under some bushes. Here they cared for him, attending to his wounds, although both they and he suffered much from lack of food. As soon as he could be moved the women tied him onto a flat piece of timber taken from the burnt fort, and dragged him to a small lake some forty miles to the northward. Here he found himself compelled to take the old squaw for a wife or perish from starvation. Upon her sudden death, a year before the visit of the sawyers, he had taken the two oldest girls to be his squaws. There was a third girl, younger than these, and the three women and himself comprised the inmates of the hut.
[653] Supra, p. 134.
When the sawyers reported their discovery at the encampment it was feared the squaws would spirit away their common husband. On the following day the surgeon. Doctor Gale, accompanied the sawyers to the hut, taking a boat load of presents for the squaws. It appeared that the inmates were about to change their location, and as a preliminary step the soldier had taken the youngest girl to be his third wife. She was then one hundred and fifty moons, or thirteen years old, but had desired to be married before leaving the vicinity of her mother's burial place.
Doctor Gale examined the man's wounds and found that they had healed, but with unnecessarily poor results, one leg being shortened and one arm of little use. The doctor took down his name and other personal details, and listened to his story of the massacre. He refused to return to civilization as long as the squaws would live with him and care for him; but he promised to bring them to visit the encampment, exacting, however, a promise that the little squaw should not be ridiculed by the soldiers. Nothing more was ever seen of the man, a fact not much to be wondered at. The surgeon wrote out his account of the interview and handed it, together with the memoranda he had made, to the adjutant, by whom in some manner it was lost. That the story did not, like the wounded soldier, pass into complete oblivion is owing to the quite accidental circumstance of its narration by Moses Morgan to Head, whose interest in Chicago history led him to preserve it.