There are no pictures of John Kinzie, the pioneer, in existence. The pictures shown are those of John Harts Kinzie, the son of John Kinzie, and of his wife, Mrs. Juliette A. Kinzie, the talented Author of Wau-Bun.
John H. Kinzie was a lad nine years of age at the time the Fort Dearborn massacre. His wife was born and brought up in Connecticut, and she did not come to Chicago until 1833.
John Harris Kinzie, the oldest son of John Kinzie, spent the years from his infancy to the age of nine living with his parents in the Kinzie mansion. There were no schools in the vicinity, and young John had to depend upon chance opportunities of obtaining the rudiments of an education. It is related that among the supplies consigned to John Kinzie, arriving by the "annual schooner," there was found a spelling book inside a chest of tea which the elder Kinzie gave to his son. With the aid of his father's step-brother, Robert Forsyth, then a member of Mr. Kinzie's family, young John learned his first lessons. In later years he said the odor of tea always reminded him of the spelling book he used to study in his boyhood.
The children of the Kinzie family, as well as those of the officers and soldiers at the fort who had their families with them,—as a number of them did,—were formed into classes and taught by a soldier of some education whose term of service had expired, but on account of his irregular habits the school was discontinued after some months.
A brief sketch of General Henry Dearborn, already referred to in this history, should be given in this place. The name of Dearborn is often met with among Chicago localities and institutions; and the city is honored in thus perpetuating the name and memory of a man who, though he had never visited this vicinity, held positions of responsibility and honor in the affairs of the country.
General Dearborn was a native of New Hampshire, and at the time of the establishment of Fort Dearborn was a man somewhat past fifty years of age. After passing through the best schools of the State in which he was born he studied medicine and practiced that profession for some years before the breaking out of the Revolutionary War. At an early period in that struggle he raised a company of militia and joined a regiment commanded by Colonel John Stark, who afterward became the hero of the battle of Bennington. As a captain young Dearborn took part in the battle of Bunker Hill, and at a later time was with Arnold on his unsuccessful expedition to Canada, where he was taken prisoner by the British. He was exchanged and again entered the service, and as major assisted in the capture of Burgoyne's army at the battle of Saratoga.
It is related in a recent history:
During this campaign he kept a journal, which is now preserved in the Boston Public Library. The entry made the day of the surrender is as follows:
"This day the great Mr. Burgoyne with his whole army surrendered themselves as prisoners of war with all their public stores; and after grounding their arms marched off for New England—the greatest conquest ever known."