The Story of Old Fort Dearborn

by J. Seymour Currey

Two years previous to this time Captain William Wells had taken his niece, Rebekah Wells, daughter of his brother. Captain Samuel Wells of Louisville, Kentucky, to Fort Wayne on a visit, and while there she met Captain Heald, who was on duty at that point. In the summer following Heald's arrival at Fort Dearborn he obtained a leave of absence for the purpose of going to Louisville to be married to Rebekah Wells. The marriage followed his arrival there and was doubtless the result of the acquaintance formed at the time of the Fort Wayne visit, the first of many romantic episodes.

The journey of the newly wedded couple from the old Kentucky home to their new place of residence at Fort Dearborn was made in May, 1811, and it is interesting to learn that the whole distance was covered in six days. There were three in the party—the captain, his bride, and a little slave girl who begged to be taken along. Each had a horse to ride, and an extra horse carried the baggage; they traveled by compass.

On their arrival the garrison turned out to receive them with military honors. Rebekah was much pleased with her reception, and found everything to her liking; she liked the wild place, the wild lake, and the wild Indians, then indeed friendly enough, but soon to become fierce enemies. Everything suited her ways and disposition, "being on the wild order" herself, she said; and we can well imagine Captain Heald becoming, in his changed circumstances, quite reconciled to the situation with which he was so much displeased the year before.

Captain Heald was a martinet in the matter of military discipline, and during the two years or more that elapsed between his arrival and the evacuation of the fort he became unpopular by reason of his strict insistence upon every detail required by the military regulations. It had become the recognized practice in isolated garrisons at lonely posts to relax somewhat the discipline usually found necessary where large numbers of troops were assembled.

But while Captain Heald was so exacting in the affairs of the post, he applied the same principles to his own conduct where the orders of his superior officers were concerned, even when conditions would have warranted independent action.

Heald would have been an ideal officer on the staff of a general where it was necessary to render instant and implicit obedience to orders, and in such a position his services would have been without doubt faithful and efficient. But when serving at a distant post, where much latitude in complying with instructions might have been permitted and justified, he failed to use the discretion that he was unquestionably entitled to exercise under such circumstances. Heald was not able to see beyond the letter of his instructions, and to the literal manner in which he construed them may be attributed in great measure the disasters that overtook the fort and its occupants.

Captain William Wells, the hero of the story we are here relating, was born about 1770, in Kentucky. His career throughout is surrounded with an atmosphere of romance. When Mr. Roosevelt was writing his Winning of the West, he did not fail to see the picturesque figure of Captain Wells among the pioneer scenes which he there delineates with characteristic vigor and sympathy. We commemorate his name and deeds in our street nomenclature of the present day, and the historical interest which attaches to the name of Wells Street would be worthily supplemented by the people of Chicago in the erection of a statue to his memory.

William Wells and Samuel Wells, the noted Indian fighters, were brothers living in Louisville, Kentucky, belonging to a family of early settlers in that region. When twelve years of age, William was carried off by a band of Miami Indians, whose chief, Little Turtle, adopted him in his family. With this tribe William remained some years, and when he arrived at manhood the chief gave him his daughter in marriage. He became greatly attached to the people of the tribe, and in the disastrous campaigns of Generals Harmer and St. Clair, in 1790 and 1791, when those two generals were successively defeated, he fought with his tribe against the Americans.

The Wells family learned of William's presence with the Indians and of the attachment he had formed for savage life and society, and during one of the intervals of peaceful relations they endeavored to win him back to his early home and family connection. Messages were sent to him begging him to abandon his savage life and return to his family. Referring to this period in the life of William Wells, Rebekah Wells, his niece, said: "We all wanted Uncle William, whom we called our 'Indian Uncle,' to leave the Indians who had stolen him in his boyhood, and come home and belong to his white relations. He hung back for years, and even at last when he agreed to visit them the proviso was made that he should be allowed to bring along an Indian escort with him, so that he should not be compelled to stay with them if he did not want to do so."

REBEKAH WELLS HEALD The wife of Captain Heald was a niece of Captain Wells and a child of the frontier. She was married to Captain Heald two years before the Fort Dearborn massacre.	CAPTAIN WILLIAM WELLS Captain William Wells, the hero of the Fort Dearborn massacre.