The Story of Old Fort Dearborn

by J. Seymour Currey

Among the people thus hoping against hope "there were not wanting gallant hearts who strove to encourage in their desponding companions the hopes of escape they were far from indulging themselves."

Early in the morning of the day of the departure of the garrison John Kinzie had received a message from Topenebe of St. Joseph's band informing him of what he already was well convinced of, that the Potawatamis who were to act as escort on the march had treacherous designs, and would without doubt attack the column. Topenebe was a chief in the Potawatami tribe, but a firm friend of the whites and especially of the Kinzie family. He warned Mr. Kinzie not to accompany the troops when they left the fort, but rather to take passage in a boat with his family and proceed directly to St. Joseph, where he might rejoin the troops if they were successful in passing through the country.

Mr. Kinzie, however, decided to place his family in the boat, while he himself accompanied the troops, in the hope and belief that his presence would operate as a restraint upon the fury of the savages in case of an attack. This brave action on the part of Mr. Kinzie, who thus cast in his lot with those who were going forth to almost certain destruction, must be regarded as an exhibition of rare personal courage notable even among many other instances of a similar kind seen on that fatal day.

The party in the boat which left the Kinzie house about the same time that the troops marched out of the fort consisted of Mrs. Kinzie and her four children, the eldest of whom by her second marriage was John Harris, then nine years old. The others were: Ellen Marion, six and a half years old; Maria Indiana, four years old, and Robert Allen, two and a half years old. In addition there were Josette La Framboise, a French-Ottawa half-breed, a nurse in the family; Chandonnais, a clerk in the employ of Mr. Kinzie; two servants, a boatman, and the two Indians who had brought the message from Topenebe. This made a party of twelve persons in the boat.

Upon Mrs. Kinzie now devolved the responsibility and direction of the party in the boat, since her husband had chosen to accompany the troops. Proceeding to the mouth of the river, the boat was detained for a time while the party beheld the passage of the column just beginning its march. Mrs. Kinzie "was a woman of uncommon energy and strength of character," says the author of Wau-Bun, "yet her heart died within her as she folded her arms around her helpless Infants, and gazed upon the march of her husband and eldest child to certain destruction." It will be recalled that Mrs. Kinzie's eldest child was Mrs. Margaret Helm, who was with her husband on the march.

Antoine Ouilmette and his family did not abandon their dwelling as did all the other residents of the village. A sister of his wife, known in the accounts as Mrs. Bisson, was a member of this same household. Ouilmette was regarded by the Potawatamis as belonging to their tribe, and he felt no apprehension of danger in remaining on the ground. Renegade whites living among the savages usually maintained their standing among them by offering no opposition to any atrocities committed by them, and sometimes even participating in the warfare against their own race.

The line of march lay along the shore of the lake toward the south. In the absence of roads through the country at that early period the traveling was difficult for wagons, and the margin of the lake was usually preferred for that kind of locomotion wherever it lay in the desired direction. For a considerable distance toward the southern end of the lake the route of the proposed march would be along the sandy beach, usually firm and smooth near the water's edge.

Boat navigation was the main reliance for transporting men and goods, though as yet there was not a sufficiently large number of boats of any description on Lake Michigan to have moved so large a body of men and women at one time as composed the procession leaving the fort. And even if there had been enough of such as were used by the traders, it is not likely that the people would have been permitted by the hostile Indians even to embark in them.

The fort was no sooner vacated than the Indians rushed in and began to plunder the place of everything that was movable. In an adjoining field there had been a herd of cattle kept for the use of soldiers, such as milch cows, oxen, etc., and these were allowed to run at large when the troops departed. The Indians gave chase and shot them all, seemingly for the satisfaction they found in the mere act of killing, and the deed was quite in keeping with their usual improvident habits. Mrs. Helm, in her account, said that she well-remembered a remark of Ensign Ronan as the shooting of the cattle went on. "Such," said he, "is to be our fate,—to be shot down like beasts."

In taking their departure from the fort there was little in the conduct of the savages to indicate the hostility which was so soon to manifest itself. Mrs. Heald gave an account of the scene many years later, and she said in her narrative that "the fort was vacated quietly, not a cross word being passed between soldiers and Indians, and good-byes were exchanged."