The Story of Old Fort Dearborn

by J. Seymour Currey

The story of John Cooper, surgeon's mate at Fort Dearborn, was similar in many of its details to that of others in the battle. Cooper was accompanied by his wife and two young daughters, the elder of whom was named Isabella. Cooper was among the killed, and when the Indians made a rush for the women and children in the wagons, a young Indian boy attempted to carry off Isabella, but encountered so lively a resistance that he was obliged to throw her down. He succeeded in scalping her, and would have killed her outright had not an old squaw prevented him. The squaw, who knew the Cooper family, took Mrs. Cooper and her children to her wigwam and cured the girl of her wound.

The family remained in captivity two years, when they were ransomed. They afterwards lived in Detroit. The mark of the wound on the girl's head caused by the young Indian's scalping knife was about the size of a silver dollar, and, of course, remained with her through her life.

An infant of six months was with its mother among the survivors of that dreadful day. Corporal Simmons had with him on the march his wife and two children, the eldest a boy of two years, and a little girl an infant in its mother's arms. The mother and her children were in the army wagon, which was entered by the Indian, who despatched the children as rapidly as he could reach them. Mrs. Simmons, while not able to save her boy, succeeded in concealing the baby in a shawl behind her, and the child survived the scenes of that day. The corporal himself was among those who were slain.

When the division of prisoners took place after the action Mrs. Simmons was carried off by the Indians to Green Bay, the whole distance to which she walked, carrying her child in her arms. On arriving at their destination the captives were required to "run the gauntlet," according to the brutal custom of the savages, but in doing so she was able to protect her precious charge by bending over it as she held it in her arms. She received many cruel blows and half dead she reached the goal where a friendly squaw gave her and her child a kind reception. In the following year, after many weary wanderings, Mrs. Simmons reached a frontier post in Ohio and was at length set at liberty.

This child grew up and became the wife of Moses Winans, and in later life she and her husband lived in California, but she never returned to Chicago again. She died in 1903, at the advanced age of ninety years.

Of the nine women who set out with the troops, two were killed; the others, except Mrs. Heald and Mrs. Helm, were carried off by the savages, and some did not survive the hardships of the life they were compelled to undergo. There were eighteen children, of whom twelve were killed outright, and but few of the others were ever heard of.

The following fall and winter the British, then in possession of Detroit, were urged by some of the American residents of that place to exert their influence among their Indian allies to return the captives to the custody of the British military authorities. Tardy efforts were made, and at length the agent who was appointed for that work reported that he had gathered at the St. Joseph River seventeen soldiers, four women, and some children. There were, however, several other survivors not included among those whom the British agent was able to find, as appears from some other accounts. The soldiers were taken to Detroit and became prisoners of war, but their condition was thus only slightly ameliorated. Young John Kinzie, then a lad ten years of age, recalled that while his father's family were living in their own house at Detroit during that winter, themselves practically prisoners of war, he saw the miserable captives suffering from exposure in the severe cold weather without adequate shelter, and but little could be done for them by their American friends.

The perils surrounding the Kinzie family when they were once more gathered under the family roof were of the most serious character. Here were assembled a company of the survivors after a day of excitement, bloodshed, and distress hardly to be paralleled in the lives of civilized people. Across the river from the Kinzie house could be seen the victorious savages indulging in wild antics, shouting and dancing exultantly, ransacking and plundering the buildings within the fort, and preparing to torture some of the prisoners to death. They had arrayed themselves in women's hats, shawls, and ribbons, and filled the air with their savage outcries.

Notwithstanding the fact that the house and its inmates were closely guarded by their Indian friends, and that Black Partridge and other friendly Indians had established themselves in the porch of the building as sentinels, to protect the family from any evil that the young men of the tribes might endeavor to commit, their peril was extreme. Everything remained tranquil, however, during the day, and the following night was passed in comparative freedom from alarms.

The next day the Indians set fire to the fort and the entire place was consumed. A party of Indians from the Wabash arrived at this time, having heard of the intended evacuation of the fort, and eager to share in the plunder. They were disappointed and enraged on finding that their arrival was too late, that the spoils had been divided, and the scalps all taken. These Indians had no particular regard for the Kinzies, and it at once became evident that their presence boded destruction to the devoted inmates of the house. They blackened their faces and proceeded to the Kinzie house as the most promising spot to carry out their plundering and bloodthirsty designs.