After the surrender Captain Heald was kept unmolested, quite fortunately being given into the custody of an Indian from the Kankakee, who, it seems, had known him previously, and who had formed an attachment for him. The Indian at once made plans for his escape, and soon Captain Heald was placed in a canoe and taken to St. Joseph. Here he was joined by Mrs. Heald, and they both pursued their journey up the east coast of Lake Michigan to Mackinac, where Captain Heald delivered himself up as a prisoner of war to the British commandant, by whom he was well treated and released on parole. Later in the season he found means to reach Louisville, where Mrs. Heald's father, Colonel Samuel Wells, resided. It had been supposed that both Heald and his wife had perished in the massacre, and their appearance was as if they had awakened from the dead.
In due course of time Heald was exchanged, and again entered the service with the rank of Major. He never got rid of the effects of his wound, and in 1817 he resigned his commission in the army and removed with his family to a small town in Missouri, where he died a few years later.
Lieutenant Helm, who was among the wounded at the time of the surrender, had the good fortune to fall into the hands of some friendly Indians, and was taken to Peoria. He was liberated through the intervention of Thomas Forsyth, the half-brother of Mr. Kinzie, who was the Indian agent at that place. Forsyth had great influence with the Potawatamis. "He had been raised with this nation," says Reynolds, "spoke their language well, and was well acquainted with their character." He advanced the amount demanded by the Indians for Helm's ransom, and had him sent to St. Louis in safety. In this important and dangerous service Forsyth risked his life every moment he was engaged in it, for the Indians at that time were in a highly inflamed condition.
Eventually Lieutenant Helm rejoined his wife at Detroit.
Click on map to view larer sized. | Click on map to view larer sized. |
| FRANQUELIN'S MAP OF 1684 This section of Franquelin's large map finished in 1684 shows the Illinois country and the Illinois river throughout its entire length, with the location of Fort St. Louis, the colony established by La Salle in 1682. This fort was built on that bold eminence on the southern bank of the Illinois river, nearly opposite the present town of Utica, known in later years as Starved Rock. The original map made by Franquelin was six feet in length by four and a half in width. Parkman said of it that it was "the most remarkable of all the early maps of the interior of North America." Franquelin was a young engineer in the service of the French King residing in Quebec. The information necessary for the drawing of the map was undoubtedly supplied the young engineer by La Salle himself, who had just returned from the Illinois country. It will be observed that the name Chekagou is applied to the river, which is shown as if it were an affluent of the Illinois. The proper location of Chicago on the lake is represented by a strange word Cheagoumeinan, which appears nowhere else on other maps or in the early records. The word Chcagou was known even before the site of Chicago was discovered by Joliet and Marquette in 1673. In a report quoted by Charlevoix, written in 1671, certain localities are mentioned, among others "Chicagou at the lower end of Lake Michigan." This is the first mention of the name in history. (See Shea's "Charlevoix," Vol. III, Page 166.) | MAP OF CHICAGO IN 1812. On this map is shown the location of Fort Dearborn and the Agency house in the year 1812, the locations of the houses used as dwellings comprising the house of Charles Lee, opposite the mouth of the river, the Kinzie house, the Ouilmette house and the Burns house on the north side of the river; the Indian encampment along the creek which flowed into the river from the south (about where State street now runs), and Lee's Place, or Hardscrabble, on the South Branch. A dotted line shows the route taken by the troops and wagon trains along the lake shore to the south on the morning of August 15th, also the situation of the sand hills which began to rise about a mile from the fort. The attack upon the column began from the shelter of the sand hills, and the succeeding battle and massacre extended over a further space towards the south. |
The final scene in the story of old Fort Dearborn was the departure of the Kinzie family and their retinue of servants on the third day after the battle and massacre. The fort and the agency house had been destroyed by fire on the second day, and there were now remaining only the Kinzie house, the Ouilmette cabin near it, the house lately occupied by John Burns and his wife and child on the north bank of the main river, and that lately occupied by Charles Lee and his family near the mouth of the river.
On the eighteenth the family of Mr. Kinzie, together with the servants and clerks in his trading establishment, were placed on board of a boat of sufficient capacity to accommodate them all, and they thus took their departure from the scene of so many calamities. There were left in the vicinity only Ouilmette and his family, who were the sole inhabitants of Chicago until the arrival, some time later, of a French trader named Du Pin, who took possession of the unoccupied Kinzie house and lived in it. The length of his stay is not recorded.
The Indians now began to realize the folly of breaking up a station which to them was an abundant source of supplies, where they could come and obtain ammunition, provisions and clothing in exchange for their furs. They would henceforth be obliged to depend upon the small resources of the St. Joseph trading post or travel to Detroit.
All this had been foreseen by the older and wiser men among them, but the hot-blooded young men of the tribes were intent on plunder and the ghastly trophies represented by the scalps of their victims, and they could not be restrained. There was now little inducement to visit the post at Chicago; consequently the great numbers that formerly assembled in the neighborhood scattered to remote places and eked out a precarious existence by fishing and hunting.