The Story of Old Fort Dearborn

by J. Seymour Currey

The Indians also found that the friendship of the British was a poor dependence as compared with that of the Americans, who were the only governmental authority with whom they could make treaties, and through whom they could obtain recognition and satisfaction for their claims of territorial ownership.

The following episode has been relegated to this late portion of the narrative, as belonging more to the echoes of the battle on the lake shore than to the battle itself.

Mrs. Lee was one of the women taken by the Indians when her husband and son had been killed at the massacre, as already narrated. She had with her a daughter twelve years old and an infant. These were claimed by our old friend Black Partridge under the following circumstances: The daughter had been placed on horseback for the march and tied fast for fear she would slip off the saddle. When the action was at its height she was severely wounded by a musket ball; and the horse, becoming frightened, set off at a gallop. The girl was partly thrown off, but was held fast by the bands, and hung dangling until she was met by Black Partridge, who caught the horse and disengaged her from the saddle. The chief had known the family and was greatly attached to this little girl, whom he recognized at once.

On finding that she was so seriously wounded that she could not recover, and that, besides, she was suffering great agony, he put the finishing stroke to her at once with his tomahawk. He said afterwards that this was one of the hardest things he ever attempted to do, but that he did it because he could not bear to see her suffer.

Black Partridge then took the mother and her infant to his village on the Au Sable, where he became warmly attached to the former; "so much so," relates the author of Wau-Bun, "that he wished to marry her; but as she very naturally objected, he treated her with the greatest respect and consideration." He was not disposed to liberate her from captivity, however, hoping that in time he could prevail upon her to become his wife.

During the following winter the child became ill, and was not restored by ordinary cures. Black Partridge then offered to take the child to Chicago, where the French trader named Du Pin, who had arrived after the massacre, was then living in the Kinzie house, and obtain medical aid from him. Accordingly the child was warmly wrapped, and the chief carried his precious charge all the way in his arms.

Arriving at the residence of M. du Pin, he carefully placed the child on the floor. "What have you there?" asked the trader. "A young raccoon, which I have brought you as a present," replied the chief. Then opening the pack, he displayed the little sick child. M. du Pin furnished some remedies for its complaint and when Black Partridge was about to return he told the trader of his proposal to Mrs. Lee to become his wife, and of the way it had been received.

M. du Pin, being a man of discernment, "entertained some fears," continues the Wau-Bun account, "that the chief's honorable resolution might not hold out, to leave it to the lady herself whether to accept his addresses or not, so he entered at once into a negotiation for her ransom, and so effectually wrought upon the good feelings of Black Partridge that he consented to bring his fair prisoner at once to Chicago, that she might be restored to her friends."

Mrs. Lee accordingly was brought to Chicago and had an opportunity of expressing her gratitude to the French trader who had, without having seen her or known her, rendered so important a service as paying a ransom for her return to civilization. In course of time this M. du Pin, who it seems was a man without a family when he came, proposed to Mrs. Lee himself, and, more fortunate than the dusky chieftain, he was accepted. "We only know," says the Wau-Bun account, "that in process of time Mrs. Lee became Madame du Pin, and that they lived together in great happiness for many years after."

It is a relief, after narrating the events connected with the evacuation of Fort Dearborn and the massacre which followed it, to invite the reader's attention to this picture, as a contrast with the havoc and dismay of that dreadful day in August, 1812, when Chicago was left with but one white inhabitant, and he a renegade.