THE LATE CALUMET CLUB-HOUSE.
[APPENDIX G.]
IMPORTANT REMINISCENCES OF AN OLD SETTLER (A. H. EDWARDS).—[from "FORT DEARBORN"; FERGUS' HISTORICAL SERIES, NO. 16.]
Sheboygan (Wis.), May 24th, 1891.
Hon. John Wentworth:
Dear Sir—I have had the pleasure of reading your account and also the remarks of others in regard to Chicago and Illinois history. I am acquainted with some facts derived from conversation with one who was there, and witnessed the fight and killing of many of those who lost their lives on that memorable day. She was a daughter of one of the soldiers, and was one of the children who, with her mother and sisters, occupied the wagons, or conveyances that was to convey them from the fort. She told me she saw her father when he fell, and also many others. She, with her mother and sisters, were taken prisoners among the Indians for nearly two years, and were finally taken to Mackinac and sold to the traders and sent to Detroit. On our arrival in Detroit, in 1816, after the war, this girl was taken into our family, and was then about thirteen years old, and had been scalped. She said a young Indian came to the wagon where she was and grabbed her by the hair and pulled her out of the wagon, and she fought him the best she knew how, scratching and biting, till finally he threw her down and scalped her. She was so frightened she was not aware of it until the blood ran down her face. An old squaw interfered and prevented her from being tomahawked by the Indian, she going with the squaw to her wigwam, and was taken care of and her head cured. This squaw was one that often came to their house. The bare spot on the top of the head was about the size of a silver dollar. She saw Captain Wells killed, and told the same story as related in your pamphlet.
My father was well acquainted with Captain Wells; was stationed with him at Fort Wayne, Indiana, where I was born, in 1807, and he was surgeon of the post. My mother was a daughter of Col. Thomas Hunt of the Fifth Infantry.