Captain Heald's force consisted of fifty-four regular soldiers and twelve militia-men, and with them departed every white inhabitant of the little settlement, men, women and children—probably about thirty in all—ranging in social condition from the prosperous Kinzies to the humble discharged soldiers who had married and started to make a living by tilling the soil, etc.
The Kinzie family was to go by boat, skirting along the lake and keeping in touch with the land column as long as it should hug the shore; later ascending the St. Joseph's River to "Bertrand," or "Parc-aux-vaches," as it was called, in memory of its having been the cow-pasture of the old French-Canadian settlement and fort which had stood on the bank of that river a century or so ago. The boat-party consisted of Mrs. John Kinzie, her son, John H., born at Sandwich, Canada, July 7, 1803, and her other children—Ellen Marion (later Mrs. Alexander Wolcott), born in Chicago, December, 1805; Maria Indiana (later Mrs. General Hunter), born in Chicago, in 1807, and Robert A., born in Chicago in 1810. Her daughter by a previous marriage, Margaret McKillip, was, it will be remembered, now the wife of Lieutenant Helm, and she bravely elected to share the perils of the land-march with her husband. There was also in the boat the nurse, Josette (misprinted in Wau-Bun, "Grutte"[C]) Laframboise (afterward Mrs. Jean Baptiste Beaubien), a clerk of Mr. Kinzie's, two servants, the boatman, and two Indians as guard. This shows that the boat must have been neither a bark canoe nor a common "dug-out" or "pirogue," but a large bateau, capable of carrying these numerous passengers, with corresponding baggage and supplies.
[C] In the Story of Chicago is given the following fac simile to show how readily the name "Josette" might have been read "Grutte."
To-pee-nee-be, a friendly Indian, chief of the St. Joseph's band, early in the morning of the fatal day, had warned John Kinzie that trouble was to come from the "escort" which Captain Heald had bargained for with the Pottowatomies in council, and had urged him to go in the boat with his family. But the old frontiers-man was built of too sturdy stuff to take such advice. If there was to be danger he must share it, and if help would avail he must give it; so he rode with the column.
First rode out Captain William Wells, hero-martyr, marching, probably consciously, to a doom self-inflicted under the impulse of human sympathy and soldierly honor. Following him were half of his mounted escort of Miami Indians, followed in their turn by the volunteers and such of the regulars as were able to bear arms. Next came the short train of wagons, with stores, supplies, camp-equippage, women, children, sick, wounded and disabled. This little caravan contained all there was to show for eight years of industry and privation. But what mattered it? Greater savings would only have meant greater loss, and more men, women and children would only have meant more suffering and death.
The rear-guard was composed of the remainder of Captain Wells's wretched Miamis, such reliance as is a broken reed. The Miamis were mounted, as were Captain Wells, Mr. Kinzie, Mrs. Heald and Mrs. Helm, but probably no others of the party.
The day continued bright and sunny, and the line must have stretched from the fort (about the south end of Rush Street bridge) perhaps to the present Madison Street, half way to the point where began the sand-dunes or low hills which, even within the memory of the present generation, skirted the shores down as far as the beginning of the oak woods of Hyde Park. The bateau followed in the rear of the column and had just reached the mouth of the river (where the foot of Madison street now is[D]) when a messenger from To-pe-nee-be brought the Kinzie party to a halt.
[D] The river then made a turn southward just east of the fort, and only found an entrance to the lake across the south end of a long sand-bar, the continuation of the shore of the North Side.