Letter from Hon. Isaac N. Arnold.
Chicago, January 25, 1884.
Captain A. T. Andreas.
Dear sir:—I have your note of this morning, asking me to state what I know relating to the massacre at Chicago in 1812. I came to Chicago in October, 1836; the Fort Dearborn reservation then, and for several years afterward, belonged to the government, and there were but a few scattering houses from Fort Dearborn south to [the present location of] the University, and between Michigan Avenue and the beach of Lake Michigan. The sand-hills near the shore were still standing. The family of John H. Kinzie was then the most prominent in Chicago, and the best acquainted with its early history. From this family and other early settlers, and by Mr. and Mrs. Kinzie, I was told where the attack on the soldiers by the Indians was made. There were then growing some cottonwood trees near which I was told the massacre occurred. One of those trees is still standing in the street leading from Michigan Avenue to the lake and not very far from the track of the Illinois Central Railway. This tree was pointed out to me by both Mr. and Mrs Kinzie, as near the place where the attack began. As the fight continued, the combatants moved south and went over considerable space. Mrs. John H. Kinzie was a person of clear and retentive memory and of great intelligence. She wrote a full and graphic history of the massacre, obtaining her facts, in part, from eye-witnesses, and I have no' doubts of her accuracy.
Very respectfully yours,
Isaac N. Arnold.
Letter from A. J. Galloway.
Chicago, February 8, 1884.
Captain A. T. Andreas.
My dear sir:—At your request I will state my recollections concerning the cottonwood tree in the east end of Eighteenth Street. When I removed from Eldredge Court to the present 1808 Prairie Avenue, in 1858, the tree was in apparent good condition, though showing all the marks of advanced age. The large lower branches (since cutoff), after mounting upward for a time, curved gracefully downward, so that a man riding under them could have readily touched their extremities with his whip at a distance of twenty or twenty-five feet from the body. From an intimate knowledge of the growth of trees, I have no doubt but its sapling life long ante-dated the time of the massacre of the Fort Dearborn garrison. I will venture the opinion that if it were cut down and the stump subjected to a careful examination, it would be found that the last two inches of its growth cover a period of fifty years at least.