Yours truly,
A. J. Galloway.
To these highly convincing letters. Captain Andreas adds verbal testimony as follows:
Charles Harpell, an old citizen, now living on the North Side, says that as far back as he can remember this locality was known as "the Indian battle-ground;" that years ago, when a boy, he with others used to play there (the place, from its very associations, having the strongest attractions) and hunt in the sand for beads and other little trinkets, which they were wont to find in abundance. Mr. Harpell relates, also, that he, while playing there one day, found an old single-barreled brass pistol, which he kept for many years.
Mrs. Mary Clark Williams, whose father, H. B. Clark, purchased in 1833, the land on which the tree now stands, says that nearly fifty years ago she played under the old cottonwood, and that it was then a large and thrifty tree. In 1840 an old Indian told her that the massacre occurred on that spot.
On the same branch of the subject, and in absolute conformation of the Clark testimony, see the following letter, later than the other, which I am glad to be able to give as "the conclusion of the matter."
Aspen, Colorado, March 15, 1890.
Editor of the Tribune:
I notice your interesting article on the subject of the Chicago Massacre of 1812. I was born on what is now Michigan Avenue (then a farm) and within 1,200 feet of this awful affair. Your article is in the main correct, though not exactly so as regards the tree at the foot of Eighteenth Street. This was one of a grove, consisting of perhaps fifty to seventy-five large cotton-woods, extending from a little north of Sixteenth to a little south of Eighteenth Street. Almost in the center of this grove—I think the exact location would be two hundred and fifty to three hundred feet north of Eighteenth Street, on the east end of Wirt Dexter's lot—stood a "clump" of eight or nine trees....
The sand-hills extended from about where the Illinois Central round-house now is south to about Twenty-Fifth Street. They were covered with low cedar trees, ground pine, and sand cherry bushes, together with a perfect mat of sand prickers, to which the soles of our feet often gave testimony when in swimming. The old cemetery, where many of the old settlers were buried, was located near Twenty-Second Street and Calumet Avenue. I think the McAvoy brewery stands about the centre of it.
I sincerely hope something will be done to commemorate this awful affair and perpetuate the memory of our ancestors, who fought the Indians, the fleas and the ague to make so grand and beautiful a city as Chicago.