[AE] This Pottowatomie chief, well known to many of the citizens of Chicago, was residing at Aux Plaines when Wau-Bun was written.
After their arrival in Detroit Mrs. Helm was joined by her husband, when they were both arrested, by order of the British commander, and sent on horseback, in the dead of winter, through Canada, to Fort George, on the Niagara frontier. When they arrived at that post there seemed no official appointed to receive them, and notwithstanding their long and fatiguing journey, in weather the most cold and inclement, Mrs. Helm, a delicate woman of seventeen years, was permitted to sit waiting in her saddle, without the gate, for more than an hour before the refreshment of fire or food, or even the shelter of a roof, was offered to her. When Colonel Sheaffe, who had been absent at the time, was informed of this brutal inhospitality, he expressed the greatest indignation. He waited on Mrs. Helm immediately, apologized in the most courteous manner, and treated her and Lieutenant H. with the most considerate kindness, until, by an exchange of prisoners, they were liberated and found means to reach their friends in Steuben County, New York.
Captain Heald had been taken prisoner by an Indian from the Kankakee who had a strong personal regard for him, and who, when he saw the wounded and enfeebled state of Mrs. H., released her husband that he might accompany his wife to St. Joseph's. To the latter place they were accordingly carried, as has been related, by Chandonnais and his party. In the mean time, the Indian who had so nobly released his prisoner returned to his village on the Kankakee, where he had the mortification of finding that his conduct had excited great dissatisfaction among his band. So great was the displeasure manifested that he resolved to make a journey to St. Joseph's and reclaim his prisoner. News of his intention being brought to To-pee-nee-bee and Kee-po-tah, under whose care the prisoners were, they held a private council with Chandonnais, Mr. Kinzie and the principal men of the village, the result of which was, a determination to send Captain and Mrs. Heald to the island of Mackinac and deliver them up to the British. They were accordingly put in a bark canoe and paddled by Robinson and his wife a distance of three hundred miles along the coast of Michigan, and surrendered as prisoners of war to the commanding officer at Mackinac.
This, though discordant with the shorter report received from the Healds, certainly seems to have sound basis of truth. I have no doubt that the Captain and his wife did halt at St. Joseph's and that John Kinzie had something to do with their further journey to Mackinac. Wau-Bun proceeds:
As an instance of the procrastinating spirit of Captain Heald it may be mentioned that even after he had received certain intelligence that his Indian captor was on his way from the Kankakee to St. Joseph's to retake him, he would still have delayed another day at that place to make preparation for a more comfortable journey to Mackinac.
Mrs. Helm's acuteness in finding flaws in Captain Heald is quite interesting. But as this Kankakee information must have come entirely through Indian channels, and as the savage plan is ever to strike first and warn afterward, I am prone to suspect that he applied the "personal equation," and made light of the tale; and that there was in fact little in it to frighten a brave man and his heroic wife. (Per contra, see the Mackinaw incident.)
The soldiers, with their wives and surviving children, were dispersed among the different villages of the Pottowatomies, upon the Illinois, Wabash and Rock River, and at Milwaukee, until the following spring, when they were, for the most part, carried to Detroit and ransomed.
We should like to believe the hopeful views here given regarding the fate of the remaining prisoners. In truth, this account is as well authenticated as is that given in the Niles' Register, as copied from a Plattsburgh (N. Y.) newspaper, and given later in this work.
Mrs. Burns, with her infant, became the prisoners of a chief who carried her to his village and treated her with great kindness. His wife, from jealousy of the favor shown to the white woman and her child, always treated them with great hostility. On one occasion she struck the infant with a tomahawk, and narrowly missed her aim of putting an end to it altogether.[AF] They were not long left in the power of the old hag, after this demonstration, but on the first opportunity carried to a place of safety.