BEGINNING at a point even further back in the dim past than the building of Pointe de Saible's cabin, we take up the narrative of the lives of its latest owners, John Kinzie was born in Quebec about 1763, son of John McKenzie, or McKinzie, a Scotchman, who married Mrs. Haliburton, a widow, with one daughter,[AP] and died when his son John was very young. Mrs. McKenzie made a third marriage, with one William Forsyth, who had served under General Wolfe in the taking of Quebec. William Forsyth, with wife, children and step-children, lived many years in New York, and later in Detroit. While they lived in New York, John McKinzie, afterward John Kinzie, was sent, with two Forsyth half-brothers, to school in Williamsburgh, just across the East river; a negro servant, or slave, going every Saturday night to bring the three boys home. One Saturday there was no Johnnie to be found—the embryo frontiers-man had runaway. He got on board a sloop bound for Albany and fell in with some one who helped him on to Quebec, where he found employment in the shop of a silver-smith; and there he remained three years and learned the trade which later gave him the Indian name, "Shaw-nee-aw-kee"—silver-smith.
[AP] This daughter, half-sister of John Kinzie, is said in Wau-Bun to have possessed beauty and accomplishments, and to have lived to become the mother of General Fleming and Nicholas Low, both very well known in New York and Brooklyn.
We next find him in Detroit, with his mother and step-father, who had moved thither with their Forsyth children.[AQ] Robert Forsyth, a grandson of William, was well known in Chicago in the decade before the Union War. He was an officer of the Illinois Central Railway, and his tall, handsome figure, his bluff, hearty manners and his unquestionable ability', made him a general favorite.
[AQ] William Forsyth kept a hotel in Detroit for many years and died there in 1790 Robert, one of his sons, was in the service of the American government during the war of 1812. Thomas, who became Major Thomas Forsyth, U. S. A., was born in Detroit, December 5, 1771. Before the war of 1812, he was Indian Agent among the Pottowatomies at Peoria Lake. After the war of 1812 he was sent as U. S. Indian Agent among the Sauks and Foxes, with whom he remained many years. He died at St. Louis, October 29, 1833. Colonel Robert Forsyth, an early resident of Chicago, was the son of Major Thomas Forsyth; George, another son of William Forsyth, was lost in the woods near Detroit, August 6, 1778. (Andreas' Hist. Chic.) Mrs. Kinzie quotes from the record in an old family Bible, as follows: "George Forsyth was lost in the woods 6th August, 1778, when Henry Hays and Mark Stirling ran away and left him. The remains of George Forsyth we're found by an Indian the 2d of October, 1776 close by the Prairie Ronde." Family tradition gives some particulars of the disaster, adding the touching fact that after its fourteen months' exposure there was nothing to identify the body but the auburn curls and the little boots.
While at Detroit, John Kinzie began his long career as Indian-trader, beginning with the Shawnees and Ottawas in the Ohio country. In this way he made the acquaintance of two Indian girls, who, when young, had been captured on the Kanawha River and taken to Chillicothe, the headquarters of the tribe. Their names were Margaret and Elizabeth McKenzie, and their story is thus romantically told by Rufus Blanchard in his admirable "Discovery of the Northwest and History of Chicago." (R. Blanchard & Co., Wheaton, Ill. 1881.)
Among the venturesome pioneers of Virginia was a backwoods-man named McKenzie. He, with a number of his comrades, settled at the mouth of Wolf's creek, where it empties into the Kanawha. During Dunmore's War on the frontier [about 1773] the Shawanese, in one of their border forays, came suddenly upon the home of McKenzie, killed his wife and led two of his children into captivity. The names of the young captives were Margaret, ten years old, and Elizabeth; eight years old. They were taken to Chillicothe, the great Indian Town of the Shawanese, where they were adopted into the family of a high-bred Indian chief and raised under the tender care of his obedient squaw, according to custom. Ten years later Margaret was allowed to accompany her foster-father on a hunting-excursion to the St. Mary's River, near Fort Wayne. A young chief of the same tribe became enamored by the graces and accomplishments of the young captive, but Margaret recoiled from her swarthy lover and determined not to yield her heart to one who had no higher destiny for her than to ornament his leggings with porcupine quills—one of the highest accomplishments of which a squaw is capable. Margaret's lover approached the camp where she was sleeping, intending to force her to become his wife. According to the Indian custom, a din of yells and rattle of a drum announced the intentions of the would-be bridegroom to the terrified victim. The heroine fled to the forest for protection.
JOHN K. CLARK.
Fortunately her dog followed her as she fled down the bank of the St. Mary's River, to the stockade, half a mile distant, where the horses were kept. The footsteps of her detestable lover were close behind. She turned and set her dog at him, and reached the stockade, unhitched a horse, leaped upon his back and took her flight through the wilderness, seventy-five miles, to her Indian home at Chillicothe. The horse died the next day after he had performed so wonderful a feat without rest or sustenance. This heroic girl and her sister, Elizabeth, became afterward mothers of some of the first pioneers of Chicago.
After the adventures of Margaret, as just told, she, with her sister, Elizabeth, were taken to Detroit by their foster-father, and there they became acquainted with John Kinzie—and they were married. Elizabeth at the same time met a Scotchman named Clark and married him. The two young couples lived in Detroit about five years, during which time Margaret (Kinzie) had three children, William, James and Elizabeth; and Elizabeth (Clark) had two, John K. and Elizabeth.