At the mouth of the St. Joseph, which was reached on August 19, the party halted. The Healds were permitted to stay in the house of Burnett, the trader, and their wounds were dressed and given medical attention by an Indian doctor.[626] After a few days most of the Indians trooped off to participate in the attack on Fort Wayne. In their absence an avenue of escape opened to the captives. A friendly Indian, Alexander Robinson, was prevailed upon to conduct them to Mackinac in his birch-bark canoe. He was assisted by his squaw and, possibly, by one or two half-breeds, and for the service Heald paid him one hundred dollars.
[626] Among the Heald papers in the Draper Collection is a certificate of Captain Heald "on honor" that he paid ten dollars to an Indian for attendance and medicine while sick of his wounds at the St. Joseph River.
The distance to Mackinac was three hundred miles along the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, and the journey consumed sixteen days. The treatment accorded to the fugitives by Captain Roberts on their arrival there forms one of the bright spots in the story of the wearisome captivity. He extended them every kindness within his power to render their condition as comfortable as possible. Both Captain Heald and Captain Roberts were Masons, and, as Mrs. Heald told the story in after-years, they retired to a private room together, when Heald told his story and asked for help and for protection from the Indians, who, he feared, were in pursuit of him. Roberts felt doubtful of his ability to protect the fugitives, but Heald was given his parole and permission to proceed to Detroit. Sergeant Griffith was permitted to attend him, and Heald agreed to deliver him up to the British officer in command upon reaching Detroit. It is of interest to note that one of the witnesses of Heald's parole was Robert Dickson, the vigilant and enterprising foe of the Americans in the Northwest. Probably due to the influence of Captain Roberts, the captives secured passage to Detroit on a small sailboat, paying to Robert Irwin, the master, seventeen dollars for their transportation thither. Before parting from Captain Roberts the latter took out his pocketbook and urged Heald to help himself, saying he might repay the money if he ever reached home; if not it would not matter. It was not necessary to accept the generous offer, however, for before the evacuation Mrs. Heald had taken the precaution to sew a sum of money in her husband's underclothing, and this he had succeeded in retaining when stripped of his uniform by his captors.
On reaching Detroit at the close of September, Heald reported to General Proctor and was permitted by him to rejoin his countrymen. Griffith, also, was allowed to continue to attend him "to the U. States," on Heald's promise to do all in his power to prevent his serving in arms against the British until regularly exchanged. The party left Detroit October 4 for Buffalo, to which place they had been provided with transportation by Proctor. Curiously enough the vessel which bore them was the "Adams," Kingsbury's erstwhile "navy of the lakes," which had often journeyed to Chicago on friendly missions during the life of the first Fort Dearborn. In July Hull had attempted to fit it out for one more trip to carry provisions to Mackinac and Fort Dearborn. The successful execution of this project might have rendered Heald's present journey unnecessary. With the capture of Detroit the "Adams" had fallen into the hands of the British, and, as a British vessel, bore the defeated commander to Buffalo. From Buffalo the party journeyed by land to Erie, and thence by water to Pittsburgh, which was reached October 12. The movements of Griffith from this time are unrecorded. The Healds remained here sixteen days, during which time the commander wrote his official report of the massacre and of his subsequent movements. Resuming their journey down the Ohio on November 8 they reached Louisville, the girlhood home of Mrs. Heald, eleven days later. In their captivity and flight three months of time had been consumed, and a circuit of nearly two thousand miles had been traversed, almost all of it by water, much of the way in a canoe or open boat.[627] The distance from Chicago to Louisville by rail today is less than one-sixth as long as Heald's route, and can be traversed in thrice as many hours as the number of months he required.
[627] The estimate of the distance made by Heald in his Journal was nineteen hundred and seven miles. Of this only ninety miles, from Buffalo to Erie, were traveled by land.
At the home of Mrs. Heald's parents the fugitives were greeted as people risen from the dead. Part of the booty captured by the Indians at the time of the massacre had been taken down the Illinois River and sold to the whites. It chanced that Colonel O'Fallon, an old friend of the Healds, saw and recognized certain articles which had been their personal property. He had ransomed them and sent them to Samuel Wells at Louisville, as a memento of his brother and daughter who were both supposed to have been killed. Most of these articles, including Heald's sword, a comb, finger ring, brooch, and table spoons of Mrs. Heald, are still in the possession of her descendants.
THE HEALD HOME NEAR O'FALLON, MISSOURI
(From photograph taken in 1912, reproduced by courtesy of the grandchildren of Major Heald)
Captain and Mrs. Heald spent the winter at her father's home, and in the spring of 1813 went to Newport where the ensuing summer was passed. They shortly returned to the vicinity of Louisville, where in 1814 they purchased some land and began the erection of farm buildings, into which they moved late that fall. Three weeks after the massacre, while he was pushing his weary flight in an open canoe along the desolate eastern shore of Lake Michigan to Mackinac, Heald had been promoted to the rank of major.[628] His wounds, which never ceased to trouble him, incapacitated him for further service, and at the consolidation of the army in 1814 he was discharged. In 1817 he was granted a pension of twenty dollars a month, to date from the time of his discharge from the army in 1814.[629] During this year he removed to Stockland, now O'Fallon, Missouri. Here he purchased a farm from Jacob Zumwalt which had been granted to the latter by the Spanish government toward the close of the eighteenth century.[630] Here Major Heald continued to reside until his death in 1832, and Mrs. Heald until her demise a quarter of a century later. Shortly before Heald's death his old benefactor, Chandonnai, paid him a visit, accompanied by a chief and a number of other Indians. The members of the party were on their way to Kansas to view the country and report to their people upon its desirability. They visited with Major Heald, who caused a sheep and a beef to be killed for their entertainment and talked over with them the story of the captivity. The Heald estate is still intact in the hands of the grandchildren. The old homestead, built by the original proprietor of hewn walnut logs, with the flooring held in place by wooden pegs, still stands. Within its walls the first Methodist sacrament in Missouri is said to have been administered in 1807, by Rev. Jesse Walker, the pioneer of Methodism in Chicago. For many years the house has been unoccupied, but it is still in a partial state of repair. Recently two of its rooms have been fitted up to serve as the meeting-place of local chapters of the society of Daughters of the Revolution.