Chicago and the Old Northwest, 1673-1835 / A study of the evolution of the northwestern frontier, together with a history of Fort Dearborn

by Milo Milton Quaife

[642] Kinzie, Wau Bun, 188-89.

The other narrative was given to John Wentworth in 1861 by the son of Abraham Edwards, who was hospital surgeon in Hull's army at Detroit in 1812.[643] He settled at Detroit in 1816, and there the family made the acquaintance of Mrs. Burns. Her daughter, Isabella Cooper, became an inmate of the Edwards home, and thus the younger Edwards became familiar with the story. Together with her mother and sister she had been an occupant of one of the wagons when the evacuation of Fort Dearborn took place. A young Indian pulled her out of the wagon by her hair, but the child, though only about nine years of age, fought him to the best of her ability, biting and scratching. Finally he threw her down, scalped her, and was about to tomahawk her, when an old squaw who had frequently visited at her father's house intervened and saved her life. The rescuer later took the child to her wigwam where she cared for her and healed her wound, although a spot on the top of her head the size of a silver dollar remained bare. She and her mother and sister remained among the Indians two years, when they were taken to Mackinac, purchased by some traders, and sent to Detroit.

[643] Wentworth, Early Chicago, 54-60.

The narrative thus told by Edwards to Wentworth fifty years after the massacre is confirmed in part by a letter of Sergeant Griffith to Captain Heald in 1820.[644] Griffith had recently been to Detroit, and wrote to Heald, then living on his farm in Missouri, to enlist his support in procuring a pension for Mrs. Burns. She was then living in Detroit, supporting herself and her three surviving children by her own labor. A number of officers and others had interested themselves in the project of obtaining a pension for her. Her husband had been enrolled by Heald as a sergeant in the militia, in which capacity he had served for several months and finally given up his life. Of all this the government had no record or knowledge, however, and so Heald's certificate as to the nature of Burns's services was needed. In the absence of any knowledge concerning the success of the pension project, we may hope that the government ministered to the needs of the widow who had suffered so grievously in the Fort Dearborn massacre. Edwards records that Mrs. Burns died at Detroit about the year 1823. He also states that the daughters were living as late as 1828, at which time he left Detroit, and that he had since heard they were living in Mackinac. With this, except for the brief notice by Mrs. Kinzie of a meeting with one of them, which has already been mentioned, our knowledge of them comes to an end.

[644] Letter of Griffith to Heald, January 13, 1820, cited supra, note 640.

Hovering on the border between myth and history are a number of stories concerning the fate of others who went through the massacre. Some of these may be true, while some are certainly without foundation in fact; they are grouped together here because of the impossibility of confirming their claim to validity. The story of little Peter Bell will probably forever remain an unsolved mystery. In September, 1813, a British officer, Captain Bullock, addressed an inquiry from Mackinac to General Proctor concerning the disposition to be made of certain prisoners whom the Indians had surrendered to the British at that post.[645] Among others he mentioned Peter Bell, a boy of five or six years of age, "whose Father and mother were killed at Chicagoe." He had been purchased from the Indians by a trader and brought to Mackinac in July, 1813, in accordance with the orders of Robert Dickson. The mystery concerns the identity of the child. The time and manner of his rescue harmonizes with what is known of Dickson's work for the relief of the Chicago captives. But in none of the accounts of Fort Dearborn and the little settlement around its walls prior to 1812, is there any mention of a Bell family. The various accounts of the massacre establish conclusively the proposition that there were nine women among the whites on that day. Two of these were killed; the names of all of them are known, and the list contains no Mrs. Bell. Moreover, it is clear from the sources that six children survived the massacre. The names of all these are known, but that of Peter Bell is not among them. The only explanation of the child's identity which suggests itself is that he was taken captive at some other place than Chicago and that his captors for some reason, perhaps because of the ransom offered, saw fit to surrender him as one of the children taken at Fort Dearborn. Whatever the true explanation may be, a mournful interest attaches to the forlorn little waif who thus appears for a moment amidst the wreck of battle, only to sink again into oblivion.

[645] Michigan Pioneer Collections, XV, 392.

The fate of the Lee family is recorded in the pages of Wau Bun.[646] All of its members except the mother and an infant child were killed during the battle. The fate of the girl, twelve years of age, was particularly pathetic. On leaving the fort, she had been placed upon horseback, but being unused to riding she was tied to the saddle for greater security. During the battle her horse ran away and the rider, partially dismounted yet held by the bands, hung dangling as the animal ran. From this predicament she was rescued by Black Partridge, with whom she had been a great favorite; but finding her badly wounded, he terminated her sufferings with a blow of the tomahawk.

[646] Kinzie, Wau Bun, 189-91.

The mother and her infant child were taken by Black Partridge to his village. There the infant fell ill and Black Partridge fell in love, instituting a campaign for the hand of his captive. Unable to cure the sick child, he took it during the winter to Chicago, where a French trader had established himself since the massacre. The trader, M. Du Pin, not only prescribed for the child, but learning of Black Partridge's designs upon its mother, proceeded to ransom her and then in turn to marry her.[647] This story is repeated with embellishments by Matson, who, with curious disregard for consistency, includes an important feature not found in the original. He avers that the child who was dragged by the horse and afterward tomahawked was Lillian Lee, ten years of age; and that she had a sister two years older who escaped unharmed, was taken by her captors to the Kankakee, and the following spring was carried to St. Louis, where she married a man named Besson, and was still living in East St. Louis at the time Matson's book was written.[648]