[647] In his letter to Heald, April 10, 1813 (supra, note 613), Forsyth stated that "Dupain and Buisson wintered at Chicago last winter with goods from Mackinaw, they have bought of[f] Mrs. Leigh and her younger child, and another woman which I expect is Mrs. Cooper or Burns."
[648] Matson, Pioneers of Illinois, 257-62. The book was published in 1882. Notwithstanding the author's statement that he had interviewed Mrs. Besson and "listened to her thrilling narrative," there is much in his account to excite distrust. It recites many details which are obviously purely imaginary, and for the rest follows, in the main, the account in Wau Bun.
The story of David Kennison, a survivor of the Fort Dearborn garrison, is worthy of preservation, if only because of the remarkable career of the man.[649] Born in New Hampshire in 1736, if his own story of his age is to be accepted, a member of the Boston Tea Party, a participant in Lexington and Bunker Hill and many another battle of the Revolution, he had reached the respectable age of seventy-one when, in March, 1808, he enlisted in the army for the regular term of five years. Probably this was a re-enlistment, for Kinzie's account books show that he was at Chicago as early as May, 1804. The garrison muster-roll for May, 1812, shows that he was present for duty at that time. The supposition that he was a participant in the massacre three months later rests upon inference, for his name is nowhere expressly mentioned in connection with that event. Presumably he was one of the small number of survivors who returned from captivity concerning whom no definite record is left. In his old age Kennison told of further service in the War of 1812, but it is evident that his memory had become confused upon the subject.
[649] The account given here of Kennison is drawn from the following sources: the Chicago Democrat, November 6 and 8, 1848, and February 25, 26, 27, 1852; the Chicago Daily News, December 19, 1903; the Fort Dearborn garrison payroll for the quarter ending December 31, 1811, and the muster-roll for the period ending May 31, 1812, both among the Heald papers in the Draper Collection (for the latter see [Appendix VIII]); the garrison muster-roll for December, 1810, printed in Wentworth, Early Chicago, 88. Many of the details concerning the career of Kennison are, of course, of doubtful validity.
After the war Kennison settled in New York, and in the ensuing years of peace met with physical injuries far more numerous and serious than in all of his years of warfare. A falling tree fractured his skull and broke his collar bone and two ribs; the discharge of a cannon at a military review broke both of his legs; and the kick of a horse on his forehead left a scar which disfigured him for life. Notwithstanding these accidents, Kennison succeeded in becoming a husband four times and a father twenty-two, and in living to the mature age of one hundred and fifteen. Late in life he became separated from all his children, and in 1845 he came to Chicago where his last years were spent. He drew a pension of eight dollars a month for his Revolutionary services, and until 1848 eked out this means of support by manual labor. Becoming incapacitated for the latter, however, he entered the Chicago Museum; in his card to the public announcing this step he explained that the smallness of his pension obliged him to take it to provide himself with the necessary comforts of life. For the last twenty months of his life the veteran was bedridden, but his sight and hearing, which for a time had been deficient, became perfect again, and he retained his ordinary faculties to the end. His death occurred February 24, 1852.
It was fitting that such a character should receive an imposing funeral. On the day before his death, in response to a request presented in his behalf that he be saved from the potter's field, the City Council had voted that a lot and a suitable monument be provided for him in the City Cemetery. The funeral was held from the Clark Street Methodist Church, and several clergymen assisted in the services. At their conclusion a procession moved in two divisions from the church to the cemetery, to the accompaniment of cannon booming at one-minute intervals. In the procession were the mayor and the councilmen, a detachment of the United States army, the various military companies and bands of the city, companies of firemen, and others. Upon this spectacle and that of the interment, which was marked by the usual military honors, a large proportion of the population of the city gazed. The cemetery occupied a portion of the ground now included in Lincoln Park. When the use of this for burial purposes was abandoned a number of years later, nearly all of the bodies interred in it were removed. Kennison's was one of the few left undisturbed. For many years the site of his grave had practically been forgotten, when, in 1905, with appropriate ceremonies it was marked by a massive granite monument, erected by a number of patriotic societies. Thus it has come to pass that Kennison's burial place possesses a prominence of which the humble soldier in life can hardly have dared to dream. Veteran of our two wars against Great Britain, participant in the Boston Tea Party and the Fort Dearborn Massacre, he enjoys the unique distinction of a grave in Chicago's most famous park, overlooking the blue waters of Lake Michigan.
Another massacre story, concerning the mythical character of which there can be no doubt, is noticed here because of the use that has been made of it by a historian of acknowledged worth and ability. Among the beautiful sheets of water which dot the surface of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan is Diamond Lake near the town of Cassopolis. In its midst lies Diamond Lake Island, a wooded expanse of perhaps forty acres in extent. This was occupied in the early days of white settlement in Cass County by an aged recluse who bore the prosaic name of Job Wright, but who was often more romantically designated as the hermit of Diamond Lake Island. The hermit eked out a living by fishing, hunting, trapping, and basket-weaving. Since he was of an uncommunicative disposition, his neighbors were free to give rein to their imagination in constructing the story of his past, and the scars upon his face furnished a visible support for the rumor that he had been a soldier.[650]
[650] For the story of Job Wright see Mathews, History of Cass County, Michigan, 65-66; Michigan Pioneer Collections, XIV, 265-67.
Another character of note in Cass County three-quarters of a century ago was Shavehead, the erstwhile leader of a band of renegade Indians. Shavehead's peculiar cognomen was due to his fashion of dressing his head; the hair at the base of the head was shaved off, and the rest gathered in a bunch and tied at the top. He had been throughout his lifetime the persistent foe of the whites, and among the early settlers of Cass County he enjoyed a reputation for knavery and villainy which must, if he was aware of it, have delighted his heart.
With old age Shavehead fell upon evil days. His followers disappeared, and with the advance of white settlement and the disappearance of game the old chief was reduced to sore straits for food. At times, however, he succeeded in securing a supply of fire-water sufficient to obliterate for the time being the memory of his troubles. On one occasion the hermit, visiting Cassopolis to dispose of his wares, had his attention attracted by a group of men and boys on the village street who were being harangued by an Indian. Shavehead, for it was he, partially intoxicated, was gesticulating wildly, relating the warlike exploits of his stormy past. As the white man paused to listen, the old chief was describing the massacre at Fort Dearborn, and the slaughter of the women and children around the baggage wagons. As he proceeded with his boastings the hermit muttered words of recognition, and involuntarily drew his gun from his shoulder as though to terminate Shavehead's recital together with his life; he, too, had fought near the baggage wagons. Changing his mind, however, he listened patiently to the end, but when at sundown the Indian left the town the soldier followed on his track. "The red man and the white passed into the shade of the forest; the soldier returned alone. Chief Shavehead was never seen again. He had paid the penalty of his crime to one who could, with some fitness, exact it."[651]