[651] Mason, Chapters from Illinois History, 321.
Such is the story of Shavehead and the hermit of Diamond Lake Island. So complete is it in its tragic fitness that one would fain believe it. Yet, though it received the approval of Edward G. Mason, it must be pronounced purely mythical, at least so far as its connection with Fort Dearborn is concerned. That Shavehead and Job Wright are historical characters in the early settlement of Cass County is clear. That the former took part in the Fort Dearborn Massacre is possible, and even probable. But that he met his death at the hands of Job Wright there is no proof whatsoever. Various other accounts exist, in fact, having apparently an equal claim on our credulity with the one already cited, of the manner in which Shavehead met his end.[652] Furthermore there is no evidence that Job Wright was a member of the Fort Dearborn garrison in 1812. On the contrary, that he was not may be stated with a positiveness bordering on certainty. That he was not a member of Heald's company is shown by the muster-roll of the garrison for May 31, 1812, while the possibility of his belonging to the militia is negatived by the positive statements of both Heald and Helm that all of the latter were slain.
[652] Michigan Pioneer Collections, XIV, 266-67.
It remains to relate what is perhaps the strangest tale of all, concerning the survivors of the massacre. For it we are indebted to Moses Morgan, whose share in the building of the second Fort Dearborn has already been explained.[653] In October, 1816, two of the men detailed to select timber for the work of construction proceeded in a skiff far up the North Branch, when they came upon a half-concealed Indian hut. They were first apprised of its proximity by the shrill shrieks of the squaws, who had seen their boat as it approached. As they turned their skiff to retreat they heard the voice of a white man, imploring them to stop and talk with him. The man spoke good English, indifferent French, and poor Winnebago. He informed them that he was one of the members of Heald's company. He had been wounded in the battle, but was mercifully saved by an elderly squaw, whom he had often provided with something to eat. She prevented the Indians from scalping him, and with the help of her girls moved him across the river and put him under some bushes. Here they cared for him, attending to his wounds, although both they and he suffered much from lack of food. As soon as he could be moved the women tied him onto a flat piece of timber taken from the burnt fort, and dragged him to a small lake some forty miles to the northward. Here he found himself compelled to take the old squaw for a wife or perish from starvation. Upon her sudden death, a year before the visit of the sawyers, he had taken the two oldest girls to be his squaws. There was a third girl, younger than these, and the three women and himself comprised the inmates of the hut.
[653] Supra, p. 134.
When the sawyers reported their discovery at the encampment it was feared the squaws would spirit away their common husband. On the following day the surgeon. Doctor Gale, accompanied the sawyers to the hut, taking a boat load of presents for the squaws. It appeared that the inmates were about to change their location, and as a preliminary step the soldier had taken the youngest girl to be his third wife. She was then one hundred and fifty moons, or thirteen years old, but had desired to be married before leaving the vicinity of her mother's burial place.
Doctor Gale examined the man's wounds and found that they had healed, but with unnecessarily poor results, one leg being shortened and one arm of little use. The doctor took down his name and other personal details, and listened to his story of the massacre. He refused to return to civilization as long as the squaws would live with him and care for him; but he promised to bring them to visit the encampment, exacting, however, a promise that the little squaw should not be ridiculed by the soldiers. Nothing more was ever seen of the man, a fact not much to be wondered at. The surgeon wrote out his account of the interview and handed it, together with the memoranda he had made, to the adjutant, by whom in some manner it was lost. That the story did not, like the wounded soldier, pass into complete oblivion is owing to the quite accidental circumstance of its narration by Moses Morgan to Head, whose interest in Chicago history led him to preserve it.
CHAPTER XII
THE NEW FORT DEARBORN
The British negotiators of the Treaty of Ghent which brought the War of 1812 to a close made strenuous efforts to compel the renunciation by the United States of its sovereignty over all of that portion of the old Northwest not included within the line drawn by the Treaty of Greenville of 1795. The avowed object of this provision was to erect a permanent barrier between the United States and the possessions of Great Britain in that region by forever securing the territory thus surrendered by the former to the Indians. The American representatives refused even to consider this proposition, however, and in the end the British were compelled to abandon it. Their contention that the Indian should be admitted as a party to the treaty was also abandoned, and, as finally agreed upon, it provided for a better definition of the boundaries between the two nations, but for no surrender of territory on either side.
The counterpart for the Northwest of the Treaty of Ghent was the negotiation during the summer of 1815, by two commissions representing the United States, of over a score of treaties with the various tribes of that region.[654] One commission, consisting of Governor Edwards of Illinois and Governor Clark of Missouri Territory and Auguste Chouteau, the St. Louis Indian trader, met the diplomats of the red race at Portage des Sioux near the mouth of the Illinois River; the other, composed of General Harrison, General Duncan McArthur, and John Graham, conducted its negotiations at Spring Wells near Detroit. Except for the Sacs and Foxes, who manifested a belligerent attitude for some months longer, the autumn of 1815 witnessed the conclusion of treaty making and the formal restoration of peace to the harassed northwestern frontier. But the British influence over the tribes was still powerful, despite the bitterness of the red men over their desertion, as they chose to regard it, by their former ally. The American influence over the tribes of Wisconsin and the territory farther west was as yet but slight.[655] Though nominally this region had long acknowledged the sovereignty of the United States, in fact it had remained commercially dependent upon Great Britain; and the British possessed, as a matter of course, the sympathy and affection of the red man.