[660] Drennan Papers, Department orders dated Detroit, June 7 and 8, 1816.
[661] For a short account of the establishment of the fort at Green Bay see Neville, Historic Green Bay, chap. vi.
[662] Drennan Papers, Fort Dearborn post returns.
On July 4 the expedition arrived at Chicago. The public buildings were found to have been entirely destroyed with the exception of the magazine, which was badly damaged.[663] Numerous small parties of Indians visited the soldiers during the first few weeks, but no hostility was manifested by them. But one account preserves the details of the events attending the construction of the new Fort Dearborn, and this one is rambling and unreliable.[664] It relates that some Detroit traders, foreseeing a demand for vegetables upon the arrival of the garrison, had sent some Canadian half-breeds to Chicago in the spring of 1816 to start a truck garden. Upon the arrival of the "General Wayne" the troops landed and a temporary camp for the protection of themselves and the stores was established in a pasture near the old fort. Some garden seeds had been brought along, and one of the first tasks was to prepare a garden. Two half-breeds, Alexander Robinson and Ouilmette, and their squaws with their ponies were engaged to prepare the ground. With the aid of the soldiers the task was soon accomplished; but whether from the lateness of the season or for some other reason, the gardening experiment was not a success. The Canadian gardeners, who had planted in May about four miles up the South Branch, brought in vegetables for sale to the garrison at high prices.
[663] Ibid., Bradley to Parker, August 3, 1816.
[664] Head Papers, narrative of Moses Morgan.
Meanwhile the construction of the fort was being prosecuted. In addition to the garrison, pit-sawyers and other workmen had been brought from Detroit. A grove of pine trees near the lake shore about four miles north of the river was selected, and the logs were rolled into the lake and rafted down to the mouth of the river and up the stream to a point opposite the site of the fort. Bands of Indians straggled around the buildings to gaze at the work of construction, beg for tobacco, and pilfer any unguarded tools that might be concealed under their blankets. The visits of the squaws and their papooses to the camp became so frequent and obnoxious that a heavier detail was required to mount guard by day to keep them away from the tents than was necessary by night. A detail of soldiers guarded the pit-sawyers at the pine grove on the north shore, who were engaged in cutting out the sawn lumber for roofs and floors. The Indians remained peaceable, but the sawyers' fears of them were easily excited. From this unpromising situation a real romance shortly developed. The disappearance of two of the Canadian pit-sawyers, who when last seen were in the company of an Indian, intensified the fears of their associates. Their anxiety was soon relieved by the reappearance of the men accompanied by two young squaws whom they had taken to wife. They had determined to take up their abode with a band of Indians residing on the Calumet, and had returned to demand their saws and the wages that were due them. Their requests were satisfied and they were allowed to depart, but not until the adjutant had read the marriage service to them and the garrison and workmen had celebrated the occasion with a holiday.
A few months after the arrival of the garrison Major Long of the engineer department of the army, who was to acquire fame several years later as an explorer, came to Chicago in search of information for a topographical report which he was preparing on the region roughly corresponding to the modern states of Illinois and Indiana.[665] He found that the construction of the fort had been pushed with commendable industry, and reported that it would probably be brought to completion in the course of the following season. It was on a point of land formed by a bend in the river about eight hundred yards from its mouth. Curiously enough he reported that a more eligible site for the fort was afforded on the opposite side of the river, on the point of land between it and the lake. This location would more completely command the entrance to the river, and would also command the anchorage to a considerable extent. Perhaps the reason for this dissent from the judgment of the officers who had located the first and second forts may be inferred from Long's recommendation that the position he approved should be fortified in a manner calculated to resist any naval force that might be brought against it. Evidently he had in contemplation the possibility of another war with Great Britain, while both the first and second Fort Dearborn were designed to afford protection against Indian attacks only.
[665] The report is printed in full in the National Register, III, 193-98.
With the fort constructed and the garrison re-established, life at Chicago assumed in the main the aspects which it had borne before the massacre. Fort Dearborn was no longer, as in the old days, the farthest outpost of the United States in the Northwest, but it was still only an isolated wilderness station. Fort Wayne was the nearest post-office, and between this place and Chicago the mail was carried by foot soldiers once or twice a month.[666] Other agencies for maintaining connection with the outside world were few and irregular. The conduct of the business pertaining to the garrison and the operations connected with the prosecution of the fur trade were responsible for most of them. The provisions for the garrison were for the most part brought around the lakes in schooners, although the live stock destined to supply the soldiers with fresh meat was sometimes driven overland to Chicago.[667] The historian of Major Long's expedition reported in 1823 that the total annual lake trade of Chicago, including the transportation of supplies for the garrison, did not exceed the cargo of five or six schooners.[668]