[674] Barry Transcript.
The Kinzie family was again established in the old home and the trader resumed his calling. He seems never to have recovered, however, the leading position as a trader which he held before the war. Within a few months after his return to Chicago he arranged with Varnum and Jouett to act as interpreter for both the factory and the Indian agency, and relinquished his trade with the Indians.[675] He continued to act as interpreter for some time, and several years later, when Wolcott had succeeded Jouett as Indian agent at Chicago, Kinzie was appointed subagent, receiving separate compensation for each appointment.[676] In addition to his services with the government he again entered into the Indian trade during these years, part of the time on his own account, and later, according to Hubbard, as an employee of the American Fur Company.[677]
[675] Indian Department, Letter Book, Cass Correspondence, Kinzie to Cass, January 25, 1817; Jouett to Cass, January 25, 1817. All of the Indian Department letter books to be cited are preserved in the Pension Building at Washington.
[676] American State Papers, Indian Affairs, II, 365.
[677] Hurlbut, Chicago Antiquities, 31.
An important part of the life at Chicago in this period centered in the government Indian establishment, the restoration of which was coincident with the return of the garrison to Fort Dearborn. During the year 1815 Charles Jouett received the appointment of Indian agent, and Jacob B. Varnum was designated as factor.[678] Jouett had been agent at Chicago for several years prior to the War of 1812, but had resigned in the year 1811 and settled in Mercer County, Kentucky.[679] He now returned to the government service and to his old position at Chicago. His residence during this second incumbency was a log house on the north side of the river, possibly the same house which had sheltered the Burns family in the period before the massacre. It was far from adequate to the needs of Jouett's family, and in 1817 he complained bitterly of it and of the indifference of the officers of the garrison concerning his plight.[680] The house he described as "a little hut that a man of humanity would not suffer his negroes to live in." It was fourteen feet square, with but a single chair, which Jouett had brought with him from Kentucky, and there were nine persons in the family, including servants, to be accommodated. Jouett's indignant appeal produced little result, however. When Wolcott succeeded him as agent in 1819 he found the agency house a "mere shell," which necessitated rebuilding entirely to make it habitable.[681]
[678] Wisconsin Historical Collections, XIX, 380-95. Jouett was first appointed agent at Green Bay and Colonel John Bowyer agent at Chicago; at Jouett's request, however, a change was made in the appointments, Jouett going as agent to Chicago and Bowyer to Green Bay (Wisconsin Historical Collections, XIX, 391-92, 399).
[679] On Jouett see Hurlbut, Chicago Antiquities, 102 ff.; Andreas, History of Chicago, 87.
[680] Indian Department, Letter Book, Jouett to Cass, February 1, 1817.
[681] Indian Department, Cass correspondence, Wolcott to Cass, January 1, 1820.