Jouett was a lawyer by training, and both before and after his second residence at Chicago he held the office of judge, the first time in Kentucky, the second in Arkansas Territory. He was a man of remarkable physique, six feet three inches in height, broad-shouldered and muscular. Among the Indians he was known as "the White Otter," and it is said that he possessed a commanding influence over them. His daughter recalled in after years that the red men were frequent visitors at her father's home, and that the dusky callers were especially kind to the children, her sister and herself. Their nurse was an Indian girl, a faithful and devoted servant, who afterward married a soldier of the garrison. In 1819 Jouett again resigned the Indian agency and returned to Kentucky. His place was filled by the transfer to the Chicago agency of Doctor Alexander Wolcott, who had been appointed "Agent to the Lakes," in April, 1818.[682]
[682] Indian Office, Letter Book D, 241, Calhoun to Wolcott, April 22, 1818; ibid., 277, Calhoun to Wolcott, March 27, 1819.
Jacob B. Varnum, Chicago's only government factor after the War of 1812, belonged to an old and prominent New England family.[683] Through the family influence Varnum secured, when but twenty-three years of age, the appointment as government factor at Sandusky, Ohio.[684] He remained there until the news of Hull's surrender at Detroit, causing the precipitate retreat of the Ohio militia from Sandusky, compelled the abandonment of the factory. Varnum thereupon entered the army and served until the close of the war. On the return of peace, finding himself without an occupation, he applied for a position in the Department of Indian Trade, and in the summer of 1815 was appointed factor at Chicago.
[683] For it see Varnum, The Vanums of Dracutt. James Mitchell Varnum was a brigadier-general during the Revolution. His brother, Joseph B. Varnum, was speaker of the lower house of Congress from 1807 to 1811, and United States senator from Massachusetts, from 1811 to 1817.
[684] The account which follows is based upon the journal of Jacob B. Varnum.
At this time it was the expectation of the department to establish the factory before the winter set in.[685] On receiving the news of his appointment Varnum set out for Erie by way of Buffalo, where he met Matthew Irwin, who had been factor at Chicago before the war and was now en route to establish the new factory at Green Bay. After a rough passage from Buffalo to Erie, in "a miserable apology for a schooner," the officials learned that the goods for the Indian trade, which were to have preceded them thither, had not arrived, and that the movement of the military to Chicago and Green Bay had been postponed to the following year. This involved the postponement of the establishment of the factories as well; nevertheless the naval commander at Erie resolved to take the goods, should they arrive in time, on to Mackinac that season, there to await the departure of the military expedition in the spring. Irwin thereupon returned to his home, while it was agreed that Varnum should go on to Mackinac in charge of the goods.
[685] Varnum's Journal; Mason to Varnum, August 20, 1815, Wisconsin Historical Collections, XIX, 391-95.
Varnum's narrative of the autumn voyage through the lakes from Erie to Mackinac presents a vivid picture of the discomforts and dangers of travel on the Great Lakes a century ago. The expedition consisted of two government vessels, the "Porcupine" and the "Ghent." The naval officers considered themselves insulted and degraded by the menial service of transporting merchandise. They therefore took no pains to protect the goods from ruin by water, and but little, apparently, to promote the comfort of the luckless factor. At Detroit a lady was given passage to Mackinac. In order to make room for her Varnum had to surrender the berth he had occupied thus far, and received in exchange for it one so near the bottom of the vessel that in rough weather the bilge water would spurt into it, keeping it wet most of the time.
The commander was a "perfect tyrant," as far as his power extended, and Varnum avers that during the four weeks they were together he witnessed the infliction of more severe and often undeserved punishments than during all the remainder of his life. The stories of the floggings meted out by the commander's orders sicken the reader, after the lapse of a century, as they did the helpless witness at the time. On the second day out the negro cook, with whom the commander professed he would not part for his weight in gold, was given a dozen lashes because his master conceived the meat was not sufficiently cooked. A sailor possessed of an undue propensity for liquor had been unmercifully flogged for getting drunk, and threatened with a hundred lashes upon a repetition of the offense. Notwithstanding this the offense was repeated. The delinquent was ordered stripped and lashed to the shrouds. Varnum went below to escape witnessing the scene. In due time the commander came down, raging because the culprit had borne the torture so stoically. After receiving a hundred lashes without uttering a groan the tyrant demanded of him a promise not to repeat the offense, under pain upon refusal of receiving a second hundred on his now raw and bloody back. The torture proceeded and seventeen lashes had been administered when the victim gave in, making the promise required and begging for mercy. At the entrance to Lake Huron the rapid current made it difficult for sailing vessels to steer an even course. Dissatisfied with the helmsman's efforts the commander ordered a fresh man to the wheel, and the one who had been relieved received a dozen lashes. The new steersman promptly encountered the same difficulty and was as promptly relieved and flogged; and this routine was kept up until every seaman on board had taken his turn at the wheel and received his quota of lashes before the vessel got into the lake.
At Mackinac Varnum opened and dried the goods which had been wet, and then settled down to pass the long winter. Despite the extreme cold, and the desolation produced by the recent war, the winter's confinement proved to be one of the pleasantest periods of his whole life. He had a comfortable room with a good stove and plenty of firewood. The days were spent in reading, or, in pleasant weather, in excursions to the nets of the fishermen or elsewhere. The evenings were devoted to social amusements participated in by the merchants and the officers of the garrison. Among the latter were two brothers of Franklin Pierce, afterward President of the United States, one of whom, Captain Benjamin K. Pierce, wooed and married a half-breed French and Indian girl.[686]