Descending from his observation point, Hubbard made his way toward the fort, and found the traders encamped on the north side of the river to the west of Kinzie's house. Here he was entertained and a firm friendship between him and the Kinzie family soon developed. The young visitor was to return to Chicago frequently during the following years, until in 1834 he made it his permanent home and shortly became one of the foremost citizens of the struggling but optimistic young city.
Interesting glimpses of the manner of life in and around the new Fort Dearborn are afforded by the accounts of travelers who occasionally visited this frontier station. The reception of Storrow at Fort Dearborn in 1817, "as one arrived from the moon," has already been mentioned.[695] Storrow was greatly impressed with the strategic advantages possessed by Chicago, which he thus early pointed out marked it as the future place of deposit for the whole region of the upper lakes.[696] He described the climate and soil as excellent, although not all visitors of this early period agree with him in this opinion. At the time of his visit traces of the massacre yet remained, and Storrow encountered one of the "principal perpetrators," Nuscotnemeg, or the Mad Sturgeon.
[695] Supra, p. 153.
[696] Wisconsin Historical Collections, VI, 183-84.
From the pen of Mrs. Baird, whose visit to Chicago was probably made in the same year as that of Storrow, we get a more detailed description.[697] The vessel which transported her from Mackinac had for its cargo "the familiar load of pork, flour, and butter." There were no ports of call on the western side of Lake Michigan, and the master after seeking in vain at Chicago for a return cargo had finally to take on a ballast of sand and gravel. Mrs. Baird draws a pleasant picture of the household of her host, John Kinzie. The establishment included a number of "men and women retainers." There was as yet no bridge across the river, the only means of passage being a canoe or dugout, as in the days before the massacre. In this craft, with the two Kinzie children, eight and ten years of age, acting as her crew, Mrs. Baird first crossed the Chicago River.
[697] Ibid., XIV, 25 ff.
In the summer of 1820 Governor Cass of Michigan Territory, returning from a voyage of exploration to the sources of the Mississippi River, arrived in mid-August at Chicago with a party of sixteen men in two canoes.[698] At Chicago the party separated. Cass with several attendants proceeded on horseback along the Indian trail to Detroit, while the scientists of the expedition. Captain Douglas and Henry R. Schoolcraft, completed the circuit of Lake Michigan by continuing around its eastern shore to Mackinac. Schoolcraft, like Storrow, was greatly impressed with the natural advantages possessed by Chicago, and predicted for it a glowing future. With the extinguishment of the Indian title to the surrounding country immigration would flow in, and Chicago would become the dèpôt for the inland commerce between the northern and southern sections of the Union, and "a great thoroughfare for strangers, merchants, and travelers."
[698] For an account of the expedition see Schoolcraft, Narrative Journal of Travels from Detroit ... to the Sources of the Mississippi River in 1820.
No little discernment was requisite thus to perceive the future destiny of the rude frontier hamlet which according to Schoolcraft's estimate contained, exclusive of the military but ten or a dozen houses and a population of sixty souls. Quite different from Schoolcraft's description was that of the historian of Major Long's expedition to the sources of the St. Peter's River three years later.[699] He described the climate as inhospitable, the soil sterile, and the scenery monotonous and uninviting. The village consisted of a few huts of log or bark, low, filthy, and disgusting, displaying not the least trace of comfort, and inhabited by "a miserable race of men," scarcely equal to the Indians from whom they were descended. Nor could the chronicler perceive the brilliant future in store for Chicago which Schoolcraft had foretold. He granted that "at some distant day," when the country between the Wabash and the Mississippi should become populated, Chicago might become a point in the line of communication between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi; but even the intercourse which would be carried on through this channel would, he thought, be at all times a limited one.
[699] Keating, Expedition to the Source of St. Peter's River, I, 163-65.