[293] Hurlbut, Chicago Antiquities, 66.
The "promise of assistance from headquarters" furnishes a possible clue to the source of Burnett's information. Though five years were yet to elapse before the project materialized, the letter is of some importance as showing that among those most interested it had long been regarded as a probability of the near future. Early in 1803 the matter was at last determined. A letter from the Secretary of War,[294] dated March 9, to Colonel Hamtramck of the First Infantry, who was then stationed at Detroit, directed that an officer and six men be sent to make a preliminary investigation of the situation at Chicago and the route thither from Detroit. The party was to go by land from Detroit to the mouth of the St. Joseph River, marking a trail and noting suitable camping-places for the company which was to follow. Inquiry was to be made concerning the supplies of provisions which Burnett and the other traders could furnish, and a suitable "scite" was to be selected at St. Joseph for a temporary encampment of the company until preparations could be made at "Chikago" for its reception. In case the overland route should be found to be practicable for a company with packhorses for carrying provisions and light baggage, Colonel Hamtramck should order it to go, under command of a "discreet, judicious captain," and should send around the lakes the necessary tools and other equipment for the erection and maintenance of a strong stockade post at Chicago, together with two light fieldpieces and the necessary supply of ammunition.
[294] Copy, by Daniel O. Drennan, of letter of Inspector-general Gushing to Hamtramck, March 14, 1803, in Chicago Historical Society library. Mr. Drennan, as agent of the society, made exact copies of a large number of documents in the files of the War Department at Washington pertaining to Hull's campaign and to Fort Dearborn and early Chicago. These will be cited henceforth as the Drennan Papers.
Six weeks later the appointment of Captain John Whistler as commander of the new post had been made and, soon after, he departed with six men to examine the route and report to Major Pike.[295] At the same time the firm of Robert and James Abbott of Detroit was considering the advantages of the post as a possible trading center. They report that Whistler desired them to establish a store there, and it is possible that the sentiment the culmination of which is recorded in the quaint announcement of Whistler to Kingsbury in November, 1804, of the marriage of his eldest daughter to a "gentleman of my old acquaintance (James Abbott)"[296] was already blossoming. If, as seems likely, Hamtramck was responsible for Whistler's appointment to the new command it must have been almost his last official act, for he died on April 11, less than a month after the issuance by the Inspector-general at Cumberland, Maryland, of the order for the establishment of the fort.[297]
[295] Letter of Robert and James Abbott of Detroit to Abbott and Maxwell of Mackinac, April 30, 1803, copied in Chicago from 1803 to 1812, by James Grant Wilson, MS in the Chicago Historical Society library.
[296] Kingsbury Papers, Whistler to Kingsbury, November 3, 1804.
[297] Hamtramck was a veteran soldier, having joined Montgomery's army before Quebec in 1776. He served throughout the remainder of the Revolution, and at its close continued in the army, rising by successive promotions to the rank of colonel. He was stationed on the northwestern frontier for many years prior to his death. At the battle of Fallen Timbers he commanded the left wing of the legion, and received special mention in Wayne's official report of the battle.
At half-past five o'clock on the morning of July 14, 1803, the troops set out from Detroit under command of Lieutenant James Strode Swearingen of the artillery, then a youth of twenty-one.[298] Swearingen had volunteered to lead the troops to Chicago for Captain Whistler, on account of the infirm state of the latter's health. Whistler and his family, together with his son Lieutenant William Whistler and his young wife, embarked on the schooner "Tracy," commanded by Lieutenant Dorr, which had been ordered to proceed around the lakes with provisions and military stores for the new post. We have the journal which Swearingen kept on the trip, containing observations on the country, timber, camping-places, and water courses.[299] The daily march varied greatly in length. Sometimes the start was made before five in the morning and the march ended by two in the afternoon; at other times bad weather or other obstacles necessitated a late start and a march of only a few miles. The route followed was that of the old Chicago Trail, later known as the "Chicago Road." It led the troops across the Rouge and Huron rivers, past the site of the modern city of Ypsilanti to the upper waters of Grand River, which flows into Lake Michigan. Thence the route lay across country to the St. Joseph and down this river to its mouth.
[298] For an account of Swearingen's career see report of an interview with him in 1863, together with his own sketch of his life, preserved in the MS volume of Proceedings of the Chicago Historical Society, 1856-64, 348.
[299] Printed as Appendix I.