Before leaving the subject of the building of Fort Dearborn, it may be well to refer to another tale in connection therewith which has often been repeated.[310] It is to the effect that the government, having decided to establish a fort on Lake Michigan, sent commissioners to St. Joseph with a view of locating it there; they selected a site and began preparations for erecting a fort, when the Indians objected, and so the commissioners passed on to Chicago, where Fort Dearborn was constructed. No evidence has been offered in support of this story, notwithstanding its improbability. In the light of documents discovered in recent years it is possible to suggest an explanation of its origin. We have seen that Colonel Hamtramck was directed to send a detail to explore the route and select a site at the mouth of the St. Joseph for a temporary camp; and that Swearingen's company halted here for two weeks on its way to Chicago. It is possible that the natives, not knowing that the camp was but a temporary, one, protested against it and believed their protest responsible for the removal of the troops to Chicago.
[310] The earliest publication of the story which I have found occurs in the Michigan Pioneer Collections, I, 122.
We may now turn our attention to the civilian population of Chicago at the time of the establishment of Fort Dearborn, and in this connection to what is known of the first white man who settled at this point. Here as elsewhere, in connection with the history of early Chicago, the truth has been obscured by a mass of tradition, fostered in large part by family pride. The effort to fix upon any certain person the distinction of being the first resident of Chicago is idle. Traders and other travelers passed through the place more or less frequently from the time of Marquette on, and at various times individuals, ordinarily traders, established themselves here for a shorter or longer period. The story of Father Pinet's mission of the Guardian Angel at Chicago near the close of the seventeenth century has already been noted.[311] After this there are several more or less shadowy traditions of dwellers on the banks of the Chicago River during the second half of the eighteenth century. The earliest of these deals with a remarkable woman, whose career as painted for us by Reynolds would be difficult to parallel elsewhere in history.[312] Born of French parents of the name of La Flamme at St. Joseph on Lake Michigan in 1734, she first migrated to Mackinac. From thence with her husband, Pilette de Sainte Ange, she removed to Chicago about the year 1765. After some years' residence here her husband died and she removed to the French settlement of Cahokia, where she married a Canadian named La Compt and reared a large family of children. Widowed again, she became in due time the wife of Tom Brady. No issue resulted from this union, and Mrs. Brady was destined to still another widowhood, dying at Cahokia in 1843 at the age of one hundred and nine years.
[311] Supra, pp. 38-42.
[312] Reynolds, Pioneer History of Illinois, 168-69. The story is told, also, with certain variations and additional details, by Wm. R. Head (Head Papers, owned by his widow).
Governor Reynolds knew Mrs. La Compt, as she was commonly known after Brady's death, for thirty years, and describes her as a woman of strong mind and an extraordinary constitution, and endowed with the courage and energies of a heroine. The Indians were her neighbors from her infancy until extreme old age; she became familiar with their language and their character, and over the Pottawatomies and other tribes she developed a remarkable influence. This she frequently exerted during the stormy days of the Revolution to protect the French settlers from attack by the hostile warriors, and later, in the early days of American domination in Illinois, she continued to shield the white settlers. Reynolds avers that on numerous occasions she was awakened in the dead of night by her Indian friends to give her warning of an impending attack in order that she might leave Cahokia. Instead of seeking her own safety, however, she would set out alone to meet the hostile war party, and never failed to avert the storm and prevent bloodshed. She sometimes remained with the warriors for days, appeasing their anger and urging wise counsels upon them. In due time the anxious villagers, who had been watching meanwhile with arms in their hands for the expected attack, would see Mrs. La Compt approach at the head of a band of warriors, their angry passions stilled and their war paint changed to somber black to manifest their sorrow for having entertained hostile designs against their friends. A feast would usually follow, cementing the reconciliation which Mrs. La Compt had been instrumental in effecting, and the warriors would disperse.
That tradition has exaggerated the influence and services of Mrs. La Compt is quite probable. But making due allowance for this, the impression remains that she was a woman of unusual vigor and strength of character, and it seems appropriate that her name should head the ever-lengthening list of white women who have been residents of Chicago. The next tangible tradition of white occupation of Chicago is contained in a story told to Gurdon S. Hubbard by the trader, Antoine De Champs.[313] He pointed out to the youthful Hubbard the traces of corn hills on the west side of the North Branch, and related that as early as 1778 a trader by the name of Guarie had lived here, from whom the river had taken its name. Hubbard gives further details concerning Guarie's trading house, taking pains to point out, however, that the statements are based on oral tradition. But this tradition is corroborated in one respect at least, for as late as 1823 the North Branch was called the "Gary" river by the historian of Major Long's expedition.[314]
[313] For it see Blanchard, Discovery and Conquests of the Northwest, 757-58.
[314] Keating, Narrative of an Expedition to the Sources of the St. Peter's River ... in 1823, I, 172.
Our only knowledge of Guarie's residence at Chicago is contained in the story recorded by Hubbard, but with the mixed-breed negro, Baptiste Point Du Sable, we reach more solid ground. The traditional account of his Chicago career, first recorded by Mrs. Kinzie[315] and afterward repeated and enlarged upon by others,[316] must be regarded as largely fictitious and wholly unauthenticated. But by assembling the information contained in a number of documents widely scattered as to date and origin it is possible to learn much about him.[317] The usual accounts, following Mrs. Kinzie, represent Du Sable to have been a native of San Domingo. Matson, on the other hand, states that he was a runaway slave from the vicinity of Lexington, Kentucky, and describes his coming to Chicago and his supposed doings here with much circumstantial detail.[318] Much of this is obviously imaginary, and the two accounts are probably equally unworthy of credence. In general, Du Sable's occupation seems to have been that of a trader, though according to his own testimony he had improved a thirty-acre farm at Peoria as early as 1780.[319]