[330] Hurlbut, Chicago Antiquities, 25.
[331] Letter of Dr. Smith to James May, December 9, 1803.
Our information concerning Fettle is meager. According to Mrs. Whistler he was a French-Canadian living here with an Indian wife when the garrison came in 1803.[332] The entries in John Kinzie's account books show that his first name was Louis, and that he either dealt in furs or himself hunted them.[333] His name occurs at intervals down to 1812, showing that he was a resident of Chicago during the entire period. With the last entry of his name in Kinzie's account book he disappears from history. Possibly it may have been his fate to fight and die with the Chicago militia at the baggage wagons on the fatal day of evacuation in the summer of 1812.
[332] Hurlbut, Chicago Antiquities, 25.
[333] Barry Transcript.
Ouilmette claimed to have come to Chicago in 1790.[334] He was illiterate, and the statement, uncorroborated as it is, must be accepted with caution. We know, however, that when the soldiers came to establish the fort he was living with his Indian wife in one of the four huts which they found here.[335] When Doctor Cooper came to Fort Dearborn as post surgeon five years later, there were still but four houses on the north side of the river, of which Ouilmette's was one.[336] Ouilmette's chief dependence for a livelihood, apparently, was on the transportation of travelers and their baggage across the portage. It has already been shown that the French settlers at Chicago carried on this business in the first quarter of the nineteenth century.[337] That Ouilmette was engaged in this work was stated by Mr. Bain to Rev. William Barry, founder and first secretary of the Chicago Historical Society.[338] An entry in Kinzie's account book charges him for the use of a wagon and oxen to transport goods over the portage to the "Fork" of the Illinois River.[339]
[334] Ouilmette to John (H.) Kinzie, June 1, 1839, in Blanchard, The Northwest and Chicago, I, 574.
[335] Hurlbut, Chicago Antiquities, 25.
[336] Barry Transcript.
[337] Wilson, Chicago from, 1803 to 1812.