56 (page [page 107]).—The villages and hunting and fishing grounds of the Indians were connected by a network of such trails through the forests and over the prairies. Many of the most important of these were no doubt originally made by buffalo, in their long journeys between pastures, or in their migrations westward in advance of oncoming settlement. The buffalo traces were followed by the Indians upon their hunts; and the best passes over both the Alleghanies and Rockies were first discovered and trod by these indigenous cattle. The natural evolution has been: First the buffalo trace, then the Indian trail, next the pioneer’s path, broadened and straightened at last for wagons, then the military road, or the plank-road, and finally the railroad. Broadly speaking, the continent has been spanned by this means. There are still discoverable, in isolated portions of the Middle West, remains of a few of the most important of the old Indian trails, such as have not been adapted into white men’s roads.
57 (page [page 112]).—William Stephen Hamilton, the sixth child of the famous Alexander Hamilton, was born August 4, 1797. In 1814 young Hamilton entered the West Point Military Academy, but resigned in 1817, having received an appointment on the staff of Colonel William Rector, then surveyor-general of Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas. He appears to have resigned after a few years of service, and sought his fortune in what is now Wisconsin. We first hear of him in Wisconsin in 1825, when he bought a herd of cattle in Illinois and drove them overland to Green Bay, via Chicago, for sale to the garrison at the former place. Two years later he appeared in the lead mines, toward which was then a heavy emigration, and settled at and founded what is now Wiota, La Fayette County. He at once took high rank among the mine operators of the region. In 1827 he commanded a company of volunteers in the Red Bird uprising, and during the Black Hawk War (1832) commanded a company of rangers. Emigrating to California in 1850, enticed thither by the gold excitement, he settled on a large ranch near Red Bluff, Tehama County, where he died about 1865. At first buried upon the ranch, his remains were later removed to Sacramento, but the exact location of the grave is now unknown. While at Wiota he was visited by his aged mother and one of his sisters, then residing at Washington, D. C. By his Wisconsin contemporaries, Hamilton was ranked as a profound thinker; but his ambition to become a member of the state constitutional convention failed, because his views were thought to be too aristocratic to enable him to be a wise law-maker for a frontier commonwealth. His various business enterprises were unfortunate in their result.
58 (page [page 115]).—The Pecatonica River.
59 (page [page 118]).—Buffalo Grove was a small settlement, commenced about 1827-28 by O. W. Kellogg, ten miles north from Dixon’s Ferry, on the Galena road, or Kellogg’s Trail; so called, because, in 1827, Kellogg first opened this path from Peoria to the Galena lead mines. The trail originally crossed the Rock River a few miles above the present Dixon; but in 1828 was diverted to the site of what at first was called Dixon’s Ferry, but later was abbreviated to Dixon’s, and finally to Dixon.
60 (page [page 119]).—John Dixon was born in Rye, Westchester County, N. Y., October 9, 1784. For several years he was a tailor and clothier in New York City; but in 1820 emigrated to the West for the benefit of his health. Settling near Springfield, Ill., he at first held several public offices. He went to Peoria County as recorder of deeds—Galena and Chicago being then included in territory attached to that new county for administrative purposes. Taking the contract, in 1828, for carrying the mail between Peoria and Galena, he induced Joseph Ogee, a French Canadian half-breed, to establish a ferry at the Rock River crossing (see [Note 59]). But two years later he bought out Ogee and settled at the ferry himself, trading with the Indians, speculating in wild lands, carrying the mail, and in general taking a prominent part in pioneer enterprises. He died at Dixon, July 9, 1876.
61 (page [page 121]).—The most important aboriginal highway was the great Sac trail, extending in almost an air-line across the state, from Black Hawk’s village, at the mouth of Rock River, to the south shore of Lake Michigan, and then through Michigan to Maiden, Canada. Over this deep-beaten path, portions of which are still visible. Black Hawk’s band made frequent visits to the British Indian agency at Maiden.
62 (page [page 140]).—The first Fort Dearborn was built in the summer and autumn of 1803, by a company of regulars under command of Captain John Whistler. See description and illustration in Blanchard’s The Northwest and Chicago (Chicago, 1898), vol. i, pp. 333-336. This fort was destroyed by Indians in 1812, at the time of the massacre. A new fort was built on the same spot in 1816. A portion of the officers' quarters in this second fort was still in existence in 1881.
63 (page [page 141]).—Jean Baptiste Beaubien came to Chicago in 1817, as local agent for Conant & Mack, a Detroit firm of fur-traders. A few months later his employers sold out to the American Fur Company, and Beaubien was displaced. He continued to reside at Chicago, however, where he acquired considerable property, and married Josette Laframboise, a French Ottawa half-breed, who had worked in John Kinzie’s family before the massacre. Several descendants of this couple still reside in Chicago.
64 (page [page 143]).—Mark Beaubien was a brother of Jean Baptiste. The latter induced him to come to Chicago, from Detroit, in 1826. He at once opened a small tavern, which by 1831 had grown to the dimensions described by Mrs. Kinzie; it was named Sauganash Hotel. Mark was the father of twenty-three children, sixteen by his first wife and seven by his second.