MARK BEAUBIEN.
From crayon portrait in possession of Chicago Historical Society.
My husband’s mother, two sisters, and brother resided at the Agency House—the family residence near the lake being occupied by J. N. Bailey, the postmaster.
In the Dean House lived a Mr. and Mrs. Forbes, who kept a school. Gholson Kercheval had a small trading establishment in one of the log buildings at “Wolf Point,” and John S. C. Hogan superintended the sutler’s store in the garrison.
There was also a Mr. Lee lately come into the country, living at the Point, who sometimes held forth in the little school-house on a Sunday, less to the edification of his hearers than to the unmerciful slaughter of the "King’s English."[[65]]
I think this enumeration comprises all the white inhabitants of Chicago, at a period less than a quarter of a century ago. To many who may read these pages the foregoing particulars will, doubtless, appear uninteresting. But to those who visit Chicago, and still more, to those who come to make it their home, it may be not without interest to look back to its first beginnings; to contemplate the almost magical change which a few years have wrought; and from the past to augur the marvellous prosperity of the future.
The origin of the name Chicago is a subject of discussion, some of the Indians deriving it from the fitch or pole-cat, others from the wild onion with which the woods formerly abounded; but all agree that the place received its name from an old chief, who was drowned in the stream in former times. That this event, although so carefully preserved by tradition, must have occurred in a very remote period, is evident from an old French manuscript brought by Gen. Cass from France.
In this paper, which purports to be a letter from M. de Ligney, at Green Bay, to M. de Siette, among the Illinois, dated as early as 1726, the place is designated as “Chicagoux.” This orthography is also found in old family letters of the beginning of the present century.[[66]]