There in that lagoon, filled with ooze, with its impassable fens, and drifting sands, civilization and religion had their representative who laid the foundation of the great Coming City bravely with teachings of "The love of God, and the brotherhood of man."
We have good maps of 1688 which show us that a little later this lake end of the water communication with Louisiana was made a military post, called Fort Chicagon.
This place became at one time a favorite settlement for French missionaries. However the spot is supposed to have been abandoned about 1763, after which date for about one hundred years white men avoided it.
In 1774 the site of Chicago, with all the surrounding country, became a part of Virginia, being conquered by a military expedition from that State.
In 1778 the region became known as County of Illinois, State of Virginia.
After the close of the Revolutionary war, Virginia "divided herself by the Ohio River," ceding all the territory beyond that boundary to the United States for the "common benefit of all the people."
In 1795 the Indians also ceded to the general government any rights which their tribes possessed to "one piece of land six miles square, at the mouth of Chekajo River, emptying into the southwest end of Lake Michigan, where a fort formerly stood." This extinguishment of the Indian title in 1795, being in the nature of a quit-claim deed for lands, is sometimes called the earliest real estate transaction in Chicago.
Thus, she who was to become the "Queen City" of the West, made her debut into the Union, where, possibly, she may yet,
"The fairest of her daughters,"
rule supreme.