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CHAPTER XXIX

MASSACRE AT FORT DEARBORN

HE soldiers in the fort were furious and loudly cursed. their commander for his cowardice in surrendering a

well provisioned and amply defended fort to an inferior force without even a decent attempt at defense. The surrender included Colonels Cass and McArthur, who were on their way back from the River Raisin with 360 men. Capt. Elliott was sent to meet the returning expedition with a copy of the note of surrender, but missed them. They returned to Detroit in ignorance of the surrender and found themselves prisoners of war. The force of Brush, including a company of Ohio volunteers under Capt. Thomas Rowland, and a large amount of supplies, were also included in the surrender. This body of men was so far away from the fort that it could afford to be defiant. They took Elliott prisoner and started for Ohio but next day they released Elliott, who at once gathered a party of Indians for the pursuit of Brush's command but did not overtake them.

Capt. Rowland afterward fought in the Battle of the Thames and then became a resident of Detroit, where he spent the remainder of his days. He held a number of public offices and Rowland Street perpetuated his memory until it was recently adjudged a continuation of Shelby Street, and so named.

Thomas Rowland was a brother-in-law of Porter Hanks. He built, lived in and died in the house in which Fr. Van Dyke recently died.

It was at the noon hour of August 16, 1812, that Gen. Brock entered the open gate of Fort Shelby to take formal possession of Detroit. He and his staff were in full-dress uniform. The American flag was ingloriously hauled down and again the bloodred banner of England flew from the flagstaff after an interval of 15 years of American possession. Among the prizes of the capture was a greatly revered relic of the Revolutionary War,

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a brass cannon which bore the inscription: "Taken at Saratoga on October 17th, 1777.” This cannon was now used to fire the salute to the British flag and the British officers announced that they would add to the inscription: “Retaken at Detroit, August 16, 1812." The battery across the river echoed the salute and the brig Queen Charlotte which had sailed up the river after landing troops at Springwells fired her guns as fast as her crew could work them.

At the close of this ceremony, Col. Brock took off his crimson silken sash and threw it about Tecumseh. The chief received it with becoming dignity, but he never wore it afterward, for Tecumseh was a man not given to show.

Gen. Hull and his regular soldiers were taken to Montreal as prisoners of war, where they were afterward exchanged. The Ohio volunteers were taken to the Cuyahoga River and released to go back to their homes. The Americans had just completed a brig called the Adams, at the River Rouge shipyard. This was taken over by the British and renamed the Detroit. It was taken to Fort Erie, at the head of Niagara River. One night a few weeks later a company of Americans crossed the river and attempted to tow the brig across to Buffalo, on the American side. Foiled in this attempt they set the ship on fire and turned her adrift in the river, where she soon ran aground and became a total loss.

Detroit and Mackinac were lost but disasters were not at an end in the West. On the site of the present city of Chicago a rude fortification known as Fort Dearborn had been erected. It was even more inaccessible for rescuing parties than the others. It was garrisoned by a little company of 54 soldiers and the officers were Capt. Nathan Heald, Lieut. L. T. Helm and Ensign George Ronan. About the fort were a few settlers' cabins, all within a radius of one mile. The officers did not regard the Indian unrest as anything serious until the month of April, when a family named Lee in the outer edge of the settlement were murdered by a passing band of Winnebagoes.

From that time the settlers kept close to the fort, which was closely guarded. On August 7 a friendly Pottawatomie Indian

named Winnimeg (the Catfish) brought a note from Gen. Hull ordering the abandonment of the fort and the removal of the soldiers and settlers to Fort Wayne. The soldiers and settlers opposed the removal because they would be exposed to open attack on the route. A large band of Indians gathered about the fort and ordered the people to go away. Capt. Heald told them he had been ordered away and would start at once. He promised to turn over all the stores to the Indians. That night he had the powder in the magazine emptied into the river and all the liquors poured into the fort well.

Next morning the river was as black as ink and the Indians learned that the store of powder had been destroyed. This infuriated them, but they concealed their enmity. A band of 500 Pottawatomies waited admission to the fort when Capt. Wells arrived with a small band of friendly Miamis. Wells had been adopted by Little Turtle, of the Miamis, the chief who had defeated Harmar and St. Clair and had afterward surrendered to Gen. Wayne. Wells, on hearing of the menace to Fort Dearborn, had come with his friendly Miamis to aid the garrison in the defense, but as soon as he heard of the destruction of the powder stores he told Heald that they were all as good as dead men, for the Pottawatomies were under orders to destroy every white person in the settlement.

Wells accepted his fate Indian fashion, blackening his face to show that he was prepared for death. The garrison and the settlers left the fort and started toward Fort Wayne, Ind., but before they had gone two miles on the way the Pottawatomies closed around them. A young Indian leaped into a wagon carrying 12 women and children and tomahawked every one. The men and women held together and fought as best they could, the women doing their part valiantly. Fifty people were butchered and the entire party would have shared the same fate but for the daring interference of John Kinzie, a fur trader in the employ of John Jacob Astor, who had built the first white man's cabin on the site of Chicago in 1809.

Kinzie had been ordered to remove his family and was permitted to make his way to Detroit. He placed his family in a

boat and sent them out into the lake to await his return, for, suspecting mischief on the part of the Indians, he followed the wagon trail of Capt. Heald. When the massacre started he began to plead with the Indians to spare at least the women and children, and after 50 had been killed and scalped the Indians spared the lives of 40 men and a few women and children.

John Kinzie lived in Detroit for several years, his house. being on the south side of Jefferson Avenue, between Shelby and Wayne streets. The wife of Capt. Heald was his step-daughter. Mrs. Heald was rescued from death by an Indian named Black Partridge and a monument in Chicago now perpetuates the story of that rescue in a bronze group. Kinzie's wife and his son, John H., a boy 9 years old, witnessed the massacre from their boat, which had followed the procession near the shore.

That boy later married a Connecticut girl, a descendant of Gov. Roger Wolcott. This Mrs. John H. Kinzie later wrote a story of the West, under the title "Waubun." Their only son died and they adopted several children. One of these became Mrs. Joseph Balestier and her granddaughter is now the wife of Rudyard Kipling.

Another descendant of John Kinzie was a guest of honor at the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893. This lady was the oldest living white person who had been born in Chicago, when she died at the age of 82 in 1917.

John Kinzie was a traveling fur buyer for John Jacob Astor. He was well known to the Indians all over Michigan and on friendly terms with many tribes. He had been a silversmith before he took to the fur trade and at times worked at his trade just to keep his hands in training. There are still a few pieces of his handiwork among the treasures of some of the older families of the West.

The massacre of Fort Dearborn was the direct result of Gen. Hull's order sent to Heald and Heald's misguided obedience to the order, which destroyed his only chance of saving the lives of the people who had trusted themselves to his protection.

The massacre took place August 15, 1812, the day before the surrender of Detroit.

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HE principal fortifications of old Detroit were Fort Pontchartrain and Fort Lernoult, which was renamed Fort Shelby during the War of 1812. These were designed to protect the town and to control the passage of the river in front of the town. After the occupation of Detroit by the American military forces in 1796 the Indians of the interior, who still adhered to the British cause, went as far as they dared in harassing the Americans. They would come from the interior of the state and camp a mile or two back of the town where they would subsist themselves by killing cattle of the townsfolk, which were turned out to graze on the public common north of the fort. They also stole many of the French ponies, which were owned here in large numbers, and rode them away.

Frequently the officials of the town would send a little group of men north of the common to look for lost cattle and ponies. Toward these the Indians maintained a threatening attitude which promised to culminate in battle at any time. In such a case a few white men might be surrounded by Indians and killed before help could reach them from the fort.

On June 6, 1806, Stanley Griswold, secretary of the Territory and acting Governor and commander-in-chief of the military force, issued an order to this effect: It is hereby ordered that a detail of men from three companies, under their respective captains, Capt. Campau, Capt. Tuttle and Capt. Anderson, shall lay out a defensive work on the common above the fort and work upon it until it is completed, to serve as an additional defense of public and private property.

Acting under this order the three captains looked over the ground on the upper part of the common and they selected a site which is now represented by the northeast corner of High