[Illustration: Samuel Miller (signature)] In 1800 John Kinzie married Eleanor (Lytle) McKillip, widow of a British officer, who had one daughter, Margaret, afterward Mrs. Lieutenant Helm. In the same year he moved to the St. Joseph's River, which empties into Lake Michigan on its eastern side, nearly opposite Chicago, and there set up his trading-house. His son, John Harris Kinzie, was born at Sandwich, opposite Detroit, where his mother chanced to be spending a day when he made his unexpected appearance. In 1803 John Kinzie visited Chicago, having probably learned of the approaching establishment of Fort Dearborn, and bought the Le Mai house, built by Jean Baptiste Pointe de Saible, some twenty-five years before. He moved into it with his family in the following year. From that time to his death, in 1828, he is the most conspicuous and unique figure in Chicago history, and fairly deserves the name of the father of the city. His branch trading-posts existed in Milwaukee, at Rock River, on the Illinois and Kankakee Rivers, and in the Sangamon country. To quote again Andreas (Hist. Chic. Vol. I, P. 73): This extended Indian trade made the employment of a large number of men at headquarters a necessity, and the Canadian voyageurs in the service of Mr. Kinzie were about the only white men who had occasion to visit Chicago during those early years. He was sutler for the garrison at the fort in addition to his Indian trade, and also kept up his manufacture of the ornaments in which the Indians delighted. During the first residence of Mr. and Mrs. John Kinzie in Chicago, three children were born to them--Ellen Marion in December, 1805; Maria Indiana in 1807, and Robert Allen, February 8, 1810. Margaret McKillip, Mr. Kinzie's step-daughter, who married Lieutenant Linai T. Helm of Fort Dearborn, and also Robert Forsyth, nephew of Mr. Kinzie, were at times members of his family, the latter being the first teacher of John H. Kinzie. Henry H. Hurlbut in his delightful "Chicago Antiquities,"[AR] says: