The Chicago Massacre of 1812: With Illustrations and Historical DocumentsKirkland, Joseph
History
The Chicago Massacre of 1812: With Illustrations and Historical Documents
Kirkland, Joseph
Chicago (Ill.) -- History; Fort Dearborn Massacre, Chicago, Ill., 1812
By what we learn from a search in the county records at Detroit,
John Kinzie seems to have been doing business there in the years
1795-97 and '98. In May, 1795, some portion of the Ottawa tribe of
Indians conveyed lands on the Maumee to John Kinzie, silver-smith, of
Detroit; also in the same year to John Kinzie, merchant, of Detroit.
It appears, also, from the same records, that in September, 1810,
John Kinzie and John Whistler Jr. were lately copartners in trade at
Fort Dearborn, and in the same year John Kinzie and Thomas Forsyth
were merchants in Chicago. We are told by Robert A. Kinzie that his
father was sutler at Fort Dearborn when he came to Chicago in 1804;
possibly Mr. Whistler Jr. was his partner in that enterprise. In
October, 1815, John Kinzie and Thomas Forsyth were copartners in
trade in the District of Detroit, Territory of Michigan. In March,
1816, appear on the records the names of John Kinzie, silver-smith,
and Elenor, his wife, of Detroit. By these items it seems that though
Mr. Kinzie took up his residence in Chicago in 1804 [the first entry
here upon his books bore date May 12, 1804] and that he left here
after the battle of August, 1812, returning in 1816, yet he was
still identified with Detroit, certainly until the summer of 1816.
We notice that he was a witness at the treaty of Spring Wells, near
Detroit, in September, 1815. He was one of the interpreters.
[AR] A book full of bits of old-time gossip, traditions and skeptical
notes on other traditions, controversial criticism on Wau-Bun and
other books, and good-humored raillery, aimed at persons and things of
the early day. Only five hundred copies were printed, and the book is
becoming scarce, but some copies remain for sale in the family of its
author, 27 Winthrop Place, Chicago.
Wau-Bun gives a long and romantic biography of John Kinzie and his
progenitors; such a sketch as would naturally (and properly) be made
by a daughter-in-law, writing during the lifetime of many of the
persons directly interested in the facts related, but omitting things
which would shock the sensibilities of those persons, and mar the
literary symmetry of the picture set forth in her pages. She does not
allude to the Margaret McKenzie episode, never mentions James Kinzie,
well-known Chicagoan as he was, and also ignores another matter which
the integrity of history requires to be stated, and which the lapse
of almost three generations should disarm of the sting which might
attach to it at the time of Wau-Bun. This matter is the killing, in
self-defense, of John Lalime, by John Kinzie. (See Appendix F.)
[Illustration: MRS. JULIETTE KINZIE (1856).
Author of "Wau-Bun."]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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