I have been reduced in wages, owing to the economy of the government. My interpreter's salary is no more and I have but $100 to subsist on. It does work me hard sometimes to provide for your brothers and sisters on this and maintain my family in a decent manner. I will have to take new measures. I hate to change houses, but I have been requested to wait Conant's arrival. We are all mighty busy, as the treaty commences to-morrow and we have hordes of Indians around us already. My best respects to Mr. Crooks and Stewart and all the gentlemen of your house. Adieu. I am your loving father, [Illustration: John Kinzie (signature)] This is said to be the only letter of John Kinzie's that is known to exist. (A large and invaluable collection of papers were given in 1877 to the Historical Society by John H. Kinzie, and perished with the society building in the great fire of 1871). No portrait of John Kinzie has ever been found. He assisted in negotiating the treaty of 1821, before mentioned; addressing the Indians to reconcile them to it, and signing it as a sub-agent, which post he filled under his son-in-law, Dr. Alexander Wolcott, Indian agent. In 1825 he was appointed Justice of the Peace, for Peoria county. Captain Andreas remarks on John Kinzie's standing with the Indians as follows: The esteem in which Mr. Kinzie was held by the Indians is shown by the treaty made with the Pottowatomies September 20, 1828, by one provision of which they gave to Eleanor Kinzie and her four children by the late John Kinzie $3,500 in consideration of the attachment of the Indians to her deceased husband, who was long an Indian trader and who lost a large sum in the trade, by the credits given them and also by the destruction of his property. The money is in lieu of a tract of land which the Indians gave the late John Kinzie long since, and upon which he lived. There is no doubt that the Indians had a warm feeling for the Kinzies. At the same time it seems probable that the treaty in question, like all other treaties, was carefully arranged by the whites and merely submitted to the Indians for ratification. The Indians did not give any money, all payments came from the United States, and were made to such persons (other than Indians) as the commissioners thought best to care for. As to the land given by the Indians to Mr. Kinzie and on which he lived, where was it? The Indians had parted with the Chicago tract, six miles square, nine years before Mr. Kinzie arrived at Fort Dearborn. It is true that in May, 1795, the Ottawas (not the Pottowatomies) conveyed land in Ohio to John Kinzie and Thomas Forsyth; but he certainly never lived on it. He also lived at Parc-aux-vaches, on the St. Joseph's river, from 1800 to 1804. It is possible, though not probable, that the Indians made him a grant there. [Illustration: JOHN HARRIS KINZIE IN LATER LIFE.]