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The Chicago Massacre of 1812: With Illustrations and Historical Documents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
"If I had not done just as I had, and talked to that Indian as I did,
we would all have been shot in five minutes; but my actions required
a council, as their plans were, as they supposed, frustrated, and
that the troops would be down on them at the first hostile move they
made." He saw the game when he first went in, as his Indian training
taught him, and he waited just for the demonstration that was made
as the signal for action. Wells saw no time was to be lost, and made
good his resolve, and the big Indian cowed under the demonstration
of Wells. My mother said he looked as if he expected Wells to make
an end of him for what he had said to Wells in his dance. "I had
to meet bravado with bravado, and I think I beat," said Wells. You
could see it in the countenances of all the Indians. The same advice
given to Heald, if attended to, would have saved the massacre of Fort
Dearborn. * * * *
A. H. Edwards.
James Madison Wolcott, grandson of Captain Wells (through
Ah-mah-quah-zah-quah, who married Judge James Wolcott) wrote to Mr.
Wentworth as follows:
We are proud of our Little Turtle [Indian] blood and of our Captain
Wells blood. We try to keep up the customs of our ancestors, and
dress occasionally in Indian costumes. We take no exception when
people speak of our Indian parentage. We take pleasure in sending
you the tomahawk which Captain William Wells had at the time of his
death, and which was brought to his family by an Indian who was in
the battle. We also have a dress-sword which was presented to him
by General W. H. Harrison, and a great many books which he had;
showing that even when he lived among the Indians, he was trying to
improve himself. He did all he could to educate his children. Captain
Wells, in the year of his death, sent to President Madison, at Little
Turtle's request, the interpretation of the speech that that chief
made to General W. H. Harrison, January 25, 1812.
Captain Heald never got rid of the effect of his wound. The bullet
remained embedded in his hip and doubtless is in his coffin. He
resigned shortly after the war, and the family (in 1817) settled at
Stockland, Missouri. The new name of the place, O'Fallon, recalls
the fact that the well known Colonel O'Fallon, of St. Louis, was an
old friend of the family, and himself redeemed the things which the
Indians had captured at the massacre (the same articles now cherished
as relics of the historic event) and sent them to Colonel Samuel Wells
at Louisville, where they arrived during the interval when all supposed
that Nathan and Rebekah had perished with the members of the garrison
and their fellow-sufferers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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