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The Chicago Massacre of 1812: With Illustrations and Historical Documents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
M. du Pin entertained some fears that the chiefs resolution might
not hold out, to leave it to the lady herself whether to receive his
addresses or not, so he entered at once into a negotiation for her
ransom, and so effectually wrought upon the good feelings of Black
Partridge that he consented to bring his fair prisoner at once to
Chicago, that she might be restored to her friends.
Whether the kind trader had at the outset any other feeling than
sympathy and brotherly kindness, we cannot say--we only know that in
process of time, Mrs. Lee became Madame du Pin, and that they lived
together in great happiness for many years after.
So disappears, from earliest Chicago annals, the name of Lee. The
father had been a householder, living somewhere about where the
new Public Library is now building, and his farm was (after Père
Marquette's "cabinage") the very first settlement on the West Side of
the South Branch or "Portage River." His son escaped from the murderers
at "Hardscrabble" in spring, only to perish, with his father, during
the massacre, or perhaps in the "general frolic" that followed. Then
the widow becomes Mrs. du Pin and we hear no more of the Lees. There is
a grim completeness about the domestic drama. On Friday it has father,
mother, son, daughter and baby, on Saturday, father and son are killed
in battle (or by torture) and daughter mangled by a horse's feet and
finished by a tomahawk; a few months later the puny baby is brought
in to be "doctored" and then the widow marries again and lives on "in
great happiness."
The fate of Nau-non-gee, one of the chiefs of the Calumet village,
and who is mentioned in the early part of the narrative, deserves to
be recorded.
During the battle of the 15th of August, the chief object of his
attack was one Sergeant Hays, a man from whom he had received many
acts of kindness.
After Hays had received a ball through the body, this Indian ran
up to tomahawk him, when the Sergeant, collecting his remaining
strength, pierced him through the body with his bayonet. They fell
together. Other Indians running up soon dispatched Hays, and it was
not until then that his bayonet was extracted from the body of his
adversary.
The wounded chief was carried after the battle to his village on
the Calumet, where he survived for several days. Finding his end
approaching; he called together his young men, and enjoined them in
the most solemn manner to regard the safety of their prisoners after
his death, and to take the lives of none of them, from respect to
his memory, as he deserved his fate from the hands of those whose
kindness he had so ill-requited.
[Illustration: From: "Cyclopædia of United States History."--Copyright,
1881, by Harper & Brothers.
TECUMSEH.]
CHAPTER VI.
JOHN KINZIE'S CAPTIVITY.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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