Till one wild night, a night each man remembers. When round her homes the red fire leaped and curled. The sky was filled with flame and flying embers. That swept them from the world. Men said: "Chicago's bright career is ended!" As by the smouldering stones they chanced to go, While the wide world its love and pity blended, To help us in our woe. O where was ever human goodness greater? Man's love for man was never more sublime. On the eternal scroll of our Creator 'Tis written for all time. Chicago lives, and many a lofty steeple Looks down today upon this western plain; The tireless hands of her unconquered people Have reared her walls again. Long may she live and grow in wealth and beauty, And may her children be, in coming years, True to their trust and faithful in their duty As her brave pioneers. [Illustration] APPENDIX. A--John Baptiste Pointe de Saible. B--Fort Dearborn in the War Department. C--The Whittier Family. D--The Kinzie Family. E--The Wells and Heald Families. F--The Bones of John Lalime. G--Letters from a. H. Edwards. H--Billy Caldwell, "The Sauganash." I--Indian War Dance. K--The Bronze Memorial Group. APPENDIX A. JEAN BAPTISTE POINTE DE SAIBLE, THE HAYTIAN NEGRO WHO WAS THE FIRST "WHITE MAN" TO SETTLE IN CHICAGO (1776-77). [Illustration: COCK-CROW.] NOT IN JEST, but in grave, sober earnest, the Indians used to say that "the first white man in Chicago was a nigger." In their view, all non-Indians were "whites," the adjective having to them only a racial significance. Then, too the aborigines had no jests--no harmless ones. Peering into the dim past for early items concerning what is now Chicago, one comes first to the comparatively clear (though positively scanty) records of the French--La Salle, Marquette, Tonti, Hennepin, St. Cosme and their bold associates--who came in by way of the St. Lawrence in the seventeenth century--1672 to 1700. From that time there occurs a great blank. Scarcely a ray of light or word of intelligence pierces the deep gloom for just one hundred years. Detroit, Mackinaw, Lake Superior, Green Bay, Fort Duquesne and St. Louis are kept in view. Even Kaskasia and Fort Chartres, both in Illinois territory, are on record; a circumstance due to the fact, not generally known, that they were points of importance in John Law's famous Mississippi scheme. But Chicago was almost as though it had sunk below the waves of Lake Michigan when La Salle, Marquette and St. Cosme bade it good-bye. [Illustration: ROBERT CAVELIER, SIEUR DE LA SALLE.]