The Fort Dearborn Massacre: Written in 1814 by Lieutenant Linai T. Helm, One of the Survivors, with Letters and Narratives of Contemporary InterestHelm, Linai T. (Linai Taliaferro)
History
The Fort Dearborn Massacre: Written in 1814 by Lieutenant Linai T. Helm, One of the Survivors, with Letters and Narratives of Contemporary Interest
Helm, Linai T. (Linai Taliaferro)
Fort Dearborn Massacre, Chicago, Ill., 1812; Massacre survivors -- Illinois -- Chicago
Arriving at the residence of M. Du Pin, he entered the room where the
Frenchman was, and carefully placed his burden on the floor.
"What have you there?" asked M. Du Pin.
"A young raccoon, which I have brought you as a present," was the reply;
and, opening the pack, he showed the little sick infant.
When the trader had prescribed for the child, and Black Partridge was
about to return to his home, he told his friend of the proposal he had
made to Mrs. Lee to become his wife, and the manner in which it had been
received.
M. Du Pin entertained some fear that the chief's honorable resolution to
allow the lady herself to decide whether or not to accept his addresses
might not hold out, and at once entered into a negotiation for her
ransom. So effectually were the good feelings of Black Partridge wrought
upon that he consented to bring his fair prisoner to Chicago
immediately, that she might be restored to her friends.
Whether the kind trader had at the outset any other feeling in the
matter than sympathy and brotherly kindness, we cannot say; we only know
that in course of time Mrs. Lee became Madame Du Pin, and that the
worthy couple lived together in great happiness for many years after.
The fate of Nau-non-gee, a chief of the Calumet village, deserves to be
recorded.
During the battle of August 15, the principal object of his attack was
one Sergeant Hays, a man from whom he had accepted many kindnesses.
After Hays had received a ball through the body, this Indian ran up to
tomahawk him, when the sergeant, summoning his remaining strength,
pierced him through the body with his bayonet. The two fell together.
Other Indians running up soon dispatched Hays, and not until then was
his bayonet extracted from the body of his adversary.
After the battle the wounded chief was carried 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 out of respect to his memory to take the lives of none of
them; for he himself fully deserved his fate at the hands of the man
whose kindness he had so ill requited.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] This narrative related by two of the survivors, Mrs. John Kinzie and
Mrs. Helm, to Mrs. Juliette A. Kinzie, is taken from "Waubun." It was
first published in pamphlet form in 1836; was transferred, with little
variation, to Brown's "History of Illinois," and to a work called
"Western Annals." Major Richardson likewise made it the basis of his two
tales, "Hardscrabble," and "Wau-nan-gee."
[2] Burns' house stood near the spot where the Agency Building, or
"Cobweb Castle," was afterwards erected, at the foot of North State
Street.
[3] A trading-establishment--now Ypsilanti.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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