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
There will remain then twenty-three of the military, seven women and six
children, whose fate, with the exception of the three who have come in,
and of two others who are known to be in safety at St. Joseph's, remains
to be yet ascertained.
Of these, amounting in all to thirty-one persons, I will furnish you
with the names of all that I have been able to identify.
First: there is one officer, a lieutenant, of the name of Linai T. Helm,
with whom I have had the honor of a personal acquaintance. He is an
officer of great merit, and of the most unblemished character. His
father is a gentleman originally of Virginia, and of the first
respectability, who has since settled in the State of New York. The lady
of this gentleman, a young and amiable victim of misfortune, was
separated from her husband during the fight. She is understood to be now
at St. Joseph's. Mr. Helm was conveyed a hundred miles into the Indian
country, and no accounts of his fate have yet reached this quarter.
Second: of the six non-commissioned officers, four survived the action:
John Crozier, a sergeant; Daniel Dougherty, a corporal; one other
corporal by the name of Bowen, and William Griffin (Griffith), sergeant,
now here.
Third: of the privates it is said that five, and it is not known how
many more, were put to death in the night after the action. Of those who
are said to have thus suffered, I have been able to collect only the
names of two; Richard Garner and James Latta. Mr. Burns, a citizen,
severely wounded, was killed by an Indian woman, in the daytime, about
an hour after the action. Micajah Dennison and John Fury were so badly
wounded in the action that little hope was indulged of their recovery.
There will thus remain twenty to be accounted for, of whom I can only
give the following names: Dyson Dyer, William Nelson Hunt, Duncan
McCarty, Augustus Mott, John Smith, John Smith, his son, a fifer, James
Van Horn.
Four: of the five women whose fate remains to be ascertained, I am
enabled to give the names of them all. They were Mrs. Burns, wife to the
citizen before mentioned as killed after the attack; Mrs. Holt, Mrs.
Lee, Mrs. Needs, and Mrs. Simmons. Among these women six children saved
out of the whole number, which was eighteen; part of them belonging to
the surviving mothers, and part to those who were slain.
As to the means of preserving these unhappy survivors from the
distressing calamities which environ them, if they have preserved their
lives, and which the rigors of the approaching season cannot fail to
heighten, I would beg leave to suggest the following:
First: to send a special messenger to that quarter, overland, and with
such safeguard of Indians or others, as can be procured, charged with
collecting the prisoners who may yet survive, and accounts of those who
may have ultimately suffered, and supplied with the means of conveying
them either to Detroit or Michillimackinac.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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