De Saible was an Indian trader. One of the pioneers who remembered him said of him that he was "pretty wealthy and drank freely," and the British commander above referred to wrote that he was "much in the French interest," which gave occasion to that officer to keep a close watch on his activities, situated as he was at the principal portage between the Lakes and the Mississippi. De Saible resided in this house for over eighteen years, and in 1797 sold it and returned to the Peoria Indians, among whom he had previously resided, and remained with them the rest of his life. The purchaser of the house was a man named Le Mai, a French trader. Le Mai made some improvements and occupied the house until 1804, when he in turn sold it to John Kinzie, who arrived with his family at Chicago in the fall of that year. After the house came into the possession of John Kinzie he repaired it, added a veranda, and planted four Lombardy poplars at the foot of the slope on which the house stood. The house faced toward the south, having the river directly in front and the lake a short distance to the east. This house became known as the "Kinzie Mansion" and is a familiar and picturesque object in the views of early Chicago. The house escaped the general destruction at the time of the massacre and remained the residence of John Kinzie and his family until the time of his death, in 1828, except during the four years of his enforced absence, from 1812 to 1816. The house was finally demolished in the early thirties after more than a half-century's existence. There was also the less pretentious cabin of Antoine Ouilmette, situated close in the rear of the Kinzie house. Ouilmette was a Frenchman with an Indian wife, and had lived here since 1790. His wife, being a member of the Potawatami tribe, was awarded, at one of the Indian treaties many years later, a tract of land on the north shore about fourteen miles from the mouth of the Chicago River, which became known as the "Wilmette Reservation," and is now the site of the village of Wilmette. [Illustration: RESIDENCE OF JOHN KINZIE. _The house in which John Kinzie and his family lived from 1804 to 1813, and again from 1816 to 1828, as it was lithographed by Sarony from a sketch made by Mrs. John H. Kinzie, the author of Wau-Bun._] A man named Pettell also had a small cabin near the Kinzie house. Over on the North Branch another trader named Guarie had a trading house which had been there from a time previous to the year 1778. Guarie's house was situated on the west bank of the river, about where Fulton Street now ends. The North Branch was called by the Indian traders and _voyageurs_ of those days the "River Guarie," and the South Branch "Portage River," the name Chicago River being confined to that part of the river below the confluence of those two streams.