When Captain Nathan Heald assumed command at Fort Dearborn, in succession to Captain Whistler, he entered upon his duties with much reluctance, owing to the remoteness of the post and the loneliness of its situation. He was a much younger man than his predecessor, being at the time thirty-five years of age and unmarried, and found himself associated with officers still younger than he was. A few days after his arrival at his new post he wrote Colonel Jacob Kingsbury, commandant at Detroit, that he was not pleased with his situation and could not bear to think of staying there during the winter. "It is a good place," he wrote, "for a man who has a family, and can content himself to live remote from the civilized part of the world." Two years previous to this time Captain William Wells had taken his niece, Rebekah Wells, daughter of his brother. Captain Samuel Wells of Louisville, Kentucky, to Fort Wayne on a visit, and while there she met Captain Heald, who was on duty at that point. In the summer following Heald's arrival at Fort Dearborn he obtained a leave of absence for the purpose of going to Louisville to be married to Rebekah Wells. The marriage followed his arrival there and was doubtless the result of the acquaintance formed at the time of the Fort Wayne visit, the first of many romantic episodes. The journey of the newly wedded couple from the old Kentucky home to their new place of residence at Fort Dearborn was made in May, 1811, and it is interesting to learn that the whole distance was covered in six days. There were three in the party--the captain, his bride, and a little slave girl who begged to be taken along. Each had a horse to ride, and an extra horse carried the baggage; they traveled by compass. On their arrival the garrison turned out to receive them with military honors. Rebekah was much pleased with her reception, and found everything to her liking; she liked the wild place, the wild lake, and the wild Indians, then indeed friendly enough, but soon to become fierce enemies. Everything suited her ways and disposition, "being on the wild order" herself, she said; and we can well imagine Captain Heald becoming, in his changed circumstances, quite reconciled to the situation with which he was so much displeased the year before. Captain Heald was a martinet in the matter of military discipline, and during the two years or more that elapsed between his arrival and the evacuation of the fort he became unpopular by reason of his strict insistence upon every detail required by the military regulations. It had become the recognized practice in isolated garrisons at lonely posts to relax somewhat the discipline usually found necessary where large numbers of troops were assembled. But while Captain Heald was so exacting in the affairs of the post, he applied the same principles to his own conduct where the orders of his superior officers were concerned, even when conditions would have warranted independent action.