The Story of Old Fort DearbornCurrey, J. Seymour (Josiah Seymour)
History
The Story of Old Fort Dearborn
Currey, J. Seymour (Josiah Seymour)
Chicago (Ill.) -- History; Fort Dearborn Massacre, Chicago, Ill., 1812
Among the friendly Indians thus gathered was Black Partridge, who had
rescued Mrs. Helm and had safely brought her to the Kinzie house, where
she rejoined her family.
Thus were assembled the entire family of John Kinzie, except his
son-in-law, Lieutenant Helm. Mrs. Heald and Mrs. Helm were both suffering
from wounds. Both had been attacked by the savages while on horseback,
the former having perhaps escaped death, through the ransom negotiated by
Chandonnais, and the other having been rescued by Black Partridge.
John Burns, with his wife and infant child, had lived in the house west
of the Kinzies', on the north bank of the river, and were with the troops
at the time of the attack. It will be recalled that Mrs. Burns and her
one-day-old infant had been brought to the fort for safety at the time of
the Indian alarm in the previous April. Burns was killed while with the
troops, but his wife and child were made captives by one of the chiefs
and by him taken to his village and treated with great kindness; but his
squaw wife, excited by feelings of jealousy of the favors shown to the
captives, attempted to kill the child with a tomahawk thrown at it with
great force. The blow narrowly missed being fatal, but it inflicted a
wound the marks of which she carried through the remainder of her life.
The chief prevented further attempts of the kind by removing the captives
to a place of safety. Eventually the mother and child found their way
back to civilization.
"Twenty-two years after this," writes the younger Mrs. Kinzie, in
_Wau-Bun_, "as I was on a journey to Chicago in the steamer 'Uncle Sam,'
a young woman, hearing my name, introduced herself to me, and raising the
hair from her forehead, showed me the mark of the tomahawk which had so
nearly been fatal to her."
A somewhat similar case was that of Mrs. Charles Lee, whose husband owned
the farm on the South Branch where the two men were murdered by Indians
in the previous April. His son, a lad of twelve years, who, with the
discharged soldier, ran to the fort from the farm and gave the alarm
on that occasion, was also with the troops in company with his father.
Lee and his son were both killed in the battle, but Mrs. Lee and her
young child were captured, and later came into the possession of Black
Partridge. This "knightly rescuer of women" proved the worth of his
friendship toward the whites in the case of Mrs. Lee and her child, as he
had already done in the rescue of Mrs. Helm.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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