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
The story of John Cooper, surgeon's mate at Fort Dearborn, was similar
in many of its details to that of others in the battle. Cooper was
accompanied by his wife and two young daughters, the elder of whom was
named Isabella. Cooper was among the killed, and when the Indians made
a rush for the women and children in the wagons, a young Indian boy
attempted to carry off Isabella, but encountered so lively a resistance
that he was obliged to throw her down. He succeeded in scalping her, and
would have killed her outright had not an old squaw prevented him. The
squaw, who knew the Cooper family, took Mrs. Cooper and her children to
her wigwam and cured the girl of her wound.
The family remained in captivity two years, when they were ransomed.
They afterwards lived in Detroit. The mark of the wound on the girl's
head caused by the young Indian's scalping knife was about the size of a
silver dollar, and, of course, remained with her through her life.
An infant of six months was with its mother among the survivors of that
dreadful day. Corporal Simmons had with him on the march his wife and two
children, the eldest a boy of two years, and a little girl an infant in
its mother's arms. The mother and her children were in the army wagon,
which was entered by the Indian, who despatched the children as rapidly
as he could reach them. Mrs. Simmons, while not able to save her boy,
succeeded in concealing the baby in a shawl behind her, and the child
survived the scenes of that day. The corporal himself was among those who
were slain.
When the division of prisoners took place after the action Mrs. Simmons
was carried off by the Indians to Green Bay, the whole distance to
which she walked, carrying her child in her arms. On arriving at their
destination the captives were required to "run the gauntlet," according
to the brutal custom of the savages, but in doing so she was able to
protect her precious charge by bending over it as she held it in her
arms. She received many cruel blows and half dead she reached the goal
where a friendly squaw gave her and her child a kind reception. In the
following year, after many weary wanderings, Mrs. Simmons reached a
frontier post in Ohio and was at length set at liberty.
This child grew up and became the wife of Moses Winans, and in later
life she and her husband lived in California, but she never returned to
Chicago again. She died in 1903, at the advanced age of ninety years.
Of the nine women who set out with the troops, two were killed; the
others, except Mrs. Heald and Mrs. Helm, were carried off by the savages,
and some did not survive the hardships of the life they were compelled
to undergo. There were eighteen children, of whom twelve were killed
outright, and but few of the others were ever heard of.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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