Point-au-Sable Cabin (John Kinzie House)

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Point-au-Sable Home, John Kinzie Home
Life Span: ~1796-1834
Location: North side of the river, fronting Fort Dearborn
Architect: None.

Wau-bun, The Early Day in the North West, Mrs. John H. Kinzie, 1856

On the northern bank of the river, directly facing the fort, was the family mansion of my husband. It was a long, low building, with a piazza extending along its front, a range of four or five rooms. A broad green space was inclosed between it and the river, and shaded by a row of Lombardy poplars. Two immense cotton-wood trees stood in the rear of the building, one of which still remains as an ancient landmark. A fine, well-cultivated garden extended to the north of the dwelling, and surrounding it were various buildings appertaining to the establishment—dairy, bake-house, lodging-house for the Frenchmen, and stables.

A vast range of sand-hills, covered with stunted cedars, pines, and dwarf-willow trees, intervened between the house and the lake, which was, at this time, not more than thirty rods distant.

Proceeding from this point, along the northern bank of the river, we came first to the Agency House, “Cobweb Castle,” as it had been denominated while long the residence of a bachelor, and the sobriquet adhered to it ever after. It stood at what is now the south-west corner of Wolcott and N. Water streets. Many will still remember it, a substantial, compact little building of logs hewed and squared, with a centre, two wings, and, strictly speaking, two tails since, when there was found no more room for additions at the sides, they were placed in the rear, whereon a vacant spot could be found.

These appendages did not mar the symmetry of the whole, as viewed from the front, but when, in the process of the town’s improvement, a street was maliciously opened directly in the rear of the building, the whole establishment, with its comical little adjuncts, was a constant source of amusement to the passers-by. No matter. There were pleasant, happy hours passed under its odd-shaped roof, as many of Chicago’s early settlers can testify.

Around the Agency House were grouped a collection of log-buildings, the residences of the different persons in the employ of Government, appertaining to that establishment—blacksmith, striker, and laborers. These were for the most part Canadians or half-breeds, with occasionally a stray Yankee, to set all things going by his activity and enterprise.

There was still another house on the north side of the river, built by a former resident of the name of Miller, but he had removed to “Riviere du Chemin,” or Trail Creek, which about this time began to be called “Michigan City.” This house, which stood near the forks of the river, was at this time vacant.

There was no house on the southern bank of the river, between the fort and “The Point,” as the forks of the river were then called. The land was a low wet prairie, scarcely affording good walking in the dryest summer weather, while at other seasons it was absolutely impassable. A muddy streamlet, or as it is called in this country, a slew^ f after winding around from about the present site of the Tremont House, fell into the river at the foot of State street.

At a point, on the south side, stood a house just completed by Mark Beaubien, sen. It was a pretentious white two-story building, with bright blue wooden shutters, the admiration of all the little circle at Wolf Point. Here a canoe ferry was kept to transport people across the south branch of the river

Chicago Magazine, March, 1857

The author of Waubun, remarks as the naive saying of the Indians, “the first white man who settled here was a negro.” Point-au-Sable, a native of St. Domingo, from a life of wandering, made his advent here among the Indians in 1796, as a character of some consequence. He had made the Indians believe he had been a chief among the white men and probably expected some such honor among his new friends. He made some improvements, merely driving the pre-emption stakes of civilization,-when he left in disgust or discouragement, and ended his days with Clamorgan, at Peoria, a St. Domingo negro friend, who had obtained large Spanish grants of land about St. Louis. A Frenchman by the name of Le Mai took possession of Point-au-Sable’s improvements, and commenced trading with the Indians. Le Mai’s establishment, a few years after was purchased by John Kinzie, Esq., then an Indian trader in the St. Joseph country, Michigan, who came with his family to Chicago to reside, in 1804, the year in which the fort was built. John Kinzie was the first permanent white resident of Chicago, the first man to establish permanent trade, and improvements, and to leave the impress of his enterprise and the marks of civilization on the first things from which Chicago has sprung. For nearly twenty years he was with the exception of the military, the only white inhabitant of Northern Illinois. If any person is entitled to the honor of being styled the Father of Chicago, that person is unquestionably John Kinzie.

John Kinzie was born in Quebec, Lower Canada, in the year 1763. He was the only child of his mother by a second marriage. His father died when he was but an infant. His mother married for her third husband, a Mr. Forsyth, and removed with him and her young son, to New York city. John was educated at a school at Williamsburg, Long Island. While quite young he left his home, without the knowledge of his mother, and traveled alone to Quebec, to fulfill a long-formed determination of visiting his native place. Here he found a protector, and in his family a home for three years, before being discovered by his parents. On removing from New York to the West, by way of Quebec, they accidentally found their long lost child. He moved with them to Detroit, where he commenced at an early age his adventurous life as a pioneer in the West. His taste led him, as he grew older, to live much of his time on the frontier. He entered early into the Indian trade, and at first established trading posts at Sandusky and Maumee. About the year 1800, he had so far extended his operations, that he opened establishments in the St. Joseph’s country, the region bordering upon the river by that name, which empties into Lake Michigan from the east, nearly opposite Chicago. In this year he married Mrs. McKillip, the widow of a British officer, and this lady was the mother of John H. Kinzie, Esq., our present respected citizen. His place of residence in Michigan, was at Betrand, a trading post near Niles, which was known by the term, Parc aux Vaches. In the year 1804, when the first fort was built, he removed to Chicago, to make here his home, still prosecuting the Indian trade. He was also sutler to the fort.

Mr. Kinzie made the point at Chicago, the center of an extended system of trade with the Indians. He established posts at several distant points, which he sustained from the central one here, and from which he received large stocks of furs, contributing to the stores of the general depot, until shipped off by the vessels that came here semi annually for the purpose; and keeping up the supply of goods necessary for the trade. He had a station at Milwaukee among the Menominees; another at Rock River for the Winnebagoes, arother on the Illinois and Kankakee Rivers with the Pottawotamies, and other stations in the Sangamo country, then called Le Large, and on the head wa ters of the Kaskaskia, for the Kickapoos. Each of these stations bad its superinten-dent, and corps of operators called engages; and its trains of pack horses and equip ment of boats and canoes. And by means and conveyances like these, were the furs and peltries, which had accumulated at the several stations, brought to Chicago, and the goods necessary to the “balance of trade,” transported in return. Many goods were sent up the Illinois river, from as low as St Louis, gathered up from the Indians along the course of the Mississippi as well as the Illinois, and were taken across the portage between this latter river and the lake, by cattle teams. Chicago was thus made the depot of this carrying trade, which was the slow pace progress of the preceding gene-ration; the present generation proving its right to the claim of being a fast people by its rail cars running over the same track plodded by old John Kinzie’s cattle team, driven by Ouilemette and his successors, from 1804 to 1820. The lake trade was at the same time carried on by a small sail vessel, coming in the fall and spring, bringing the season’s supply of goods and stores for the fort, and taking away the accumulated stock of furs and peltries. Such was the character and extent of the first regular business established in Chicago. At the head of this trade was John Kinzie, senior. He, without interruption, and with few incidents to change its routine, pursued his line of business from 1804, till the breaking out of hostilities with the Indians, which resulted in the massacre of 1812. By his uniformly consistent, kind and straightforward course with the Indians, he gained their confidence, and bound himself to them in strong ties of friendship, to which he was indebted for the preservation of himself and family, from the horrid fate of his white neighbors of the fort, at the time of the massacre. After the close of the war, he returned again to Chicago, and re-opened the trade with the Indians. Here he continued to reside till his death in 1828.

Mr. Kinzie’s residence was the first house built in Chicago. A part of it was the same rude structure put up by the so called first white man, the negro Jean Baptiste Point-au-Sable, about the year 1796. It was enlarged and improved by Le Mai (Jean Le Lalime), of whom Mr. Kinzie purchased, who further improved it, internally and externally, until he made it a respectable family mansion. It stood on the north side of the river, fronting the fort. Between this house and the fort, there was kept up a foot ferry, and a little boat swung in the stream awaiting the pleasure of any passenger. A foot path on each side, from the gate of the fort, or the door of the mansion, to the platforms at the water edge, from which the passenger stepped into the boat, marked the course of travel from one side to the other. This ferry occupied nearly the same crossing as the iron bridge structure now in process of erection, in the place of the Lake House Ferry. Mrs. Kinzie describes the house as a long low building, with a piazza extending along its front, a range of four or five rooms. A broad green space was inclosed between it and the river, and shaded by a row of Lombardy poplars. Two large cotton wood trees stood in the rear, one of which still remains, though seared and dry, as it died last year, a perishing land-mark of the early days. A well cultivated garden extended to the north, at the rear of the dwelling. Surrounding this “first house,” were a variety of out buildings, such as the primitive wants, and the condition of the family required, as dairy, bake-house, stables, and lodging rooms for the Frenchmen and attaches of the trading post. North of the homestead and along the lake shore, which then was sonsiderably inland of the present shore, was a low range of sand-hills, sprin kled over with stunted cedars, pines, and dwarf-willows. This was the boyhood home of John H. Kinzie. Here he resided to the age of eight years, when the family home was broken up by the Indians, at the time of the destruction of the fort. This scenery of his early life, is now impressed upon his mind in a vivid living picture. In the language uttered by him in casual conversation upon those early times of Chicago and his own life—every feature of the old home is distinct in his recollection. The Lombardy poplars which perished long ago, and the cotton woods which were but saplings, and trees planted by his own hands, which have stood until the more recent days as mementoes of the past—the rough hewn logs which formed the walls of his home, the garden and its shrubbery, the fence paling that surrounded it, and the green lawn at the front of the house gently descending to the water of the river—the tiny boat floating idly at the foot of the walk—and as the crowning mark of this picture, stood upon the opposite shore, upon the highest part of the elevation, the old fort, the whitewashed walls of the block houses, the barracks and the palisades, glistening in the bright sun; while a gentle slope of fine green grass extended from the enclosure to the very water brink. It was a beautiful sight. Over all this rose the few pulsations of human progress as seen in an occasional stray Indian with his canoe, or pony, and pack of furs; a French Canadian loitering here and there; a soldier pacing his rounds about the fort, or idly strolling over the prairies, or hunting in the woods. There was a deep repose in all this scenery, a quietness, which it was impossible to conceive could have been super-ceded within half a century by one of the busiest cities in the national Union.

Kinzie Mansion

Inter Ocean, July 11, 1913

TABLET WILL MARK KINZIE HOME SITE
Bronze Memorial Will Be Un-veiled. Today on Spot Where Once Lived Chicago’s First Civilian Resident.
A bronze tablet, marking the site of the home of John Kinzie, Chicago’s first elvil-lan, will be unveiled at Pine and Kinzie streets at 12 o’clock today by the James S. Kirk company, under the auspices of the Chicago Historical society.

Clarence A. Burley, president of the society, and Colonel Gurdon 8. Hubbard will speak, and the act of unveiling will be performed by Rosalie Havermeyer, the 10-year-old daughter of Mrs. Herbert A. Havermeyer, the latter being a great-granddaughter of John Kinzie, often called the “Father of Chicago.”

The log house which faced the river at the foot of what now is Pine street was built about 1779, and was owned successively by Point de Saible, a Santo Domincan, and a French fur trader named Le Mal, the latter occupying it until 1804, when it was purchased by John Kinzie as a home for his family, brought here that year, the same in which the bullding of Fort Dear-born, begun in 1803, was completed.

Here—the first white child of Chicago, Ellen Marian Kinzie, was born December, 1804, and here she was married July 20. 1823, to Dr. Alexander Wolcott, then Indian agent at Chicago, she being Chicago’s first bride and this old home the scene of Chicago’s first civilized wedding. Although built of logs, Its hospitable roof sheltered countless parties, where young and old danced on the puncheon floors to the strains of John Kinzie’s violin.

Among those invited to participate in the ceremony of unveiling the tablet are the following guests, whose ancestors were the first families of Chicago in every sense of the word:

Chicago Tribune, July 12, 1913

Miss Rosalie Havemeyer, great-grand-daughter of the first white settler of Chicago, stood yesterday where the first house was built in this city and unveiled a tablet commemorating the historical event.

The house was that of John Kinzie in 1804, and was located on the spot where now stands the factory of James S. Kirk company at Pine and Kinzie streets, just north of Rush street bridge.

Shortly before noon a gathering of Chicagoans assembled on the exact spot. Walter R. Kirk explained the historical significance of erecting the tablet. Gurdun S. Hubbard, whose father came to Chicago in 1818, made a brief address and Clarence A. Burley, president of the Chicago Historical society, also spoke.

Chicago Tribune, September 12, 1937

SOUTHWEST SIDE HISTORIC SITES TO BE MARKED.
78 Plaques Will Go Up Throughout City.
Chicago’s own historic spots will tell their stories to future generations. Seventy eight plaques authenticated by the Chicago Historical society will be erected throughout the city by the Chicago Charter Jubilee committee before the end of this month. The markers, five of which be placed on the southwest side, will commemorate all crossroads, taverns, and pioneer settlements.

Eighteen inches wide and fifteen inches high, the plaques will be of solid bronze, inscribed with the seal of Chicago and the history of the site. Some will be placed on walls and others on standards five and a half feet tall.

Gardner Home Selected.
One of the spots in the southwest district recalls war days when slaves were harbored in the old Gardner home and tavern at 9935 Beverly avenue. The house was built in 1836 by William Wilcox. The historic trail into Chicago from the south, now known as Vincennes avenue, also will be marked at a point to be selected later. The road was used originally by the Indians to unite their villages and later became the throughfare from the Ohio and Wabash river settlements.

The old Thomas Morgan home, 9167 Pleasant avenue, the original owner for which the community of Morgan Park is named, will be another important site. The present house includes within its walls boulders from the old sheepcote of the original farm. A similar spot is the locally famed Barnard farm, 103d street and Longwood drive, which was the center of this district’s original settlement and the farm of the prominent family in whose memory the Barnard school and the Alice Barnard park are dedicated. Depot to Be Marked.

A plaque will be placed at the site of the old Cummorn station on the Rock Island railroad, 87th street and Vincennes road. The old depot was one of the important stopping places in the early days and later became known as South Englewood. It is now the Gresham station. George M. Pullman, industrialist, who founded the district of Pullman by erecting homes for the employés of his car works, will have a marker dedicated to him in the community.

The last to be placed in the district will mark the O’Leary home and barn, 558 South DeKoven street, where tradition has it that a cow kicked over a lantern and started the great Chicago fire in 1871.

At 401 N. Michigan Avenue (Equitable Building Plaza) on the south side center pylon near the Chicago River railing.

Chicago Tribune, August 26, 1954

An historical document will be received a 11 a.m. today by County Recorder Joseph F. Ropa as the 16 millionth document to be filed in his office since, the current numbering system was started in 1874. The previous numbering system was destroyed in the great fire of 1871.

Alexander F. Beaubien of Waukegan, a great grandson of Mark Beaubien, one of Chicago’s earliest residents, will present the document to Ropa. Number 16,000,000 has been reserved for this document.

It was executed by Jean Baptiste Pointe Du Sable for the sale of property to Jean Lalime and was dated at “Chicagou” May 7, 1800.

Filed in Detroit
The property included a frame building and its furnishings, nine smaller structures, live stock, and numerous farm implements. The copy of the sale is certified from the records of the register of deeds in Detroit, where the sale was recorded Sept. 18, 1800. At that time Detroit was the seat of the territory which included Chicago.

The Du Sable transaction was recorded in the French language and Ropa had the Berlitz School of Languages make an English translation to be attached to the document.

Property involved in the sale was on the north bank of the Chicago river, facing Fort Dearborn at what is now Michigan av. The property included the land now owned by The Tribune east of Michigan av. on the north bank.

Bought later by Kinzie
John Kinzie Sr. was one of the witnesses to the sale and purchased the property a few years later from Jean Lalime.

After the sale, the main structure became known as the “Kinzie mansion” and was the temporary residence of many noted guests, including Capt. John Whistler, designer and builder of the first Fort Dearborn.

Filing of the document will officially fill the missing link in the long history of the property, Ropa said.

In 1800 Point du Sable sold his farm to John Kinzie’s frontman, Jean Le Lalime, for 6,000 livres. The bill of sale, which was rediscovered in 1913 in an archive in Detroit, detailed all of the property Point du Sable owned, as well as many of his personal effects. This included a house, two barns, a horse-drawn mill, a bakehouse, a poultry house, a dairy, and a smokehouse. The house was a 22-by-40-foot log cabin filled with fine furniture and paintings.

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