Fort Dearborn I

Fort Dearborn I
Life Span: 1803-1812
Location: Mouth of Chicago River
Architect: John Whistler (Builder)

Chicago Magazine, March, 1857

Soon after the expeditions of La Salle, the colonial warfares commenced, and were fed almost incessantly by the conflicts of hostile tribes, thus putting a check to the growth of settlements in the far West—and Chicago, for the period from 1681 to 1795, more than one hundred years, during the time of the French possession, and after its cession to the English, has almost perished from history. French settlements were maintained in Southern Illinois, where we have a country as old as any of the Eastern States; but Northern Illinois remained the hunting ground of the red men, the home of the Indian, till after this State, sustained by a population in the Southern portion, kept up by emigration by way of the Ohio and Southern rivers, was admitted into the Union. During this time, we only know from incidental circumstances, that in these dark days of French possession, there was a fort near the mouth of our river,—that there were Indian villages at the Calumet, and on the Des Plaines—that here were the roving grounds of the Pottawatomies—and that from the head waters of the Illinois to the Chicago River, was the common portage for the trade and transit of the goods and furs between the Indians and the traders from the Illinois River and the Lakes, and that the shipping place for these goods was from the port here at Chicago. The few white men who came here, were here not for the purpose of making settlements or the material for history, but simply as transient traders, to gain what they could in a rude traffic for furs and skins. These men, of course, had little or no use for education beyond keeping accounts, and could not be expected to leave any traces of adventure. This state of things continued till the close of the general Western Indian war, soon after the termination of the war of the Revolution. The Indians were first excited to commit depredations upon each other and upon the French or English settlers by the intrigues of the French and the English against each other, until at length the French were conquered. Not long after this occurred the war of the colonists against the English for independence—and English intrigue still stirred up this border Indian warfare; and so embittered did it become, that after peace was declared, it broke out in a general war of the Western Indians against the United States. This war was continued till the year 1795, when, having been effectually chastised by Gen. Wayne, the chiefs of the several tribes assembled by his invitation at Greenville, Ohio, and there effected a treaty of peace, which closed the war of the West. In this treaty the Indians ceded to the United States numerous small tracts of land, where forts and trading posts were established. Among these was one described as “One piece of land, six miles square, at the mouth of Chickajo (Chicago) River, emptying into the south-west end of Lake Michigan, where a fort formerly stood.” In the same treaty, a free passage by land or water, is secured from the mouth of Chicago River to the commencement of the portage between that river and the Illinois, and down the Illinois to the Mississippi. In this treaty is contained the first land trade of this city, the first step in that order of business which distinguishes Chicago above every other city of the nation, the first link in the chain of title to the thousands upon thousands of transfers that have been made of the soil thus parted with by the Indians.

Not many years passed after this “tract and parcel of land,” six miles square, had been ceded to the United States, ere the energetic proprietors thought it practicable to enter upon actual possession. A trade was already established with the Indians, which needed protection; and in those regions remote from civilization, peace could not well be maintained among the tribes, without a show of that restraining force which was at command. Accordingly, in 1804, the government built the first United States fort occupying this locality. It stood nearly on the site of the fort erected in 1816, and finally demolished in the summer of 1856. It was somewhat different in its structure from its successor. It had two block houses, one on the south-east corner, the otler at the north-west. On the north side was a sally-port, or subterranean passage, leading from the parade ground to the river, designed as a place of escape in an emergency, or for supplying the garrison with water in time of a siege. The whole was enclosed by a strong palisade of wooden pickets. At the west of the fort, and fronting north on the river, was a two-story log building, covered with split oak siding, which was the United States factory, attached to the fort. On the shore of the river, between the fort and the factory, were the root houses, or cellars of the garrison. The ground adjoining the fort on the south side, was enclosed and cultivated as a garden. The fort was furnished with three pieces of light artillery. A company of United States troops, about fifty in number, many of whom were invalids, constituted the garrison. It received the name of Fort Dearborn, by which it was ever after known as long as it continued a military post. Such was the old fort previous to 1812. Through the kindness of Mrs. J. H. Kinzie, who furnished the sketch, we are enabled to present a view of this Fort as it appeared previous to that year.

This fort stood upon the slightly elevated point on the south side of the river, near the lake shore, formed by a bend in the river just before mingling its waters with those of the lake. We see by the course of the river as it now appears, where it has not been materially changed by the work of improvement in the harbor, that just before reaching the ground of the old fort, it takes a turn to the north until opposite the fort, then coursing directly cast into the lake, forms the mouth of the harbor. This latter part, from a point north of the fort directly to the lake, is a channel cut by the Engincers of the government in 1838, to make the harbor of Chicago. Previously, the channel continued in its circular course, around the elevation on which the fort stood, half surrounding it, and flowing southerly, parallel with the lake shore, for nearly half a mile, till at last it lost itself in the lake, its mouth being choked by sand bars, obstructing the entrance of the smallest class of sail vessels. On the left bank, passing up the river, was a long low strip of land, a sandy beach and drifting sand bars, which had been formed in past days by the combined action of the two currents of the lake and river, it being the barrier or dividing ridge between the two. This tongue of land, reaching far south against our present Michigan Avenue front, was an elongated appendage of the North Side, and could only be reached by crossing at some point the Chicago river. When to open the mouth of the harbor, the channel was cut through this tongue of land, and the piers were erected, the current of the lake, caused probably by the prevalent winds which had formerly turned the channel of the river south, and had piled up this sandy barrier between them, striving still to do its will, soon filled up the open space north of the pier, and at the same time rapidly swept away. the remains of this belt, and made sad encroachments on the main land, until the fine Lake Park, an endowment to the city, extending from the old fort grounds to the next section line, nearly a mile in length, had been nearly swept away. And the encroachment steadily progressed against all the plans and piling of lake shore property owners, until arrested by the heavy stone crib work of the Illinois Central Railroad Company, laid as a protection to their track on the lake shore.

This fort then occupied one of the most beautiful sites on the lake shore. It was as high as any other point, overlooking the surface of the lake; commanding as well as any other view on this flat surface could, the prairie extending to the south, the belt of timber along the South Branch and on the North Side, and the white sand hills both to the north and south, which had for ages past been the sport of the lake winds. It stood upon a flattened mound, formed by the curve of the river at its base on its three sides. On the apex of this mound-shaped elevation stood the buildings of the old fort, its two block houses on opposite corners, enclosed by palisades, and a green grassy slope extending each way, and on the north and east side down to the edge of the ever quiet waters of Chicago river.

Up to the time of the erection of this fort no white man had made here his home. The Pottawatomie Indians had here undisputed sway. Their villages were near by. In addition to the garrison, there soon gathered here a few families of French, Canadians and half-breeds, consisting of that floating class which hang about a military post, or an Indian trading station. Whatever there was of civilized society, which has connected those days of the past in a bright chain of identity with the present, was sustained in the Kinzie family. And such was the nucleus of a community formed in the center of the North-West, but half a century ago, shut out from communication with all the world, except by the waters of the lakes, passed over but once or twice a year by a single sail vessel; or by Indian trails to other almost as isolated communities, at St. Lou-is, Detroit, or Fort Wayne. It was certainly a way-mark in the wilderness far in advance of civilization. They were a little world unto themselves. They pursued in an even way, the narrow routine of pioneer life, furnishing few incidents of sufficient note to fill up a page of history, from the time of the erection of this fort, till the one great incident, which blotted it out and its little surrounding community, the massacre in 1812.

Plan of the first Fort Dearborn drawn by John Whistler in 1808

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 (Jean Lalime> 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.¹

Fort Dearborn

NOTES:

¹On May 7, 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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