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Show AN IADU MASSACRE. ElLLI.Va Ot Tlir I lO'NEUtS AT FUBT IICIKBOKX, C1I1CAOO, 111 TUT I-UTTAWOTOIIE3. One week of April In the memorable memor-able year of 1E1J bat iureJ oer the beads of Chicago's earliest pioneers pion-eers when a ternblb rumor was spread one afternoon with the rapl J-lij J-lij of fire from house to bouse hiiJ tent to tent, Informing the settlers tiers on the north of the rler anil thu soldiers on the south bank that tho hostile Indians were ccmins and were murdering every white penon in their coure. ('ould the he-etoforelrleudl acting 1'oUawot-amies 1'oUawot-amies bare proved treacherous? Could UieCalumet band have taken adran&geof tlielrinftirmaUon of the Insect position of the settlers and the inelfcctlre condition of Captain Ueald's small company of ague-strickeu ague-strickeu regulars in trie old fort, and turned like snakes on lliclr kind whitefriends theKinzies,tbe Ia-cs, the Burns and other' Had the Ha uai-h band arrived to carrj out their dire threats of many monUn' stand. IngT ftomethin,; of the kind must be true, for a man and a Ix3, arriving arriv-ing at tlie fort in an exhausted condition from Mr. lice's farm, out near where the south rher lumber district now lies, or "Hardfcabbk," as It was then called, declared that thej had barely escaped from the bloody bauds ot a dozen savages In war jalnt, who liad entered the farmrr'it ranch, Killed and scaled him and another man and carried ofTthe n omtn as prisoners. A visit to the place by soldiers confirmed the story of thei)rcadfulscene,cven the faithful dogs of Mr. Lee being found dead beside the body of their unfortunate master. The Chicago masracreof 1812 had begun' Some weeks passed in ominous freedom from the visits of Indians, who were uniting alt the surrounding surround-ing bauds as it afterward proved for a general onslaught against the early fort, which was now the home and sole protection of the white people. peo-ple. A dispatch from Central Hull announcing a declaration of war with England also ordered the evacuation eva-cuation of Fort Dearborn and a return re-turn ot the troops to Fort Wayne, In Indiana. The order was a mistake under the circumstances as re vealed b the events shortly followingbut follow-ingbut Captain Heal J, tl e officer in command, wa a soldier, and against the advice of so good and sensible a man as Mr. Kinzie, and in the face of the pleadings of Mrs Kinzie and lib own w He, thought only of an Immediate resiwnH: to the directions of his superior otlicer. "I do not like the outlook," said Mr. Kinzie. "As our wived and daughters have amused themselves la Living battledore about the parade grounds. ISanniougeeof the Calumet baud, and other Indians who have come prowling about of late, have been heard to say In their wu tongues that soon the white ladles will be working with the xjuaws in the corn fields " .But, without endeavoring to secure se-cure -reinforcement, Captain Hiald adhered to hisiurpotetoobeyorders and immediately leave the fort, taking every person with bim who cliche to go under escort of the troops to If ort Wayne. Kverj thing being in readinets, on the uiornlug of August ). 1S1J, Mr. Kiuzie Intrusted In-trusted his wife, four little children, a clerk in his store and two servants to a couple of friendly Indian boatmen and the waters of Kike MIchigau, with lostuctions lo Ltud at the mouth of the St. Joepu river, where he would intercipt them, for ha had decided to go with the truj- in thehope thathis Influence with the Indians would aid to divert an attack. He then joined C'ujUIn Heald and his trooje, with the few families which were moving out with him to tho mutlo of fife and drums from the south bank uf the Chicago river, near its mouth, southward, onward to w bat? Tho road on the ridge along the lake's shore was followed down to the sand hills, which et in after a march of le-s than two mile, when Aiddenl.v Captain WelL, a white icout, who beaded tho little pally of Mianils leading the column, called call-ed a halt, and Kilting tun to his , horse rode furiously back to the car ' tain, cxclilmlng "Thiy art about to attack us from the hills and the pnine I-?voih.; it into line for a fight."' j-i'b hundred Pollamotamies who lu 1 fur several days feigned friendship appeared from behind the hlh Jntled sand heaps where the vit duct now erases Slate street al highlccnth; behind them fiber wild forces not seen in the r-0lon before this; the ugly Calumet band Dot far away and members of the Wabash band hundreds and hundreds hun-dreds of tho red dev lb, painted and bedecked with all the paraphernalia of barbarous hostility. And rounding round-ing up on horseback and afoot, with savage yells they pressed forward toward their common prey. The troops brought Into line, the women wo-men hurried back a little to the banks of the lake, the children huddled into one graft covered luggage lug-gage wagon, the friend!) Miamis in cowardice galloping away from the doomed -pot these were acts of but a few moments moment which brought a little handful of less than 100 white fighters face to face with a horde of red fiends bent on death and mutilation. Trie troote, headed by their misguided mis-guided ca.tain, behaved with the utmost gallantry. The) met they bent forward upon this cruel cyclone death, as they poured volleys of hot lead into the foe and received In return a withering hail of bullets from the well armed Indians. The odds were fo fearful, however, that soon the engagement became what It has everslncebeen called simply a massacre. Fifty Indians to each white man it became a slaughter In which Indian vied with Indian for the possession of scalps of the white victims who had teen literally literal-ly chopped down with battle axes, and the climax of horror was only reached when a red bm'e sprang Into In-to the covered wagon where those little children were nestling In fear and pitilessly tomahawked the entire en-tire group The troops were entirely destroy ed, but not until many of the attacking at-tacking party lay stretched dead In the sand. The women taken prisoners prison-ers were compelled to see the scalps of their husbands, friends and Children hanging Irom the blood-clotted blood-clotted belts ot .heir demonalcal c-i tors, and, with tho settlers who remained alive, were marched to tho wigwams of the victors, where the squaws, frenzied with the lots of relatives In battle, heaped new indignities on the survivors. Mr. Kinzie escaped death owing to his long acquaintance with the natives, and was soon Joined by his family, which had witnessed from thUr boat enough of the terrors of that awful August day to confirm their Worst fears. ITe and they, with the other whl'e people, were held as prisoners of h ar, either at the site of the first Fort Dearborn, which had been burned the afternoon of the massacre massa-cre orln charge of Topee-wee-bee's band at SL Joseph, now In Micbl Ran until the following fall, when they were turned over to the then allies of the Indians the British agents at Detroit. .New interest Is a routed In the terrible ter-rible scene of that zn!d-Augut forenoon fore-noon of IBIS through the recent determination de-termination of the Chicago Historical Histori-cal society to suitably commemorate the eighteenth anniversary of the event by erecting an inscribed monument mon-ument at tho foot or Eighteenth street and the proffer by Mr. George Pullman of sufficient funds to carry out tho plans. The monument is expected to cost $25,000, and Its site is designated by the dead trunk of a large tree which has long been pointed out by early settlers as a landmark of the Indian massacre of 1S12. at'OffoGTole. |