Wau-bun, the Early Day in the Northwest, by Mrs. John H. Kinzie (Juliette
Augusta Magill)

Published: Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1873

Note: Takes place in the early 1830s when "the Northwest" was IL/MI/WI/MN.
Author, married in Virginia, was mother of 1st white child born in the
city of Chicago, IL. Has many Indian, military, and historical accounts of
events of the area

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                                  WAU-BUN,
                                    THE
                        EARLY DAY IN THE NORTHWEST.

                                    BY
                           MRS. JOHN H. KINZIE,
                                OF CHICAGO.

  "If we but knew the exact meaning of the word 'WAU-BUN,' we should be
                             happy."--Critic.

       "WAU-BUN--The dawn--the break of day."--Ojibeway Vocabulary.



                           LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
                                COPYRIGHT
                                No. 6390D
                             WASHINGTON D.C.

                              PHILADELPHIA:
                         J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.

                                  1873.



        Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by
                         J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.,
        In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.




Page v

PREFACE.

Every work partaking of the nature of an autobiography is supposed to
demand an apology to the public. To refuse such a tribute, would be to
recognize the justice of the charge, so often brought against our
countrymen--of a too great willingness to be made acquainted with the
domestic history and private affairs of their neighbors.

It is, doubtless, to refute this calumny that we find travellers, for the
most part, modestly offering some such form of explanation as this, to the
reader: "That the matter laid before him was, in the first place, simply
letters to friends, never designed to be submitted to other eyes, and only
brought forward now at the solicitation of wiser judges than the author
himself."

No such plea can, in the present instance, be offered. The record of
events in which the writer had herself no share, was preserved in
compliance with the suggestion of a revered relative, whose name often
appears in the following pages. "My child," she would say, "write these
things down, as I tell them to you. Hereafter our children, and even
strangers, will feel interested in hearing the story of our early lives
and sufferings." And it is a

Page vi

matter of no small regret and self-reproach, that much, very much, thus
narrated was, through negligence, or a spirit of procrastination, suffered
to pass unrecorded.

With regard to the pictures of domestic life and experience (preserved, as
will be seen, in journals, letters, and otherwise), it is true their
publication might have been deferred until the writer had passed away from
the scene of action; and such, it was supposed, would have been their lot--
that they would only have been dragged forth hereafter, to show to a
succeeding generation what "The Early Day" of our Western homes had been.
It never entered the anticipations of the most sanguine that the march of
improvement and prosperity would, in less than a quarter of a century,
have so obliterated the traces of "the first beginning," that a vast and
intelligent multitude would be crying out for information in regard to the
early settlement of this portion of our country, which so few are left to
furnish.

An opinion has been expressed, that a comparison of the present times with
those that are past, would enable our young people, emigrating from their
luxurious homes at "the East," to bear, in a spirit of patience and
contentment, the slight privations and hardships they are at this day
called to meet with. If, in one instance, this should be the case, the
writer may well feel happy to have incurred even the charge of egotism, in
giving thus much of her own history.

It may be objected that all that is strictly personal, might have been
more modestly put forth under the name

Page vii

of a third person; or that the events themselves and the scenes might have
been described, while those participating in them might have been kept
more in the background. In the first case, the narrative would have lost
its air of truth and reality--in the second, the experiment would merely
have been tried of dressing up a theatre for representation, and omitting
the actors.

Some who read the following sketches may be inclined to believe that a
residence among our native brethren and an attachment growing out of our
peculiar relation to them, have exaggerated our sympathies, and our sense
of the wrongs they have received at the hands of the whites. This is not
the place to discuss that point. There is a tribunal at which man shall be
judged for that which he has meted out to his fellow-man.

May our countrymen take heed that their legislation shall never unfit them
to appear "with joy, and not with grief," before that tribunal!

Chicago, July, 1855.

Page viii [blank]



Page ix

CONTENTS:

CHAPTER I [1]. Departure from Detroit ... 15

CHAPTER II [2]. Michilimackinac--American Fur Company--Indian Trade--
Mission School--Point St. Ignace ... 19

CHAPTER III [3]. Arrival at Green Bay--Mrs. Arnot--General Root--Political
Dispatches--A Summerset--Shanty-Town--M. Rolette--Indian Morning Song--Mr.
Cadle's Mission--Party at Mrs. Doty's--Misses Grignon--Mrs. Baird's Party--
Mrs. Beall ... 27

CHAPTER IV [4]. Arrangements for Travelling--Fox River--Judge Doty--Judge
Reeume--M. Boilvin--Canadian Voyageurs: their Songs--The Kakalin--Wish-tay-
yun--Rev. Eleazar Williams--Passage through the Rapids--Grande Chute--
Krissman ... 37

CHAPTER V [5]. Beautiful Encampment--Winnebago Lake--Miss Four-Legs--
Garlic Island--Wild Rice ... 51

CHAPTER VI [6]. Breakfast at Betty Moore's--Judge Law--Fastidiousness;
what came of it ... 58

CHAPTER VII [7]. Butte des Morts--French Cognomens--Serpentine Course of
Fox River--Lake Puckaway--Lao de Boeuf--Fort Winnebago ... 62

Page x

CHAPTER VIII [8]. Major and Mrs. Twiggs--A Davis--An Indian Funeral--
Conjugal Affliction--Indian Chiefs; Talk-English--The Wild-Cat--The Dandy
... 68

CHAPTER IX [9]. Housekeeping--The First Dinner ... 77

CHAPTER X [10]. Indian Payment--Pawnee Blanc--The Washington Woman--
Raising Funds ... 80

CHAPTER XI [11]. Louisa--Garrison Life--Dr. Newhall--Affliction--Domestic
Accommodations--Ephraim--New-Year's Day--Native Custom--Day-kau-ray's
Views of Education--Captain Harney's Mince-Pie ... 88

CHAPTER XII [12]. Lizzie Twiggs--Preparation for a Journey--The Regimental
Tailor ... 98

CHAPTER XIII [13]. Departure from Fort Winnebago--Duck Creek--Upset in a
Canoe--Pillon--Encamping in Winter--Four Lakes--Indian Encampment--Blue
Mound--Morrison's--A Tennessee Woman ... 103

CHAPTER XIV [14]. Rev. Mr. Kent--Losing One's Way--A Tent Blown Down--
Discovery of a Fence--Hamilton's Diggings--Frontier Housekeeping--Wm. S.
Hamilton--A Miner--Hard Riding--Kellogg's Grove ... 113

CHAPTER XV [15]. Rook River--Dixon's--John Ogie--Missing the Trail--Hours
of Trouble--Famine in the Camp--Relief ... 124

CHAPTER XVI [16]. A Pottowattamie Lodge--A Tempest--Piche's--Hawley's--The
Du Page--Mr. Dogherty--The Aux Plaines--Mrs. Lawton--Wolf Point--Chicago
... 135

CHAPTER XVII [17]. Fort Dearborn--Chicago in 1831--First Settlement of
Chicago--John Kinzie, Sen.--Fate of George Forsyth--Trading Posts--
Canadian Voyageurs--M. St. Jean--Louis la Liberte ... 144

Page xi

CHAPTER XVIII [18]. Massacre at Chicago ... 159

CHAPTER XIX [19]. Massacre, continued--Mrs. Helm--Ensign Ronan--Captain
Wells--Mrs. Holt--Mrs. Heald--The Sau-ga-nash--Sergeant Griffith--Mrs.
Burns--Black Partridge and Mrs. Lee--Nau-non-gee and Sergeant Hays ... 174

CHAPTER XX [20]. Treatment of American Prisoners by the British--Captivity
of Mr. Kinzie--Battle on Lake Erie--Cruelty of General Proctor's Troops--
General Harrison--Rebuilding of Fort Dearborn--Red Bird--A Humorous
Incident--Cession of the Territory around Chicago ... 195

CHAPTER XXI [21]. Severe Spring Weather--Pistol-Firing--Milk Punch--A
Sermon--Pre-emption to "Kinzie's Addition"--Liberal Sentiments ... 204

CHAPTER XXII [22]. The Captives ... 209

CHAPTER XXIII [23]. Colonel McKillip--Second-Sight--Ball at Hickory Creek--
Arrival of the "Napoleon"--Troubles of Embarkation ... 226

CHAPTER XXIV [24]. Departure for Fort Winnebago--A Frightened Indian--
Encampment at Dunkley's Grove--Horses Lost--Getting Mired--An Ague cured
by a Rattlesnake--Crystal Lake--Story of the Little Rail ... 235

CHAPTER XXV [25]. Return Journey, continued--Soldiers' Encampment--Big-
Foot Lake--Village of Maunk-suck--A Young Gallant--Climbing--Mountain-
Passes--Turtle Creek--Kosh-ko-nong--Crossing a Marsh--Twenty-Mile Prairie--
Hastings's Woods--Duck Creek--Brunet--Home ... 246

CHAPTER XXVI [26]. The Agency--The Blacksmith's House--Building a Kitchen--
Four-Legs, the Dandy--Indian Views of Civilization--Efforts of M.
Mazzuchelli--Charlotte ... 261

Page xii

CHAPTER XXVII [27]. The Cut-Nose--The Fawn--Visit of White Crow--Parting
with Friends--Krissman--Louisa again--The Sunday-School ... 269

CHAPTER XXVIII [28]. Plante--Removal--Domestic Inconveniences--Indian
Presents--Grandmother Day-kan-ray--Indian Customs--Indian Dances--The
Medicine-Dance--Indian Graves--Old Boilvin's Wake ... 275

CHAPTER XXIX [29]. Indian Tales--Story of the Red Fox ... 285

CHAPTER XXX [30]. Story of Shee-shee-banze ... 293

CHAPTER XXXI [31]. Visit to Green Bay--Disappointment--Return Journey--
Knaggs's--Blind Indian--Ma-zhee-gaw-gaw Swamp--Bellefontaine ... 300

CHAPTER XXXII [32]. Commencement of the Sauk War--Winnebago Council--
Crely--Follett-Bravery--The Little Elk--An Alarm--Man-Eater and his Party--
An Exciting Dance ... 310

CHAPTER XXXIII [33]. Fleeing from the Enemy--Mata--Old Smoker--Meeting
with Menomonees--Raising the Wind--Garlic Island--Winnebago Rapids--The
Waubanakees--Thunder- Storm--Vitelle--Guardapie--Fort Howard ... 322

CHAPTER XXXIV [34]. Panic at Green Bay--Tidings of Cholera--Green Bay
Flies--Doyle, the Murderer--Death of Lieutenant Foster--A Hardened
Criminal--Good News from the Seat of War--Departure for Home--Shipwreck at
the Grand Chute--A Wet Encampment--An Unexpected Arrival--Reinforcement of
Volunteers--La Grosse Americaine--Arrival at Home ... 334

CHAPTER XXXV [35]. Conclusion of the War--Treaty at Rock Island--Cholera
among the Troops--Wau-kaun-kah--Wild-Cat's Frolic at the Mee-kan--
Surrender of the Winnebago Prisoners ... 347

Page xiii

CHAPTER XXXVI [36]. Delay in the Annual Payment--Scalp Alarm--Arrival of
Governor Porter--Payment--Escape of the Prisoners--Neighbors Lost--
Reappearance--Robineau--Bellaire ... 356

CHAPTER XXXVII [37]. Agathe--"Kinzie's Addition"--Tomah--Indian Acuteness--
Indian Simplicity ... 365

CHAPTER XXXVIII [38]. Conclusion--Famine--Day-kau-ray's Daughter--Noble Resolution of
a Chief--Bread for the Hungry--Rev. Mr. Kent--An Escaped Prisoner--The Cut-
Nose again--Leave-taking with our Red Children--Departure from Fort
Winnebago--Chicago's First Child Dead 1909... 373

APPENDIX. ... 381
  I. Black Hawks account of the Sauk War
  II. Joseph Crely, 139 years old
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