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In memory of Nickie, who typed my first manuscript
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am immensely grateful to the writers and historians whose work about nineteenth-century America/Chicago has been a source of inspiration to me, and to the many people—particularly my family, close friends and colleagues in Bath—who have encouraged me in my writing endeavors. Special thanks are due to: my agents, Rebecca Carter and Emma Parry; my editors, Molly Slight and Caroline Zancan; my first U.S. editor, Michael Signorelli; and key early readers Tom Melk, Beverly Stark and Tricia Wastvedt. Behind the scenes, I would not have survived without Eleonora’s love, support and optimism.
Almost every person I met regarded Chicago as the germ of an immense city.
—Patrick Shirreff, A Tour through North America (1835)
The habitual weakness of the American people is to assume that they have made themselves great, whereas their greatness has been in large measure thrust upon them by a bountiful providence which has given them forests, mines, fertile soil, and a variety of climate to enable them to sustain themselves in plenty.
—Isaac Stephenson, Recollections of a Long Life, 1829–1915 (1915)
We struck the home-trail now, and in a few hours were in that astonishing Chicago—a city where they are always rubbing the lamp, and fetching up the genii, and contriving and achieving new impossibilities. It is hopeless for the occasional visitor to try to keep up with Chicago—she outgrows his own prophecies faster than he can make them. She is always a novelty; for she is never the Chicago you saw when you passed through the last time.
—Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi (1883)
1800–1812
1800
THE FIRST SETTLER
Extract from Chicago: An Alternative History 1800–1900 by Professor Milton Winship, University of Chicago A. C. McClurg & Co., 1902
IN THE BEGINNING was a game of chess, and on the outcome of that game would hinge the destiny of Chicago. That is my proposition, and that is what my Alternative History shall seek to demonstrate. Doubtless, there will be readers who find the notion preposterous. From them, I ask for patience. Just as playing chess takes time, so too does my explanation, and just as chess can be complicated, so too is this history.
Let us cast our minds back to May 6, 1800. Jean Baptiste Pointe de Sable was seated in a slat-backed rocker on the front porch of his mansion in the late afternoon. A gentle breeze was up, the air wafted sweet with the flowerful scents of early summer, the mosquitoes were not yet on the wing. There was a magnificent view, had he chosen to admire it: to his left, the setting sun shone a coppery light upon the waters of the great Lake, while directly before him stretched the greenery of the vegetable garden. Beyond, his horse grazed in a paddock that led down to the riverbank where a line of Lombardy poplars he had planted many years before cast lengthy shadows. Pointe de Sable, had he stood up, would have been able to see a chance of sandhills on the far side of the river, marked here and there by stunted cedars, dwarf willows and pine trees. This was the same formation of sandhills that, twelve years later, would provide cover for the Potawatomies who attacked the American garrison in retreat from Fort Dearborn. But on that balmy evening in 1800, no fort had yet been built. There were no soldiers. The only people who lived at Echicagou (as it was called), apart from Pointe de Sable and his family, were a few Frenchmen in his employ.
Normally, at this time in the evening, he would relax with a horn of whiskey and a pipe of tobacco. He might take the opportunity to reflect on his good fortune, on the trade he had developed, on the prosperity he had secured for his family. The extent of that prosperity would have been evident enough to an observer from the cluster of outbuildings that lay on the other side of the mansion. There was a dairy, a bakehouse, a stable, a smoking house, a poultry coop, a workshop and a warehouse. His livestock comprised thirty cattle full grown, two spring calves, thirty-eight hogs, forty-four hens and two mules, in addition to the horse already mentioned. And that is not yet taking into account his wheat field, nor the income he earned as a trader. He dealt in everything from furs to guns, calico to corn, tobacco to whiskey.
Perhaps, though, rather than indulging in self-congratulation, Pointe de Sable might have ventured instead into nostalgia, remembering the day he first crossed the Echicagou portage as a young man in his twenties, bound for a farming life in Peoria, with not a notion in his head that one day this desolate, marshy place would become his home. Nobody lived here then. Echicagou was nothing but a place of passage, a portage between the Lake and the Illinois River, frozen in winter, swampish in spring, and cussed hot in summer.
Those are the kinds of thoughts that might have passed through his mind, had this been any ordinary day. But it was not. Pointe de Sable was tuckered out with anxiety as he sat in his rocker that evening. He drank no whiskey and smoked no pipe. And he admired no view because his eyes were tight shut. All his thoughts were concentrated on one matter only. And it would hardly puzzle a dozen Philadelphia lawyers to unriddle what that matter was. The most important contest of his life was about to take place. If he won, his unwelcome visitor had promised to leave and never come back. But if things went the other way, if the unimaginable happened and he lost, the person to leave Echicagou and never return would be himself.
Presently, all the particulars pertaining to that extraordinary contest shall be revealed. First, let us establish some facts.
* * *
Mr. Pointe de Sable was born in about 1745, though exactly where remains a mystery. His father came from the Dandonneau family of La Rochelle in western France, while his mother was a free-born slave. Pointe de Sable, in other words, was a mulatto. And that fact, I believe, is why my fellow historians have attempted to gloss over the identity of the true founder of Chicago, instead conferring the title on a white man called John Kinzie, whose own parentage was of dubious worth, to say nothing of his character.
In the historical records, we first come across Pointe de Sable in 1779, by which time he is about thirty-four years old and a successful trader in furs and sundry other items in what is now Michigan City. It was a time of fighting and confusion. The British, claiming he had sided with the French, imprisoned Pointe de Sable in their fort at Michilimackinac. The remarkable story of how he came to be released from jail and employed by his former captors at the Pinery, we shall leave for our protagonist himself to describe. The Pinery, incidentally, stood on the site now known as St. Clair, and in one of those twists of fate that can only be seen with the benefit of hindsight, much of that district’s fine timber would later be used to build Chicago.
When Pointe de Sable moved to Echicagou in 1785, it was an inhospitable, mosquito-infested wilderness. Over the next few years, he cleared a swath of land (between today’s North Water Street and Michigan Avenue) and built the mansion and outbuildings already mentioned. In these endeavors, he was helped by Catherine (her Indian name was Kitihawa), a squaw
from the local Potawatomie tribe who became his wife. And so it came to pass that by 1800, with his land, livestock and trading post, he had become as established and successful at Echicagou, in his own small way, as a Potter Palmer or a Marshall Field.
One afternoon in early May, his six-year-old grandson Wabaunsee alerted Pointe de Sable to the imminent arrival of visitors. Two figures were visible near the landing stage on the far side of the Lake. The boy, having reported this news, ran off to play his “cyotie cat” trick on them. Deep in the woods, overlooking the main path, he kept a wild tabby cat he had trained to hide in the branches of a cottonwood tree, from where it would hiss and spit as strangers drew near. When they passed below, the cat would hurl itself down into the undergrowth, howling like a coyote. It was an act that never failed to startle first-time visitors, and a prank his grandfather had forbidden him to play.
We will now let Pointe de Sable himself describe what happened that afternoon. Please bear in mind that our founder never saw the inside of a schoolroom, and make allowances, therefore, for the quirks of diction and spelling that I transcribe here as they were originally set down.
Extract from the journal of Jean Baptiste Pointe de Sable
Mai 2 the yere 1800
This day comes truble to Pointe Sable. Happns like this. I ridin to the lake from Kaskaskia on mine hoss Ladie Strafford when I sees litle Wobonsee runnin my way. I pulls the hoss up sharp and she hisses like a fire puttin out, afore I dissend carefull to ground. My legs ake after ridin and gone done stiff and I spose thats the ole Reeper comin after me. Look at me, too bent to swing a full ax and hair all curlish gray like a cloud tho there aint none today, its a still evenin and nuthin moves nowhere, othrwise the boy skimmin full chisel thro the grass.
Visitrs, tells Wobonsee, yellin in his pipeskweek voice. Visitrs 1/2 league from the landin, and he comes runnin on and dont ware no shirt nor shoes and his hair all streamin blak like a tale, and I deceivd visitrs be good news for that we needs more powdr and shot and whiskey. I tether the ole Lady Strafford and she looks ten times grummer than the one in the painting, for that shes wantin the stable door and fresh hay and a daintie pillow for her proudliness. Next moment Wobonsee comes skiddin to a stop afore me and stands the copy of a brave, tho he onely done six sumers, and togethr we spy the men far off. The boy soon runs away westwind and the world turns peacefull till a flok of wild geese they go aclamorin and beatin them wings in a frenziness and twist high in the air and beak at the pinky sky afore divin to the water, and the waves come risin and frothin and that noise it sounds like a war cry and I feel afeard, lookin at my reflexshun in the water that was clear afore, but is now gone crakked.
When I go home the first thing I sees is a wite man lookin like a gost. Tells me to brung whiskey. I ask him polite his busyness and he tells me stop askin dang stupid questions dont I be seein hes lukky to escape with his life for he been attakt by wild beests in the woods. And I think to tell him no need for worryin hisself for the onely beest in them woods be litle Wobonsees cyotie, that aint nuthin more than a noisome tabby cat, but I dont say nuthin. I brung him whiskey and leeve him alone till my ole frend Lalime arrives, puffin his breth for that he aint no peg pony, and Lalime he tells me this visitr he brung be considrable of a chief from St Josefs, and he called Kinzie man.
After Cathrin feeds us chiken meat and jonniecakes, Kinzie man wipes his mustash and belchs like a bufalo. He dont say much, exept onely that the paintings on my walls be mighty girlish. Then he takes mine rockin chair from off the veranda, unbuttns his cote, stuffs tobcco in his cheek and tells Lalime to brung more whiskey. Lalime, he wants to make us frends. Probly thats why he say Kinzie man is the beatingst chess player in St Josefs. He knows I play chess, but he dont have no idea how deep it lays in mine bones. No, Lalime dont know the way mine father lernt me to play when I was a boy, that I nevr forgotn. I replie we can game, if the visitr wants. But Kinzie man dont want to play nuthin. Lalime has anuther idea, that I tell a story to pass the time, for he knows I have some up mine sleeve. In the end I agree, evn I dont like to raconterise to a man I dont trust.
Chess was still in mine mind. I guess thats why the storie I tellin them goes like this. When I was a prisonr in fort Maklimakinak I oftntimes challinged gainst the gards at chess and beat them. One day the guvner calls for me. Hes herd this Negro he play chess good, and he dont beleeve it. I am brung to sit in the guvners parlor. The chessbord on the table in front of me is prettyer than I evr seen afore with peeces made from walrus ivory and carvd jus fine, and I gottn a hankerin that if I ever escape I find a bord like that misself one day.
The guvner marchs in. He wares a long red cote and brassie butons and a porcpine fether in his hat and he talks in a slantendikular way, like a rope gone done tied up his tonge. I dont like his proudliness, and I knows I must lose gainst him but I thinkin to misself how to take the shine off of his viktry. Thats why I tells him I can beat him even with mine eyes shut, for that I figger his viktry dont be so gloryous if he win a blind man.
The guvner be insultd and his temper go ablazin, and he says if I wantin to play blinded then by Jove and by Darn I shall. When hes cooled down its too late to think again, for I seen this in the English, how they be afeard to look weak and foolsh in front of themselfs and for a guvner to be changin his mind, this a skeery thing to do.
They make me blinded with a blak stokkin. Then the guvnor gets anuther idea, how to shame me propper. If I winnin the game, I can have mine libertie, he tells, wich is just and reasnble, aint it? Yessir, thank you sir, I must say, most reasnble. But if I losin, he go send me in chains on the first ship to the Indies. I sits there, cussin my fat lips that gets me in this predikment, while the guvner makes an Englsh open, wite pawn E4. I take a long breth, and try to remembr all I know. And wen I can see good the pikter of the chessbord in the darkness of mine mind, I tell the guvners adjitant to move for me the blak pawn E6, wich is the French defense.
I always make a pause now in the tellin of this tale. I reckon I do this for to allow the listners to vision the moment and ask what happns next and how kwik I lose and how come I get all the way bak from the Indies. But Kinzie man dont say a word, onely sits there in mine rockin chair, drinkin whiskey and chewin tobcco and spittin on the floor. He looks at me like he dont beleeve a word of it. So I niver tell what happns next and dont say nuthin more, exept onely to misself, that this Kinzie man be the kind that always wants to play the biggst toad in the puddle.
* * *
How boorish of Mr. Kinzie not to want to know what happened next. Although we learn later in the journal that Pointe de Sable won the game, and thereby gained his freedom, we never hear how on earth he managed it. We must assume, though, that it was executed with aplomb, given that a further entry reveals the regard in which he would come to be held by the very same English governor who spoke in that “slantendikular” way. Pointe de Sable’s journal discloses that it was the governor—his name was Sinclair—who taught him how to write. It was also the governor who introduced him to the world of fine art. That was doubtless why, at the time of Mr. Kinzie’s visit to Echicagou, there were no less than twenty-eight paintings in Pointe de Sable’s possession, displayed on the walls of his mansion.
His granddaughter Eulalie recalled that, for her, two of those paintings were of particular importance. The first pictured the English Lady Strafford (after whom Pointe de Sable named his horse) at her country seat, surrounded by some of her most prized possessions. One reason she remembered it so well, she would admit to me in conversation late in her life, was she knew it was “a favorite of Gray Curls.” Gray Curls was the secret nickname she used for her grandfather. Many years later, this painting would come into the ownership of Chicago’s first mayor, Mr. William Ogden, and hang in the entrance hall of his imposing North Side house. The second painting was a slight piece called The First Mansion at Echicagou by an unknown artist. Eulalie had a sentimental attachment to this work because it depicted her childhood home, complet
e with her beloved Gray Curls seated in his rocker on the porch.
I would like to dwell for a little longer on Eulalie as the four-year-old girl she was in 1800. By all accounts, she was strikingly beautiful. Her full lips, limpid eyes and high cheekbones, set off by a light brown skin, lent a particularity to her features that was extremely unusual in a child of such tender age. Most remarkable of all was the bounteous head of fair hair she had inherited from her father, the handsome, dissolute Jean Jacques Pelletier. Those magnificent tresses settled in natural waves and an earlock curl dangled in front of her left ear, a style she copied from the painting already mentioned, Lady Strafford’s Vision. On Sundays, when their neighbors gathered in the Pointe de Sable home for prayer, she would be slicked up like a lady. And all this finery, readers will be surprised to hear, was achieved in complete silence.
For Eulalie, poor child, had never been heard to utter a single, solitary, intelligible word. Communication was achieved through the eyes and hands, through smiles and sighs. Although there was no doubting her intelligence or emotions or powers of observation, she would not speak. Many remedies had been tried, including a mix of herbs, bear dung and crushed elk bone administered by a notable Potawatomie witch doctor. Nothing had worked. It was a mystery to her family and, needless to say, a powerful worry.
On the first morning of Mr. Kinzie’s visit, Eulalie positioned herself in one corner of the spaceful keeping room. It was a splendid day. The front door stood wide open and sunlight streamed inside. There was a dazzle to the polished puncheon floor. At the far end, around a low table draped by an embroidered cloth of French lace, stood the armchairs in which Pointe de Sable and Jean Lalime had sat the night before, together with the rocker appropriated by Mr. Kinzie. In front of the table was a fireplace. The walls were brightened by Pointe de Sable’s paintings, arranged in close proximity to each other. The exception was Lady Strafford’s Vision, which hung alone above the finest piece of furniture in the house, a cabinet of French walnut. Through its glass doors, the family’s best utensils were on display—pewter pots, clay jugs, china plates and a tall pair of fluted silver candlesticks. Beside the cabinet stood one other rarity that must be mentioned for the significant role it shall be called upon to play in this story. Enthroned on its own stool stood the largest copper kettle in the household, said to hold a measure of ten gallons. It was maintained in gleaming, pristine condition.
Make Me a City Page 1