Unknown Chicago Tales

—A.M.D.G.

INTRODUCTION

The title Unknown Chicago Tales sums up this book. It’s the history you didn’t learn. These are the stories that other books skip. They are the spices that enhance the city’s distinctive flavor. This is a collection of short, seven-hundred-word sketches. The setting is Chicagoland—not just the city proper but also the suburbs and the exurbs. The content is eclectic.

Here are people—builders and bounders, politicians and sportsmen and more than a few eccentrics. Here are tales that will raise a chuckle or cause a groan. Here are some of the lesser-known classic movies that every Chicagoan should see. This book will talk about forgotten celebrities, such as the early-day children’s TV star who set the standard for Mr. Rogers or the pioneer aviator who overcame the twin obstacles of being a woman and being black. This book will visit the man who founded a 150-year-long Chicago political dynasty. This book will remember the swimmer who never lost a competitive race and the dignified newspaper editor who published the most outrageous example of fake news in the annals of journalism.

Did you know that Chicago’s long-celebrated Mr. Pioneer Settler went to court so he could keep a slave? Did you know that Sherlock Holmes’s nemesis Professor Moriarty was a real person who pulled off a caper in Chicago? What do you know about the Second Chicago Fire, which took place three years after the famous one? And why did the county jail save its gallows for fifty years?

Welcome to Unknown Chicago Tales—because Chicago history is about more than just a fire.

1.

CHICAGO BF (BEFORE THE FIRE)

FATHER OF CHICAGO

The first White man to settle in Chicago was Black. This was a popular witticism around town in the 1930s, and it says much about the attitudes of the time. Of course, the person referred to is Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable.

DuSable was the first nonindigenous settler in the area that became Chicago. We know that. But much of the historical record is fuzzy. Even his name has different versions, such as au Sable or de Saible. We also have no real idea of his physical appearance, except that he was a big man. Any DuSable biography is speculative. The story that follows is drawn from a number of different sources, some of them contradictory.

He was born in Santa Domingo (modern Haiti) around 1745. His father was a French mariner—some stories say a pirate—and his mother was an enslaved African. According to legend, when Jean Baptiste’s mother was killed during a Spanish raid, the boy swam out to his father’s ship to take refuge. After that, the older DuSable took his son to France to be educated.

Along with a friend, Jean Baptiste arrived in New Orleans in 1764. The two young men became traders, journeying up the Mississippi River and through the Midwest as far as present-day Michigan. During this time, DuSable married a Potawatomi woman and became a member of the tribe. The Potawatomi called him Black Chief.

Sometime after 1770, DuSable moved to the region known as Eschecagou, which visitors mispronounced as Chicago. He built a fur trading post at the mouth of the local river, near where the Tribune Tower now stands. It’s also said that he operated a distillery on the site. Besides French, he spoke English, Spanish, and several Native dialects.

Then came the American Revolution. Though DuSable’s trading post was far away from the war’s main theater, he was a French national with Potawatomi connections. The British were suspicious of him. In 1779 he was arrested and taken to Fort Mackinac. There DuSable somehow worked out a deal with his captors to manage a British trading post on the St. Clair River.

DuSable reclaimed his Chicago property after the war ended in 1783. Besides his twenty-two-by-forty-foot log cabin residence, he built two barns, a mill, a bakery, a dairy, a workshop, a henhouse, and a smokehouse. He was now selling pork, bread, and flour. As an adopted Potawatomi, he enjoyed good relations with the Native peoples. Many of them worked for him.

In 1800 DuSable abruptly sold his holdings. Why he did this is a mystery. One story claims that he had unsuccessfully tried to become the chief of a local Potawatomi band. Another source said that he was growing older and had become weary of managing his various businesses—he wanted a simpler life. He farmed a small piece of land near Peoria for about ten years until his wife died. Then he moved in with his granddaughter in St. Charles, Missouri.

He had once been spoken of as a wealthy man, but most of that wealth was gone then. Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable died at his granddaughter’s house on August 28, 1818, and was buried in the local Catholic cemetery. His grave site remained unmarked until 1968.

After DuSable left Chicago, his property on the riverbank eventually passed on to John Kinzie. As the years went by, Kinzie was hailed as Mr. Pioneer Settler. DuSable was forgotten.

The city’s first recognition of DuSable came in 1912, when a plaque was placed on a building near his cabin site. During the 1930s the board of education opened DuSable High School at 4934 South Wabash Avenue in the city’s African American neighborhood. Some Chicago street guides from that era list DeSaible Square at 3728 south, between 500 and 551 east.

In more recent times, DuSable has been honored in many ways. The DuSable Museum of African American History was established in Washington Park, and the postal service issued a DuSable stamp as part of its Black Heritage series. In 2006, the Chicago City Council officially recognized him as the founder of Chicago.

Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable surveys the site of his homestead. Photograph by the author.

The latest memorial to Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable is an outdoor statuary bust. Dedicated in 2009, it’s located on Michigan Avenue, just north of the river—right near his old front door.

BILLY CALDWELL THE MAN

People on the far Northwest Side of Chicago, around Cicero and Peterson Avenues, know the name Billy Caldwell. There is Billy Caldwell Woods, Billy Caldwell’s Reserve, the Billy Caldwell Golf Course, the Billy Caldwell Post of the American Legion. And, of course, there is Caldwell Avenue.

The neighborhood is called Sauganash. That was Billy Caldwell’s other name.

William Caldwell Jr. was born near Fort Niagara, in upstate New York, in 1782. He was the biological son of a British army captain and a Mohawk woman. There is some evidence that Billy’s first name was actually Thomas. When Captain Caldwell was transferred to another post, he abandoned his infant son to be raised by the Mohawks.

Sometime around 1789, the elder Caldwell sent for Billy. The captain had settled near Detroit, married an English woman, and started raising a family. Billy received a basic education and worked the family farm. The boy didn’t have much standing in the White society of the day—he was both a bastard and a half-breed. At seventeen he moved out on his own.

Billy apprenticed himself into the fur trade. By 1803 he was head clerk in the Kinzie-Forsyth firm’s post at the mouth of the Chicago River. Around this time he married into the Potawatomi tribe. His in-laws called him Sauganash, which loosely translates as Englishman.

In 1812 the Potawatomi attacked the American garrison at Fort Dearborn. The story goes that Caldwell arrived on the scene just after the battle and saved the lives of the Kinzie family. Historians have been unable to determine what actually happened.

The Battle of Fort Dearborn was one of the first skirmishes in the War of 1812. Caldwell considered himself a loyal Briton, like his father, and fought on the British side in the war. He also helped recruit Native tribes as allies. Some sources claim that he served as an advisor to the great Shawnee warrior-chief Tecumseh.

Caldwell lived in Canada after the war ended in 1815. He worked for a time in the colony’s Indian Department. Then he tried several business ventures, all of which failed. By 1820 he was back in Chicago.

The Native tribes had fought in the war to stop American expansion into their lands. Once the fighting ended, the British made no effort help them. For Caldwell, it was another in a series of disappointments he’d suffered from his father’s people. He decided to throw in with the Americans.

In Chicago, Caldwell was once again active in the Native trade. He also worked as an appraiser. Because of his tribal connections and his fluency in several languages, Caldwell smoothed relations between the Americans and the Native peoples. He made friends among the settlement’s leaders, became an American citizen, and held a number of minor political posts.

The U.S. government recognized Caldwell’s work by building Chicago’s first frame house for him, near where Holy Name Cathedral now stands. This is yet another legend that has not been documented. But in 1829 he was appointed chief of the Potawatomi. And that needs explaining.

The Potawatomi knew that the Americans were trying to force them out. They wanted to get the best deal possible. Although Caldwell was Mohawk—and only on his mother’s side—the Potawatomi thought he could help them in treaty negotiations. So, they accepted him as chief.

The Potawatomi then started signing off their land. Caldwell became a hero among the American settlers. Chicago’s first hotel was named The Sauganash in his honor. The U.S. government awarded him a 1,600-acre tract of land northwest of the city, Billy Caldwell’s Reserve.

Welcome to Sauganash, Mr. Caldwell’s neighborhood. Photograph by the author.

With the 1833 Treaty of Chicago, the Potawatomi gave up the last of their land. At fifty-one, Caldwell was an old man for the time. Now that the native peoples were leaving, there was no need for his services and no reason for him to stay in Chicago. He sold his reserve and left with his adopted tribe.

He’d lived a life on the margins, bouncing around among at least three different worlds, never fully a part of any of them. Billy Caldwell spent his final years with the Potawatomi near Council Bluffs, Iowa. He died there in 1841.

A SLAVE IN CHICAGO

Twelve Years a Slave won the Academy Award for Best Picture a few years ago. The film was based on the memoir of Solomon Northup, a free Black man who was kidnapped and sold into slavery during the 1840s. Four decades before Northup’s ordeal, something similar happened in Chicago.

In 1804 John Kinzie moved into the old DuSable cabin on the north bank of the Chicago River and began trading with the Native tribes. Thomas Forsyth Jr., his half-brother, was in business with him. That spring, the partners took on an indentured servant named Jeffrey Nash.

His indenture papers describe Nash as a Negro man. According to that contract, he was to serve Kinzie and Forsyth for a period of seven years. For their part, the two traders were to provide him with meat, drink, apparel, washing, and lodging fitting for a servant.

In return for these benefits, Nash bound himself to faithfully obey the commands of his masters. He would do no damage to them or their goods, and would keep their secrets. He would be on call, day and night, for whenever his service was needed.

Nash agreed to a personal code of conduct as well. During the seven years of his indenture, he agreed that he would not play cards or dice. He would not frequent taverns without permission from Kinzie or Forsyth. He also pledged that he would not commit fornication nor contract matrimony.

On May 22, 1804, Nash put his mark to the indenture. Since Illinois was not yet a state, the papers were sent to the territorial capital in Detroit.

Kinzie and Forsyth operated a second trading post in Peoria. That was Forsyth’s principal residence. Sometime after the 1804 indenture was instituted, Forsyth took Nash there. And sometime later, Nash ran away. He eventually made his way to New Orleans, where he got married and started a family.

The traders were not about to just let Nash go. In 1813, they began proceedings in Louisiana to get him back. The case was labeled Kensy [sic] and Forsyth, plaintiffs v. Jeffrey Nash, defendant.

Now the plaintiffs claimed that Nash was not a free-born servant under indenture but was actually their slave. Residents of Peoria had recognized Nash as Forsyth’s slave. Nash himself was said to have admitted being a slave and had run away when Forsyth broke a promise to free him. The traders also produced a bill of sale, dated September 5, 1803, that transferred the ownership of Nash to them.

Looking at the case many years later, some historians have concluded that the 1803 bill of sale must have been a forgery. If Nash had already been their slave, why would Kinzie and Forsyth go to the trouble of