Editing Fort Dearborn (section)

== First Fort Dearborn ==
[[File:Birds eye view of first Fort Dearborn.jpg|thumb|left|Artist's rendering of a bird's-eye view of the original Fort Dearborn]]
On March 9, 1803, [[Henry Dearborn]], the [[United States Secretary of War|Secretary of War]], wrote to [[Jean François Hamtramck|Colonel Jean Hamtramck]], the commandant of [[Detroit]], instructing him to have an officer and six men survey the route from Detroit to Chicago, and to make a preliminary investigation of the situation at Chicago.<ref>{{Harvnb|Quaife|1933|pp=65–66}}</ref> [[John Whistler|Captain John Whistler]] was selected as commandant of the new post, and set out with six men to complete the survey. The survey completed, on July 14, 1803, a company of troops set out to make the overland journey from Detroit to Chicago. Whistler and his family made their way to Chicago on a [[schooner]] called the ''Tracy''. The troops reached their destination on August 17.<ref name="Pacyga13">{{Harvnb|Pacyga|2009|p=13}}</ref> The ''Tracy'' was anchored about half a mile offshore, unable to enter the Chicago River due to a sandbar at its mouth. Julia Whistler, the wife of Captain Whistler's son, Lieutenant William Whistler, later related that 2000 Indians gathered to see the ''Tracy''.<ref>{{Harvnb|Currey|1912|p=24}}</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Quaife|1933|p=72}}</ref> The troops had completed the construction of the fort by the summer of 1804;<ref>{{Harvnb|Quaife|1933|p=75}}</ref> it was a log-built fort enclosed in a double [[stockade]], with two [[blockhouse]]s (see diagram above).<ref name="Pacyga13" /> The fort was named ''Fort Dearborn'', after [[Secretary of War|U.S. Secretary of War]] [[Henry Dearborn]], who had commissioned its construction.

[[File:Fort Dearbon.jpg|thumb|right|250px|The Kinzie Mansion. Fort Dearborn is in the background.<ref>{{Cite book | last=Lossing |first=Benson |title=The Pictorial Field-Book of the War of 1812 |publisher=Harper & Brothers, Publishers |year=1868 |page=303}}</ref>]]
A fur trader, [[John Kinzie]], who bought the old Du Sable property, arrived in Chicago in 1804, and rapidly became the civilian leader of the small settlement that grew around the fort.<ref name="Pacyga13" /> In 1810, Kinzie and Whistler became embroiled in a dispute over Kinzie supplying alcohol to the Indians. In April, Whistler and other senior officers at the fort were removed; Whistler was replaced as commandant of the fort by [[Nathan Heald|Captain Nathan Heald]].<ref>{{Harvnb|Pacyga|2009|p=14}}</ref>

===Battle of Fort Dearborn===
{{Main|Battle of Fort Dearborn}}
During the [[War of 1812]], General [[William Hull]] ordered the evacuation of Fort Dearborn in August 1814. Captain Heald oversaw the evacuation, but on August 15, the evacuees were ambushed along the trail by about 500 [[Potawatomi]] Indians in the [[Battle of Fort Dearborn]]. The Potawatomi captured Heald and his wife, Rebekah, and ransomed them to the [[British Empire|British]]. Of the 148 soldiers, women, and children who evacuated the fort, 86 were killed in the ambush. The Potawatomi burned the fort to the ground the next day.