Chicago Firsts Through 1880.

The first Negro slave in Chicago, of which we have heard, was "Black Jim," owned by John Kinzie and brought here by him in 1804.

The first coroner's inquest was over the body of a dead Indian.

On April 6, 1812, Indians murder the first settlers in cold blood at Lee's Place / Hardscrabble.

One of the buildings, Pointe de Sable (the "du" of Point du Sable is a misnomer. It is an American corruption of "de" as pronounced in French, "Jean Baptiste Point de Sable" and first appears long after his death) had built was the first bakery that supplied Fort Dearborn with fresh bread.

First election, Aug. 7, 1826.

The first ferry was established at Lake Street. 1829.

The first ferryman was Mark Beaubien.

First bridge across the south branch, near Randolph Street crossing, 1830.

The first county roads were established (State Street, Archer Avenue, Madison Street, and Ogden Avenue) in June 1831.

First postoffice, 1831.

The first bridge over the north branch, 1832.

First Issue of the Chicago Democrat, Nov. 26, 1833.

First shipment from the port of Chicago, 1883.

First Drawbridge, Dearborn Street, 1834. 

First fire company formed. Pioneer, 1834. 

First railroad chartered, Chicago & Galena Union, Jan. 16, 1836. 

The first theater opened in October 1837.

First Chicago steamer, James Allen, built 1838.

Chicago Daily American was issued on April 9. 1839.

The permanent establishment of public free schools, 1840.

Clark Street Bridge was built in 1840. 

Wells Street Bridge was built in 1841.

First Negro sold at auction Nov. 14, 1842.

Chicago Daily Journal issued April 22. 1844.

Chicago was first lit with gas Sept. 4, 1850

First Cook County murderer hanged July 10. 1840, three miles south of the city, on the fake shore. His name was John Stone. The crime was committed in the Town of Jefferson. 

The first civil execution among the whites here was that of John Stone, who was hanged on July 10, 1840, for the murder of Mrs. Thompson. The place of execution was the racecourse, some three miles south of the river, near the lakeshore, back of Myrick's Tavern. A portion of Col. Beaubien's 60th Regiment was improvised as a guard for the occasion, the command of which Col. J.B. Beaubien transferred to Lieut. Col. Seth Johnson. The return of the procession brought back the body of Stone, which was given by the sheriff to the doctors for dissection. [We will here refer to what was probably the last execution at this place of an Indian by his comrades. It occurred in the fall of 1832, or the ensuing winter, after a council or their form of a trial. Being adjudged worthy of death, the man was taken outside, into the brush, south of Randolph Street, near where Market Street is now (Today’s Wacker Drive), and executed, probably by shooting. Our informant, who was an early settler here, says such was the statement confidently told at the time, though he had no personal knowledge of the matter beyond the assurance of others.]

The first map of Chicago was by James Thompson, the surveyor employed by the State Canal Commissioners to lay out the village. This map bore the date August 4, 1830, and the original was in the Recorder's Office and was probably burned. It is understood that the first plat of the village gave Chicago a public levee upon the plan of the western river towns. Our levee was located on the south side, from South Water Street to the river. But the lake vessels could not find it expedient to conform to the ways of the shallow draft of the Mississippi valley waters, and so the Chicago levee was abandoned, and the ground was sold, docked, and built upon.

Original plat map of Chicago by James Thompson, 1830.

The first street leading to Lake Michigan was laid out on April 25, 1832; it commenced at what was called the east end of Water Street and is described by Jedediah Wooley, surveyor, as follows: "from the east end of Water Street" (at the west line of the Reservation, or State street?) in the town of Chicago, to Lake Michigan; direction of said road is south 88½ degrees east, from the street to the lake, 18 chains 50 links. Said street was laid out 50 feet wide. The viewers on this occasion also believe that said road is of public utility and a convenient passage from the town to the lake." 

The first extended highway regularly laid out in Chicago was "The Green Bay Road," in 1835, under the direction of Gen. Scott, U.S.A.

The first white man's tannery was that of John Miller. It stood (1831) near to and on the north side of his Brother Samuel Miller's tavern, near the Junction.

The first regularly appointed auctioneer was James Kinzie.

The first Debating Society formed here was organized during the winter of 1831 comprising nearly all the male population, mostly within Fort Dearborn. Col. J.B. Beaubien was chosen  as President.

The first Druggist was Philo Carpenter, who arrived in Chicago in July 1832; his store was a small log building near the east end of the Lake Street Bridge. Mr. Carpenter next occupied a log building, just vacated by Geo. W. Dole, who had moved into his new store. 

The first steamboat fuel furnished by Chicago was in 1832 when Captain Walker of the "Sheldon Thompson" bought an old log cabin and took it on board for his return down the Lake. [She is a neat, substantial three-masted boat of two hundred and eighteen tons burden, driven by a horizontal, low-pressure engine, and commanded by Capt. Walker.]

The first printed list of Advertised Letters was in number seven of Mr. Calhoun's paper, the Chicago Democrat, January 7, 1834. The list comprised one letter, namely, for Erastus Bowen.

The first Fair was held by "the ladies of the Protestant Episcopal Church of this Town" on June 18, 1835, and is referred to in the village newspaper as "a novelty” in Chicago."

Not in 1835 (as stated December 5, 1875, in one of the Chicago Times articles, headed "By-Gone Days" those pleasantly told stories, even though occasionally marred with typographical, accidental, or sensational errors, which we shall notice hereafter) but July 4, 1836, was the first spadesful of earth thrown out in the digging of the Illinois and Michigan Canal.

The first rock for the harbor piers was furnished by John K. Boyer.

The first dray (a cart for delivering beer barrels or other heavy loads, especially a low one without sides) in Chicago was shipped from the Hudson by Philo Carpenter. The first specimen of a pleasure vehicle, "the one-horse dray," which appeared here, was when a gentleman and his bride rode into town in one in the spring of 1834.

The first two-wheeled pleasure carriage seen here was that owned by Col. J.B. Beaubien and brought from the East. It is said that the residence, upon its arrival, paid it distinguished honor, "turning out in procession and parading the streets."

The first engraver on wood or metal was S.D. Childs, Sr.

The first church bell was placed upon the Unitarian Church edifice, 87-93 Washington Street, January 1845.

The first vessel larger than a "shell" built here was the "Clarissa" launched in May 1836.

The first public edifice erected by the County of Cook was an estray pen. [A corral erected with county funds in March 1832 on the southwest corner of the public square, meant to hold lost hogs, cattle, and horses until their owners could claim them, was built by Samuel Miller, who asked $20 for his effort but settled for $12; the estray pen was Chicago’s first public structure.]

The first "Balloon" built in Chicago or elsewhere (a popular style of spike-fastened light-frame buildings, which astonished by their firmness of the old-fashioned mortise and tenon builders) was erected in the fall of 1832 by George W. Snow and stood near the Lakeshore. It was but a slight affair, yet served for a while as his place of business and to protect his goods or freight received by vessel. We may here add that the greater share of said freight was made up of whiskey or other kinds of the ardent.

The first steam engine built in Chicago, was made and put up by Ira Miltimore. It was used to run a sawmill located on the north branch, near the residence of the late Archibald Clybourn.

The first suggestion we think on record (or off) by a Chicagoan or indeed "any other man" for the establishment, in each of our Collegiate Institutions, of a Professorship to occupy "A Chair of Integrity," for the teaching of that ancient and important accomplishment honesty, now so rare in our public men or officials, (not to speak of others,) was contained in an address by the late Hon. William B. Ogden, not long since, before the Board of Trustees of the Chicago University.

The first book printed in Chicago was consumed by fire in the bindery late in 1840. Scammon's Reports, vol.1. Four incomplete copies were not in that fire.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Charles Jouett, the First U.S. Indian Agent Residing at Chicago.

---

In historical writing and analysis, PRESENTISM introduces present-day ideas and perspectives into depictions or interpretations of the past. Presentism is a form of cultural bias that creates a distorted understanding of the subject matter. Reading modern notions of morality into the past is committing the error of presentism. Historical accounts are written by people and can be slanted, so I try my hardest to present fact-based and well-researched articles.

Facts don't require one's approval or acceptance.

I present [PG-13] articles without regard to race, color, political party, or religious beliefs, including Atheism, national origin, citizenship status, gender, LGBTQ+ status, disability, military status, or educational level. What I present are facts — NOT Alternative Facts — about the subject. You won't find articles or readers' comments that spread rumors, lies, hateful statements, and people instigating arguments or fights.

FOR HISTORICAL CLARITY

When I write about the INDIGENOUS PEOPLE, I follow this historical terminology:

• The use of old commonly used terms, disrespectful today, i.e., REDMAN or REDMEN, SAVAGES, and HALF-BREED are explained in this article.

Writing about AFRICAN-AMERICAN history, I follow these race terms:

• "NEGRO" was the term used until the mid-1960s.
• "BLACK" started being used in the mid-1960s.
• "AFRICAN-AMERICAN" [Afro-American] began usage in the late 1980s.

— PLEASE PRACTICE HISTORICISM —

THE INTERPRETATION OF THE PAST IN ITS OWN CONTEXT.

 

---

Charles Jouett (not "Jewett," as it is often mistakenly written) was born in Louisa County, Virginia, in 1772 and was the youngest of a family of four boys and five girls. His father was John Jouett of Charlottesville, Va., and the maiden name of his mother was Harris. The father was with the Virginians at Braddock's defeat, and John, Jr., and Robert fought the enemy in many of the battles of the Revolutionary War. 

Charles Jouett

John, Jr., or Jack as he was usually called, received a vote of thanks and a sword it is said, from the Legislature of Virginia, for an exhibition of daring and timely notice to that body, whose capture by Col. Tarleton was determined on. Jouett having knowledge of the plan, and being mounted in the guise of a British dragoon (cavalry), passed (a necessity under the circumstances) through the enemy's camp without detection and gave the alarm.

Another story has been told of Jack Jouett; while with Gen. Greene, in North Carolina, in the vicinity of Guilford Court-House, on one occasion near a spring between the contending forces, he pounced upon an incautious Briton (Britain) who had come for water, and easily carried him away under one arm as a prisoner. It is proper here to say that John Jouett, Senior, and his four sons were all of gigantic stature and strength. Charles Jouett is said to have been raised under immediate notice and enjoyed the friendship of presidents Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe. He studied law and practiced for a few years in Charlottesville, Virginia, but in 1802, he accepted from the Government the appointment of an Indian agent at Detroit, Michigan. Mr. Jouett ably filled this position, not only there but after his transfer to the new and perhaps more important agency in Chicago.

In 1804, while in Michigan, he took measures at the request of the Government to learn the facts concerning the settlements at Detroit and its vicinity. He submitted an extended report of the same, which appears in one of the printed volumes of American State Papers. Charles Jouett was the first Indian agent stationed at Chicago. William Wells (Captain Wells, subsequently killed at Chicago fighting for the U.S. at the Fort Dearborn Massacre), the Agent at Fort Wayne, had been advised by the Department on October 17, 1804, that the annuities of the Potawatomi and Kickapoo Indians under his charge, would in future be sent to Chicago. Mr. Jouett, under his new appointment, moved here in 1805 and, by instructions from the War Department, was informed on October 26 of that year that there would be included in his agency here, the Sac, Mesquakie (Fox), and Potawatomi, as well as other Illiniwek tribes in the vicinity of Chicago.

Hon. John Wentworth, in a supplement to one of his lectures, gives the names of quite a number of Virginians who were early residents of Chicago; to those may be added that of Charles Jouett. Mr. Jouett had married 1803 Miss Eliza Dodomead; she died in 1805. From the time of his first arrival at Chicago, we are unable to state precisely how often or how long he was absent from this post, yet we are advised of one furlough at least, reaching along through the holidays, it is understood, in the winter of 1808-09. The occasion was his (2nd) marriage, the lady being Miss Susan Randolph Allen, of Clark County, Ky., and we must characterize it as something extraordinary that their wedding tour was made on horseback, in the month of January, through the jungles, over the snow-drifts, on the ice, and across the prairies, in the face of driving storms, and the frozen breath of the winds of the north. They had, on their journey, a Negro servant named Joe Battles and an Indian guide whose name was Robinson, possibly the late chief Alex Robinson. A team and wagon followed, conveying their baggage, and they marked their route for the benefit of any future traveler.

After some six years of residence here, Mr. Jouett, probably from Indian difficulties and complications, which rendered a continuance in the office impracticable, resigned his position in 1811, removed to Kentucky, and settled in Mercer County, near Harrodsburg. In 1812, he was made one of the Judges of that county. After the close of the war with England and the rebuilding of Fort Dearborn, Judge Jouett again occupied the position of Indian Agent at Chicago, having been re-appointed in 1815, and made the journey to this place across the country, accompanied by his family. 

The first Agency Building, or United States Factory, as sometimes called, Mrs. Whistler told us, was near the river on the south side, a short space above Fort Dearborn. In Mrs. John H. Kinzie's (daughter-in-law of John Kinzie) book "Wau-Bun, the Early Day in the Northwest," (published 1873), we are informed that "it was an old fashioned log-building, with a hall running through the center, and one large room on each side. Piazzas (veranda) extended the whole length of the building in front and rear." This structure is understood to have been built soon after Mr. Jouett came; it did not, of course, survive the destruction of the first Fort Dearborn.

The Agency House, during Judge Jouett's second term as Indian Agent here, and the home of his family during the period was on the north side of the river. It was a log building of two large rooms, standing some "two or three hundred yards from the lake" and close to the river. "It was about twenty steps from the riverbank," says a lady now living, a daughter of Judge Jouett, and who, coming with her parents in 1816, remained here several years. The log domicile referred to was one built previous to the evacuation of Fort Dearborn in 1812, and we much believe that it was the same frequently spoken of in connexion with an earlier date as "the Burns house." It stood where a freight depot of the N.W. Railroad once stood at the corner of North State and Water Streets. The future building of the Indian Agency, sometimes called "Cobweb Castle," was afterward erected close by it; indeed, it was already commenced but never occupied or completed during Judge Jouett's sojourn here. We will here remark that the timbers of the old log building were a stolid (a person, calm, dependable, and showing little emotion or animation) witness to a deed of blood, supplementary perhaps to the massacre on the south side of the river. Says Mrs. Callis (the daughter of Judge Jouett), "The house in which my father lived was built before the massacre of 1812; I know this from the fact that ' White Elk,' an Indian chief, and the tallest Indian I ever saw, was frequently pointed out to me as the savage who had dashed out the brains of the children of Sukey Corbin (a camp-follower and washer-woman), against the side of this very house." We have reason to think that this savage was the same friend that had previously tomahawked the dozen other children after the action and surrender by the soldiers. 

Mrs. Jouett told her daughter of a frantic mother, a former acquaintance of hers, who on that occasion fought the monster, all while the butchery was being done, yet who in turn fell a victim herself. Says Mrs. Corbin, "How I shuddered at the sight of this terrible savage." In Augustin Grignon's Recollections, we find that he speaks of Op-po-mis-shah or the "White Elk" as a Menominee chief of "considerable distinction." He may have been, yet if he was the same Indian before spoken of (of which, however, we are not sure, as we supposed the Menominees did not take part in the attack at Chicago), his deeds of cowardly butchery here will ever distinguish this child murderer as eminent in brutality[2]. Mrs. Corbin remembers that Mr. Kinzie lived near the lake, opposite the Fort, at the old cabin or "Kinzie House," the picture of which is familiar to readers of Chicago history. 

Jean Baptiste Pointe de Sable: ["Pointe" is the proper French spelling, but the final 'e' is almost always dropped in documents. The 'du' of Pointe du Sable is a misnomer (a wrong or inaccurate name or designation). It's an American corruption of 'de' as pronounced in French. "Du Sable" first appears long after his death in 1818. I use the correct spelling in this article.] Pointe de Sable built a cabin just north of the Chicago River near Lake Michigan in 1779 (approximately where the Tribune Tower is today), where he established a trading post. Pointe de Sable sold his property to Jean Baptiste La Lime, who, in turn, sold it to William Burnett, John Kinzie's business partner. In 1804 Kinzie buys the house and property from Burnett and keeps the property until 1828. Antoine Ouilmette's house can be seen in the background. Illustration from 1827.

She says, "Between my father's house and Mr. Kinzie's was a house occupied by a gunsmith, a Mr. Bridges, who had been a silversmith. A man named Dean had a store near Mr. Kinzie's house; there may have been other houses that I do not remember. Just across the river from our house and near the river bank was a little space enclosed by a paling (a fence made from pointed wood), where, on the surface of the ground, lay bleaching, the bones of Nou-no-ga, an Indian who had befriended some of the whites in their peril, at the time of the massacre, but was pursued and killed at that spot, it was said. My father's interpreter was James Riley[3].

My mother was respected and loved by the Indians; many were frequent visitors to her home and were especially kind to her children, sister, and myself. Our nurse was an Indian girl, a faithful, devoted servant, who afterward married a soldier of the garrison."

We notice that the agents of the Indian Department, within the then Illinois Territory, were all in 1817, placed under the superintendence of this Territory. "The most strict and vigorous economy in the expenditures" was enjoined by the War Department, and "the whole amount of the expenditures for the Indian Department within the Illinois Territory, including rations, presents, contingencies of Agents," etc., etc., was " limited to $25,000 per annum ($405,000 today)." 

Judge Jouett secured the confidence of the Indians by kind and honorable treatment; we add also that his commanding presence and physical strength doubtless added to his influence with them; his height was six feet and three inches; he stood erect, broad-shouldered, and muscular. An incident is told of by Mrs. Corbin of a fearless encounter which her father had here with a drunken Indian chief named Aborigine, called "Mar Pock," because his face was badly disfigured by small-pox who was brandishing his scalping knife with furious menaces, betokening (be a warning or indication of a future event) bloody violence; but Jouett, confronting the savage sternly ordered him to give up his knife; we are told that Mr. Aborigine immediately quailed and surrendered. 

The name given by the Indians to Judge Jouett was "The White Otter," his negro servant they called "Blackmeat."

Judge Jouett finally resigned from the Agency in Chicago in 1818 (or 1819), and returned to Mercer County, Kentucky. He was soon appointed by President Monroe to the position of Judge of the U. S. Court for Arkansas, where he moved and assisted in the organization of that Territorial Government, etc. Still, the unhealthiness of that region at the time obliged him to relinquish the position within a half year. In 1820, he moved to Trigg County, Kentucky, which was afterward his home.

His death occurred while on his way to Lexington, at the house of a friend in Barren County, Kentucky, on May 28, 1834, in his 62nd year. His widow, Mrs. Susan R. Jouett, died near Hopkinsville, Kentucky, in 1871. Judge Jouett's children were (1st marriage) Jane Harris, born 1804, died in Christian County, Kentucky, 1839. (2nd marriage) Charles La Lime, born in Chicago, October of 1809, died 1810; Catharine, born in Mercer County, Kentucky, Feb. 8, 1811; Susan M., born in Mercer County, Kentucky, Nov. 1812; Mildred R., born in Mercer County, Kentucky, July of 1814; the two last-named are living in Kentucky (at the time this was written in 1876). Mr. William O. Callis, a grandson of Judge Jouett, now (in 1876), resides in Chicago.

The following, relating to Judge Jouett, written at the time of his decease, was not an unmerited tribute to his worth: 

"Few men in the United States Indian Department ever showed more devotion to the interests of the Government, more unbending integrity of purpose or promptitude of action, or more impartiality and justice to the Indians; few had more the confidence of the Government. The management, finesse, and double-dealing, by which so many Indian Agents have enriched themselves from the spoils of the Indians, whose rights it was their duty to maintain, had no place in the school of honor where he was educated." 

By Chicago Antiquities, published 1881
Edited by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

---

[1] Perhaps the same Mrs. Corbin, before referred to, and who is spoken of also in Mrs. Kinzie's book "Wau-Bun, the Early Day in the Northwest." In that work, the name of Mrs. Corbin appears as part of the statement of Mrs. Helm, but in the earlier published account, from which much of the Wau-Bun account is copied, Mrs. Corbin's name is not mentioned, nor is that part of the incident which is there, given as communicated by Mrs. Helm. This may possibly account for some little indefiniteness or confusion regarding the locality of the Corbin family murder. Vet the main facts of a horrid slaughter cannot be doubted.

[2] The "White Elk" referred to by Grignon joined Tecumseh the following year (1813), from which it seems probable that he was the same as the one at Chicago.

[3] James Riley and his brothers Peter and John were sons of Judge Riley, of Schenectady, who was at one time a trader with the Indians at Saginaw. The boys were half-breeds, the mother being of the Indian race. Judge Witherell says, "They were educated, men. When with white people, they were gentlemanly, high-toned, honorable fellows; when with the Indians in the forest, they could be perfect Indians in dress, language, hunting, trapping, and mode of living. The three were thorough-going Americans in every thought and feeling." The British authorities, it is said, were so jealous of the active enmity of James Riley during the war of 1812 that they procured his capture and sent him to Halifax for a while. In what year, we are not informed, but he finally lost his life by the explosion of a keg of gunpowder at Grand Rapids, Michigan.