gou." He built a cabin on the north 

 bank of the Chicago River, and became 

 a "pretty wealthy trader," well known 

 as far north as Michilimackinac. In 

 1 800 he sold his stock in trade, his cabin 

 with its furnishings, and other out-build- 

 ings, to an Indian interpreter, Jean 

 Lalime, who resold them in 1804 to John 

 Kinzie. According to the bill of sale 

 now in the possession of the Chicago 

 Historical Society, one of these "out- 

 buildings" was "one chicken house of 

 15 squares," and among the livestock 

 itemized were 44 big hens, so we know 

 that chickens had been introduced to 

 the Chicago region at some time prior 

 to 1796, possibly by the Jesuit mission- 

 aries. 



In 1823, William Keating, who ac- 

 companied Major Long's expedition to 

 the source of the St. Peter's River, passed 

 Fort Dearborn, the fort at the mouth 

 of the Chicago River, in June. He was 

 greatly disappointed at finding that Chi- 

 cago "consists of but few huts . . . log or 

 bark houses . . . low, filthy and disgust- 

 ing, displaying not the least trace of 

 comfort. ..." 



"The difficulties which the agricul- 

 turalist meets with here," he reports, 

 "are numerous. . . . There are ... a 

 number of destructive birds of which it 

 was impossible for the garrison to avoid 

 the baneful influence, except by keeping 

 as was practiced at Fort Dearborn, a 

 party of soldiers constantly engaged in 

 shooting at the crows and blackbirds 

 that committed depredations upon the 

 corn planted by them." 



Keating also notes that, although "the 

 quality of game in this part of the coun- 

 try is diminishing very rapidly and ... is 

 barely sufficient for the support of the 

 Indians, still there is enough, and par- 

 ticularly of the smaller kind, to offer 

 occupation to the amateur sportsman. 

 There are many different kinds of aquatic 

 birds which feed upon the wild rice (Zi- 

 zania aquatica) and other plants that 

 thrive in the swamps which cover the 

 country." The effects of "civilization" 

 were beginning to be felt and the point 

 of view of the sportsman appears often 

 from now on. 



Ten years later, in 1833, Colbee C. 

 Benton, of Lebanon, New Hampshire, 

 made a nine-day trip through the In- 

 dian settlements north and west of Chi- 



cago. It was August, and Benton found 

 a great many ducks, large flocks of wild 

 geese, plenty of pigeons, and prairie 

 chickens. He also saw many loons but 

 "could not get a shot at them." Mos- 

 quitoes plagued him constantly, hooting 

 owls kept him awake several nights, and 

 he was wakened early in the mornings 

 "by the squawking of ducks and other 

 fowl." At Grass Lake he records: "It 

 is the greatest place for game here that 

 I ever saw. The ducks and wild geese 

 and loons, sand cranes and other fowls, 

 are continually passing this place. It 

 seems to be their only thoroughfare." 



On Saturday night, August 24, he and 

 Louis Wilmot camped on Turtle Creek 

 near Delavan Lake, where they killed 

 and roasted a prairie chicken for their 

 dog. At a distance, they "could dis- 

 tinctly hear the lonely howling of the 

 wolves. Sometimes they would seem to 

 be very near, and the owls accompanied 

 them with their hoarse hooting ... so it 

 continued until daylight. By the way, 

 the mosquitoes joined the music of this 

 interesting night with their eternal sing- 

 ing. . . ." Several "ugly rattlesnakes" 

 startled them, and they killed one or 

 two. On the whole, Benton's interest- 

 ing account does not make one envy his 

 experience! 1 



Chicago was growing. According to 

 Patrick Shirreff, in September, 

 1833, it consisted of 150 wooden houses 

 along the river. Its inhabitants had to 

 be fed. Peck's Gazetteer in 1834 in- 

 forms us that hundreds "of partridge 

 were taken in a day in nets in the winter, 

 and furnished no trifling item in the 

 luxury of the city market." 



Another source of food was had from 

 the great flights of the now extinct pas- 

 senger pigeon, often called "wood pig- 

 eon," which was plentiful in Illinois up 

 through the first half of the 19th Cen- 



1 The authorship of Benton's Journal to the 

 "Far-off West" remained unknown until estab- 

 lished by James Getz of Metawa. See Colbee 

 C. Benton, A Visitor to Chicago in Indian Days 

 edited by Paul M. Angle and James R. Getz. 

 Caxton Club, Chicago: 1957. 



tury. "When one approaches the coun- 

 try of the Illinois, one sees during the 

 day, clouds of doves, a kind of wood or 

 wild pigeon. A thing that may perhaps 

 appear incredible is that the sun is ob- 

 scured by them; these birds live only on 

 the beechnuts and acorns in the forests, 

 and are excellent in autumn, sometimes 

 as many as 80 of them are killed with 

 one shot." 2 



According to Donald Culross Peattie, 

 there were such large flocks of pigeons in 

 Chicago in 1 836 that men went about the 

 streets singing popular songs about them. 



This was also the year in which Dr. 

 John Kennicott and his wife, Mary, with 

 their year-old son Robert, moved from 

 New Orleans to settle near Chicago in a 

 grove near Northfield. 



It was young Robert Kennicott who 

 was destined to usher in the era of scien- 

 tific study of the birds of the Chicago 

 region, a study which profited much 

 from the gentle but indomitable Pere 

 Marquette, from Baron Lahontan of the 

 inquiring mind, from Hennepin, and 

 Carver, and all the others who have 

 given Chicago its birthright. 



2 N. Bossu, Nouveaux Voyages aux Indes Occi- 

 dentales. Paris: 1698. 



MUSEUM NEWS 



{Continued from page 2) 



More than a hundred high school sci- 

 ence and mathematics teachers visited 

 the Museum recently under auspices of 

 the Fifth National Science Foundation 

 Summer Institute of Kansas State Teach- 

 ers College. In addition to touring 

 the exhibits, the teachers were briefed 

 on the Museum's program of scientific 

 research by Mr. E. Leland Webber, As- 

 sistant Director, and by members of the 

 scientific staff. 



Scientific Meeting 



Mr. George I. Quimby, Curator of 

 North American Archaeology and Eth- 

 nology, presented a paper on "Late 

 Woodland Culture in the Upper Great 

 Lakes Region" at the annual meeting of 

 the Society for American Archaeology at 

 Columbus, Ohio. 



Page 5 



