THREE DAYS AT CHICAGO, 367 



It was not until 1818, after Fort Dearborn was 

 again demolished, that the pale face was courageous 

 enough to establish his home at this point. Nor was 

 courage alone required, for the unfavorable position — 

 on a morass where vehicles invariably floundered in 

 its black loam, and where the air was necessarily un- 

 healthy — was well known ; but these first men whose 

 rude homes constituted the embryo city must have 

 possessed to a great degree that indomitable spirit 

 which has become the very foundation of Chicago. 



Nine years from this time a most unfavorable re- 

 port of the place was sent to the Government and from 

 this report the picture is called up of a wretched, un- 

 clean and disreputable community. But this state of 

 affairs was not to last long. An event of importance 

 took place here in 1833, when the United States com- 

 missioners and chiefs of the Pottawatomie, Chippewa 

 and Ottawa tribes met, that the former might per- 

 suade the latter to give up more of their valuable land 

 in Illinois and Michigan and ultimately to relinquish 

 it altogether. The exact amount stipulated for was 

 twenty millions of acres. Then population increased, 

 for one of the points agreed upon, along with the land, 

 was that the Indians should move west of the Missis- 

 sippi. As a result, Chicago became the centre of much 

 speculating. Eastern capitalists were interested, in- 

 vested and lost heavily, but after the depression which 

 inevitably followed, the people went to work in 

 earnest and brought the town out of her trouble. 



Tlie one point of advantage that Chicago pos- 

 sessed — her possibilities as a commercial post — was 

 put to the test, and so rapidly did she advance, that in 

 1842, after several remarkable advances, she sent out 



