Windy City

Episode 10: The First Murder

Founded in 1803, Chicago’s Fort Dearborn is the western most outpost on the frontier, and by 1812 still the most isolated fort in Indian Country. The garrison and few settlers are outnumbered five-to-one by the neighboring tribes within a day’s ride. A pivotal year in Chicago history the corner of today’s Wacker Drive and Michigan Avenue is the site of Chicago’s first murder on June 17. At that point tensions are already high and this killing comes one day before Congress declares war on Great Britain. Although, the approximately 100 residents of Chicago will have no idea war is declared until mid- to late-July.

Just why trader John Kinzie stabbed fort interpreter Jean Lalime to death is a two-centuries’ old Chicago mystery. Was it jealousy, a trade dispute, bad blood? Listen in as we set the scene of Chicago on the cusp of the War of 1812, weight the accounts, motivations, and events surrounding this gruesome murder on the banks of the Chicago River. We hope you enjoy this fascinating slice of Chicago history and interview with writer Paul Dailing who authored the Chicago Reader article “The long death of Jean Lalime“.

Links to Research and History Documents

Episode 9: The First Scandal

Early settlement of Chicago begins, Fort Dearborn is established at this outpost in Indian Country and it gets entangled in Chicago’s first scandal.

Episode 8 : The First Settler

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines settler as, “a person who goes to live in a new place where usually there are few or no people”. Native Americans have lived in the greater Chicago area for approximately 10,000 years dating back to the last ice age. Dependent on long lost oral histories we have no clear records of the future city’s earliest peoples, though archeological efforts and early French documents seem to indicate no native villages existed within today’s Chicago city limits. There have been significant native villages in the suburbs surrounding Chicago, but no evidence of native settlement on the Chicago River has ever come to light.

The last seven episodes of the Windy City Historians Podcast has attempted to relate the first hundred plus years of Chicago’s earliest recorded history from the first westerners to pass through the area; be it Nicolet somewhere between 1628 and 1634 or Jolliet and Marquette in 1673. We now unveil this story of Chicago’s very first settler connecting us to the permanent and continuous settlement of the City of Chicago.

This man, a man of color, and his family has long been swept under the rug while the trader and opportunist John Kinzie was held up as the town’s founder, a man we can best describe as Chicago’s first scoundrel. We hope you will enjoy this in depth conversation with historians John Swenson and professor Courtney Pierre Joseph Ph.D. relating the life, times, and impact the very first settler made on the site and city that would follow in his footsteps. This is the story of the trader, gentleman farmer, and Chicago’s founder — Jean Baptiste Point de Sable. Mr. Point de Sable, and yes, that is the proper French spelling of his full surname, is a fascinating character we hope you will enjoy learning about as much as we have.

Links to Research and History Documents

Episode 7: Jolliet & Marquette by Reenactment

Perhaps nothing in Chicago history is as fundamental as Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette’s expedition of 1673. Their voyage by canoe from St. Anglace down Lake Michigan to the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers and the mighty Mississippi was of epic scale. On the way back north they paddled up the Illinois River passing through the place the Indians called “Chicagoua.” If the City of Chicago had a Mount Rushmore, Jolliet and Marquette would be on it. For Father Marquette the trip was to evangelize the Native Americans, while Jolliet’s focus was exploration, potential trade, as was the first to suggest a short canal to connect the waterway between Lake Michigan and the Illinois River.

With the tricentennial of this historic feat approaching it appeared nothing was planned to commemorate it. For Ralph Frese, Chicago’s “Mr. Canoe” this was unconscionable. So he set out the idea of reenacting the Jolliet & Marquette Expedition, picked the crew to paddle it, and built the canoes, while remaining entirely behind the scenes to receive little or no credit.

For this podcast, Chris and Patrick were thrilled to sit down with three key crew members of this 1973 re-enactment, Chuck McEnery and brothers Ken & Reid Lewis. Listen as this lively discussion unfolds commemorating the early origins of Chicago history. Filled with laughter and travails they persevered to set the stage for later historical reenactments, like the La Salle II expedition of 1976-77 recounted in Episodes 4 & 5. The re-telling 46-years later still feels fresh as the splash of paddles and songs of the Voyageurs wash across the waters of time.

Links to Research and History Documents

Episode 6: Mississippi by Canoe

“Unquestionably the discovery of the Mississippi is a datable fact which considerably mellows and modifies the shiny newness of our country, and gives her a most respectable outside-aspect of rustiness and antiquity.” — Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi

For the new country of the United States, the river that bisected it was old. This mighty river shaped the destiny of the towns and cities along its many miles of shoreline. Chicago was just a backwater to St. Louis, Missouri and Galena, Illinois before the railroads began to dominate transportation and Chicago’s rapid rise to prominence.

Our esteemed guest Paul Meincke took full measure of this river on an epic 70-day journey and joins the Windy City Historians in a special episode of our “Canoe Chronicles” to share some history and present reality of the “Mighty” Mississippi. In 2017, Paul, with friends Bill Baar, Tim Clark, and Tom Lobacz, started this adventure at the river’s headwaters in Minnesota and canoed some 2,320 miles to Gulf of Mexico. Captured in the documentary ”Mississippi by Canoe” on YouTube, Paul will tells of the trip’s challenges, triumphs, and insights and offers some behind the scenes in the making of the documentary. We hope you will enjoy this lively tale of paddling, politics, and history sprinkled with legends, mosquitoes, alligators, and how life is better when experienced by canoe, even 950,000 paddle strokes later.

Paul Meincke is “mostly” retired after 30-years of general assignment reporting for ABC7 Eyewitness News in Chicago, and ironically Paul’s celebrated 45-year broadcast career began on the banks of the Mississippi River in his hometown, Rock Island, Illinois. It was a real pleasure to met and talk with him.

Links to Research and History Documents

Episode 5: Missing at Death’s Door

Our examination of René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle continues in this episode, as we follow the progress of the 1976-77 La Salle II Expedition, which ran into rough weather in Door County, Wisconsin and plot their progress as winter forces the crew out of their canoes to walk or portage the frozen rivers and roads, as they try to make it to the Mississippi. Author Lorraine Boissoneault shares her insights from her book The Last Voyageurs and we interview Reid & Ken Lewis who organized this epic reenactment and and Rich Gross who was part of the crew on this trek seeking the Gulf of Mexico.

We also gained fascinating insights from our interview with veteran broadcaster Paul Meincke recounting his 2017 trip canoeing the Mississippi from its headwaters to the Gulf and the ever present dangers of paddling this river of commerce of America’s heartland.

Links to Research and History Documents

Episode 1: Who Was First?

Released Friday, March 29, 2019 – On the 344 Anniversary of Father Marquette getting flooded out of his winter camp in 1675, at the place the Indians called Chicaogua.

In real estate it’s all about “Location, Location, Location.”  So what happens if our Chicago isn’t really in Chicago?  Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet explored a land that Native Americans called “Chicagoua” in 1673 and left clues to where this place can be found.  It took historian John Swenson over three decades to unravel the mystery of the location of Chicago, and the evidence he found – remarkably – calls into question the story told by most 19th century historians.

This first episode chronicles a brand new history for Chicago as co-hosts Chris Lynch and Patrick McBriarty talk with John Swenson sharing a new spin on the European discovery of the Windy City.  You will hear his story of digging into original French manuscripts, early maps, and travel accounts to determine Marquette and Jolliet were not the first western Europeans to the Chicago area.   It is the first of a new and fascinating origin story of this place we call Chicago, in two parts.

“Cheagoumema” or “False-Chicago”

Map of the Northern Portage Route © Windy City Historians
Map of Northern Portage Route ©Windy City Historians

The map to the left illustrates the Northern Chicago Portage Route from Lake Michigan to the Chicago River to Mud Lake and portage to the easterly bend in the Des Plaines and Illinois Rivers. This is “Cheagoumema.”

“Makarigemou” or Crooked River and the “River Chekago”

Map of the Southern Portage Route © Windy City Historians
Map of the Southern Portage Route ©Windy City Historians

The map at right illustrates the Southern Chicago Portage Route from Lake Michigan to the Calumet and Little Calumet Rivers to Butterfield Creek and portage to Hickory Creek to the Des Plaines and Illinois Rivers. This is what early French explorers referred to as the Chicago River.

Links to Research & History Documents

In this first Episode – Who Was First?  John Swenson makes reference to a variety of historic documents and sources and we offer links below in the order in which they are mentioned. Please note in 17th Century French the “t” is pronounced as with “Jolliet” and “Nicolet,” while French pronunciations today the “t” is not usually enunciated.