Note 666 — Chapter XII · THE NEW FORT DEARBORN

In describing Chicago in 1818 Hubbard says (Life, 38) once a month. A report of the Post-Office Department, January 14, 1825 (American State Papers, Vol. XV, Post-Office Department, 136), shows that at that time the mail was carried between Fort Wayne and Green Bay once a month. J. Watson Webb, who was post adjutant at Fort Dearborn in 1821-22 states (Letter to John Wentworth, October 31, 1882) that he sent a sergeant and a private to Fort Wayne fortnightly to bring the mail for Chicago and Green Bay, and that a similar detail from the latter place was always on hand to receive and carry forward the mail destined for that place.

[667] Keating, Expedition to the Source of St. Peter's River, I, 183. A letter from Captain Bradley of Fort Dearborn in the winter of 1816 (Drennan Papers, Bradley to McComb, December 3, 1816) announces that "a drove of hogs consisting of about three hundred recently arrived here for the contractor." At the time of the Chicago Treaty of 1821 two hundred head of cattle were driven from Brownstown to Chicago to supply fresh meat for the Indians in attendance on the negotiations (Schoolcraft, Travels in the Central Portions of the Mississippi Valley, 375). In June of this same year Rev. Isaac McCoy, while traveling from the mouth of the St. Joseph River to Fort Wayne, met a party engaged in driving cattle through the wilderness to Chicago (McCoy, History of Baptist Indian Missions, 108-9).

[668] Keating, op. cit., I, 164.