If you know what happened at the corner of 18th and Calumet 200 years ago, it’s an amazing thing just to touch the ground there. This dollop of land, bordered by new brick townhomes, a massive glass-and-steel condo building, and a brick wall, was the site of the Fort Dearborn massacre. On the morning of August 15, 1812, with the nation at war with Britain and its Native American allies, 95 people–mostly soldiers but also settlers, including women and children–left the fort at what is now Michigan and Wacker and began marching to Fort Wayne. Following orders to evacuate, they’d supposedly struck a deal for safe passage, but when they reached this spot Captain William Wells, leading the way, spotted Indians behind the dunes and warned the commanding officer they were about to be ambushed. Taking the offensive, the troops broke from the caravan and attacked, setting off a bloody free-for-all. Massively outnumbered, more than half the U.S. soldiers and their charges were shot, stabbed, or hacked to death; most of the rest were taken prisoner. But the wife of one officer, Margaret Helm, was spared when a Potawatomi chief, Black Partridge, snatched her from beneath a tomahawk and helped her get to the lake, where she, and a few others, according to some reports, escaped by boat.
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That, with various embellishments–like the excision and consumption of Captain Wells’s heart–is the story as it’s been told ever since, at least by the white man. And it’s the account that captivated real estate agent Mark Kieras when he moved to the neighborhood four years ago. Kieras had heard rumors that the site was about to become a condo sales center and contacted the Park District to protest; he found to his relief that the property was a dedicated but as-yet unnamed park. Thinking its moniker should honor the spot’s history, he began researching and learned that in 1893 George Pullman had erected a massive statue portraying Helm’s rescue on the massacre site, which then became a tourist attraction complete with picture postcards. In 1931 the monument was moved to the Chicago Historical Society, and in the 1980s it was relocated again, to the park behind the landmark Clarke House. Sometime after that, in need of repairs, it was banished to a warehouse.
“It’s an ugly event in history, and there’s two sides to the story,” Kieras says. “But it’s the most significant and first recorded event in this area.” He says the neighborhood group thought they could focus on the positive, life-saving aspect of the story, and gave serious consideration to “Rescue Park” before making their final decision. Last week Kieras appeared before a Park District board meeting on behalf of the Prairie District Neighborhood Alliance and officially proposed the name “Black Partridge Park.” This week he and other PDNA members were scheduled to see the statue, now being stored by the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs, at its undisclosed warehouse location. Preservation Chicago has joined them in calling for its return to the park.
