Chicago And the Great Conflagration

lake to St. Joseph and thence to Detroit, a few days after the massacre. IV. RE-OCCUPATION. FOR four years the place was deserted by all save the Indians. Even the fur-traders did not care to visit the scene of so much disaster, and Chicago seemed to have been remanded into aboriginal darkness. In 1816, the fort was rebuilt, under the direction of Captain Bradley, and was thereafter occupied continuously by United States troops for twenty-one years, except for a short time in 1831. In 1837, it was abandoned, as the Indians had been removed far to the westward. The fort stood, however, till 1856, when the old block-house was demolished. Its position was on the south bank of the river, just east of the place where Rush Street Bridge was afterward built. One old building, however, remained, almost rotten with age, till the great conflagration swept it away, as the last relic of military rule. It was a small wooden structure that had formed a part of the officers' quarters, and stood almost in the apex of the sharp corner formed by the meeting of Michigan Avenue with River Street. But the rebuilding of the fort failed to re-establish the eitfatti cordMt that had existed between llic Indians amiwhites previous to the spring of 1812. Mr. Kiuziedid not return till some time alter the fort was reconstructed. Gurdon S. ilubbard, Esq., who is still a resident of Chicago at the date cf this writing, visited the place in 1818, as agent of tha American Fur Company, of whic...