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HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS.
months, when the place was offered to John J. Crittenden-the well-known United States Senator from Kentucky at the beginning of the Civil War-but by him declined. Thomas T. Crittenden was then appointed.
An incident of the year 1811 was the battle of Tippecanoe, resulting in the defeat of Tecumseh, the great chief of the Shawnees, by Gen. William Henry Harrison. Four companies of mounted rangers were raised in Illinois this year under direction of Col. William Russell, of Kentucky, who built Camp Russell near Edwardsville the following year. They were commanded by Captains Samuel Whiteside, William B. Whiteside, James B. Moore and Jacob Short. The memorable earthquake which had its center about New Madrid, Mo., occurred in December of this year, and was quite violent in some portions of Southern Illinois. (See Earthquake of 1811.}
WAR OF 1812.-During the following year the second war with England began, but no serious outbreak occurred in Illinois until August, 1812, when the massacre at Fort Dearborn, where Chicago now stands, took place. This had long been a favorite trading post of the Indians, at first under French occupation and afterward under the Americans. Sometime during 1803-04, a fort had been built near the mouth of Chicago River on the south side, on land acquired from the Indians by the treaty of Greenville in 1795. (See Fort Dearborn.} In the spring of 1812 some alarm had been caused by outrages committed by Indians in the vicinity, and in the early part of August, Capt. Nathan Heald, commanding the garrison of less than seventy-five men, received instructions from General Hull, in command at Detroit, to evacuate the fort, disposing of the public property as he might see fit. Friendly Indians advised Heald either to make preparations for a vigorous defense, or evacuate at once. Instead of this, he notified the Indians of his intention to retire and divide the stores among them, with the conditions subsequently agreed upon in council, that his garrison should be afforded an escort and safe passage to Fort Wayne. On the 14th of August he proceeded to distribute the bulk of the goods as promised, but the ammunition, guns and liquors were destroyed. This he justified on the ground that a bad use would be made of them, while the Indians construed it a
