John H. Kinzie

Infobox Person
name = John H. Kinzie


birth_date = July 7, 1803
birth_place = Sandwich, Ontario
death_date = June 21, 1865
death_place = Chicago, Illinois
resting_place =
resting_place_coordinates =
occupation = Trader
spouse = Juliette Augusta McGill Kinzie
children = Alexander Wolcott (1833-1839), Eleanor Lytle (1835-1917), John Harris, Jr. (b. 1838), Arthur Magill (b. 1841), Julian Magill (b. 1843, died at age six weeks), Francis William (1844-1850), George Herbert (b. 1846)
parents = John Kinzie and Eleanor Lytle McKillip Kinzie

John Harris Kinzie (born July 7, 1803 in Sandwich, Ontario-June 21, 1865) was the eldest son of John Kinzie, Chicago's first white settler. Kinzie arrived in Chicago with his parents when he was one year old.

After living with his family in Detroit, Michigan following the Fort Dearborn Massacre, the Kinzies returned to Chicago in 1816 and from 1818 until 1823, he worked for the American Fur Company. He spent some time working for the governor of the Michigan Territory in the 1820s and became an Indian subagent at Fort Winnebago until he returned to Chicago in 1833. On August 11, 1834, Kinzie became the second president of Chicago. On May 2, 1837 he ran against William Butler Ogden for mayor when Chicago became a city and lost, [http://www.iltrails.org/cook/first_election.html 479 to 220] . In 1857 he was voted president of the [http://cbu.piiai.net/presidents.htm Chicago Board of Underwriters] and his wife published a memoir titled Wau-bun that included an eyewitness description of the Fort Dearborn Massacre.

Kinzie died suddenly on a railroad train on June 21, 1865.

Kinzie street in Chicago (400N) and John H. Kinzie elementary school are named after him.

External links

* [http://www.earlychicago.com/encyclopedia.php?letter=K Early Chicago Encyclopedia]
* [http://www.library.wisc.edu/etext/wireader/WER0110.html Biographical information about Mrs. John H. Kinzie]
* [http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/lhbum:@field(DOCID+@lit(lhbum16762div2) Wau-bun, the early day in the Northwest, by Mrs. John H. Kinzie]
* [http://www.iltrails.org/cook/first_election.html Chicago's First Election]
* [http://cbu.piiai.net/presidents.htm Chicago Board of Underwriters Past Presidents]
* [http://www.kinzie.cps.k12.il.us/ John H. Kinzie Elementary School]