Helm, Lieutenant Linai T.; Gordon, Nelly Kinzie [editor]. The Fort Dearborn Massacre : Written in 1814 by Lieutenant Linai T. Helm, One of the Survivors; with Letters and Narratives of Contemporary Interest. Chicago & New York: Rand McNally & Company, (1912). First Edition. [12062]
Brown publisher's cloth, white lettering and illustration to front, front and spine rubbed with loss of much of the lettering. Binding otherwise clean and very good, tight, 7 3/4 x 5 1/4 inches. "Presented to Martha Heald Johnson of the Centennial Day of the Chicago Massacre" in ink on the ffep; 1912 signature of Mrs. Wright Johnson on the opposite side. B/w frontispiece of the Monument commemorating the Massacre as frontispiece, with three additional plates (complete). 137 pages with frequent pencil underling & marginal notes; the notes indicate either an editor's corrections or another persons' keen knowledge of the history. Good. Hardcover.
The narrative of Lieutenant Linai T. Helm, one of the two officers who survived the Chicago Massacre. It had been recently discovered even though originally written in 1814, just after the event. Helm had been advised by Judge Woodward of Detroit to not take the risk of publishing it, even though Judge Woodward has solicited the account in the first place; he thought it might lead to Helm's courts martial for disrespect to his commanding officer.
Lieutenant Linai Taliafero Helm, also known as Linaugh Thomas Helm, b. in Virginia, became a U. S. Army ensign in 1807, and went to Fort Dearborn (present-day Chicago) as a second lieutenant in 1811. He survived the Massacre, but was "Taken prisoner by the Indians [and] removed to the Illinois River by the Ottawa chief Mittatass, from whom he was ransomed on August 30, with Black Partridge as intermediary, by the trader and U.S. Indian agent Thomas Forsyth in return for two horses and a keg of liquor...Helm was promoted to first lieutenant on Jan. 20, 1813, and to captain on April 15, 1814; he resigned from the U.S Army later that year on September 27." - earlychicago dot com. He afterwards struggled with alcoholism, which led to his divorce; he died in 1838.
