Mark Beaubien

Beaubien, Mark (1800-Apr. 11, 1881) born in Detroit, younger brother of [see] Jean Baptiste; married Monique Nadeau (1800-1847), with whom he had 16 children, 14 of whom survived their mother; then married Elizabeth Mathieu, with whom he had seven. Mark came to Chicago in 1826 with Monique and children, among them [see] Emily, and purchased a small log cabin on the south bank near the Forks from James Kinzie; in 1829 he began to take in guests, calling his cabin the "Eagle Exchange Tavern." A fun-loving fiddle player, he loved to entertain his guests at night, tempting one to believe stories about his knack for boyish mischief [see following excerpts from Hurlbut]; was licensed to keep a tavern on June 9, 1830; later voted on August 2; when the town plat was published that year, he found that his business was in the middle of a street and moved the structure to the SE corner of Market and Lake streets. He purchased from the government in 1830 lots 3 and 4 in block 31 on which his building stood, as well as the small block 30, later selling part of the land to Charles A. Ballard [see Maps, 1834, John S. Wright]; is listed on the Peoria County Census of August 1830. In 1831 he built on a two-story frame house and called the structure the "Sauganash Hotel" in honor of his friend Billy Caldwell, whose Indian name was Sauganash; on June 6 that year, at the new county seat (Chicago), was granted a license to sell goods in Cook County; with his son Mark, Jr., signed the [see] Hamilton Auxiliary Petition in Chicago on October 5. In the late summer of 1832, he rented his original log cabin, adjacent to his tavern, to newly arrived Philo Carpenter for use as - Chicagos 1st - drugstore; an ardent enemy of alcohol, Carpenter soon moved out. Mark next let the space to John S. Wright, and in 1833, the cabin became a school under Eliza Chappels direction. Mark and Mark, Jr. were listed among "500 Chicagoans" on the census which Commissioner Thomas J.V. Owen took prior to the incorporation of Chicago as a town in early August 1833, and Mark was one of the "Qualified Electors" who voted to incorporate the town [for a copy of that meetings original report, see incorporation] and on August 10 voted in the first town election; he received $500 in payment for a claim at the Chicago Treaty in September. Mark became the first licensed ferry owner, and in 1834 he built his second hotel, the "Exchange Coffee House," at the NW corner of Lake and Wells streets; placed an ad in the Dec. 21, 1835, Chicago Democrat that read: "I Mark Beaubien, do agree to pay 25 bushels of Oats if any man will agree to pay me the same number of bushels if I win against any mans horse or mare in the town of Chicago, against Maj. R.A. Forsyths bay mare, Now in Town for three miles on the ice"; 1839 City Directory: hotel-keeper, Lake Street. In 1840, Mark removed to Lisle with his family where he acquired farmland from William Sweet S of Sweets Grove and also a cabin located immediately W of the [see] Beaubien Cemetery; the cabin soon became a tavern, while yet home to the residing family. Mark is also listed in the 1843 City Directory: U.-S. light-house keeper, res River street. From 1851 to 1857 he used the building as a toll station for the Southwest Plank Road, with his son collecting the toll; the structure, built in the 1830s, still exists though moved [see Monuments]. Later, during 1859 and 1860, he was again the lighthouse keeper in Chicago. His address in 1878 was Newark, Kendall County. During the last 10 years of his life, he was troubled by failing memory, much to his chagrin because he loved to tell stories of the past; he was happiest in the company of old friends. Mark died on April 11, 1881, in the home of his daughter Mary [born Sept. 30, 1848] and son-in-law, Georges Mathieu, at Kankakee and was buried with his second wife in St. Rose Cemetery, the oldest portion of Mound Grove. His fiddle is preserved at the Chicago History Museum. One of his sons, Napoleon, known as "Monkey," was a close childhood friend of Edwin O. Gale; another son, Mark, Jr. (1819-1860), was living in Chicago in 1836, and later was in business at Rock Island. IL, and subsequently in Dubuque, IA, living there with his second wife Sarah Jane Wilson and daughter Alice Mary; street name: Beaubien Court (120 E from 150 N to 186 N), a short street in present downtown Chicago, named after Mark and Jean Baptiste Beaubien who together fathered 42 children with their Indian, French and English wives, vitally contributing to the population explosion of early Chicago. [13, 42, 131a, 160, 357, 266, 319, 357, 394, 421a, 429] [Chicago Antiquities, p.332] ...We have read a statement in Smiths History of Wisconsin to the purport that Col. Wm. J. Hamilton passed through Chicago in June, 1825 [if true, it must have been 1826; eds.], with a drove of some 700 head of cattle, procured in southern Illinois, which he had contracted to the government, for the use of the post at Green Bay. A brother of Colonel Beaubien, it is stated, assisted in getting the cattle across the Chicago River, but in rendering that service, managed to drown one of them purposely; so Beaubien told Hamilton some years afterward. He did it, he said, in order to buy the animal, knowing that he could not purchase it any other way, and he very greatly needed the beef. This "brother of Colonel Beaubien," we must believe, was none other than our famed Mark. [p. 333] ... In the early days, while Mr. B. kept a tavern, possibly the old Sauganash, when emigration from the east began to pour forth the stream which has not yet subsided, Marks loft, capable of storing half a hundred men, for a night, if closely packed, was often filled to repletion. The furniture equipment, however, for a caravansary so well patronized, it is said, was exceedingly scant; that circumstance, however, only served to exhibit more clearly the eminent skill of the landlord. With the early shades of an autumn eve, the first to men arriving were given a bed on the floor of the staging or loft, and, covering them with two blankets, Mark bade them a hearty good-night. Fatigued with the days travel, they would soon be sound asleep, when two more would be placed by their side, and the aforesaid "two blankets" be drawn over these new comers. The first two were journeying too intently in the land of dreams to notice this sleight of hand feat of the jolly Mark, and as travelers, in those days, usually slept in their clothes, they generally passed the night without great discomfort. As others arrived, the last going to bed always had the blankets; and so it was, that forty dusty, hopeful, tired, and generally uncomplaining emigrants or adventurous explorers, who went up a ladder, two by two, to Mark Beaubiens sleeping loft, were all covered with one pair of blankets. It is true, it was sometimes said, that in a frosty morning there were frequently charges of blanket-stealing, and grumbling was heard, coupled with rough words similar to those formerly used by the army in Flanders; but the great heart of Mark was sufficient for the occasion, for, at such times, he would only charge half price for lodging to those who were disposed to complain.

Frank G. Beaubien [1919] provides a valuable late episode: Near the time of my fathers death - just before he died he asked for his violin. He played an old Indian tune, the words are, "Let me go to my home on the far distant shore white man, let me go." He played it partly through but he was too weak to finish. He requested me to bring the violin and a picture of Hon. John Wentworth, taken when he was a young man and to hand them to John Wentworth. After his death I brought them to Hon. John Wentworth who was stopping at the Sherman House. I handed them to him and said that it was fathers request. He took my hand, the tears came to his eyes and he could not speak and he left me and I went out deeply impressed. Mr. Wentworth gave the violin to the Calumet Club, where the old pioneers used to meet once a year until they all passed away. [12]

Supreme Court of Illinois, becoming chief justice in 1855; lived at 1900 Calumet Ave. in 1885; street named: Caton Street (1652 N).

See the following excerpt Caton, John Dean  (1812-1894/5) from Monroe, NY of Caton`s reminiscences to the members of the Calumet Club and assembled old settlers on May 27, 1879. [242, 243, 319, 351, 498, 707] 

... Let me ask John Bates over there if he remembers when we scated together up to Hard Scrabble, – where Bridgeport is now, – and he explained to me, by pantomime alone, how the Indians cought musk-rats under the ice. And let me ask Silas B. Cobbs if he remembers the trick Mark Beaubien played on Robert A. Kinzie to win the race on the ice that winter? See, now, how Marks eye flashes fire and he trembles in every fibre at the bare remembrance of that wild excitement. This was the way he did it. He and Kinzie had each a very fast pony, one a pacer and the other one a trotter. Mark had trained his not to brake when he uttered the most unearthly screams and yells which he could pour forth, and that is saying much, for he could beat any Pottawatomie I ever heard, except Gurdon S. Hubbard and John S.C. Hogan. The day was bright and cold. The glittering ice was smooth as glass, the atmosphere pure and bracing. The start was about a mile up the South Branch. Down came the trotter and the pacer like a whirlwind, neck and neck, till they approached Wolf Point, or the junction, when Kinzies pony began to pull ahead of the little pacer, and bets were two to one on the trotting-nag as he settled a little nearer to the ice and stretched his hear and neck further out, as if determined to win it but by a throat-latch. It was at this supreme moment that Marks tactics won the day. He sprang to his feet in his plank-built pung, his tall form towering above all surroundings, threw high in the air his wolf-skin cap, frantically swung round his head his buffalo robe, and screamed forth such unearthly yells as no human voice ever excelled, broken up into a thousand accents by a rapid clapping of the mouth with the hand. To this the pony was well trained, and it but served to bring out the last inch of speed that was in him, while the trotter was frightened out of his wits, no doubt thinking a whole tribe of Indians were after him, and he broke into a furious run, which carried him far beyond the goal before he could be brought down. Hard words were uttered then, which it would not do to repeat in a well-conducted Sunday-school, but the winner laughed and pocketed the stakes with a heartiness and zest which Mark alone could manifest.

http://www.earlychicago.com/encyclopedia.php?letter=b

He bought a log house of James Kinzie, in which he kept a hotel for some time, southeast corner of Lake and Market (now West Wacker) Streets After the town was surveyed and platted in 1829, canal lands were sold at public auction the following year. Later, he erected the first frame building in Chicago, which was known as the "Sauganash," and in which he kept a hotel until 1834, a combination family residence, tavern, and hotel..

He also engaged in merchandising, but was not successful, ran the first ferry across the South Branch of the Chicago River, and served for many years as lighthouse keeper at Chicago. About 1834, the Indians transferred to him a reservation of 640 acres of land on the Calumet, for which, some 40 years afterwards, he received a patent which had been signed by Martin Van Buren - he having previously been ignorant of its existence. He was married twice and had a family of 22 children. Died, at Kankakee, Ill, April 16, 1881. ["Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois" Transcribed by Kim Torp]

Mark Beaubien was one of the few ferry keepers in the Chicago area. He arrived in Chicago in 1826 from Detroit to visit his older brother Jean Baptiste Beaubien, a trader at Fort Dearborn. Mark and his wife Monique decided to make their home at Chicago. They bought a small cabin from James Kinzie and in 1831 built the first frame structure in Chicago, the Sauganash Hotel. The couple operated the hotel (which was far from a solitary life) for several years on the Chicago River just south of Wolf Point (the confluence of the north and south branches into the main stem). Also in 1831, Beaubien became the first ferry-keeper at Chicago. He was on call night and day to ferry travelers across the Chicago River. Later, Beaubien also served several terms as a lighthouse keeper on the Chicago River and as a toll keeper along a plank road in Du Page County.[1]

In his account of this journey Mark writes in “Chicago Antiquities”; I came with my family by team; no road, only Indian trails. I had to hire an Indian to show me the way to Chicago. I camped out doors and bought a log house from Jim Kinzie. There was no town; didn’t expect no town. When they laid out the town, my house laid out in the street; when they laid out the town I bought two two lots where I built the old Sauganash the first frame house in Chicago.[2]

The Indians so loved him for his fairness to them that they voted him sixty-four acres of land at the mouth of the Calumet River – which he did not know for almost forty years. When he received his letters patent in 1874 he found it had been signed by President Martin Van Buren.

Mark brought his family, Mrs. Monique Nadeau Beaubien, and the five children they then had – eleven others were born later.

Mrs. Beaubien died, and late in his life Mark married Miss Elizabeth Mathieu of Aurora. Seven children were born to them. Their daughter, Mary Beaubien, married her cousin, George Mathieu.

Beaubien was a renowned fiddle player and much of Chicago's early social scene was centered at his place. Beaubien lived a robust life until his death in 1881 at his daughter's home in Kankakee.

By Wikitree contributor Vicki Norman

• Reference: MyHeritage Family Trees - SmartCopy: Oct 30 2022, 16:37:23 UTC

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