water of the Mississippi prevented proceeding above the lake, which Mr. Schoolcraft named Lake Cass, and from which they turned back Four months were consumed in making the journey, visiting Indian tribes and getting back to Detroit. Mr. Schoolcraft, in his report, speaks of Dr. Wolcott as a gentleman commanding respect by his manners, judgment and intelligence. Twelve years later, in 1832, Dr. Douglas Houghton (q.v.), of Detroit, accompanied a second expedition, organized by Mr. Schoolcraft, to finish this work. They succeeded in reaching the source of the river, which they found to be about 180 miles above Lake Cass. Thus Wolcott and Houghton had the honor of connecting the medical profession with the discovery of the source of the Mississippi River.
On August 29, 1821 one of the last great Indian treaties was held at Chicago. Dr. Wolcott was one of the signers with Governor Cass and the United States Indian Commissioners. Henry Schoolcraft, who attended and acted as secretary, attributed to Dr. Wolcott's advice to Governor Cass the acquirement, for a trifling sum of millions of acres of Michigan lands.
In 1823 the garrison was withdrawn from Fort Dearborn and the fort and property left in charge of Dr. Wolcott until it was again garrisoned in 1828. In these early days the settlement of Chicago consisted of a few families clustered about Fort Dearborn; one family which had settled there as early as 1804, was that of John and Eleanor Kinzie, whose eldest daughter, Ellen Marion, the first white child born in Chicago, Dr. Wolcott married on July 20, 1823. As there was no one in Chicago legally authorized to perform a marriage, a Justice of the Peace, who was on his way from Green Bay, Wisconsin, to his home in Peoria, was called on for the ceremony.
Shortly before his death Dr. Wolcott purchased at the sale of canal lands, a number of town lots and eighty acres. The latter, years later, became "Wolcott's addition to the city." For many years North State Street bore the name of Wolcott Street. Dr. Wolcott died October 25, 1830, and was buried near the fort. In 1865 Mrs. John H. Kinzie had the remains of Dr. Wolcott and his two children removed to her lot in Graceland Cemetery.
Wolcott, Erastus Bradley (1804–1880)
Erastus Bradley Wolcott was born in Benton, Yates County, New York, October 18, 1804. His father, Elisha Wolcott, having removed to that section from Salisbury, Connecticut, in 1795. The first of the family in this country was Henry, second son of John Wolcott, of Galdon Manor, Tolland, Somersetshire, England, who came to Massachusetts in 1630 and to Connecticut in 1638, where his descendants made the name historic, it having been borne by officers of the colonial army, by deputies, senators, by several governors of the State, by the secretary of the treasury under Washington, and by a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
High ideals, industry, wholesome living and adaptability to the conditions of life in a new country were manifest in the colonists from Connecticut who settled in western New York. A God-fearing folk, their first care was to provide schools for their children, who were well trained in gentle, courteous manners and not only in the ordinary branches, but in physical exercises, in music and in study of the English classics, with which Dr. Wolcott had an unusual acquaintance. He and his brothers and cousins became so proficient upon various musical instruments that they were asked to play at a reception to LaFayette in Rochester in 1826. Erastus Wolcott began his medical training under Dr. Joshua Lee, practitioner of the time.
After three years of study and practical experience with Dr. Lee, in Ontario, the Medical Society of Yates County licensed him as a practising physician in 1825.
To obtain means for further study he accepted a position as surgeon with a mining company in North Carolina, practising there and in Charleston, South Carolina, until 1830. Returning to New York, he entered the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Fairfield and, completing the course with distinction, especially in anatomy, received his M. D. and was urged by professors to settle in New York City; however, wishing to see the Western country, he entered the United States Army as surgeon in 1836, and after accompanying the command removing the Cherokees west of the Mississippi, he was ordered to Fort Mackinac, where he met and married Elizabeth J. Dousman. Resigning in 1839, he settled in Milwaukee where his practice became so exacting as to leave him no time for writing nor even for reporting his own cases. The illiberal rules of the medical societies of that day excluded Dr. Wolcott from membership because he would extend his surgical and consultation aid to homeopathic physicians. In 1850 he was appointed regent of the State University.
