Francois Leclaire was of one of the French families in the former village at Peoria that Thomas Craig's men destroyed. This is his account of what happened:
After the Indians were defeated by the forces of Governor Edwards at the head of Peoria Lake, they (the Indians) threatened to kill the French people and proceeded to rob the houses and kill the oxen.
Then a party of men under Captain Thomas E. Craig arrived in two boats and took everything they could get their hands on. Then they made the people prisoners. While a prisoner he saw several structures burned by Craig's men. he also saw articles belonging to the villagers on the boats.
In 1813, he went up to Sandy Creek on the Illinois River with Thomas Forsyth and others and heard from the Indians that they had burned the Kinzie and Forsyth house and bakehouse at Peoria.
These were the damages done by Craig and his men.
--Brock-Perry
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