#TBT -- John Kinzie, Oldest Uptowner

Taking it all the way back for Throwback Thursday. "Meet" John Kinzie, who lies in Graceland Cemetery, and that makes him the oldest Uptown resident. In fact, he is considered to be the first person of European descent to have settled permanently in Chicago. He got here in 1800 and bought the lands of Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, the city's first permanent resident and founder.

John Kinzie has a few other distinctions:

• He is commemorated by Kinzie Street, which runs across land he once owned.
• He killed an employee of Fort Dearborn in 1812, an act that the Chicago Daily Tribune referred to 130 years later as "Chicago's first murder."
• He lived through the American Revolution and fought in the War of 1812.
• His great-granddaughter was Juliette Gordon Low, who founded the Girl Scouts.

If you want to see his grave for yourself, it is located just across the road from the famous "Eternal Silence" statue carved by Lorado Taft.