Fort Wayne
Published .
- Name origin
- Named for Major General Anthony Wayne. Hamtramck marched six companies in on 22 October 1794, fired fifteen rounds and gave it the name.
On the morning of 22 October 1794 six companies marched into a new fort at the head of the Maumee, fired fifteen rounds, and gave it the name of the general who had sent them. Two officers who were there wrote it down that day. What they wrote, and what a county history did with it eighty-six years later, is where this archive begins.
Five years before that there was a town here already. A young trader named Henry Hay spent the winter of 1789 in it, played his flute at Christmas mass, and wrote down the captives brought in across the river. And in October 1790 a detachment crossed the river at a ford below the town and was cut to pieces there. An old soldier who marched with Harmar said a Miami chief was in the water that morning; the county's first historian, twenty-five years later, put the same man on the bank as a boy of ten or twelve.
The garrison years leave their own record. In 1811 a private pleaded guilty to rioting in the public cornfield, three men were sworn, and what they said was not about the riot. At the government factory the agent listed every man who owed it, down to a labourer owing two dollars and seventy and a half cents, and gave the Indian debtors one line with no name on it.
What the town did for money is the next thing the record holds. In April 1841 a canal man headed his advertisement with one word, OPPOSITION, and promised to step between the public's purse and the old line's extortion. Two years later two merchants set out the paper a farmer might be handed across their counter: a dollar in old scrip bought eighty-five or ninety cents of goods, a dollar in Blue Dog bought forty. That same autumn a man began building an ashery and farmers bought kettles to boil their ashes down to black salts, and a stranger took rooms in a brick building, set out a camera, and within four weeks the town had a daguerreotypist of its own.
Men built things here and lost them. Marshall S. Wines put up a sawmill on Cedar Creek and mills on the Maumee, went bail for another man's debt, and by July 1842 the mill was late Col. Wines'. Samuel Edsall asked the town for a bridge over the St. Mary's in March 1844 and took the contract himself.
The schools were argued over for twenty years. The county's first school was to be paid for out of court fines, and in 1841 the clerk counted what had been collected against what was owed: a total loss to the Seminary Fund. In June 1847 a procession laid the corner stone of a college at the end of West Wayne Street, and eleven years later the sheriff offered the same ground for sale. In June 1853 the town had twelve hundred school children and no public schoolhouse, and the voters turned down the tax that would have built one, more than they were either able or willing to bear.
Two endings, both in print here. In December 1855 a printer caught his hand in his own steam press, and six weeks later the paper across town reported that his Standard had stopped because of it. Ten years earlier word had come to a nurseryman that cattle were in one of his plantings on the St. Joseph; he went at once, lay down that night and did not get up again, and by 5 April 1845 a notice in this town called him late of Allen county, deceased.
Stories from Fort Wayne
Bell and Home
A second telephone company opened in Fort Wayne in 1896 with six hundred subscribers and no franchise. Within two years the two were quarrelling in print, and for twenty years a business that wanted to be reachable printed two numbers.
Fragments of the rock
Fifteen men met in a hall in 1912 and named a club after an aqueduct that was no longer there. They found a hundred more of themselves and banqueted yearly, and in 1916 a contractor cutting a sewer through the old canal bed handed them pieces of it.
In lively demand
Twenty-six years after the last boat, the towpath of the Wabash and Erie canal was in demand. Three Fort Wayne men owned a stretch of it, an interurban was being built on it, and the man who had held an option was appealing to the supreme court.
The day's deaths
One Saturday morning in 1894 the Fort Wayne Sentinel printed five deaths under a standing heading, with funeral notices and the city undertakers' list of the week's dead. Three of the names appear twice in the column, with different ages and different causes.
The prayer for the dead in Latin
A woman buried outside consecrated ground in 1879, with no priest, and an old lady saying the Latin at the graveside. Her husband had killed her and himself. What the paper printed most of was the week two medical colleges spent acquiring three bodies.
Forfeited her bail of ten dollars
Eight people came before the mayor of Fort Wayne on a Saturday morning in 1880. One of them lost ten dollars in a single sentence. The man charged with associating with her was tried for four days, and the paper reported that his friends congratulated him.
Obeyed and respected accordingly
Four days after the fort was named, an order gave it to a man to keep. The same order offered twenty five dollars for information on soldiers robbing the country around it, and when Michigan printed it in 1904 its editor put the fort at Detroit.
The goods from Fort Wayne
Three weeks after the siege was lifted, three officers were told to price the merchandise carried out of Fort Wayne against what it would have fetched in Lexington. It was then divided by regiment and issued to the men against their pay.
Nineteen in number
In November 1806 the officer commanding at Chicago routed himself through Fort Wayne to see the contractor's agent about meat. He came away with nineteen poor beeves, and on his way back with nothing at all.
Only a few of us remember it
In 1913 two boyhood friends came back to Fort Wayne and asked William McMullen to show them the canal they had swum in. They walked Columbia street for two days and found nothing, and the Sentinel printed it as a joke with a cartoon.
A carrying place of nine miles
In December 1760 the officer holding Detroit explained why a lieutenant had gone to keep the post at the head of the Maumee through the winter. He gave three reasons in one sentence. In 1917 a Fort Wayne historian quoted it and changed the only part about this ground.
A man there is so much trust put in
An English captain at the Miami town in 1781 could not read the accounts he was signing or follow the councils he was reporting, and leaned on one trader for both. That trader is why a French colonel rode four days across country to rob a single building at the forks.
If I go this is the way in which I shall present myself
Messengers came up to the Miami town in February 1781 with a speech on white wampum, inviting the Miami to change sides. A chief answered with four objects and every one of them was painted red, and then he stopped speaking and sang.
Duplasy, Milliet, Cardinal, Joseph André
A French colonel rode out of Ouiatanon in 1780 for one storehouse at the Miami town. Two men wrote down what happened to him within a month, one at Vincennes and one at Detroit. The county's four histories used neither, and worked from what old men remembered.
That glorious gate
At Greenville in July 1795 Anthony Wayne told the council that the ground where the St. Joseph meets the St. Mary's had been ceded to the French long ago. A Miami chief stood up and answered that nobody had ever sold it, and that one of the forts Wayne had traced was his own.
The beavers had made a dam
A British force crossed the nine mile carrying place at the head of the Maumee in October 1778 and found the water beyond it too low to float the boats. What carried them down was a beaver dam, and the officer who cut it wrote down why nobody there touched the beaver.
A spirit of enterprise
Marshall S. Wines built a sawmill on Cedar Creek in 1834 and the Woodlawn Mills on the Maumee in 1838. In 1841 he went bail for another man's debt. By July 1842 the mill was late Col. Wines', and in September he died at his canal contract.
The Edsalls know no such word as fail
In March 1844 Samuel Edsall asked Fort Wayne for a bridge over the St. Mary's and took the contract himself. He took the plank road to Bluffton partly in stock, and the second and third courthouses as contractor.
As true to nature as the reflection in a mirror
In the autumn of 1843 Charles E. Keith took rooms in a brick building in Fort Wayne and set out a camera. Four weeks later the town had a daguerreotypist of its own, and the editor of the Sentinel said the same thing about both men's likenesses: as true as a mirror.
Boiling down their ashes to black salts
In November 1843 a man named Miller began building an ashery in Fort Wayne, and several farmers had bought kettles to boil their ashes down to black salts. In 1845 Miller wanted a hundred tons. In 1854 the last call for black salts ran three weeks.
Opposition on the canal
In April 1841 William D. Mahon headed his canal advertisement with one word, OPPOSITION, and promised to step between the public's purse and the old line's extortion. By January his horses and harness had been attached.
The value in this market
At the end of August 1843 two Fort Wayne merchants set out the paper a farmer might be handed across their counter. A dollar in old scrip bought 85 or 90 cents of goods that week. A dollar in Blue Dog bought 40. Nobody would put a number on the Blue Pup.
A rascally scrambling trade
On Christmas morning 1789 Henry Hay played his flute at mass in the Miami town. Through the same winter he wrote down the captives brought in across the river, among them John Witherington, whose wife and seven children were held by other parties.
Gave it the name of Fort Wayne
On 22 October 1794 Hamtramck marched six companies into the new fort, fired fifteen rounds and named it. Two officers who were there wrote that down. In 1880 a county history quoted one of them to the day before, then wrote its own 22 October.
His hand in the steam press
In December 1855 Daniel W. Burroughs caught his hand in his steam press. Six weeks later the paper across town reported that his Standard had stopped because of it. The county histories remembered a sale instead.
Late of Allen county, deceased
Word came to John Chapman that cattle had broken into one of his nurseries on the St. Joseph River. He went at once, lay down that night and did not get up again. By 5 April 1845 a notice in Fort Wayne called him late of Allen county, deceased.
A total loss to the Seminary Fund
The county's first school was meant to be paid for by the fines of its courts. In 1841 the clerk counted $3,392.70 in fines and forfeitures since 1824, and $238.31 collected. In 1860 one of the seminary's lots was forfeited back to the fund.
More than they are either able or willing to bear
In June 1853 Fort Wayne had 1,200 school children and no public schoolhouse. The editor of the Sentinel wrote that a school tax might be more than the city could bear, and the voters turned it down, 325 to 130. Five years later he was elected a school trustee.
Taken as the property of the Trustees
In June 1847 a procession laid the corner stone of the Fort Wayne Female College at the end of West Wayne Street. Eleven years later the sheriff offered the same ground for sale at the suit of David M. Dunbar, and the paper never said what happened next.
By different Indians
John Johnston named every man who owed the United States factory at Fort Wayne, down to a labourer owing $2.70½. The Indian debtors are one line with no name on it, owing nearly twice what the sixteen named men owed together.
He was in the engagement
An old soldier who marched with Harmar wrote that a Miami chief was in the river that morning. Twenty-five years later the county's first historian put the same man on the bank, a boy of ten or twelve.
Without any provocation
A private pleaded guilty to rioting in the public cornfield. Three men were then sworn, and what they said was not about the riot. The commanding officer punished the other man too, without charging him.