Nineteen in number

Captain John Whistler stopped at Fort Wayne on 21 November 1806 on his way to somewhere else. He had leave from his colonel for a few weeks and he was going to Detroit, and he had arranged his route to take in Fort Wayne because the man he needed to see was there.

That man was the contractor's agent, and what Whistler needed from him was meat. Whistler commanded Fort Dearborn, at Chicago, and when he left it there was not enough on hand for two months.

I took Fort Wayne in my rout, for the purpose of seeing the Contractor Agent ther as he is impowered to furnish this post, with the article of meat

He told the agent how his post stood. The agent told him what he could do about it.

he replyed it was not in his power to remedy the evil accept with a few poor Beeves, ninteen in number

The nineteen were sent in December and reached Chicago late that month.

Whistler went on to Detroit, and then he came back, and he routed himself through Fort Wayne a second time deliberately, to see whether anything had changed. He says so plainly: he made Fort Wayne in his route on his return purposely to gain information, looking for better success.

He did not get it. What he got was an explanation.

the said agent informed me that it was not in his power to make a purchase as his bills in favour of the Contractor were protested, and the people would not sell there property without some other means than his bills

The agent's paper had stopped working. People around Fort Wayne would not part with cattle for it. And the consequence, which the agent gave Whistler in the same conversation, reached further than Chicago.

he also informed me, he was not able to Furnish Fort Wayne or this post

Not Fort Wayne either. The post where the agent sat was in the same position as the post he could not reach.

Whistler names a third officer in the same sentence. Captain Whipple had been reduced to buying hogs for his own garrison, such hogs as happened thereabout, because the agent could not supply him. Three posts, one agent, and paper nobody would take.

These circumstances were alarming to me as being in so remoat a part of world where little could be purchased

He told the agent he would have to buy meat himself at Fort Dearborn if any was to be had there. When he got back he made a survey of what was in store, counted in the nineteen head, and found there was not enough for three months. He found a small quantity of hog for sale and bought it on the best terms he could, and enclosed the account with his certificate.

I am Ignorant of the manner in which I aught to draw for the payments of such purchase

He had bought food for his garrison without knowing how he was supposed to pay for it. What he did know was the document he was acting under, and he cites it: the third article of the Secretary's agreement with Oliver Phelps, dated 6 June 1806.

The hog was not enough either, so he made a second arrangement with a man who happened to be passing through Fort Dearborn from Staunton, for beef, and enclosed a copy of that too. Between the two he hoped he had six months from the first of January.

And then, at the end, having spent two thousand words describing a supply that had failed at three posts, he adds a line about the man whose paper had failed.

I am happy to find that the Contractor is gainer for what he looses on the first purchase, he gains much more on the latter

The contractor comes out ahead. Whistler says he is happy about it.

The letter is dated Fort Dearborn, 6 January 1807. Four months later he wrote again, about a draught he had enclosed in March.

But the Contractors agent at Fort Wayne having discharged said Draught and returned it with the letter to me as being authorized so to do by me if he thought proper

This is the same John Whistler who drew the plan of the fort at Fort Wayne that this archive holds in its Maps section, and whose post the reconstruction on Spy Run Avenue copies.