ALLEN COUNTY – FORT WAYNE
From 1764 to 1794, there is but little to record in the history of Fort Wayne, except those general events of war which are sufficiently noticed elsewhere, and which form, more properly, a part of the general history of the State. Passing on to Wayne’s campaign, and over that part of its progress, which brought his army into the field, we find him at the head of the Maumee in October, 1794. The work of erecting a fort was immediately commenced, and was completed on the twenty-second of the month, when Lieut.-Col. Hamtramck gave it the name of Fort Wayne. Previous to this date the place was not known by that name.
This was the starting point of the present city, the nucleus around which the civilization, industry and wealth of northern Indiana early began to accumulate, and to which it still centers.
Colonel Hamtramck commanded at Fort Wayne from its erection in 1794 to 1796, during which time nothing of any great importance transpired.
After the surrender of Detroit to the British, Tecumseh devised a scheme for the reduction of Forts Wayne and Harrison, and in September, 1812, began to assemble his warriors in the vicinity of the forts. The garrison at Fort Wayne, at this time, was under the command of Captain Rhea, ‘whose habits of intemperance,’ says Mr. Knapp, ‘disqualified him for the place; and during a period of two weeks the safety of the fort, principally owing to the incompetence of the commander, was in jeopardy.’
An express had been sent to General Harrison requesting reinforcements, but many long weary days passed, bringing no tidings of the expected assistance. At length, one day a white man and four Indians arrived at the fort on horseback. The white man was Major William Oliver. He was accompanied by four friendly Indians, among whom was the brave Logan. The garrison had been in a state of cruel suspense for more than two weeks, wishing ardently for reinforcements on the one hand, and fearfully expecting the approach of the British forces on the other. It is not surprising, then, that in this extremity they were anxious to hear news from any quarter.
The little party, with Oliver at its head, had reached the fort in defiance of five hundred Indians –‘had broken their ranks and reached the fort in safety.’ Oliver reported that Harrison, having been informed of the dangerous situation of Fort Wayne, had determined to march to its relief. Ohio was raising volunteers. Eight hundred were then assembled at St. Mary’s, Ohio, sixty miles south of Fort Wayne, and would march to the relief of the fort in there or four days, or as soon as they were joined by reinforcements from Kentucky. Oliver prepared a letter, announcing to General Harrison his safe arrival at the besieged fort, and giving an account of its beleaguered situation, which he dispatched by his friendly Shawano's, while he determined to take his chances with the occupants of the post. As soon as an opportunity presented itself, the brave Logan and his companions started with the message to Governor Harrison. They had scarcely left the fort when they were discovered and pursued by the hostile Indians, but, passing the Indian lines in safety, they were soon out of reach.
The Indians now began a furious attack upon the fort, but the little garrison, with Oliver to cheer them on, bravely met the assault, repelling the attack day after day, until the army approached to their relief. During this siege the commanding officer, whose habits of intemperance rendered him unfit for the command, was confined in the ‘black-hole,’ and the junior officer assumed charge. This course was approved by the General, on his arrival, but Captain Rhea received but little censure, undoubtedly owing to his service in the Revolutionary war. In those days, to have been a gallant officer in the Revolutionary war, was, to official imperfections, as charity is to sins.
On the sixth of September, the army under General Harrison moved forward to relieve Fort Wayne. On the seventh it reached a point to within three miles of the St. Mary’s river, making the remaining distance to the river on the eighth, on the eve of which they were joined by two hundred mounted volunteers, under Colonel Richard M. Johnson. On the ninth the army marched eighteen miles, reaching ‘Shane’s crossing,’ on the St. Mary’s, where it was joined by eight hundred men from Ohio, under Colonels Adams and Hawkins. At this place, chief Logan and four other Indians offered their services as spies to General Harrison, and were accepted. Logan was immediately disguised and sent forward. Passing through the lines of the hostile Indians, he ascertained their number to be about fifteen hundred, and entering the fort, he encouraged the soldiers to hold out, as relief was at hand. General Harrison’s force, at this time, was about three thousand five hundred. ‘Friday morning,’ says Mr. Knapp, ‘we were under marching orders after an early breakfast. It had rained and the guns were damp; we were ordered to discharge them and re-load, as we were then getting into the vicinity of the enemy, and knew not how soon we might be attacked. A strong detachment of spies, under Captain James Suggett, of Scott County, Ohio, marched considerably ahead of the army. Indications of the enemy having advanced from their position at Fort Wayne, for the purpose of watching the movements of our army, were manifest, and Captain Suggett came upon the trail of a large party, which he immediately pursued. After following the tail for some distance, he was fired on by an Indian who had secreted himself in a clump of bushes so near to Suggett that the powder burnt his clothes, but the ball missed him. The Indian jumped from his cover and attempted to escape, but Andrew Johnson, of Scott county, Ohio, shot him.
On the return of Suggett’s party, a breastwork was erected in expectation of an attack from the Indians, but the night passed with repeated alarms but no formidable onset.
Mr. Bryce, in his history, tells us that on the tenth of September the army expected to reach Fort Wayne but thought in all probability, that the march would be a fighting one, as the Indians were encamped directly on their route at the Black Swamp, but his expectation was happily disappointed, as ‘at the first grey of the morning of the tenth of September, the distant halloos of the disappointed savages revealed to the anxious inmates of the fort the glorious news of the approach of the army. Great clouds of dust could be seen from the fort, rolling up in the distance, as the valiant soldiery under General Harrison moved forward to the rescue of the garrison, and soon after daybreak the army stood before the fort. The Indians had beat a retreat to the eastward and northward, and the air about the old fort resounded with the glad shouts of welcome to General Harrison and the brave boys of Ohio and Kentucky.’
This siege of Fort Wayne occasioned great inconvenience and considerable loss to the few settlers who had gathered around the fort. AT the date of its commencement there was quite a little village clustered around the military works, but with the first demonstrations of the enemy, the occupants of these dwellings fled within the fort, leaving their improvements to be destroyed by the savages. Every building out of the reach of the guns of the fort was leveled to the ground, and thus was the infant settlement totally destroyed.
During the siege the garrison lost but three men, while the Indians lost about twenty-five. There was a plenty of provisions in the fort, and the soldiers suffered only from anxiety and a fear of slaughter at the hands of the savages.
The following information concerning the movements of General Harrison at Fort Wayne, on the occasion, is compiled from the writings of Messrs. Knapp and Bryce:
‘The second day following the arrival of the army at Fort Wayne, General Harrison sent out two detachments, with the view of destroying the Indian villages in the region of country lying some miles around Fort Wayne, the first division being composed of the regiments under Colonels Lewis and Allen, and Captain Garrad’s troop of horse, under General Payne, accompanied by General Harrison. The second division, under Colonel Wells, accompanied by a battalion of his own regiment under Major Davenport, (Scott’s regiment) the mounted battalion under Johnson, and the mounted Ohio men under Adams. These expeditions were all successful; and after the return of the divisions under Payne and Wells, General Harrison sent them to destroy Little Turtle Town, some twenty miles northwest of the fort, with orders not to molest the buildings formerly erected by the United States for the benefit of Little Turtle, whose friendship for the Americans had ever been firm after the treaty of Greenville. Colonel Simrall most faithfully performed the task assigned him, and on the evening of the nineteenth returned to the fort.
‘In addition to these movements, General Harrison took precaution to remove all the undergrowth in the locality surrounding the fort, extending toward the confluence of the St. Joseph and St. Mary, to where now stands Rudisill’s mill, and westward as far as St. Mary, to the point where now stands the Fort Wayne College; thence southeast to about the point of the residence of the late Allen Hamilton, and to the east down the Maumee a short distance. And so well cleared was the ground, including a very large part of the entire limits of the present site of the city of Fort Wayne, that it is said by those who were here at that early day, and to a later period, a sentinel ‘on the bastions of the fort looking westward, could see a rabbit running across the grounds as far as so small an object was discernible to the naked eye.’ The seclusive points were thus cut off, and the Indians now had no longer any means of concealing their approach upon the fort. Some thirty or forty acres of what is now known as the Cole farm, extending to the junction of the rivers, and just opposite the Maumee, was then known as the Public Meadow, which of course was then, as it had long before been, a considerable open space. The soldiers were thus readily enabled to observe the approach of any hostile movement against the fort, and to open the batteries, with formidable, effect, upon any advance that might be made against the garrison from any direction.
It will be observed that Fort Wayne, up to this period, and for several years after, was but little else than a military post. This may be said of it during the whole period of its existence, or from 1705, when the first French stockade was erected, until the final evacuation of Fort Wayne in 1819. During this time it had been in charge of different commanders. Captain Hugh Moore, succeeded Captain Rhea, in 1812, who, in 1813, was superseded by Joseph Jenkinson. In the spring of 1814, Major Whistler took charge of the post and repaired it, or built an addition to it, which he occupied until 1817, when he was succeeded by Major J.H. Vase, who held the command until the post was permanently evacuated in 1819.
Source: An Illustrated History of the State of Indiana by DeWitt C. Goorich and Charles R. Tuttle, 1875.
