USA > Indiana > Allen County > Fort Wayne > Charcoal sketches of old times in Fort Wayne > Part 1
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7
917.7274 D32c DAWSON, John W.
CHARCOAL SKETCHES OF OLD TIMES IN FORT WAYNE.
(1872? (1758)
- PE
LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
917. 7274 D 32c
ILLINOIS HISTORICAL SURVEY
Charcoal
Sketches of Old Times in
Fort Hayne
by John 8. Darson
IT
OF F
0
SEAL
INDI.
CHARCOAL SKETCHES OF OLD TIMES IN FORT WAYNE
By
HON. JOHN W. DAWSON
ALENE GODFREY, Editor
Reprinted from the OLD FORT NEWS 1872. ? January-March, 1959. Published by the Allen County-Fort Wayne Historical Society. Permission granted by the Society
Prepared by the Staff of the Public Library of Fort Wayne and Allen County
1958
Board of Trustees of Fort Wayne Community Schools
Walter Hanauer
Gordon Reeves
Willard Shombaugh
Walter Dreyer
Wilmer E. Bodeker, Treasurer
B. F. Geyer, President
Mrs. William C. Rastetter, Jr. Secretary
One of a historical series, this pamphlet is published under the direction of the governing Boards of the Public Library of Fort Wayne and Allen County.
Public Library Board for Allen County
The members of this Board include the members of the Board of Trustees of the Fort Wayne Community Schools (with the same officers) together with the fallowing citizens chosen from Allen County outside the corporate city of Fort Wayne.
Gerald W. Morsches
James E. Grahom
Mrs. Frank Dulin
Mrs. Charles Reynolds
917.7274 19320
Del Hist Server
WERKLE TIMES Established us the ofan of the Whig query
FORT WAYNE
LARGE E WELL ORDERED
JOB
Aum and dolechlo @ imes.
..... >11
DAILY AND WELLD
fort Wayne Ejuice
JOB PRINTING OFTIL
#88 W DAWLAN
NEWS, BOOK, PININ. ORNAMENTAL JOE
Ew- stjtat d as the Organ of the Wing Party & D 1840
PRINTING OFFICE,
Nain and Ornamental Job Work.
.. .. North Hrel farset of Man and talhoun Siret, PORT MAYAL IND
JOMN W DAW 1N.
TIMES AND UNION.
DAAWEON'S
JOHN W. DAWSON, 1820-1877
John W. Dawson, Fort Wayne lawyer, newspaperman, and politician, was born in Cambridge City, Indiana on October 21, 1820. His elementary education was completed in the public schools of Cambridge City where he lived with his parents before moving to a farm near Guilford, Indiana. In 1838, young Dawson left his father's farm and went to Fort Wayne. He at- tended school and later became a clerk in the office of Colonel John Spencer, his brother-in-law, who was Receiver of Public Moneys.
After a short trip to Iowa in the spring of 1840, he returned to Indi- ana and studied for two years at Wabash College. Choosing a legal profes- sion, John read law with his brother-in-law, Thomas Johnson. He remained in Fort Wayne until he was admitted to the bar in 1843 and then began his practice in Augusta. However, on the death of Thomas Johnson, he returned to Fort Wayne to take charge of Johnson's law firm.
In 1847, John Dawson continued his law studies at Transylvania Col- lege in Kentucky, but poor health forced him to terminate his studies. Re- turning to Fort Wayne in 1853, he leased the Fort Wayne TIMES with T. H. Hood. The partnership was of short duration, in the following year Dawson became the sole owner. The DAWSON TIMES held progressive views on many current issues of the day, but was conservative on the controversial slavery problem. The paper gained influence, and its editor entered the political arena. Although nominated for the office of Secretary of State by the People's Party, Dawson failed to win the election. On November 4, 1855, John Dawson and Amanda M. Thorton were married in the Second Presbyterian Church.
Shortly after Lincoln's inauguration, John W. Dawson was appointed Governor of the Utah Territory. His term of office was short-lived, how- ever; six months after his arrival in Salt Lake City he was the victim of a violent physical attack. False rumor, his personal temperament, and Mormon opposition to the Federal policy of abolition of polygamy were all factors resulting in the attack. Dawson returned to Fort Wayne, but never completely recovered from the effects of the unfortunate incident. He died September 10, 1877.
FOREWORD
The following articles titled CHARCOAL SKETCHES OF OLD TIMES IN FORT WAYNE were published in the Fort Wayne DAILY SENTINEL by John W. Dawson in the year 1872. Except for the omission of number X and minor deletions throughout most of the other articles, they are repro- duced as Mr. Dawson first published them.
Mr. Dawson obviously was a very temperate man. He apparently never ceased nor slackened in his denunciation of the use of rum. His fre- quent references to the "Black Beast" of intemperance and the "blighting mildew of inebriety" reflect his personal attitude toward the use of liquor. Although there may be much truth in what he has to say relative to the use of strong drink, his personal opinions and observations do not seem rele- vant nor pertinent to the general reader of articles of this nature. This, as well as his frequent and somewhat lengthy quotations from the Bible and literature, accounts for the aforementioned deletions throughout his sketches and the omission of article X.
CHARCOAL SKETCHES have been presented as Mr. Dawson wrote them, although, some of the facts are not in complete agreement with the writings of other early Fort Wayne historians.
ALENE GODFREY, Editor
CONTENTS
I - VII General History (No titles) 19
VIII The Social Aspect of Fort Wayne, 1838 24
IX Recollections of Hon. Charles W. Ewing 27
X
Captain William Wells 29
XI XII
The Flagpole 34
Early Masonic History -- Wayne Lodge, No. 25. F. A. M. 36
XIII
The Siege of Fort Wayne -- Antoine Bondie, a French
Trader -- Me-te-a, a Potawatomi Chief 40
XIV XV
Imprisonment for Debt -- Jail Bounds -- Appraisement Laws 48
XVI
An Indian Murder -- A Miami Kills an Ottawa, 1824 --
Oqua-nox-as, an Ottawa Chief, Demands Reparation 52
XVII
The First Marriage in Fort Wayne -- Doctor Edwards to Miss Hunt, 1803 54
XVIII XIX
Incidents in the Life of Judge William Polk 57
Recollections of Counselor Cooper 59
XX
The Names of Our Rivers and Creeks -- Their Origin and Meaning . 63
XXI
Marais de Peage, Commonly Called Prairie du Parsh, in Aboite Township 66
Me-te-a, Potawatomi Chief 45
Number I CHARCOAL SKETCHES OF OLD TIMES IN FORT WAYNE
DAILY SENTINEL
Fort Wayne, Friday, March 8, 1872
Page 3, Col. 5-6
By John W. Dawson
Many subjects of interest are presented when we push time back a third of a century and glance at the place where we lived during that period. The men who appeared on the stage of action were outstanding. The busi- ness, social conditions, political events, physical aspects of the country -- its settlement and general improvement -- all add distinction to a place.
On March 6, 1838 I took up my residence in Fort Wayne. I was a youth of eighteen and a half years -- with less than five dollars in my pocket -- fresh from the farm on which I was born, in a Southern county of the State. I had industrious habits, good raising, and a fair rudimental educa- tion in the English studies. On that day I commenced to "do for myself." Like many young men, I was entranced with the beauties of the world, and beguiled by them. I thought I was much more master of the situation than I really was. Time has corrected many of those joyous and sanguine hopes. The emotions of that day were quite in advance of my judgment, and I have lived to find those emotions give way to the maturity of sober judgment, and happy dreams to sad and bitter realities. This, however, is the expe- rience of all men. These pleasant dreams go from us unwittingly, and we never find anything in life to compensate for them.
On that day, now thirty-four years ago, I arrived here. It may be well to give the physical aspect of the country and some details from the time I left Piqua, Ohio, en route, on the first Sunday of March, 1838. Leaving Troy, Miami County, Ohio, I soon reached Piqua, which was the frontier town of northwest Ohio -- the head of canal navigation and a place of much business importance. It was through this place that all the com- merce from Dayton was carried to Fort Wayne. From it a tri-weekly mail was carried to Fort Wayne on horseback, reaching the post Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. The winter had been one of an unusual fall of snow. It had been good sleighing for a month before I left Dearborn County, and remained good till about the middle of March. It was only during good sleighing that teamsters, pleasure seekers, and friends, could rapidly travel over the road to Fort Wayne. It was now used very largely for these purposes.
I was on horseback and my outfit, as usual then, was contained in a pair of portmanteau. I had read much, and heard more of the Indian character -- their warfare and barbarity. The region from Piqua to Fort Wayne had been famous ground for warlike incidents -- Indian treaties and thrilling stories. Having never before been twenty-five miles from home, nor even slept three consecutive nights away, I naturally felt a great ti-
1
March 8, 1872
midity in entering on this "bloody ground." Even a name terrified me. I quaked on reaching the forks of the road, three miles this side of Piqua, at the foot of a bluff, where Colonel John Johnson's farm was situated, when I saw a hand with the forefinger pointing to the north, and before it, painted in capitals, the letters Waugh pau Konnetta. That savage name must cer- tainly be the very jaws of death, and I at the point of entering in! This town now has been toned down by civilization to Wapakoneta, the seat of justice of Auglaize County. As I left the guideboard behind, every thing I saw -- the woods, rude houses, the streams as nature had adorned them -- tended to inspire fear. Even the old double-log tavern, called the "Eight-Mile House, " with its huge signboard and device of a buck's head and huge ant- lers, quite in keeping with the natural aspects of the country. This "Eight- Mile House" stood just where the Bellefontaine railway crosses the turn- pike -- then a corduroy road. Just ahead at the second crossing of the Lar- amie was historic ground that had been so for nearly a century. It was once called Laramie's Store, or brick-house (now a town named Berlin), and referred to as a point designating the boundary line, both in a treaty at Fort Harmar, on the Ohio River, January 21, 1785 -- again in a very dis- tinguished manner referred to as the boundary of lands eastward thereof, treated for by General Wayne on the part of the United States, and the Wy- andotts, Shawnees, Ottawas, Potawatomi, Miami, Eel River and other tribes of Indians, concluded at Greenville, Ohio, August 3, 1795. A por- tage, or right of transportation, was allowed by the Indians to the people of the United States, by land or water, from this point at Laramie's Store, to the St. Mary's River, thence down to Fort Wayne, and thence by the Maumee to Lake Erie, and from the same place a portage across to Au- glaize, down it to the Maumee, at Fort Defiance, thence to the Lake, and again from the same place to the Sandusky River. The Indians here re- served six miles square. It was therefore, a noted place, though the rude hewn-log house and surrounding trading houses stood there in 1838, there were no Indians. The place had been cleared very early of its timber, and outside the limits of the arable land then used, the new undergrowth told plainly that the ax was then no longer used. A gentleman named Farrow had lived long at this point and his name will recall to many pioneers the times in which he lived there. To young men who were attracted by "cali- co," it was a perfect haven of rest, for the Misses Farrows' personal charms were certainly not to be depreciated by any one.
A good dinner at Laramie's old store -- then kept by a Mr. Defreed who had lately married one of the Farrows -- gave the rider and horse fresh courage to push on towards St. Mary's (then the seat of justice of Mercer County). It was celebrated for its Indian treaties in 1818, at which all the country south of the Wabash up to the mouth of Little River, to its head, and the six miles square at Fort Wayne, reserved by the Indians in the Treaty of Greenville -- was then purchased from the Indians. This Treaty of October 1818, was made by General Lewis Cass -- then Governor of Michigan Territory -- and Governor Jennings of Indiana, on the part of the United States and the Indians by their chiefs. This purchase included all
2
WAUGA PAU KONNETTA
· · · even a name will terrify .
March 8, 1872
the central part of Indiana -- and was surveyed about 1819 -- after which set- tlement flowed in. The Legislature in 1819 organized the most of this ter- ritory into counties, and having fixed the boundaries of Randolph County, as it is now; all to the north not then being organized attached it to Randolph for Civil purposes. It was in August 1820 that the Board of Justices (County Commissioners) of Randolph County, erected all the Territory north of Randolph to the Michigan line, into a township, and named it "Wayne Town- ship, " and at the same time fixed a place of holding the election at the house of Dr. William Turner at this place, now the city of Fort Wayne -- hence the name of Wayne Township, Allen County.
4
Number II CHARCOAL SKETCHES OF OLD TIMES IN FORT WAYNE
DAILY SENTINEL
Fort Wayne, Monday, March 11, 1872
Page 3, Col. 5-6
By Hon. John W. Dawson
Coming back from my description let me proceed from Laramie's Store to St. Mary's. The country between those points was extremely low. A little colony of German Catholics had settled in the swamp, and laid off a town, which was then known by the name Stallotown, in honor of their pastor, who soon after died of the cholera. It was a hard-looking place. A string of rude log houses along either side of the road seemed in the water, and much lower than the road which had been laid with logs trans- versely with a little dirt thrown on them. These people wore wooden shoes -- women with stuffed caps and short quilted petticoats -- sent my mind back to New Amsterdam, (New York), two hundred years before, to the days of the Von Runkles and Von Twillers. To me it was a new order of things. I could find no one to understand my English, nor could I understand their German. Verily I thought I had got into Germany. I followed the road -- I could do that in English -- hoping to find some one with whom I could con- verse. This place is now Bremen, one of the best parts of Shelby County, Ohio. It was night when I passed that celebrated stopping place -- "Hat- horne's" two miles to the southeast of St. Mary's. This landlord "Jonny Hathorne" was a wild Irishman, a teamster, and noted for his hospitality. His name, like his place and home, has lost its distinction. He is dead. His good wife also is, and of his children I know nothing except the wife of Philip C. Cooke, residing in Washington Township.
Reaching St. Mary's, I found the best "Inn" of the place. A set of jovial rustics were congregated there, some of whom seemed of excellent antecedents. Among these Colonel Pickerel subjected me to a rigid exam- ination and found who my kindred were in Fort Wayne. Later he was of much service to me.
It is not out of place here to say, that though the old-fashioned tav- erns -- or as the English call them "inns" -- are gone out of use; their use- fulness is not forgotten by the pioneers . . .
It was this Colonel John Pickerel who imparted to me much valuable information in regard to the men and incidents of the times, as well as to matter relating to the geography of the country. This I have now, at the end of thirty-four years, not forgotten. He, however, died over a quarter of a century ago.
On the morning of March 5, 1838, having left the hamlet of St. Mary's, I passed over the plateau of ground on which it was located -- then stripped of all timber, no undergrowth having appeared -- and soon entered the wild and forbidding forest just ahead and on the hither side of that ter-
5
March 11, 1872
rible "Black Swamp, " equal in danger to the famed Hyrcanian forest. In five miles the cabin of the widow of a Mr. Wise, was passed, the only house or sign of life between St. Mary's and Bonafield, twelve miles apart. Over this terrible swamp nature had then frozen a splendid bridge. It was to me a great relief, for had I then found it, as I often did afterwards, deep in mud and water, a sea around, in winter ice and frost, and in summer mos- quitoes, snakes, etc., and all along covered with evidences of broken ve- hicles and stalled teams -- I say, had I then found it as I did after attrition with the world and the experience of years had driven away much of my boyish fears -- I should have retraced my steps. . . But I passed to Bona- field's -- now Neptune -- and partook of some refreshments with some rustic teamsters who tarried there. I went on, passing Ruel Robuck's, long known as the oasis in the desert, where the weary found rest. I have often passed there since, but though the brook runs by his door and all natural objects are the same, yet the kind Ruel "is not." He sleeps. I soon reached Shane's Prairie, and took an excellent repast at the old, red-frame house, with the host Judge Hays, one of the pioneers of Mercer County. On this prairie and around its margin were some sturdy settlers, and some had done well in worldly goods. It was by Fort Wayners called the "Settlement, " as it was for a great many years the first evidence of white civilization to be found southeast of Fort Wayne toward the St. Mary's. On this prairie, some of our old citizens first saw the light of day, and they can tell details. It was called Shane's Prairie from Anthony Chens -- pronounced Shane -- who was a French Indian, and lived there on the St. Mary's River. He was a great friend of the whites, and while in the battle of River Raisin was en- abled to have some certain information as to who it was that killed the great war chief Tecumseh, who fell at that conflict, and whose death broke the Indian combination.
Willshire was soon reached -- then the seat of justice of Van Wert County -- a town laid off in 1819 by Captain James Riley of Arabian memory, and who there built a mill at a rapid in the river called the "Devil's Race Ground." It was the nucleus of a small settlement, but it was so geograph- ically situated that it has never assumed the consequence which the fertility of the county justified. It was this Captain Riley who surveyed and sub- divided all the lands around this city, and part of the county, under contract of the United States. The town was named after Willshire, the friend of Captain Riley, who redeemed him from captivity at Magadore . . .
Passing Willshire, and the old red brick tavern on the north side of the river, then kept by Amos Comptor, who soon afterwards removed here, and is remembered by our old men, I began to look for a place to stop over night. Before I found it, I was about eight miles on the road to Fort Wayne. At a house of a pioneer named Smith, I endured a night. By the hospitality of a lady who, with her husband, was migrating to this region, I did not retire to the floor hungry. On the morrow, taking advantage of the early rising for breakfast, and hoping to find a barber shop, I prepare myself to appear to my brothers and sisters in Fort Wayne in good plight. I was disappointed. That was a paper town -- a cabin or two, no barn, no barber
6
March 11, 1872
shop, "no nothing." Feeding my horse in a sugar kettle, fastened to a stump, I declined to wait for breakfast, and thus move forward with no hopes of a meal until I reached my new home -- nor did I get one before.
I shall describe Fort Wayne as I saw it just thirty-four years ago in the next.
7
Number III CHARCOAL SKETCHES OF OLD TIMES IN FORT WAYNE
DAILY SENTINEL
Fort Wayne, Thursday, March 14, 1872
Page 3, Col. 5-6
By Hon. John W. Dawson
At the close of the preceding narrative I was nearing Fort Wayne, on a fair day March 6, 1838. It was on the "New Piqua Road" over which I traveled. It led out from Calhoun Street directly south one mile, then in a southeasterly direction, and up the north side of the St. Mary's River, on the tableland, as it is now traveled. It was called "New" to distinguish it from the "Old Piqua Road, " which followed the road that General Wayne opened on his retiring from this place, in November, 1794, after he had built and named the Fort. That was called "Wayne Trace, " and passed out from the Fort just to the west of Judge Hanna's late residence, crossed the "Five Mile Prairie" where the present road crosses it, and crossing Mer- riams' Creek, near where Judge Coleman lived, passed, as near as I can now recollect, about where the village of Massillon now stands, in Madison Township. It did not touch the St. Mary's River until it reached Shane's Crossing, where a stockade called Fort Adams once stood.
The country along this New Piqua Road was settled very little, and was regarded -- that is the tableland -- as exceedingly thin, promising very little return to the farmers. Time has shown what industry can do to aid practical agriculture. A few settlers were there, and I think I can name most of them: Philo Whitcomb, just east of where Middletown is now; Jesse Heaton, and Nelson McLain, to the west a short distance from the same village. A small German settlement at or near where Hesse Cassel is now, and a family or two at Merriams' Creek, or "Eight Mile" -- a creek which should not lose its proper name -- taken from a very worthy family who settled there over forty years ago; a family or two about four miles out, and one or two nearer town.
The first glimpse of Fort Wayne was had from an elevated part of the road, about one hundred twenty rods south of the Railway depot. The spire of the old Court House, and that of the old Catholic Church which stood where the Cathedral now is built, were seen. All other buildings were hidden from view by the high ground yet to be noticed at the intersec- tion of Douglas Avenue with Calhoun Street. There was scarcely a house south of Lewis Street. What few there were could only be called cabins hid in deep woods, save the Brackenridge house, as it stands yet, and an old frame back from the southwest corner of Lewis and Calhoun in which Colo- nel Spencer lived for many years. All was wild, save a few small fields of the Hamilton property.
Before proceeding to sketch incidents of more general interest, I shall, for the especial notice of the old settlers of Fort Wayne and Allen County first give a sketch of the town as it appeared then. This is sug-
8
March 14, 1872
gested by a "Bird's-eye view, " taken by Mr. Palmetery in 1854, and which many now have in frame -- to preserve the memory of the place as it was then. Mine will be merely descriptive of the place as it was sixteen years before that. These will show, when compared with the present aspect of the city, how rapid has been our advance, from a hamlet of less than two thousand people, governed by a Board of Trustees, and giving a vote includ- ing the township of Wayne, not exceeding three hundred.
This old Catholic Church, and the pastor's house just behind it, was all the improvement then on the Church property. The Church was not completed for want of funds. Here I cannot forget to make honorable men- tion of two gentlemen, long since dead, whose munificence toward the Church was great. These gentlemen were Captain John B. Bourie and Mr. Francis Comparet . . .
On neither side of Calhoun Street, from this church to the north side of Wayne, was there a house. A post-and-rail-fence, open at many places, ran on the west side of Calhoun from Lewis to Wayne. The year before, it had been the east boundary of a cultivated field, the western boundary of which was Shawnee Run, which took its rise out about where the Bass Foundry now is, and drained all that region, as also that region known as the additions of Lewis, Hamilton, Baker, Wilt, Brackenridge, Ewing's Grove and Spencer. Then it entered the old town plat near the corner of Spencer's Addition, passed obliquely to the northeast until it crossed Berry Street at the intersection of Harrison; then down it, and under the canal basin into the St. Mary's River at Lee's Ford, where the Bloomingdale bridge crosses. It is the unfortunate toleration of the obstruction of this natural outlet of the surface water of this run, which now has caused the necessity for an immense sewer from Lewis Street, under Clay Street, to the Maumee River, to discharge what otherwise would have gone along the natural channel without damage to property. From Lewis on the south to Wayne on the north, on both sides, was called Hanna's Addition, but shortly before that was laid out. There were no buildings. in the western part of this addition, save one, which was on the west margin of the Run, where Jefferson Street crosses it. The eastern part of this addition having been very early stripped of its timber for building the Fort, and for other pur- poses later, was little fitted for agriculture. At the date of platting, it was covered with a thick undergrowth of white oak. The parts occupied by streets having been chopped off high stumps, many of them were left to in- terrupt safe and speedy travel. Perhaps there were a half-dozen small houses then lately built at different parts of this addition east. Its distance then, from the business part of town, seemed to offer more reasons against eligibility for building sites than anything else; but in later years, the ex- treme hardness of the soil -- notwithstanding the fine elevation of the ground -- has offered much more objection; and this is perhaps the main reason why this part of the city has not improved so rapidly, as the western part -- which, though much lower and flatter -- is a better and livelier soil.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.