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FORT WAYNE IN 1790
M. L.
GEN
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY
3 1833 01707 8665
Gc 977.202 F77h Hay, Henry. Fort Wayne in 1790
Fort Wayne în
1790
by M.M.Quaife
一
Fort Wayne in 1790 by M.M. Quaife
Reprinted by special permission from the
INDIANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY PUBLICATIONS, Vol. 7, No. 7
Prepared by the Staff of the Public Library of Fort Wayne and Allen County
1955
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.
Mrs. Sadie Fulk Roehrs
BOARD-OF - TRUSTEES- OF-THE-SCHOOL.CITY-OF -FORT.WAYNE
BF. Geyer, President
Joseph & Kramer, Secretary
W. Page Yarnelle , Treasurer
Willard Shanbaugh
PUBLIC LIBRARY BOARD FOR ALLEN COUNTY
The members of this Board include the members ofthe Board of Trustees of the SchoolCity of Fort Wayne (with the same officers) together with the following citizens chosen from allen County outside the corporate City of Fort Wayne
James & Graham
Gerald W.Morsches
Mrs. Charles Reynolds
Mrs Glenn Henderson
FOREWORD
The Miami Indians, the French, and the British early re- alized the importance of the site at the junction of the St. Mary's and St. Joseph rivers. Their forces vied for control, which would assure command of the strategic Maumee-Wabash portage.
Henry Hay, merchant, traveler, and British partisan, re- corded in his JOURNAL the social life and customs of the inhabit- ants of Miamitown (present-day Fort Wayne) in the winter of 1790- 91. The Indiana Historical Society has graciously granted permis- sion to reprint the account, which appeared in its PUBLICATIONS.
The Boards and the Staff of the Public Library of Fort Wayne and Allen County present this publication in the hope that it will be interesting and informative to Library patrons.
930164
NOTE
The following journal of Henry Hay-son of the "Major Hay," who was captured at Vincennes with General Ham- ilton, by George Rogers Clark-presents an intimate view of life at Fort Wayne in the winter of 1789-90. It was orig- inally printed by Mr. Quaife in the Proceedings of the Wis- consin Historical Society for 1914, under the title: "A Narrative of Life on the Old Frontier." On account of its peculiar interest to Indiana it is reproduced here, by per- mission of Mr. Quaife and the Wisconsin Historical Society.
INTRODUCTION
Probably the vast majority of Americans think of the Revolu- tionary War as lasting from 1775 to 1783. It is true the Treaty of Paris marks the formal conclusion of the struggle. But it does not mark the conclusion of angry debate with the mother country, nor the evacuation of American territory by British soldiery. Neither Great Britain nor the United States adhered scrupulously to its treaty obligations, and the former manifested no intention of evacuating the Western posts, lying within the borders of the younger nation. The real reason for this was commercial. On the fur trade depended the pros- perity of Canada. To control the fur trade the British must control the Indians. Hence the obligation to evacuate the upper posts was disregarded, and for a dozen years after the conclusion of the Treaty of Paris the major portion of the country northwest of the Ohio River continued to be treated as British territory. The Indian tribes of this region were then numerous and powerful. Relying upon the British for material support they waged bloody warfare upon the Ameri- cans in the vain hope of confining the advancing tide of set- tlement to the south side of the Ohio. The government of the Confederation was almost a nullity. Its successor, the feeble Federal government, distracted by the many problems pressing for solution, was exceedingly averse to accepting the gage of battle thus thrown down. When at length it did, three suc- cessive armies and five years of painful effort were required to humble the belligerent tribesmen. Thus the Revolution in the West may not unfairly be said to have lasted a score of years, and to have closed only with the Jay and Greenville treaties.
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A variety of reasons exist for publishing the Journal which is presented in the following pages. The incidents recorded day by day by this British partisan, sojourning in one of the chief of the hostile towns, shed a ghastly light upon the forays which goaded the American bordermen to madness and their government into reluctant war. A perusal of the details pre- sented by our journalist-the heart of the American prisoner, pierced with a stick and preserved "like a piece of dryed veni- son ;" the plight of the captive, John Witherington, separated from his wife, "7 months gone with childe," and seven children, who had fallen into the hands of other bands of barbarians; the destruction of forty souls, men, women, and children; the all night dance of savage triumph in celebration of such atrocities as these-prepare the reader to appreciate the indignation with which the militant author of The Winning of the West wrote of this period in our history.
Whether justly or not, the harassed American borderers as- cribed to Great Britain the real responsibility for their intoler- able plight. The present day opinion of well informed students of the subject inclines to acquit the home government of any positive agency in the matter. But the present day scholar, pos- sessing sources of information denied to contemporaries and entire immunity from the gory scalping knife and tomahawk, may consider the subject calmly and philosophically ; the Amer- ican borderer's opinions were based upon the acts of Great Britain's agents in America and the visible facts of the situation on the frontier. Whatever the real motives of the home gov- ernment in the premises, the conclusions drawn by the fron- tiersmen from the information at their command were not unreasonable. Whoever would understand the enthusiasm of the frontier for war with England in 1812 must take account
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of the conditions revealed by such documents as the one which follows. When the Delawares threaten to remove to the Spaniards, and, "not go to war against the Americans any more," the authority of McKee, the British Indian agent, is invoked to restrain them. When it is believed that the trader, Lasselle, is to be burned by the natives because of his sup- posed sympathy with the Americans, the affair is reported to' Major Murray, the British commandant at Detroit; and Las- selle's good character is finally established by a certificate signed by all the villagers-living in the heart of the modern Indiana-that he is "a good loyalist" and "always for support- ing his King." A trader going to the Wabash must have a British pass ; one who speaks disrespectfully of the British offi- cials at Detroit is reported to those authorities therefor ; while the author of our Journal, a British partisan, dares not ven- ture his "carcass" among the Americans at Vincennes.
Some interesting views are afforded by the Journal of the conditions affecting the conduct of the fur trade. The calling of the trader was one of toil and privation, his life constantly liable to forfeiture at the hands of the elements or of the fickle and impulsive red man. The sordid rivalry of the traders ; the situation of Chevallier, "continually exposed to the malice and treachery of the Indians about him," the degenerating influ- ence of the wild life, exhibited in the renegade, Montraville ; the menu of acorns on which La Fontaine lived for five days in succession; the lying report about Lasselle, designed to compass his destruction ; details such as these incline one to give the journalist's dictum that it was "a Rascally Scrambling Trade" a more general application than was intended by its author.
For the general reader the chief interest of the document
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will lie, probably, in its picture of the life of the old French and Indian trading post, Miamitown. As I pen these lines my eye strays for a moment to the advertisement, on the page of a half-opened magazine, of a great manufacturing establish- ment of Fort Wayne; and as with a sudden rush I seem to realize how wide is the gulf which separates the life of the city at the forks of the Maumee today from that of its prede- cessor of a century and a quarter ago. The St. Joseph and St. Mary's still unite to form the Maumee, and still the spring- time flood, which drove the French habitants to their garrets and made the canoe the only vehicle of transportation from house to house, recurs to plague the modern city. But in all else the imagination can scarcely conceive a wider gulf than the one which separates the Fort Wayne of today from the Miamitown of 1790.
Our journalist presents, as with a moving picture film, a cross-section of life from what is commonly considered the most romantic period in the history of the old Northwest. To the critical eye of the conquering Anglo-Saxon the French settlers were slothful, vicious, and indolent. That there was a measure of truth in this judgment need not be denied. But the characteristic vivacity and gaiety of the French spirit shows nowhere to better advantage than when set off by such hard material conditions as those portrayed in the following pages. A careless reader of the Journal might well gather the impres- sion that social diversion was the chief business of its charac- ters. Feasts, dances, and ceremonies follow one another in close succession. The settlers assemble for midnight mass and for morning and evening prayers on Sunday, called there- to by the lusty ringing of cowbells. The musicians play the flute and fiddle indifferently for drinking bout and mass, and
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at times go reeling from the one to the other. A "Pigg" is stolen for a joke and the victim composes a ballad on the sub- ject. The order of the "Friars of St. Andrew" is organized for purposes not sanctioned by the rules of St. Benedict, fur- nishing the subject for another ballad. Not even the flood- ing of the town suffices to quench the gaiety, for before the flood has subsided the ladies are taken for a row on the river to the accompaniment of fiddle and flute.
Interesting, too, are some of the quaint customs of the time. Men appear at a ball wearing fur caps adorned with "Black Ostridge Feathers" and "amasingly large" cockades of white tinsel ribbon. On New Year's day the journalist makes the round of the village kissing all the ladies "young and old." That temperance reform had as yet made its appearance at the forks by the Maumee can scarcely be affirmed. On December 25 our journalist and his companions became "infernally drunk ;" at an entertainment the following evening all except the writer became "very drunk;" the next evening the cele- brants are "damned drunk ;" and the following forenoon finds them again at their cups. On the occasion of another evening party it is deemed worthy of record that none of the men became drunk, "which is mostly the case in this place when they collect together."
The original Journal is the property of the Detroit Public Library. For furnishing the copy here presented acknowledg- ment is due Mr. Clarence M. Burton of Detroit, a valiant laborer in the local historical field. The document is a small volume having a calfskin cover. It bears upon both sides the name of P. H. Hay but within the journalist preferred, apparently, to sign the name Henry. Without positive knowledge in the premises, I am inclined to think that P. H. Hay and Henry Hay were one and the same person, an opinion shared by Mr.
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Burton. Pierre Hay was born and baptized September II, 1765. The records of St. Anne Parish contain no further men- tion of him, but Henry is mentioned as a witness at baptisms in 1787 and 1792.
The father, Jehu Hay, was a Detroit citizen of much promi- nence in the generation of the Revolution. A native of Penn- sylvania, he enlisted in the Sixtieth American Regiment during the French and Indian War, and in 1762 was sent to Detroit with a detachment of troops. He served there during Pon- tiac's War and later entered the Indian Department. In 1776 he was made deputy Indian agent and major of the Detroit militia. In this capacity he acted as Governor Hamilton's chief assistant in the latter's contest with George Rogers Clark for the control of the Northwest. Upon the triumph of the latter, Hay, like Hamilton, his leader, was consigned to a Virginia dungeon. Toward the close of the war, having been released from captivity and returned to Quebec, he was appointed lieu- tenant-governor of Detroit; he had actually performed the duties of his office for only a year, however, when his career was cut short by death, in 1785.
The nature of Henry Hay's mission to Miamitown is no- where stated in the Journal. Apparently he was in the pay of William Robertson, the Detroit merchant; there seems to be ground, too, for the conjecture that he was acting in some public capacity for Major Murray. Possibly the missing pages would have supplied the explanation, but its absence does not affect materially the historical interest attaching to the document.
Miamitown, where Hay passed the winter, was in 1790 the most important center of the Miami Indians. Situated at the junction of the St. Mary's and St. Joseph rivers, and com-
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manding the important Maumee-Wabash portage, it was one of the vital strategic points of the Northwest. Recognizing this the French, in their expansion over the interior, in 1722, established a fort on the St. Mary's, at the beginning of the portage. In 1747, as the result of an Indian conspiracy, Fort Miami was burned to the ground. It was shortly rebuilt, at the junction of the St. Mary's and St. Joseph's, and was occupied successively by French and English garrisons until the sum- mer of 1763, when it fell before the followers of Pontiac. The garrison was not restored thereafter by the English, but the French habitants continued to reside here, and the traders to resort to the place. As one of the chief centers whence the Indian war parties issued forth against the border settlements, when the American government at length determined upon a course of retaliation, Miamitown was at once marked for chas- tisement. Over the festive traders a dire fate was impending. The Americans believed that they were engaged in hounding the savages on to their work of devastation and torture. The traders on their part denied this, and probably with truth, for the conditions of Indian warfare and the successful prosecution of the fur trade were mutually antagonistic. This fact in no wise altered the American belief, however, and General Har- mar, commander of the army about to be launched against Miamitown, was promising, in the event of a successful issue of the campaign, to attend to the case of "the villanous traders."
When the American army at length approached, in October, 1790, the natives drew back a short distance in anticipation of the blow. Miamitown was burned and a series of bloody con- flicts ensued. The stream whereon but a few months before the Canadian ladies had been rowed to the music of violin and
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flute now ran red with the blood of the soldiers. Eventually the Americans retired, the net result of the expedition being a "mortifying failure."
Harmar's expedition inaugurated a five-year period of war- fare by the American government for the reduction of the tribesmen. Through it all, the site of Miamitown at the forks of the Maumee was a principal goal of endeavor. St. Clair was ordered to establish a large military station here in 1791 ; instead, he ied his army to one of the most terrible defeats in American military annals. In 1794, a third American army at length succeeded. Miamitown was once more ravaged. Fort Wayne was constructed, and therewith the name of the grim conqueror became permanently attached to the place. With this change, this introduction to Hay's Journal may properly conclude.
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JOURNAL FROM DETROIT TO THE MIAMI RIVER
Left Detroit 9th. December 89, in company with Mr. Leith,1 and attended by a French man and a negro. Got this night within 1% mile of Adam Browns,2 slept in a deserted House, found it difficult to get a canoe to cross River aux Ecorse.
IOth. Left this place about 1/2 past 8 o'clock. Crossed the River Huron very well, from that proceeded to River au Ro- zain3 w [h]ere arrived about 1/2 past 4 o'clock in the Evening, found the roads very bad, creeks high, owing to the great falls of rain; slept at Capt. Bennacs4 Justice of the Peace of this new Settlement who received us very well-saw my uncle Baptist Reaume5 who promised to send my Maire into Detroit immediately.
1George Leith, a prominent Detroit trader. In 1788 he was represented to a government investigating committee at Quebec as a man "of liberal education and highly respected in the settlement [Detroit]." Michigan Pioncer and His- torical Collections, XI, 633. A number of his letters are printed in Indiana Maga- zine of History, V, 138 ff.
2According to one account of Pontiac's Conspiracy Adam Brown was at Detroit as early as 1763. He resided at Brownstown for a long time, later removing to Malden. In 1793 and 1794 he furnished supplies to the British authorities for use on the Maumee. See Mich. Pion. & Hist. Colls., VIII, 366; XXXV, 63, 64; XXXVI, 358.
3The modern Raisin. On Thomas Hutchins' map of 1778 the name appears as "Au Rosine."
4 Probably J. Porlier Benac, captain of the Raisin River militia company. After Jay's Treaty Benac was one of those who elected to remain a British sub- ject. See Ibid, VIII, 410, 498; XXIV, 248.
5Pierre and Hyacinthe Reaume, brothers, came to Detroit in 1726. They became the progenitors of a numerous line of descendants, who from Detroit spread over the Northwest. Baptiste Reaume was evidently the brother of Hay's mother, whose maiden name was Marie Julie Reaume.
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IIth. Left Capt. Bennacas this morning about 8 o'clock ; it was with difficulty that we crossed the River Rozin the Water being very high-Rain this morning, which turned out into snow afterwards. Found the Roads damned bad about half way, arrived at the Foot of the Rapids at McCormicks about sun sete-found myself very tired ; found Mr. Arthur McCor- mick here going out Trading-
12th. Left Mr. McCormick about 10 o'clock, stopped at Cochrans at Roch de Bout6 gott a Venison Stake & proceeded to the Prierie des Maske7 were we made a large fire & en- camped, found the roads pretty passable.
13th. Left this place this morning about 8 o'clock and pro- ceeded to Glaize,8 w [h]ere we arrived about 1/2 past 3 o'clock -we were received very graciously by Mr. McDonnell who lives there ; he gave us good venison stakes & cyder-grogg &c. for Dinner ;- Roasted venison for supper. &c.
14th. Left this place about II o'clock ; but we were obliged to send our little baggage on to the little Glaize about three miles from this bigg Glaize which [a] canoe crossed us over- and we swam our Horses-the water was very high. Slept this
6Roche de Bout was the name given by the early French travelers to a rocky point projecting into the channel of the Maumee about a mile above the modern Waterville, Lucas County, Ohio. It was also the name of an Ottawa village in the immediate vicinity. Wayne's decisive victory over the tribesmen in the battle of Fallen Timbers, August 20, 1794, occurred a short distance down the Maumee from Roche de Bout. See C. E. Slocum, History of the Maumee River Basin (Defiance, O., 1905), 461; F. W. Hodge (ed.), Handbook of American Indians (Washington, 1907).
7 Prairie du Masque was a camping station a short distance above the Grand Rapids of the Maumee; so called from the fancied resemblance of the grass- covered bank to the form of a woman. The early American settlers, with uncon- scious humor, transformed the name into Damascus. Slocum, op. cit., 553.
8At the junction of the Au Glaize River with the Maumee; commonly called by the American Grand Glaize, or Glaize. Fort Defiance was built there by Wayne in 1794, and later the place became the site of the modern city of Defiance.
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we were received very graciously ...
evening about 8 Leagues from the place we sett out from upon a Hill-Mr. McDonnell and one Blanchet9 an ancient Canadia [n] Trader came with us as far as this and slept with us; Mr. McDonnell had a horse load of Indian goods and was going to trade them at the Indian wigwams a few miles in the woods-a small distance from the place we encamped we met with some Indian Hutts which Mr. McDonnell visited, on his coming an Indian asked him if he was hungry ; answered yes, then says he I'll roast a Rackoon for you & asked w[h]ere he intended to encamp that he might know w[h]ere to bring it -Mr. McDonnell told him-Mr. McD. told us his story. I believe the Indian wanted to do it, but Leith did not .- How- ever about 8 o'clock in the evening, just after we had supped, we perceived a fire brand coming thro' the woods, which proved to be the Indian with a roasted Rackoon cut up in a wooden dish which he delivered to Mr. McDonnell. He seemed to be a very merry fellow, he left us about 10 o'clock-left his wooden dish, it being their custom, they come for it when they find you are gone .- Haile and raine this evening & part of the night.
15th. Parted with Mr. McDonnell & Blanchet this morning about 8 o'clock-rain and hail till II or 12 o'clock, found the Road very bad. slept at [illegible] about 7 leagues and a half from the Miami Town-a little snow this evening.
16th. Left this place this morning about 1/2 past 9 o'clock
9Possibly Joseph Blanchet, a French-Canadian trader who assisted in the ransoming of O. M. Spencer at Grand Glaize in 1792. See A True Narrative of the Captivity of the Rev. O. M. Spencer by the Indians in the Neighborhood of Cincinnati, written by Himself (New York, 1834 [ ?]).
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and arrived at the Miami Town"" about 10 o'clock, found the roads very bad. I visited Mrs. Adamhers11 family.
17th. Wrote to Detroit to my brother Meredith & Baby, gave them an account of my jants & this place etc-visited a couple more of the french familys at this place found them very decent & polite-particularly at Mr. Adamhers who gave me a very friendly invitation to their house sans ceremonie.
18th. Wrote Mr. Robertson,12 with respect to my 1/2 pay certificates not being able to send them in by Mr. Sharpe13 who left this place for Detroit this day-but promised to get them made out the 25th Inst & forward them in by the first opportunity-We have had most delightful weather ever since
10The site of the modern Fort Wayne, Indiana. According to Capt. John Armstrong, a member of Harmar's army which raided the place in the summer 01 1790, there were seven distinct villages in the vicinity of the junction of the St. Mary's and the St. Joseph rivers. One of them was the Miami village, in the fork of the St. Joseph and the Maumee. Here the French traders lived. See H. S. Knapp, History of the Maumee Valley (Toledo, 1872), 66.
11 Probably the name should be spelled Adhemar. La Balme, who plundered the traders at Miamitown in 1780, lists one "Admer," a merchant, as "a dan- gerous man." This meant, of course, that according to La Balme's information he was loyal to the British cause. In March, 1779, one Adhemar who had been sent by Hamilton to Miamitown with ten perogues and thirty men to get provi- sions forwarded from Detroit, was captured by George Rogers Clark. In 1788 St. Martin Adhemar was appointed one of the commissioners of the newly-created District of Hesse. William Robertson, the spokesman of the Detroit traders who memorialized Lord Dorchester against the new act, gave as the objection to Adhemar that he was settled at Vincennes "in the American states." See Mich. Pion. & Hist. Colls., XI, 622, 632; Illinois State Historical Society, Transactions, 1909, 132; Illinois Historical Collections, VIII, 194; for a brief sketch of Adhe- mar's career, see Wis. Hist. Colls., XIX, 159.
12Probably William Robertson, a prominent merchant, who settled at Detroit in 1782. See Mich. Pion. & Hist. Colls., XI, 627 ff; Wis. Hist. Colls., XIX, 272.
13George Sharp, also prominent as a trader at Detroit. Robertson describes him as "of liberal education and highly respected." Mich. Pion. & Hist. Colls., XI, 633. Sharp was with Matthew Elliott when the latter ransomed O. M. Spencer at Grand Glaize in 1792. The picture which Spencer draws of him on that occasion is far from flattering. For further facts about Sharp, see Wis. Hist. Colls., XIX, 279, 291.
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our arrival here. I think upon the whole this is a very pretty place-the River that this town is built upon is called the River St. Joseph which falls into the Miami River very near the town at the S. W. end of it. This day a prisoner was brought in here ; Rather a elderly man was taken better than a month ago at a place called the little Miami-the Americans are now making a settlement at that place14-this man was engaging to work for one John Phillipps, one of the settlers, was out in a field about two miles from his masters, saving fother for the cattle when he was taken-last Spring was the first time they came to it. Lower down the river towards the falls of the Ohio about five miles from this settlement where the Ameri- cans are now very busy building redoubts & block Houses ever since last Summer-they have three companies of regular Con- gress Troops-the number not known15-Those three com- panies came from three different places viz :- Capt. Pratt16 from Fort Pratt, Capt. Strong17 from Muskingum, the other he does not know his name came from the Fall of Ohio, this place is called Licken18 after a small river about the width of
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