USA > Indiana > Allen County > Fort Wayne > Historical sketch of the First Presbyterian Church, Fort Wayne, Indiana : with early reminiscences of the place : a lecture before the congregation, Oct. 16, 1881, the semi-centennial of its organization > Part 1
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HISTORICAL SKETCH
-OF THE-
FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH,
FORT WAYNE, INDIANA.
0
With Barty "Reminiscences of the Place.
-BY-
J. L. WILLIAMS.
Read Before the Congregation
OCTOBER 16, 1881,
THE SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF ITS ORGANIZATION
-0-
DAILY NEWS PRINTING HOUSE, FORT WAYNE.
-
GEN
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY
3 1833 02589 4772 HISTORICAL SKLICM
Gc 977.202 F77wi Williams, J. L. Historical sketch of the First Presbyterian church. .
FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH,
FORT WAYNE, INDIANA.
-
With Barly Reminiscences of the Place.
-0-
A Lecture Before the Congregation
OCTOBER 16, 1881,
THE SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF ITS ORGANIZATION.
-- BY-
J. L. WILLIAMS.
-01
DAILY NEWS PRINTING HOUSE, FORT WAYNE.
Allen County Public Library 900 Webster Street PO Box 2270 Fort Wayne, IN 46801-2270
It has not been the aim of this sketch to give a connected history of Fort Wayne. The incidental allusions to events which connect it with the earliest explorations, and with the dawnings of civiliza- tion in the northwest, cannot fail, however, to suggest the idea that Fort Wayne should find in some one a competent historian. Few points in all the west furnish more interesting material.
LECTURE.
The formation of the Presbyterian Historical Society by the general assembly has already induced many valuable contributions to the early religious history of the country. Its object is com- mended by the highest considerations. If the commencement and growth of our material prosperity are worthy of an enduring record, much more the early struggles and labors for the establishment of a religious and moral influence, by which alone this prosperity can be sanctified and blessed. The christian citizen will ever turn to the church of his choice as an institution claiming affectionate regard, and its history, even back to the feeble beginning, will ever possess the highest interest.
The place in which Providence has cast our lot, has claims upon the historian. Fort Wayne is historic ground. It has reminiscences extending back a hundred and seventy years. Dillon, the historian of Indiana, was led to believe from his researches that it was often visited by the early French explorers before the year 1700, and thought a trading post was established here prior to 1719 .* Vau- dreuil, then Governor of Louisiana, writing in 1751, mentioned Fort Miami at this point. It was a small stockade fort, built by the French, and situated near the St. Marys, probably in the vicinity of the canal aqueduct. The dim outlines of this fort was traced by Wayne in 1794 and by Col. John Johnston in 1800.
The appointment of Col. Johnston as Indian agent here in 1800, by the second President, John Adams, signalized the practical as- sertion of civil government by the United States at this remote out- post. He was a gentleman of intelligence and great moral worth. With his family, he lived in the Fort some twelve or thirteen years,
* If Judge Law be correct in fixing 1710 for the settlement at Vincennes, we can scarcely err in claiming at least as early a date for the trading post here. The progress of the traders and missionaries was from Canada. A report of La Salle, written probably in 1682, mentions the route by the Maumee and Wabash as the most direct to the Mississippi. It is improbable that the French would pass this thronged center of the Miamies (sometimes called Twightwees in their early history, ) at the carrying place between these rivers, without establishing here one of that cordon of military posts de- signed to connect their Canadian and Mississippi settlements.
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and then retired to his farm on the Big Miami, two miles above Piqua, soon after the commencement of the war of 1812 with En- gland. Among the children of Col. Johnston born in the Fort here was one who afterwards became the wife of John D. Jones, a promi- nent citizen of Cincinnati. Mrs. Jones, a few years ago, visited Fort Wayne to see the old Fort, and was welcomed by the citizens, both on her own account and the memory of her respected pioneer father.
Gen. John E. Hunt, " well known business man of the Manmee valley, a State Senator in early times, and brother-in-law of Lewis Cass, was also born in the old Fort in 1798. He died at Toledo in 1877, aged seventy-nine years.
The Junction of these rivers, the St Marys and the St. Joseph, justly claim a page in the annals of that momentous contest be- tween French and English civilization-between Romanism and Protestantism-which was waged with alternating success, and with short intervals of repose, for more than a hundred years, terminating soon after the fall of Quebec, in the establishment of British su- premacy by the treaty of 1763. The massacre of the little English gar- rison, three-fourths of a mile north from the site of this church, on the 27th of May. 1763, during Pontiac's war, was accomplished through the treacherous influence of French traders over the Indians. This was among the last exertions of French power on this continent east of the Mississippi. It was a subsiding wave on the outer circle of the long agitated waters. This Fort stood on the east bank of the St. Joseph, near its mouth. Its capture was accomplished through the deceit of an Indian girl, the instrument of those older in dissimulation. Under pretense of the dangerous sickness of an Indian woman, the English commandant was prevailed upon by this girl, in whom he had confidence, to venture out of the Fort for the relief of the woman. On approaching the designated wigwam, he was pierced by two rifle balls, shot from behind its cover, and fell dead upon the ground. Col. Johnston says : "I often saw the aged squaw who slew the English commandant," referring to the woman
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who in her youth was made the agent in treacherously beguiling him to his death.
The aim of this sketch does not permit us to dwell upon the great contest closed in 1763. Yet from this advanced stand-point, look- ing backward a hundred and twenty years, we cannot fail to perceive that in its results were involved the institutions, civil and religious. of all this immense region from the Lakes to the Gulf, and from the Allegheny range to the Rocky mountains. Two variant civiliza- tions had been confronted for two generations in conflict for the pos- session of a continent. What, if at the seige of Quebec, the key to the St. Lawrence and the Lake region, the arms of Catholic France. instead of Protestant England, had prevailed ? What, if over all this western country, soon to shape the nation's destiny, Romanism had been ever since striking its roots deep into this virgin soil ?
The bare suggestion is enough to impress strongly any observing mind, with the limited progress the French have made in their efforts to colonize and possess distant lands. in contrast with our vigorous Anglo-Saxon people, in the front column of whose advancing civili_ zation are ever found the school master a free press," and an open Bible. It is stated that at the present time there are from 150,- 000,000 to 200.000.000 of Bibles and parts of the Bible in print throughout the world, in 226 different languages and dialects. The number is doubtless from five to ten fold greater in the English than in all other languages together. So likewise with the printing press, another great power of our times. Of the millions of sheets falling daily from the press in all lands, an overshadowing proportion is in our tongue. In no other language is the press free. No where except in our English speaking countries has liberty, civil and reli- gions, more than a stinted growth. She seems to have chosen our own mother tongue in which to chronicle her persistent, earnest struggles and her sublime triumphs. It has been aptly styled the
* Under French rule in Canada, from the founding of Quebec in 1608, to the treaty of cession in 1768, no village school was ever established, nor a single printing press set up .- Bancroft.
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"Missionary language;" it is also the language of progress and of free institutions.
From these facts, with the amazing inerease and diffusion of the Anglo-Saxon race, the conjecture has been plausibly maintained that the Christian religion, Christian civilization, and Christian literature, are to spread over the earth mainly through the English language-British commerce, sometimes backed by British arms, preparing the way in one direction, as in India, and American enterprise and progress on this continent and the islands about us. How signally and sadly would North America have failed in prepa- ration for her part of this angust mission, had French power, ideas and civilization, and not the English, been dominant in this western domain for the past hundred years !
We know that by translation chiefly can the Bible be made known to existing generations of the heathen. Yet in an extended view, reaching far into the future, there is ground for large expectation and cheering hope in the gradual diffusion among the nations of the English language, carrying with it to the understanding of men, not only the Bible, but the great ideas and the genius of Christianity and Christian civilization, so interwoven with the entire fabric of English literature. Every missionary station with its school; every establishment for legitimate American or British commerce, is an entering wedge for the language and for the race. It is the infusing of a vivifying element whose spreading influence must tend to quicken the inert mass .* In view of this co-operative mission among the nations of lower culture, may we not reasonably hope that these English speaking nations, at least as against each other, have fought out their last war ; and that in their plans of progress . and territorial acquisition, peaceably or by conquest, their advances hereafter will run in concurrent, non in conflicting lines?
* " The translation of the Bible into the tongues of nations of low moral training has been found a matter of exceeding difficulty. * * * " English is emphatically the language of commerce, of civilization, of social and religious freedom, of progressive intelligence, of active catholic philanthropy; and therefore, beyond any tongue ever used by man, it is of right the cosmopolitan speech." -- Marshe's Lectures on the English Language. See also appendix note A.
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Though Wolfe and Montcalm may not have understood it-as men seldom understand the part they act in the comprehensive plans of Providence-yet the long-pending conflict which they decided on the Heights of Abraham is now seen to have been a war for the establishment of British authority and the spread of the English language and protestantism on this continent. We can scarcely. however, resist the belief that perceptions of unwonted clearness were given to these brave commanders, as their noble spirits passed together from the battle-field. Wolfe, when aroused from the death stupor by the thrilling words, "The French give way everywhere," though a few days before, with enfeebled constitution contemplating an early natural death with dismay, recovered strength to say, "Now God be praised, I die happy." Was some bright vision of the future achievements and glory of the Anglo-Saxon race in the new world vouchsafed just as life ebbed away? And Montcalm, on being told by the surgeon that he could live but a few hours, replied: "So much the better; I shall not live to see the surrender of Quebec." Was a glimpse into the far future opened up just at the close of his pro- longed, heroic struggle for his beloved France, presenting to his dying vision, with oppressive vividness, the waning of the Gallic race on this continent ? However this may be, the fact to ns is palpable, that mighty influences were set to work by the decision of that old French and English war .* In far-reaching results, the earth has witnessed no contest comparable to it in all its annals
Four nations, at different periods, have held dominion here. For nearly half a century prior to the conquest of Canada, in 1763 the French flag waved at the meeting of the St. Joseph and St. Marys. The French adapted their manners and character to forest life. Schoolcraft says the Indians of the northwest often referred to "the days of French supremacy as a kind of golden era, when
* Hon. Samuel F. Vinton, in arguing the question of boundary between Virginia and Ohio, maintained conclusively that, according to the law of nations, the claim of France to the valleys of the St. Lawrence and Mississ- ippi, founded on discovery and occupation, was perfect, and that of England, based on her colonial possessions along the Atlantic slope, not even a respect- able pretense. The sword seems, therefore, to have been the only arbiter which could have given this vast country to English civilization.
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all things in their affairs were better than they now are." Then came the English in December. 1760.t and the British flag was run up in its stead. Their manners were reserved and haughty, far less adapted than the genial. pliant and vivacious French to win the confidence of the Indians. In no particular is there greater dis- similarity in the two nations. The French, like the Spaniards, readily meet a lower civilization upon an intermediate platform, as in Canada and Mexico. The genuine Anglo-Saxon takes no step downward. English society in Calcutta is as select and high-toned as in London. To elevate. near to its own level, or else to destroy by gradual eneroachment and pressure, seems to be their mission among the sluggish and decaying nations. Whether or not the Indian sagacity was adequate to a full perception of these diverse tendencies. certain it is that the Miamies of that day were haters of the English. In less than three years the British flag was lowered here. and its proud, defiant folds trailed in the dust .* The conspiracy of Pontiac-greatest of the red race, in genins, force of character, and statesman-like combination-had done its work. Nine of the twelve English forts in the northwest. scattered from Presque Isle (now Erie) to Green Bay, and from Mackinaw to Oniatenon (near Lafayette) were captured in the space of a few weeks. Only Detroit, Fort Pitt, and Green Bay, successfully resisted the simultaneous attack. Thence forward for thirty-one 'years, as in the preceding century, the barbarian power and glory of the Miamiest at this point was unchecked, until the advent of Wayne, in 1794. To the Indians, as to us. it was a chosen central home and place of thronged concourse. Here the tribes and bands gathered in council for war or for peace.# History attests their attachment to it. Their appeal at the Greenville treaty in 1795, after their country had been con-
+ Detroit was surrendered to the English forces under Major Rogers on the 29th of November, 1760. An officer was then sent southward to take posses- sion of Fort Miami and Oniatenon ( Wea Prairie) .- Parkman.
# It was about the period of these stirring changes, that the leading Miami chief. Richardville, was born under " the Big Apple tree," which stood some sixty rods from the supposed site of this old British fort. This tree is now gone, but in 1860 it was yet standing, eleven feet in circumfer- ence, connecting the memories of the past century with the present. + See appendix note B.
¿This place was called Ke-ki-on-gay in the Miami dialect : Ke-ki-ouge in the Pottawattamie.
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quered, for permission still to occupy this spot, was touching. Little Turtle spoke of this carrying place as " that glorious gate which your younger brothers had the happiness to own, and through which all the good words of our chiefs had to pass from the north to the south, and from the east to the west." But we must not forget that the earth is for cultivation, not permanently for the chase. For great and beneficent providential ends-the greatest good to the greatest number-civilization and religion were to be introduced, and the red man has passed away. Under American rule has risen this beautiful city of some thirty thousand inhabi- tants, with railroads and telegraphs, churches and free schools.
A modern writer says : "Indolence, prodigality, and want of fore- thought, are sufficent causes why men and nations should forfeit their right in the soil as the patrimony from God." Without enter- ing upon these deep mysteries, it is nevertheless plain that the oc- cupation of this part of the continent by a people who would develop its long dormant resources, was, just at that period, demanded by the economical, social and moral necessities of the world. Much as we may pity the poor Indian; little as we should palliate the sever- ity, often needless, with which he has been driven back; yet we may not question the All-wise disposings which gave this fertile land to a race that is making it the grainary of the world, and will fit it by the close of this century, for the abode of eighty millions of peo- ple, exhibiting the highest type of christian civilization. .
The expedition of La Balm against Detroit in August or Septem- ber, 1780, also connects Fort Wayne, by memorials written in blood, with the war of the Revolution. This daring forest chieftain, with earnest sympathy for the American cause, and, we must think, with more zeal than knowledge, collected at Kaskaskia and Vincennes, about an hundred men, and set out for the capture of Detroit, then in possession of the British. The signal achievement of Col. George Rogers Clark, a few months before, in taking Vincennes, then a British fort, with one hundred and seventy men, no doubt incited to this daring adventure. Seizing the goods of British traders at Fort Wayne on his march, the Miamis, instigated by the English, at-
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tacked his encampment on the River Aboite, 11 miles south-west .* In this battle LaBalm's little army, with few exceptions, was en- tirely cut off.
The sagacious mind of Washington, at an early period, had fixed upon the junction of these rivers, as of commanding importance for a strong military post, and the main purpose of the campaign of 1791, was its occupation as a centre of military operations for the North West. The instructions to General St. Clair were prepared under his special direction. His plans contemplated a garrison here of one thousand to twelve hundred men, including the communica- tions. The defeat of St. Clair's army, when within two day's march of this place- a defeat more disastrous than that of Braddock- marred all his well matured plans for the defense of the North West. The news of this terrible reverse furnished the occasion on which Washington, for once in his life, is said to have been overcome by an ungovernable burst of passion. As the scene is described by Irving, his wrath was tremendous. His private secretary who alone was present, was awed into silence by the appalling tones in which the torrent of invective was poured fourth. "It's all over !" said he, "St. Clair's defeated-routed !" His equanimity was soon re- stored. and Washington was himself again. But the important national objects hinging upon this campaign, and on the military occupation of this point, as they lay in Washington's mind, are thus revealed. We need not marvel that his great soul was stirred to its inmost depth. A favorite military plan had disgracefully failed for the second time. Out of an army of fifteen hundred, nine hun- dred had been cut off. Kentucky and western Pennsylvania were in mourning for the slain. A thousand miles of defenceless frontier were thrown open to the merciless savages, rendered more savage and merciless, by this second repulse of the the American army, in its attempts to occupy this, their favorite place of rendezvous, the Federal city of the tribes forming the Miami confederacy. This success, following the defeat of Harmar's army the year before,
*This encampment of La Balm was near what was afterward the village of White Raccoon, a Miami Chief.
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whose battle-field was within ritle shot of this church building, had emboldened the Indians to believe that a final overthrow of the " pale faces" was quite within their power. Great was the conster- nation on the frontier. The Presbytery of Red Stone, then the only Presbytery west of the mountains, in view of these calamities past and impending, appointed a day of fasting and prayer throughout their then extended bounds.
Harmar's principal engagement was on the tongue of land be- tween the St. Joseph and Maumee rivers, the site of the main Indian village. The carnage was especially terriffie in the conflict that took place in the bed of the St. Joseph river near its mouth, and also in the retreat of the Americans across the Maumee, half a mile below the junction, still known as Harmar's Ford. The ex- treme point of land just below the mouth of the St. Joseph, now so attractive in rural peaceful beauty, is said to have been the accus- tomed place for burning prisoners .* In 1790, before Harmar's campaign, Mr. Gamelin was sent by Gov. St. Clair to the Indians here as a peace commissioner. Three days after he left this point, about the first of May, as if in savage derision of the overtures of the United States Government, an American was brought here and burned.+
The campaign of 1794-the third under Washington's adminis- tration, directed to this central point of Indian strength-was suc- cessful. After defeating the Indians at the Rapids of the Maumee, Gen. Wayne selected here a commanding site, and in October of that year, Fort Wayne was completed and placed under the com- mand of Major Hamtramck. Thence forward peace reigned on this frontier, until the war with England in 1812. From the erection of the Fort here, eighty-seven years ago, this has been a center of American civilization and influence.
Col. John Johnston, of Ohio, now deceased, whose active and useful life was connected with three generations, wrote, in Novem- ber, 1859, to a member of this church, as follows :
* These statements were made to some of our older citizens by Chief Richardville, Mr. Peltier, and others. See appendix note C. + Dillion's History.
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"I was appointed in the Indian Department in 1800, and stationed at Fort Wayne. My habitual station was there for twelve or thirteen years. There was not a Protestant clergyman of any denomination that performed divine service at that post during the time stated. * The only officer of the army, within my knowledge, who publicly professed Christianity, was Col. Vose, who commanded at Fort Wayne about the year 1816 or 1817. This noble Christian soldier was in the constant practice of assembling his men on the Sabbath day to read the scriptures and converse with them relative to their duties and the salvation of their souls- a rare instance of Christian fidelity and the power of divine grace. I never knew to what denomination he belonged. The conduct of such a man and under such circumstances can only be appreciated by persons familiar with the allurements and temptations of military life. * The nearest white settlement was Hamilton, county, Ohio, and the post office, Cincinnati, two hundred miles dis- tant from this post. Fifty-eight years ago it took twenty-seven days on horseback from Fort Wayne to Washington City, and now the distance can be traveled by rail in two days."
The desire naturally arises here to learn further of Col. Vose, the commencement of whose public history resembles so much in strength of religious purpose that of Havelock, in India, or of Capt. Vicars who fell so bravely before Sebastopol, only two days after leading the devotions of a public religious meeting in the English camp As yet, we have only learned, through the departments at Washing- ton, that he died in the army at New Orleans, in 1845, and that he ever maintained the character of "a very correct and honorable man, an excellent officer, without fear and without reproach."*
When Gen. Harrison, in September, 1812, marched to the relief of the garrison here, then besieged by the Indians, the expedition was accompanied by Rev. Matthew G. Wallace, an honored Presby- terian minister, as Chaplain to the army. If, as may be presumed, he preached to the soldiers while here, his was the first proclamation
* A letter afterwards received from Rev. Dr. Kingsbury, missionary among the Choctaw Indians, refers to the after life of Col. Vose. See ap- pendix, note D.
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of the gospel in Protestant form, on this ground. Mr. Wallace died at Terre Haute, his home.
Though not strictly within the range of this history, yet in any record of early religious effort at Fort Wayne, the work of Rev. Isaac McCoy, of the Baptist church, must not be omitted. From May. 1820, to December, 1822, he resided here, preaching the gospel, and maintaining a Mission School, chiefly for the benefit of the Indians. In August, 1822, a Baptist church was organized at Fort Wayne, consisting of the mission family, two Indian women and one black man. Mr. McCoy's faithful and intelligent missionary labors here and elsewhere in the Indian territory, have passed into the published history of the country.
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