USA > Indiana > Allen County > Fort Wayne > Charcoal sketches of old times in Fort Wayne > Part 2
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Number IV
CHARCOAL SKETCHES OF OLD TIMES IN FORT WAYNE
DAILY SENTINEL
Fort Wayne, Friday, March 15, 1872
Page 3, Col. 5-6
By Hon. John W. Dawson
The town of Fort Wayne was then almost entirely embraced in the space occupied by the Old Plat, consisting of 118 lots (and was located on the north fraction of southeast quarter of Section 2, Township 30, North Range 12 East. It was laid off by Barr and McCorkle, original purchasers, in May 1824. The "County Addition" was laid off in 1830. The western twenty acres of the original forty acres, Military Reservation -- which twenty acres the Congress of the United States authorized the Associate Judges of Allen County to enter for the county at $1. 25 per acre -- and the balance of the forty acres, set apart for Canal land, was bought and laid out into forty lots and called Taber's Addition. On this last addition there were not a half-dozen houses. The remaining part of the town as platted was mostly on paper. There were not a dozen houses in it. It was called for many years "Ewingtown, " being Ewing's Addition on the west half of southwest quarter of Section 2, township and range above named.
The few houses in Ewingtown were in the thicket: Dr. Lewis Bee- cher's, Captain Ben Smith's, and Colonel Alexander Ewing's old house as it now stands at the canal bridge on Ewing Street. A plain old-fashioned wooden paling marked the place where his remains were interred just east of the house in the swamp. A large unfinished dilapidated Methodist Church stood near the corner of Ewing and Main streets.
What is now Rockhill's Addition was then a cultivated field, owned by 'Squire Rockhill. He lived then in a small house on the south bank of the Wabash and Erie Canal, just north of where the Rockhill House is now.
Thus it will be seen that the space bounded on the north by Water Street, east by Lafayette Street, south by Wayne Street, west by Harrison Street -- sixteen squares -- constituted Fort Wayne as a wooden town. The buildings were of an inferior sort, unpainted, generally one-story high, some of logs, more of frame work, just five of brick, the streets bad, many lots destroyed by standing water, and well-water on Columbia Street not very palatable. Nearly all the trading was done at the east end of Co- lumbia Street. However, Captain Bourie and John B. Peltier had a fine store northwest of Calhoun and Columbia streets; Taylor, Freeman & Company, another on the northwest corner; Captain Ben Smith, a grocery, as then called -- a saloon now -- on the southeast corner; and on the northeast corner was the old "Mansion House." It was then kept by Colonel Joseph H. Mc- Maken, whose name I mention with pleasure, as he was an honest man, and long an Associate Judge of the Circuit Court. To the west of the northwest corner, as just designated, on the north side were some few frame dwell- ings. At the Canal Basin stood the old Masonic Hall, which was then used
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March 15, 1872
for dwelling apartments and for the publication of the Fort Wayne SENTI- NEL, then in its fifth volume. The venerable Thomas Tigar was its editor and proprietor. On the opposite side of the street were the tannery of Paige & Fry, the "Franklin House, " kept by Mills & Taylor, and the residence of Francis Comparet, the spot where the American House now stands.
I will only mention a few places on Columbia Street. Going east from the Mansion House corner, was a grocery, kept, I think, by William Henderson, where Mr. Henry Sharp lately had a hat shop, and a large brick house on the alley, called the "Post House, " after the owner, James Post, long since dead. Across the alley, John E. Hill kept a dry goods store, where is now Morgan & Beach's splendid building. Next, in a low frame, Captain Henry Rudisill, now deceased, kept the Post Office, where the venerable Captain Oliver Fairfield, now of Decatur, was a faithful clerk, tying the twine and saving the scraps of paper quite in contrast with the economy of office clerks of this day. Next door Dr. Merchant W. Huxford kept a drugstore, and a good one, too. On the corner below, was the long established trading house of Allen Hamilton & Company, the firm being Allen H., Cyrus Taber and Thomas Hamilton, the latter only surviving. On the corner east was then being built Barnett and Hamm's big brick, which was soon finished, and was the largest building then in northern Indiana, a building which served for a court house, clerk's office, law offices, and printing offices, for years. The latter until it was burnt, in March 1860, and in which was consumed the TIMES office which I then owned, edited and published. The little brick now at the side of the new building, which was built on the same site, was then standing as it does now. It was the resi- dence of William H. Coombs, Esq., then a young lawyer, and still here in the practice. He and one other survive those who then were resident prac- titioners. A few unimportant buildings from that to the corner, east, where Barnett and Hanna had a trading house, and did a large business. Among the business omitted in this space, was the firm of Wright and Dubois. On the opposite corner east, was a long log building, called the Suttenfield House, after the distinguished Colonel William Suttenfield. At the canal basin was a boatyard, where all the boatbuilding of this region was done by James W. Deneal. Then or soon after, he had in his employ, a gentleman noted for his fiddleistic talent, and who a few years later turning up, on the Pacific coast, became Governor of Oregon, Captain John W. Whitaker. From this boatyard the common road ran down along the canal and across the old Fort ground, between the old well and the only building of the Fort then standing. This building stood on the west side of the vacant ground, as it stands now, and was two-story, and had been changed from a shed to a conical roof. It had been originally used for officers' quarters. A bro- ken pole stood in the centre of the parade ground, on which the Federal flag had originally been hoisted. The pickets which had enclosed the ground had nearly all been removed, yet the line where they stood was marked. A post of the gateway at the southwest corner of the stockade just behind the present residence of O. W. Jefferds, on the alley between Berry and Wayne streets -- was standing. These pickets and the logs which had com-
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March 15, 1872
posed the other buildings within the pickets, had all been removed by peo- ple for building purposes. This perhaps would not have been, had not the ground and buildings been invaded by the location and construction of the Wabash and Erie Canal -- which from the basin at Comparet's warehouse westward to Logansport, had been completed for a couple of years. The eastern part was then in the process of construction, and was not completed to Toledo till five years later.
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Number V CHARCOAL SKETCHES OF OLD TIMES IN FORT WAYNE
DAILY SENTINEL
Fort Wayne, Saturday, March 16, 1872
Page 3, Col. 5-6
By Hon. J. W. Dawson
In continuation of my "Charcoal Sketches," I will begin standing on the parade ground of the "old Fort, " on the morning of March 7, 1838, where I was invited to go by my brother, Honorable Reuben J. Dawson, who, from a residence of six years then past, was enabled, from informa- tion derived from living witnesses and from other accurate sources, to im- part to me much information relative to places of note, and natural objects around hereabouts.
Looking to the east, the stream of the Maumee River lay below, and could be seen locked up in ice for three-fourths of a mile. It was this stretch of the stream which the guns on the bastion at the southeast corner of the Fort were intended to command against the approach of the enemy by that river. The ford where General Harmar's army crossed, on October 17, 1790, and the ground where, on the 22nd following, the disastrous battle took place between the forces under him and the Indians, led by the famous war chief "Little Turtle, " called "Harmar's Defeat, "was pointed out. This was the exact point between Maumee and St. Joseph, where the "Omee Towns" were situated, which were burnt at the approach of the army. Through this very spot the Maumee Avenue Turnpike now runs.
The "Old Apple Tree" standing in the centre of the ground of con- flict, was then pointed out to me. Of it I had read some, but heard more. I was then in sight of the old tree itself, which had been planted so long be- fore that Time seemed old. It was old when the fall of Quebec decided the alternations between two different civilizations which had for more than a century been carried on, and from that day when the French flag ceased to float on the Heights of Abraham, it rightfully ceased to be unfurled at this point. That of the British succeeded, and again in time the American. So this old tree has been subject to the flags of three nations. It was old when were heard the sound of the guns and the clash of the war club that put to death the little English garrison near by, which fell by French treachery in May, 1763, during Pontiac's conspiracy. It was a fruitbearing patriarch when the American Revolution gave such an unparalleled impetus to Anglo American supremacy. It was old when its roots were bathed by the blood of our fallen soldiers at Harmar's Defeat, and when "Fort Wayne" was built. Its branches were distinguished for their greatness in 1812, when General Harrison raised the siege and relieved the imperiled garrison, and its trunk then measured nine feet in circumference. For fifty years the plowshare invigorated its growth, and it gave forth its annual fruit for more than a century and a quarter. It has seen Indian orgies when human vic- tims were roasted and eaten at its base. There they had their Moloch, and
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March 16, 1872
with these sacrifices they appeased this heathen God. It saw the Miamis reach their zenith, and adopting the habits of the whites they fell from their estate. A hundred and fifteen years after it was planted, the remnant of this tribe was pushed before the tide of civilization, westward of the Mis- souri. After all these changes and when a city of 20, 000 inhabitants had grown at its foot, it refused to blossom in the springtime. The trunk and barren boughs fell from the canker of age. Its stump may yet be seen but soon no vestige will be left. I know of no representation of it extant, save that taken by Benson J. Lossing, the historian, who while I was editing the TIMES, some nine years ago, took some notes from me, and made a cray- on sketch which I think is in his late published book.
To the north of the Fort, the junction of the St. Mary's and St. Jo- seph was seen. The neck of ground at that point pushed down more than two feet below where the waters now unite. The ground in the junction seemed in better view than now, as then the whole margin of the river was cleared of brush and trees, and the bottom land under good cultivation, as I found, at seed time.
The Maumee was then crossed at a ford which entered the river from the town side, just above the present bridge, and passed out by an easy exit just below where the east end of the bridge stands. Large stones stood prominently in the river, and offered much obstruction to travel, when they were hidden by water. The ground in the bend of the river St. Mary's, was very nearly clear of undergrowth, and presented the appear- ance of a cultivated field, without the ordinary fence enclosing it. To the east and south, beyond the picket lines of the Fort, the country looked comparatively wild -- that is, early stripped of its timber. The earth had sent up a thick growth of white oak, then about twelve or fifteen feet high, and occasionally a wagon road wound among it. The only house seen at the south, that I recollect, was a small frame "inn," built on the northeast corner of Clay and Wayne streets, kept by Henry Dahman, where Mr. Hen- ry Monning now lives. The only house seen to the east was one now owned by John Burt's estate, near the northwest corner of Wagner and Hanna streets, on the line of Taber's Addition, where William L. Moon lived. Passing now up the St. Mary's from the Fort, we reach the French part of the town, then of log buildings, at the exact point and vicinity of the Fort Wayne Gas Works. Among these was a German-Frenchman, named George Fallo, who kept a brewery just on the spot where the southwest corner of the enclosure of the Gas Works is. He was the first brewer here and though the manner of his fermenting his beer was questionable, still old George's beer was in great demand. It was at this point on the St. Mary's River where the road crossed. All the boats landed just above the crossing for years. They brought goods, provisions, and stores down the river in the spring flood of water -- the last convoy of which arrived here the very spring that I write of. I saw this.
From this point along up Water Street, were only a few unimportant houses until Calhoun Street was reached. These stood on the bank of Duck Creek -- or the "slough" into which the tailrace of the City Mills discharges.
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March 16, 1872
Captain John B. Bourie lived in the old frame house now standing at the north end of Calhoun Street bridge. A two-story log was on the north cor- ner, and on the ground just north of J. C. Bowser & Company's Foundry as it now is -- was an old, brick schoolhouse and cemetery surrounding it, with rude palings and other plain marks of affection around the graves of the buried pioneers. At the crossing of the river, just below the south end of the Bloomingdale bridge, was a low log cabin in which lived widow Lee, from whom the ford took its name. The main road north from the town led out along Calhoun Street, and crossed the St. Mary's on a wooden toll bridge, the feet of the wooden piers or bents, of which, may yet be seen there. The north end of the bridge is where the Mongoquinong Road led due north on the present west line of the City Park property, till it touched the Canal, then to the right, crossing Spy Run and intersecting the other road that crossed at the "boat landing" at John's mill, (now Rudisill's). From the same point the Goshen Road led to the northwest, striking the Feeder Canal at Hinton's -- "Bull's Head Inn, " just where the steam mill stands. From the point where the Goshen Road deflects to the west of a north and south line, half of a mile from "Bull's Head Inn, " the Lima Road was after- wards laid out and crossing Spy Run at Johny Archers, intersected the Mon- goquinong Road at the point where the Lima Plank Road, and the Fort Wayne and Piqua Plank Road once had a tollgate, or at least where the former had, where now Mr. C. Schultz lives and owns. I give this to mark the distinc- tion between the two roads. They are often confounded, though they lead to one place -- Mongoquinong Prairie. The road so named had an existence prior to the time that the town of Lima was laid out. Later the new part was called the Lima Road, and the whole was changed from Mongoquinong to Lima.
Coming back to town, the Canal was then in operation. Behind the buildings which front on Columbia Street was a space between them and the water which was called "the Dock." There all the boats landed, received, and discharged freight and passengers. People resorted to "the Dock" for pleasure and business. The boathorn announced the arrival and departure of the packets, and was a sweet sound to us who were so locked in by swamps and distances.
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Number VI CHARCOAL SKETCHES OF OLD TIMES IN FORT WAYNE
DAILY SENTINEL
Fort Wayne, Wednesday, March 20, 1872 Page 3, Col. 5-6
By Hon. John W. Dawson
(Erratum -- In sketch #II I stated that Tecumseh fell at the River Raisin; it should have been Thames. )
Bringing the reader back to the old Fort, at which point I was stand- ing in imagination when the last sketch was taken, he will face to the west and southwest. Here lies before us the County Addition to the town of Fort Wayne in the foreground, then considered the most desirable part of the city. The square of ground immediately south of the Fort, where Judge Carson, Mr. Frederick Beach and others live, was then a greensward, and not a house, nor even a sprout of undergrowth was on it. A part of it had once been used for a burial place for persons deceased at the Fort. The square to the immediate west had only three houses on it; one on the cor- ner, where now is the "Big Sycamore" -- then a sapling, not over six inches in diameter -- another midway between that and the Fort, and a third on the Canal, where Comparet's Steam Mill is. This square was used for garden purposes for the officers of the Fort, and is said to have been filled with all the usual vegetable growth, as well as with flowers of the choicest kinds, and so arranged and cultivated as to excite the liveliest wonder of all who beheld it. Indeed, the soil of that part of the city was unsurpassed for fertility.
The square to the west of this, between Lafayette and Barr streets, was pretty well covered with wooden buildings of an inferior sort -- among which was the Council House, fronting on Main Street, and built by the United States at a very early period. It was used by the Indian agents and by Indian Commissioners, the Governor of the Territory and other officials, in which to confer and counsel with the Indian tribes of the North and West. It was of hewn logs, of good size, two-stories high, and well secured against violence from without. It remained standing for years after the period of which I write, and stood on the exact spot where Mr. Michael Hedekin now lives -- lot 32; and the well used for public purposes still is open, and used, and gives forth an abundance of pure, cold water. On the north, fronting on Columbia Street, from Lafayette to the corner of Barr, was a row of shanties, mostly inhabited by Irish canallers. The west cor- ner of the same square, was occupied by a large building, and was used by Lane & Stevens. The square south of this, between Berry and Main, was but partially built upon -- in fact, only a part was eligible, owing to a small run that passed through it, making it quite wet. The greater part of the buildings fronted on Berry Street. Among the most notable, was the house now occupied by Mr. Jesse R. Straughn, then new, and lately before built
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March 20, 1872
and occupied by Counsellor Henry Cooper, and the square of a log building standing to the second story, and built of logs from the Fort to the east, next lot to the corner. It was afterwards weather-boarded by Captain Dan- iel Reid, roofed, lathed and plastered, and occupied by him as a residence. I mention that it is on lot 53, County Addition, so that when it is torn down, the logs may be known as relics as a part of the new Fort which supplanted the old one in 1814, or thereabouts.
On the square to the south of this -- that is fronting on Berry Street -- the houses are as they were then built, save a brick next the market square, and the old First Presbyterian Church, on the vacant lot 63, next to the corner of Berry and Lafayette streets, now torn down. However, all the front tier of these lots on Berry are part in the County Addition and part in Taber's. This Church was in charge of the Reverend Alexander T. Rankin, then a young man of talent, whom I saw here but a year or so ago. The basement of the building was then occupied by Reverend W. W. Stevens, and Alexander McJunkin as a schoolroom, and under whose tuition I put myself within a few weeks after my arrival. Here was then the youth of the town assembled, to be prepared for the active duties of life -- but Ste- vens and McJunkin and by far the larger part of their pupils are dead . . .
Going along west, we see an old and small frame building, the "market house, " in market space, a few miserable frame shanties facing it on the west. On the northwest corner of Barr and Lafayette streets, Judge Hanna lived in palatial style, in the old frame now next the Rink. Mr. J. C. Bowser, in the same house in which he now lives, on the south side, and Squire Robert Hood next to him, a genius of whom many rich anecdotes remain to be told. Where the First Presbyterian Church is, a two-story log house was, and the same kind of a one where Dr. Knapp's new office is, on the opposite corner. Opposite these where the Rink, and Miller, Hattersly, and Fee, Greible occupy what was a swamp, deep and impass- able, full of willow and water-growth, offensive and dangerous to health. A few more unimportant buildings were on that square, ending where the Aveline House is now. I mention names to show what havoc death has made: John Majors, carpenter; Abner Gerrard, ex-sheriff; Moses Yerian, gunsmith; Widow Minnie and others, lived along there. Barnett's corner, opposite the Aveline House, was occupied by a large, two-story log house, tenanted by the venerable John P. Hedges, who yet survives; and west of this -- that "honest man, " long since deceased, Captain James Barnett, who swore not but answered "by Hedge's Mollie, " when in a ruffled temper. At the opposite corner, (McDougall's) now Masonic Hall, was a long row of one-story, shed roof shanties, painted yellow, and in a connected and continuous line fronting on Calhoun 50 feet, and on Berry 170, called "Work's Row, " in name of Henry Work, who built and rented them. This row was tenanted by very plain people, and not a few very rough ones -- among these, "Old Johnny McDougall," who lately died at the hospital. He was come from "decent people" in Philadelphia; but owing to some domestic reverses in early life, he sought in the solitude of the West, "a medicine for a troubled mind." He was a tailor of President Jefferson's time, and
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March 20, 1872
here followed his trade, alternately with whisky-drinking, until the town got large. Over twenty-five years ago, he went into the wilds of Jefferson Township, and lived a hermit until the decrepitude of age compelled him to seek those comforts of body from others, which he was at last powerless to render to himself. Still he subsisted himself and died no pauper. This be to his credit -- he was an honest man. West of these shanties was the carpenter shop of John Rhinehart, deceased long ago.
A few old buildings, one of frame, where the Post Office is, and south another or two stood on Court Street. An old and good well, a little west of the centre of the street, opposite the southeast corner of the new Court House, was marked by its rude curb -- a section of a hollow sycamore tree -- and the water drawn therefrom by an old-fashioned sweep in a tree fork. Court House square was unenclosed. On the northeast corner was a frame house and office for the Receiver of the Land Office of this land dis- trict. This house, Colonel Spencer, Receiver, built on a lease-hold from the county, and there lived for some years. The Court House was a large two-story brick, but was never finished. It was so insecure when I first saw it, that it was not occupied with safety for court purposes. Still sev- eral terms of court were held there, and some religious and political meet- ings were also held in it. This old Court House and the frame built by Colonel Spencer were sold to him by the county for $300, in the early part of 1843, and were then removed, preparatory to building a common one on the south part of the square. This later gave place to the new one now standing.
The County jail and jailor's house stood on the southwest corner of the square. The house was a low frame attached to the north side of the jail, and fronting on Calhoun Street. The jail was of square, hewn logs, strongly fitted together, two-stories high, stairs on the outside, west, and a high, strong, upright board fence enclosing it, running along Berry and Calhoun streets. It was both unsafe and unhealthy, and was so used to a late period, when the new, and now as worthless, jail was built.
Closing now, for today, the next will close the view of the place as it was; after which there will be introduced matter of a different character, and to citizens of short residence here; perhaps will be more entertaining. I have particularized places and names, to show what ravages time has made. More than seventy-five per cent of all those who lived here and carried on business are dead.
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Number VII CHARCOAL SKETCHES OF OLD TIMES IN FORT WAYNE
DAILY SENTINEL
Fort Wayne, Saturday, March 23, 1872
Page 3, Col. 5-6
By Hon. John W. Dawson
My late sketch ends with a description of the County jail, as it stood in the spring of 1838, and now nearing the close of my sketch of the place as it then appeared, let us imagine ourselves at the northwest corner of the Public square, thirty-four years ago. Looking to the west, is seen on the opposite corner, the residence of Francis D. Lasselle, now deceased. The building now stands back on the alley on Main Street. Just south of Lasselle's was a frame owned by Wilcox's estate, where now is Hamilton's Hall; next on the alley a fine frame residence occupied by the now venerable John E. Hill, then one of the firm of Hill & Fleming, merchants. On the second lot south of the alley, stood a frame house, owned and occupied by Captain William Stewart . .. Next this, an old frame, the residence and bakery of Joshua Housman, long ago dead. This joined "Work's Row" be- fore noted. Looking west, is seen near the northeast corner of Harrison and Main a few small shanties, among which was the pottery of Reverend Stephen R. Ball of the Methodist Church; just to the east of which was a common frame, the residence of Honorable Charles W. Ewing, then Circuit Judge . . .
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