USA > Indiana > Allen County > Fort Wayne > Charcoal sketches of old times in Fort Wayne > Part 5
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Captain Rhea talked of surrendering -- was constantly drunk; and but for the courage and sobriety of his subordinates, all would have been lost.
Suffice to say that General Harrison arrived on September 12, and relieved the garrison with about 5,000 men. Charges were preferred against Captain Rhea, and a Court Martial ordered by General Harrison. The evidence heard, he was thought guilty of drunkenness, and that his commission ought to be taken from him. General Harrison gave him the alternative of a resignation on account of his age and long service. This was accepted and he left the army.
Having now shown what important service was rendered by Antoine Bondie to the little garrison of sixty-eight men, besieged by the Indians, and which service saved their lives and certainly thousands of others, who would have been massacred, had Fort Wayne fallen, I shall in the next give a sketch of Me-te-a who was wounded at the Five-mile swamp, by
*Bondie lived in a cabin near, or on the very spot where the Fort Wayne Gas Works are built. There was a Government Factory house and blacksmith shop where Berry Street is, between Lafayette and Clay streets. The former stood near where Mr. Randall's new house is built, and the latter at the precise point where Judge Carson's residence is, and the re- mains of which I saw dug out when he was building that house. There were also four or five log cabins located near the southwest corner of Lafayette and Main streets, used by Mr. Bourie, father of Captain John B. Bourie, and other buildings around the Fort, most of them burned by the garrison in a calm time, in order to prevent the Indians from firing them when the wind should be in the direction of the Fort, besides others which the Indians maliciously burned. There was also a ten-acre field, fenced with common rails, at, and very contiguous to, the southeast corner of the Fort, used by the garrison for a pasture for the horses belonging to it. There was also some cornfields over the Maumee, adjoining where the bridge is now,
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April 10, 1872
Major Mann of General Harrison's army as it came to the relief of the garrison on September 12, 1812.
and a farm, of some forty or fifty acres, owned and occupied by the white widow and family of Captain William Wells, who had been the month before massacred at Fort Dearborn, Chicago. On this improvement of Captain Wells, were very comfortable buildings, a good orchard, plenty of stock, and several negro slaves, which the Captain had brought theretofore from Kentucky. The family and slaves and all the movables that could be re- moved, were secured at the Fort, but the houses were burned by the Indi- ans.
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Number XIV CHARCOAL SKETCHES OF OLD TIMES IN FORT WAYNE
DAILY SENTINEL
Fort Wayne, Friday, April 12, 1872
Page 5, Col. 5-6
Me-te-a, Potawatomi Chief
By Hon. John W. Dawson
Me-te-a was a war chief of the Potawatomi Indians, who inhabited the region in the immediate north and northeast of Fort Wayne, and was in the meridian of his power influence and strength in the war of 1812. His villages, at the date of the siege of Fort Wayne, and for ten or fifteen years afterwards, were on the Little St. Joseph River. One was at the mouth of Cedar Creek, where Cedarville is now located. The marks of cultivation, such as corn-hills, I saw very distinctly in October, 1838, the first time I passed up the St. Joseph River. The other on the same (west) side of that river, just above the Feeder Dam, on what is called the Bourie Section, a tract reserved to John B. Bourie, by the treaty of Paradise Springs (Wa- bash, Indiana), in 1826, and which may be seen as noted on the elegant county map, just published by the present efficient County Auditor, Henry J. Rudisill. The former, that of Cedarville, was the continuation of the Indian town which was destroyed by General Hardin, who was detached by General Harmar, in October, 1790, for that purpose. At that time he also destroyed another town, at what is now Spencerville, DeKalb County. Re- turning by the way of Eel River (the crossing of that stream by the Trace, to Fort Dearborn, as then and afterwards traveled, now Heller's Corners), he was there lamentably defeated. To retrieve the disgrace of this, the at- tempt was made to recover the Miami, or Omee towns, and resulted in Harmar's defeat, just below the city, and on the bottom between the St. Jo- seph and Maumee, on October 22, 1790. This reservation of Mr. Bourie was described "so as to include Chop-pa-tee village, " and is that which was called by the whites Me-te-a's village, as I suppose.
General Harrison hurried forward with his troops to raise the siege of Fort Wayne, on September 12, 1812, as stated in my last sketch. Me- te-a and a few braves planned an ambuscade at the "Five Mile Swamp, " in Adams Township, where the Wayne Trace crossed it and at the place where the County Road ran and has for a great many years crossed -- southeast of the city, about five miles, having made an ambush on each side of the Trace in a narrow defile where the troops would crowd together of neces- sity. Behind it, they laid in waiting for the arrival of the army. But Major Mann, a spy and avant courier discovered the ambush in time to save ef- fusion of blood. Me-te-a had taken his position behind a tree, but left his elbow exposed as it laid across the breech of his rifle which rested on his left shoulder. This having been discovered by Major Mann he instantly took aim and fired. The ball took effect and broke the arm of the chief, as
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April 12, 1872
the Major at once discovered. Hoping to capture him, he set chase after Me-te-a who having gathered up his disabled arm, cried "Ugh! Ugh!" and fled. By extraordinary exertion, he eluded the Major, hastened to the Fort, and informed the besieging Indians of the approach of the army in time to enable them to leave without loss that afternoon, before General Harrison entered the sally ports of the fort.
The arm of Me-te-a was so injured, the bone so shattered, that though the laceration healed perfectly, the bone never united; hence there- after the forearm hung powerless and useless at his side.
He often afterward took pleasure in repeating the incident, and was ever ready to accord great praise to Major Mann for his activity and brav- ery. It was supposed if the men who were with Major Mann had been as quick and courageous as he, that Me-te-a would have paid with his life and scalp the penalty of attempting to carry out his ambuscade.
He was a brave, generous and intelligent Indian, and described, by those who best knew him, as an orator, reasoner, and practical man. He evinced all these qualities at the treaties in which he took an active part. In addition he was vivacious and witty.
He lived in this region as is known from 1800 until 1827. He came to his death by poison, said to have been surreptitiously administered by some malevolent Indians who were unjustly incensed at him for his firm adherence to the terms of the Treaty of Paradise Springs in 1826. The Pot- awatomi had yielded a claim to a large body of lands in that and this region -- which perhaps were based on an implied admission on the part of the Mi- amis, of a right in the Potawatomi growing out of the use of it for many years by the consent of the Miamis. The poison was said by some Indians to have been the root of a shrub with a red berry like the sumac -- while others supposed it to have been the root of the May apple. The night before his death, he was discovered to have been so poisoned; and so deadly was the effect of it, that his tongue was swollen to such an extent that it pro- truded from his mouth and filled it so as to cause suffocation. Shortly after his death he was buried in a sand hill at the west end of Berry Street, over- looking the St. Mary's River -- and which sand hill was until recently at full height, but now levelled. The remains of great numbers of Indians scat- tered wherever sand and debris has been needed to bring to grade low places, and over which handsome residences are built and happy domestic sports are held, regardless of the dead that "lie beneath, in dust and ashes."
Soon after this burial, Dr. Lewis G. Thompson, one of the then two and only physicians and surgeons of the place, desiring to learn if possible the identical cause of Me-te-a's death, in company with some other gentle- men of the place proceeded in the night to raise the body for dissection and examination of the stomach and lungs. At the very moment when Dr. Thompson had opened the chest of the dead Me-te-a, and thrown back his breast bone, a noise was heard. The company thought it to be Indians, and as they knew the savages were greatly hostile to such disinterments, they were at once panic stricken. Quickly blowing out their lights, they fled to
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April 12, 1872
the brush, to await the denouement. False as the alarm proved to be, they were nevertheless suspicious of the nearness of danger. So returning to the grave they reburied the body, and returned none wiser, leaving that body to rest and, forgetfulness by the march of civilization. In conclusion, there comes a musing spirit in regard to the Indians. Their day is past; their fires are out; the wild deer no longer bound before them; the plow is in their hunting grounds; the ax rings through the woods, once only famil- iar with the sharp crack of the rifle; the shrillness of the war-whoop is supplanted by the shriller whistle of the locomotive, and the canoe by the steamer or the sail vessel. Their springs are dry; civilization has con- sumed all these as fire devours flax. Truly, "Time destroys to renew, and desolates to improve."
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Number XV
CHARCOAL SKETCHES OF OLD TIMES IN FORT WAYNE
DAILY SENTINEL
Fort Wayne, Tuesday, April 16, 1872
Page 3, Col. 5-6
Imprisonment for Debt -- Jail Bounds -- Appraisement Laws
By Hon. John W. Dawson
I do not doubt that there are many who will read this sketch, who will remember the time when in Indiana, there was a law, by which a debtor could be imprisoned for debt, on a capias ad satisfaciendem commonly called ca. sa., and which, now so long out of use, I will give in substance as from a Justice of Wayne Township, that it may be better understood: State of Indiana, Allen County, Sct:
To any Constable of Wayne Township, Greeting:
(After reciting the time when, and the amount of the judgment and costs, before what magistrate, and who in favor of, and whom against, and that an execution had issued on the same, of such a date, against the goods and chattels of the defendant, in the proper county, and that it had been duly returned, no goods and chattels of the defendant found whereon to levy, and that the execution remained unsatisfied -- the ca. sa. proceeded:)
"You are therefore commanded that you take the body of said Henry Reed, to satisfy said Charles Minnie, the debt aforesaid, together with in- terest and costs and accruing costs, and commit the said Henry Reed to the common jail of said county, there to be detained until said debt, inter- est and costs be paid and satisfied, or he be otherwise duly discharged. And of this writ make legal service and return. Given under my hand and seal this 3d day of July, 1833.
"Francis Comparet, J. P., (Seal. )"
On the receipt of such a writ, the constable arrested the defendant and committed him to jail, and if he were not able to pay for his keeping, the plaintiff became liable for the same. The jail had separate apartments for debtors and criminals -- the former was called the debtor's cells, and the latter the criminal's cell or room.
Under this law the Circuit Court had the power to prescribe what was called "prison bounds, " or "jail bounds," and I find on the Order Book of the Allen Circuit Court, for the November Term, 1833, Judge Gustavus S. Everett presiding, that his Honor fixed the jail bounds within a limit of six hundred yards in every direction from the County Jail (then on the south- west corner of the public square), and where that limit reached the St. Mary's or Maumee rivers, those streams within that distance were the "limits," and the County Surveyor was ordered to establish the "bounds." How the law was enforced against debtors in Allen County, those who don't otherwise know, may deduce from the following report of the Grand Jury, made at the August Term, of the Circuit Court, 1826, at which Honorable
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April 16, 1872
Miles C. Eggleston presided, then resident of Madison, Indiana; Amos Lane, Prosecuting Attorney, then resident of Lawrenceburg, Dearborn County, Indiana:
REPORT OF THE GRAND JURY.
We, the Grand Jury, empaneled for the county of Allen, and State of Indiana, after examining the county jail, are of the opinion that the crimi- nal rooms are not a place of safety for persons committed thereto; that the debtor's, or upper department of said jail, is not in a suitable condition for the reception of debtors, for want of locks, floor, and bedding.
John P. Hedges, Foreman.
August Term, Allen County, 1826.
"Without lock, stock or barrel, " said Aunty Sanders, "that gun is dangerous." But Sam "couldn't see it, " and without lock or floor a debtor's prison was most certainly not dangerous. This law of imprisonment for debt (without fraud first established) I know was rarely ever executed. In my memory I know but a single instance, and that was in 1831, in the town of Lawrenceburg, Dearborn County, while I was a schoolboy residing with Colonel John Spencer, my brother-in-law, then Sheriff and Jailor of that county. The "jail limits" were fixed to enable the debtor, on giving surety, to go from jail, but not beyond the "bounds, " and if he did, the surety be- came liable for the judgment and costs on which he had been committed. This was in February 1838, amended, or rather a new one enacted by which the "prison bounds" were extended to the limits of the county, which was certainly quite a liberal "beat" for a debtor, either of the couldn't or wouldn't pay kind.
This law was a restraint on the man of small means, warning him not to go beyond his ability. It was a greater restraint on the dishonest class, at this day, most numerous, who find their way to their neighbor's goods or pockets and keep their gains, by beating the latter on execution, and exemption laws, which are very convenient for those men who are as ready to commit perjury as a toper is to tip off a tumbler of rum.
In the olden time of which I write, the exemption law allowed the head of the family, to claim free from execution as follows: "One Bible, one cow and calf, one bed and necessary bedding therefor, household and kitchen furniture not exceeding in value ten dollars, one chopping ax, one weeding hoe, one spinning wheel, and one reel, and necessary provisions to supply the family two months." The whole sum not to exceed $50. How changed, now $300.
The imprisonment clause was rarely resorted to; and though it may have been occasionally used as an engine to oppress the honestly poor man, the oppression in that direction did not approximate the injury which un- scrupulous debtors did to credulous creditors when they overreached either by their protestations of honesty or by their deceitful appeals, aid in pre- tended extremity. Possibly there may have been cases in the county and elsewhere, of hardship under the law, but I have never learned of such. I, however, have known a thousand cases where debtors have been so crimi- nally derelict that such a law would seem to have been the sine qua non.
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April 16, 1872
However imperative and dead was this law by reason on nonenforcement of the imprisonment clause, it was eagerly seized on by those who were too poor to get trusted for even a farthing, as well as those who by fraud sub- sisted on the earnings of others. Politicians, snuffing the breeze, made it a hobby and it was repealed in January, 1842, I think.
Another law soon followed which was of the same piece! Magistrates before this had jurisdiction of the persons to summon any creditor from any part of the county in any action of debt not exceeding $100 and costs. But this was also regarded as oppressive. A clamor was also raised against it, and the merchant or trader who, at Fort Wayne, sold goods to a farmer in Perry Township, was compelled to go there to sue him. If he were a non-resident of the county, then the township law did not prevail. But this, too, was repealed; and any resident of the state could and can, when sued out of the township of his residence, plead the matter in abatement and de- feat the suit.
The popularity of this township law was such, that any man who was thought to oppose it, suffered in public estimation. I recollect that in 1842, at a special election, Thomas Johnson, Esq., a gentleman of elegance and merit, was defeated for the Legislature from Allen County, owing to an unfounded report set afloat that he was against it.
Existing with this law was the appraisement law of February 1841, making it obligatory on sheriffs, and constables, to appraise all property levied on and when offered at sale unless it brought way two-thirds of the appraised value, it should not be struck off, but the officer was required to return the writ, reciting that it was not sold, because no one bid the requisite amount. This was made to relieve against the financial embar- rassment which had come upon the country, to save men who were in debt from being rendered wholly bankrupt by execution plaintiffs, who might, for a nominal bid, under the old law, take a farm a hundred times in ex- cess of their claims, because there was no surplus money to buy with. This law, however, was in 1844 decided by the Supreme Court of the United States to be unconstitutional, so far as was intended to affect contracts ex- isting when it was passed, but constitutional and valid as to all subsequent contracts, and that the judgment plaintiff had a right to the benefits of the law regulating the remedy for collection existing at the time his contract was made. The case went up, on a certificate of division of the Judges of the Circuit Court of the United States for Illinois, on a similar question, arising under a like law of Illinois -- the case of Hayward vs. McCracken, as I quote from memory. Out of these have grown our present appraise- ment laws, and that authorizing the maker of a note or contract to waive in writing the benefit of that appraisement, on execution of property by distress and sale.
I have thus given the history of legislation on these matters, to show the reader that reform and progression are not synonymous, and I close the sketch with a few thoughts of my own on the subject matter. When the question of abolishing imprisonment for debt was up for discussion, I con- fess that I imagined the old law a cruel one, although I had seen no evi-
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April 16, 1872
dences of its hardship, in application. But since that time, I have seen so many thousand cases where it was as hard to distinguish between the intent and circumstance of obtaining the goods of another forming the contract, and obtaining the goods of another forming the contract, and obtaining goods under false pretense, as it is to tell the point d'appui, where one color of a rainbow ends and another begins. I say I have seen so many such cases, partaking quite as much of crime as of contract, that my confidence in my early convictions in regard to imprisonment for debt, in some cases are shaken. Indeed, my experience has satisfied me that legislation has run, not to protect men of property, so much as to propitiate the insolvent. Plaintiffs in civil cases are put to a disadvantage in court, just as the State of Indiana is in criminal cases. Defendants in both cases have the advan- tage, by reason of legislation, and Judges and officers are often blamed for what is the fault of law-makers. But most people do not distinguish. Some of these measures were, without doubt, proper and necessary in their day; but as in those cases the reason for this enactment has ceased, the law ought to be altogether to suit the existing condition of men and things to meet the evasions and abuses which experience has shown have been prac- ticed. Trade and wholesome business enterprises which have been crip- pled, and in some instances nearly checked, by imprudent legislation, would at once go forward with an elastic bound.
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY
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Number XVI
CHARCOAL SKETCHES OF OLD TIMES IN FORT WAYNE
DAILY SENTINEL
Fort Wayne, Monday, April 22, 1872
Page 3, Col. 5
An Indian Murder -- A Miami Kills an Ottawa, 1824 -- Oqua-nox-as, and Ottawa Chief, Demands Reparation
By Hon. J. W. Dawson
It was a custom among the Indians of this region, which attained as early as the year 1800, to assemble annually at Fort Wayne, to receive the annuities which, under prior treaties, the United States had stipulated to pay them. As the autumn was a more propitious season of the year for that purpose, large bodies of the various tribes inhabiting this part of Indiana and Northern Ohio, were congregated here 1824. The various bands had taken up quarters as convenience suited in the neighborhood most conven- ient to water, and other advantages, which their necessities and roving habits required. These occasions were great epochs in the history of In- dian life, and served them to date the passing of time. Besides serving to bring these savages together to exchange the civilities of such a life, it en- abled them to procure whisky, which, though the bane of their life, was purchased at any price which the seller might have the temerity to ask. On this occasion, while on a drunken frolic, one of Raccoon's party -- a Miami -- deliberately stabbed and killed a young Ottawa Indian. As soon as his victim fell, the Miami gave a loud whoop, and setting himself down by a tree, brandished his long knife, and invited in a defiant tone, any one to come and kill him who might desire to do so. This was designed to bring others into collision with him, and in that state of desperation he would have killed or been killed. The Ottawas were greatly enraged at this, and spread the news through the camps of all their tribe, located on the waters of the Auglaize and Flat Rock. They left their hunting grounds represented by several hundred warriors, under their war chief Oquanoxas, (pronounced Oc-a-nox-y, ) and advanced in the direction of Fort Wayne, to demand rep- aration in money of the Miamis for the killing of the young man, or in de- fault to settle it by resort to arms. This is with Indians, as it was with our Anglo-Saxon ancestors long ago, and the custom was not abandoned till the night of barbarism had long passed. The Indians would first require compensation, and that being awarded, the outrage was cancelled, just as one punishment expiates a violated law at this day. These warriors having ended their march, pitched their camps on the south bank of the Maumee, just below the point which I now designate as the first lock on the Wabash and Erie Canal east of this city, and tarried there for the night. On the morning following, Oquanoxas and a few of his warriors came to the village (now city) of Fort Wayne. They sought and obtained a conference with the Miamis, through their great Chief John B. Richardville, whose Indian name
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April 22, 1872
was Pe-she-wa, or Wild Cat. They demanded of Pe-she-wa $5, 000, in sil- ver, and unless promptly adjusted, they asserted that they would immedi- ately attack the Miamis. This greatly alarmed Richardville, who saw the unprepared condition of the Miamis from a sudden attack from the Ottawas, and he set himself to work at the earliest moment to prevent a collision which would, as it seemed to him result in so much bloodshed and cruelty. His first step was to call a council of his head-men and sub-chiefs, such as could be apprised by speedy notice. In the council they resolved that they would allow the $5, 000, out of the next annuity due the Miamis. It should be paid the Ottawas by the Indian agent. This the Ottawas accepted, and by a contemporaneous sub-agreement between the parties, the late Judge Samuel Hanna and Captain James Barnett delivered to the Ottawas goods to the amount of $5, 000. They took from Richardville and his head- men, a guarantee that that sum should be retained for them out of the Mi- ami annuity, and it was accordingly done.
This adjustment put an end to this fearful excitement which pre- vailed among the whites, created by the fear that Oquanoxas, who was noted for his bravery and impulsiveness would begin a bloody war on the Miamis. This fear may be justly measured, when it is known that there was no mil- itary force nearer than Newport, Kentucky. Before relief could come from that place, extermination would have been the fate of the one or the other, and that, in the blind and bloody carnage, many whites in villages and in feeble settlements, would have suffered death or pillage.
It is said by those who knew Richardville, the Chief, intimately, that he evinced unusual fear lest he should fail in his effort to placate the Ottawas -- and be compelled to defend against the bloody attack which they threatened.
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