USA > Indiana > Allen County > Fort Wayne > Valley of the upper Maumee River, with historical account of Allen County and the city of Fort Wayne, Indiana, Volume I > Part 20
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Still remote from the " settlements," Fort Wayne continued as in former years, to exist as an object of special interest to the nation as a frontier post, it not being known what conflicts might sooner or later call it into action again, in defense of the northwest.
Attached to the fort, running west to about where the " Old Fort House" was located, near Lafayette street, embracing about one acre of ground, was an excellent and well cultivated garden belonging to the commanding officer, always filled in season with the choicest vegetation. Still to the west of this was the company's garden, extending to about where the Hedekin House now stands, which was also well tilled. The road then mainly used, extended westward from the fort along what is . now the canal, to the corner of Barr and Columbia streets.
Just to the south of the fort, in what is now called " Taber's Addition," was located the burial ground of the garrison, where also were interred others not immediately connected with the tort. Lieut. Ostrander, who had thoughtlessly fired upon a flock of birds passing over the fort, had been reprimanded by Capt. Rhea, and because of his refusal to be tried by a court-martial, was confined in a small room in the garrison, where he subsequently died, was among the number buried in this place.
Fort Wayne was then on the route for the transmission of immense quantities of furs, consisting principally of beaver, bear, otter, deer and coon, which were collected on the Wabash and Illinois rivers, and nearly all of which passed over the portage. They were the principal staple of the country, and among the traders the only currency, so that when debts were contracted, or payments to be made, notes were usually drawn payable in furs.
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THE DAWN OF PEACE.
By means of this currency dry goods, boots, shoes, hardware, etc., were sold at very high prices to the Indians and others, by which means, and the early purchase of lands, at a very low figure, many in after years became very wealthy. Richardville, civil chief of the Miamis, who was licensed as a trader with the Indians as early as 1815, be- came the wealthiest Indian in America by this trade and the sale of lands. Schoolcraft estimated his wealth some years prior to his death at about $200,000 in specie; much of which had been so long buried in the earth that the boxes in which the money was enclosed had mainly decayed, and the silver itself become greatly blackened.
Soon after the war of 1812 broke out, with many other members of the tribe, including his family, this chief had made his way to the British lines for protection, intending, doubtless, to render some aid to the enemy, for but few among the tribes of the northwest remained neu- tral or failed to give aid in some way to the British cause. At the close of the war in 1814, he returned and passed on up the St. Mary's, about three miles from Fort Wayne, where he encamped. Major Whistler, desiring to see him, sent an interpreter, Crozier, requesting the chief to come immediately to the fort, which he did. The treaty of Greenville was then about to take place, and the major desired that the chief should be present, and so requested him; but Richardville was very indifferent about the matter, hesitated, and returned to his camp. A few days later, however, he came back to the fort, where he was now held as a hostage for some ten days, when he at length consented to at- tend the treaty, and was soon after accompanied thither by Robert For- syth, a paymaster, who was on his way with a chief, Chondonnai, who had been implicated in the massacre at Chicago, and William Suttenfield joined the party.
In 1818 several French traders came to Fort Wayne, but not meet- ing with such inducements as they had desired, passed on after a few days, to the more remote regions of the west, where furs were sup- posed to be more abundant. In this year there were also a number of treaties held with the Indians at St. Mary's, Ohio, under the direction of Gov. Jennings and Benjamin Parke, of Indiana, and Gen. Lewis Cass, of Michigan.
The departure of the troops, in the following year, is said to have left the little band of citizens extremely lonesome, but henceforth peace instead of war was to reign about the historic confluence of the St. Joseph and St. Mary's.
No history has recorded what regiments were represented in the various garrisons which occupied Fort Wayne, but a collection of mili- tary buttons found in and about the site of the fort, and now in the posession of the writer, will doubtless furnish an approximate knowledge of who were its defenders.
These buttons were worn by soldiers of the First, Second, Third, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, Twelfth, Thirteenth and Fif- teenth regiments of infantry, the First light artillery, and a rifle regiment.
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Besides these numbered buttons, are several, representing no regi- ment, many of which were doubtless worn prior to the date of designating commands by numbers upon the buttons.
The oldest and most archaic in appearance is a flat pewter button with a rude eagle impressed. The next is slightly convex with the eagle and stars as upon the early United States coins. Then follows a convex button with an eagle standing on a shield, with the legend "United States Infantry," in the outer circle. A convex button with the eagle bearing a shield upon which is the letter I, in script. A flat button with a large letter I, in script, and a single star below. A flat button with the eagle over an oval, inscribed I Rt. A flat brass button with a bugle enclosing the figure I, all surrounded by fifteen stars. A flat brass button with eagle, but no number or stars. A flat brass button with eagle perched on a cannon, below which is inscribed I Regt. A flat brass button with script monogram L. A., below which is an oval of stars enclosing the figure I. A flat brass button with similar monogram, below which is a wreath enclosing an arrow. A flat silver-plated button with initials L. D.
Other buttons are without device of any kind to indicate the com- mand to which the wearer belonged. And those who wore them have long since departed, leaving no other record of the pioneer heroes who opened, and held open, the "glorious gate " to the west, until the army of civilization could enter and take possession, and reap the fruits of their heroic daring. Let us not forget, but ever hold in grateful re- membrance the brave men whose valor and privations secured to us this rich and favored region of our great country.
As has appeared in these pages, the importance of the head of the Maumee as a strategic point had not escaped the attention of the states- men and military leaders of the new republic, and most of the cam- paigns in the west, if not all of them, were directed toward securing a post here, as the key to the western and southwestern country. Now at the opening of the era of peace, with which the writer will close this account of the early history of the Valley of the Upper Maumee, the attention of the generals of commerce was as strongly directed to this as a strategic point for industrial development.
McAfee, in his " History of the Late War," said in referring to the Wabash and St. Mary's: "A canal at some future day will unite these rivers, and thus render a town at Fort Wayne, as formerly, the most considerable place in that country; " and in 1819, Capt. James Riley, a surveyor, suggested the connection of the Maumee with the Wabash by means of a canal, a feat which was long afterward accomplished. This pioneer, making the ways straight for the coming civilization, with the voice of a true and sagacious prophet, hailed Fort Wayne as the " future Emporium of Indiana."
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ANTHONY WAYNE.
ANTHONY WAYNE.
THE HERO OF BRANDYWINE, STONY POINT, MONMOUTH, JAMESTOWN, AND THE MAUMEE.
A patriotic Pennsylvanian author, of half a century ago, defending the gallantry of his people, wrote: "They ask for our illustrious dead!" " At the sound, from his laureled grave in old Chester, springs to life again the hero of Pennsylvania's olden time, the undaunted general, the man of Paoli and of Stony Point, whose charge was like the march of the hurricane, whose night assault stunned the British as though a thun- derbolt had fallen in their midst. We need not repeat his name. The aged matron, sitting at the farm-house door of old Chester, in the calm of summer twilight; speaks that name to the listening group of grandchildren, and the old revolutioner, trembling on the verge of the grave, his intellect faded, his mind broken, and his memory almost gone, will start and tremble with new life at the sound, and as he brushes a tear from the quivering eyelid of age, will exclaim with a feeling of pride that a weight of years cannot destroy, 'I-I, too, was a soldier with Mad Anthony Wayne!' "
In the month of September, 1777, rumors of war startled the homes in the valley of the Brandywine. Gen. Howe, with some 17,000 well- armed soldiers, had landed above the Susquehanna, and was to sweep like a tornado over the plains between him and the city of Philadelphia. To oppose him came Washington, with his ill-clad Continentals, from the direction of Wilmington. On the morning of the IIth there stood under a great chestnut tree, not half a mile from Chadd's ford, gath- ered around the one who towered above them all, majestic and graceful in form, a group of officers among whom could be seen the sagacious Greene, the rugged brow of Pulaski, the bluff good-humored visage of Knox, the frank, manly face of DeKalb; a boy whose blue eyes sparkled and whose sandy hair fell back gracefully from a noble fore- head - Lafayette; and there also, with his eyes abrim with reckless daring, was the young hero of the north, who should be the theme of a thousand legends - Anthony Wayne. In the afternoon, Wayne, with his men, held a hill commanding Chadd's ford, fighting in the fields he had traversed in his boyhood wanderings. In stature the general was . not more than an inch above the medium. His form was hardy and vigorous. Beneath the plume of red and white that surmounted his chapeau was the face of a warrior, broad forehead, aquiline nose, clear hazel eyes. Five thousand men, under Gen. Knyphausen, were moving to the attack. Over their heads floated the banners of Hesse and Anspach. Not of their own will, but by their rulers, they were hired to fight for the imbecile king, who occupied himself catching flies in his
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palace, while men who had not learned what freedom was, were rav- aging the homes of heroes who were brave enough to swear that they and their land should be subject to no potentate nor regal power. The battle waged fiercely and attack after attack was repulsed until finally Knyphausen, glittering in black and gold, charged at the head of his guard, 400 ruthless dragoons, with whom war was a trade and slaughter a pastime. To meet these, Wayne shouted one command, "Come on," to his 200 troopers, and then under a blue flag on which gleamed the thir- teen stars, he crashed against the overpowering force of the foreigners. His gallant band of Continentals charged in a wedge that drove the enemy apart in confusion. The Hessians were hurled back at the saber's edge, into the river and across it, and the left wing of the army was triumphant. Just at this moment, the remainder of the army of Wash- ington began a retreat before superior numbers, but Wayne had saved the day from disaster, and he was the last to leave the field.
* * *
A few days later Wayne and his men were watching the movements of the British near Paoli, when the enemy suddenly appeared in force to give him battle. On account of the nature of his operations he was ready to move, and immediately ordered a retreat under the command of an inferior officer, while he remained on the field to protect the rear. Three orders were necessary to bring the subordinate to understand that he must move rapidly, and in consequence the British under Lord Grey were able to cut off a body of the Continentals. "It was "charge for England and St. George "; then a cry for quarter, and the brutal re- sponse, "Cut them down. No quarter." One hundred and fifty Conti- nentals were butchered by the soldiers of England. After this the watch- word was, "Remember Paoli."
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Nearly two years later Wayne avenged Paoli in a way eternally to the glory of Americans. The British had seized Stony Point, a precipi- tous hill commanding King's Ferry on the Hudson, then the ordinary path of communication between the middle and eastern states. On two sides the hill was washed by the river, and the other approaches were covered by water except at low tide. The enemy encircled the posi- tion with a double row of abatis, and on the summit placed a fortifica- tion bristling with artillery. It was confidently believed to be impregnable. There was but one to entrust with the attempt to capture this fort, An- thony Wayne. The army and country were overwhelmed with gloom. He must strike for the honor of Washington and the welfare of the na- tion, as he was again called on to do in 1792. He accepted the task without hesitation, and at midnight after the 15th of July, 1779, his com- mand was at the morass ready to advance. There were two columns to close in from opposite sides. First in each line was a forlorn hope of twenty men, with axes to cut away the abatis, then a small advance party followed by the main command. At the head of one regiment Wayne placed himself, and gave the order: "The first man that fires his piece
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shall be cut down. Trust to the bayonet. March on." As the troops were wading the morass, the sentinels at the fort perceived them and the rattle of drums came down the night air. Hardly had the axe begun its work on the abatis, than a torrent of grape-shot and musketry poured down upon the assailants. The forlorn hopes were swept away, but their places were taken, and in the face of a whirlwind of fire and roaring of cannon that shook the hill, the Continentals marched steadily upward, teeth clenched, bayonets fixed, without a word or the click of a hammer. A ball struck Wayne on the forehead and he fell, but rising again cried out, "March on, carry me into the fort, and if I must die, I will die at the head of the column." With such a leader the patriots were invin- cible. In a moment their steel flashed in the lurid light on the fortifica- tions; both columns met in the enclosure, and the British begged for' quarter as the patriots did at Paoli. Not a man was injured after the surrender, and every cry for quarter was sacredly heeded. So Anthony Wayne avenged Paoli.
*
This was the most brilliant affair of the war for independence. For many days nothing was talked of in Philadelphia but the glory of Gen. Wayne. Washington complimented him, and congress passed eulogistic resolutions. Lafayette sent word across the sea that he was " particu- larly delighted in hearing that this glorious affair had been conducted by my good friend Gen. Wayne." Wayne's wound was slight, and in an hour after the victory he was able to write a message to Washington, which has become historic:
" DEAR GENERAL :- The fort and garrison, with Col. Johnston, are ours. Our officers and men behaved like men who are determined to be free."
*
These glimpses of the revolution illustrate the hero's gallant service. But much more could be told: of how, at the battle of Germantown, Wayne led one division, and in the retreat saved the army by his un -. daunted courage; of how during the weary winter which Washington spent at Valley Forge, Wayne skirmished through New Jersey, re- peatedly fighting the enemy; of the famous battle at Monmouth, where Wayne with 700 men, attacked and engaged the greater part of the British army, and being deserted by the retreat of Lee, managed to retire without loss, until he met Washington, under whom he then returned to win the day; or of that memorable occasion, when Lafayette having mistaken the force of the enemy about to retreat across the James toward Yorktown, sent Wayne with 700 to attack the rear. No incident of the war is more characteristic of the impetuous valor and cool discretion of Wayne than that event. He found he had struck the entire British army, the wings of which immediately advanced to enclose his regiment. Without the slightest hesitation he ordered a charge, and his little force drove the enemy back from their front at the point of the bayonet. Thinking that this movement could only be
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inspired by confidence in an army near at hand, the enemy drew back its advance, and Wayne was able to retreat in safety before the true situ- ation was realized.
Anthony Wayne, though not distinctively a cavalry officer, was in the essential qualities of soldiership and personal influence the Sheridan of the revolution. A braver man never lived. There was nothing he feared to attempt; and he dared do, not only what others could, but deeds from which they shrank. The terrible power which he infused into a column of attack, was not equaled until the days of Winchester and Five Forks. His name became a synonym for unapproachable daring and invincible valor, and among all Washington's lieutenants, none can be more justly coupled with him in admiration. His history in detail can here be but briefly mentioned. He was born in Chester county, Penn., January 1, 1745, a grandson of an Anthony Wayne who was a captain under William of Orange. As a boy he drilled his schoolmates and he neglected his books for stories of battle, but on be- ing shown the necessity of study, was as rapid and successful in that domain as in all his enterprises. Dr. Franklin selected him to survey lands in Nova Scotia, and subsequently he married, and became a mem- ber of the Pennsylvania legislature. As early as 1764 he read the signs of the times and began organizing military companies and drilling them. He was called to the front as a colonel in January, 1776, joined the expedi- tion to Canada, was there wounded and became noted for valor, and sub- sequently was made a brigadier-general, a rank he held at Brandywine. After the surrender at Yorktown he went to Georgia at the head of 400 regulars and drove the British from that state in little more than a month, surprised and defeated the Creeks at Ogechee, and within a few days rendered the tribe inoffensive. When the British evacuated Charles- ton he and his men marched in at their heels amid huzzas and blare of trumpets. He became a legislator again, and served until he was appointed commander-in-chief of the United States army in 1792. Returning to Philadelphia after the Maumee campaign, February 6, 1796, he was met. four miles from the city by a military escort, and as he entered the city, there was a salute of cannon, the church bells joined in the chorus, and all business was suspended to honor the hero. It was expected that he would be appointed secretary of war, but intrigue was revived in the west, and Wayne was again sent to the Lake Erie region with almost autocratic powers. With consummate wisdom he quelled all disturbances. Then sailing for Presque-Isle, the last post he was to visit before returning to the east, he was seized with the gout, which, attacking the stomach, caused his death December 15, 1796. Separated in early manhood from a family he loved, to fight for his country from the St. Lawrence to the Carolinas, he sacrificed all the comforts and joys of life to America, and after winning the great west, died in the line of duty, hundreds of miles from home and civilization. Long may the fair city which has arisen where he trod the forests, honor and keep green the memory of Major-General Anthony Wayne.
GEOLOGY AND PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.
BY CHARLES R. DRYER, M. D.
LLEN COUNTY is crossed by the parallel of 41 north latitude, the meridian of 85° west longitude and the an- nual isothermal of 51º F. Its average elevation is not far from 800 feet above sea level. Physically it forms a part of the Wabash-Erie region, a shallow trough which ex- tends from Lake Erie southwestward nearly to the borders of Illinois. This trough is about 200 miles long, 100 miles wide and 200 feet deep. Allen county lies exactly midway of its length, and from a point just west of Fort Wayne, the bottom of the trough slopes gently toward either end. Along the axis of the trough extends one uninterrupted river channel, occupied at present, however, by different streams; from Lake Erie to Fort Wayne by the Maumee, at Fort Wayne for two miles by the St. Mary's, thence for twenty miles by the Little river prairie, thence by the Little Wabash river to its junction with the main stream, and thence by the Wabash river.
The Wabash-Erie trough is crossed transversely by a series of cres- centic or arrowhead shaped ridges which are parallel with the southwest shore of Lake Erie, and have their convex sides or angles directed toward the southwest. . These determine the position of the drainage lines, so that the principal streams which flow down the sides of the trough to the axial channel, the Mississinewa, the Salamonie, the Wabash above Huntington, the St. Mary's and the Auglaize on the south, and the Aboit, the St. Joseph and the Tiffin on the north, follow closely the western faces of the ridges. The general course of these streams indicates that they were once tributaries of the Wabash, but at present the eastern four join the Maumee and turn back upon themselves, so that in a course of ten miles the waters of the St. Joseph suffer a change in direction of 160°. Geologists are now prepared to explain the cause of this anomalous behavior.
The face of the earth in northern Indiana is covered by a vast sheet of clay, sand, gravel and boulders, the thickness of which in Allen county ranges from 40 to 280 feet. The pebbles and boulders are found to be composed of a variety of materials, of which quartz, granite, sienite, greenstone and silicious slate are most common. These are very hard minerals and entirely different from the limestone rock which underlies the region. The most casual observer would notice that some
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of the citizens of Allen county are foreigners and came from Germany, France or Ireland. In the same way geologists recognize these bould- ers as being emigrants, and as having come from the region north of the great lakes. Our soil is largely made up of foreign materials, and to the whole mass has been given the name of drift. The drift is distrib- uted over the United States north of the Ohio and Missouri rivers, and has been deposited from continental glaciers, or vast sheets of ice which repeatedly descended southward from the Canadian highlands. During the last glacial occupation the southern edge of the ice was divided into tongues or lobes, each of which pushed southward as far as the slope of the country and the temperature permitted. One of these ice-tongues, after passing through the basin of Lake Erie, emerged from its south- west end and traversed the Wabash-Erie trough. The weight of an ice-sheet from 1,000 to 5,000 feet thick causes it to grind, plane and scratch the rock surface over which it passes, to scoop out and reduce to powder the soft rocks and to wear away, round and groove the harder ones. The materials thus prepared are pushed and carried forward by the glacier, and finally deposited by the melting of the ice. The ex- treme edge of the ice may remain in the same position for hundreds of years, while the whole mass is moving slowly toward that limit 'where the ice melts as fast as it comes. Along such a line a great accumula- tion of material occurs, forming a ridge of drift called a terminal moraine. In the case of the Erie lobe, owing to some comparatively sudden changes of climate, the melting was not uniform, but periods of rapid melting and retreat alternated with periods during which its edge was stationary. Each of these halting places is marked by a moraine or ridge of drift like a breastwork thrown up to cover the retreat of an army; and the parallel, crescentic ridges which cross the Wabash-Erie trough are terminal moraines of the Erie ice-lobe. During the melting of the ice immense volumes of water flowed away through various channels, the main drainage line being the St. Joseph-Wabash, then connected through the Little river prairie. As soon as the ice-fort was withdrawn to a line east of Fort Wayne, the trough sloped toward the ice, and the water being dammed back by the moraines to the westward formed the Maumee lake which, at a point four miles east of Fort Wayne, discharged its surplus by a short river flowing westward into the St. Joseph-Wabash.
Allen county is naturally divided into six regions: (I) the Maumee lake region, (2) the St. Mary's and St. Joseph moraine, (3) the St. Mary's basin, (4) the St. Joseph valley, (5) the Wabash-Aboit moraine, (6) the Aboit and Eel river region. The Maumee lake region com- prises the township of Maumee and portions of Scipio, Jackson, Milan, Jefferson, Adams, St. Joseph and Springfield. Its surface is very nearly level and contains large tracts of swamp which are difficult of drainage. The soil is chiefly a black alluvium with large areas of clay and streaks and ridges of sand and gravel. All its peculiarities are such as would result from an occupation of the region for many years by a shallow
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