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 22
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Throughout his long career he did a successful business, being known as one of the leading undertakers in northern Indiana, but so fair and equitable and lenient were his transactions, that in all his life he sued but one man. Politically he was a whig, but since Gen. Scott's cam- paign has been a democrat. He was married in 1833 to Laura Cush- ing, who died in 1850, and in 1856 he was united to Mary Nettlehorst, a native of Germany. He has three children, James C. and Ellen, by- the first marriage, and Angeline by the second wife. James C., who carries on the undertaking business, was born in Fort Wayne Septem- ber 21, 1843. He attended the Catholic schools of the city, and studied two years at Notre Dame, his college work being interrupted by the war. In 1862 he enlisted in Company K, Twelfth Indiana, and the fol- lowing August was wounded at Richmond, Ky. He was honor- ably discharged in the winter of 1862 on account of physical disability. He then went into business with his father, and since 1882 has conducted the establishment in his own name. He is widely known as one of the leading undertakers of Indiana; is a Catholic in faith; and politically is a democrat. A prominent member of the Sion S. Bass post, G. A. R., he is the only one who has served two terms as commander, which position he filled in 1887-8. He was married December 25, 1866, to Selena F. Wadge, a native of England, and they have two children, William H. and Laura A. Mrs. Peltier is a member of the Episcopal church.
The river St. Mary's was a favorite route for the coming of visitors and settlers from " the settlements" in southwestern Ohio, and for a long period many flat-boats and pirogues would come down that river and tie up at the landing just above the fort. Among those who came by that route, as early as 1814, were William Suttenfield and his wife, and a party of friends, who made their home in the fort. Mr. Sutten- field was for a considerable period a non-commissioned officer at the fort, and for many months after his arrival, was employed with a squad of three or four men in bringing provisions and goods to the garrison from Piqua and other points. He was short and slender and very active and frequently declared that the Indians could not catch him. He sub- sequently arose to the rank, or title at least, of colonel. The first house in what is now called the old plat was erected by Mr. Suttenfield, at the northwest corner of Barr and Columbia streets, and he and his wife re- sided there many years in the comfortable log house. Mrs. Laura Sut- tenfield was born in Boston, Mass., in 1795, and survived her husband many years. She numbered among her friends in the early days, the agent, Major B. F. Stickney, a manly soldier, to whom so much credit belongs for the saving of Fort Wayne from capture in 1812, Gen. John Tipton and Col. John Johnson, two important leaders in their era.
Major Benjamin F. Stickney, appointed an Indian agent by Presi- dent Jefferson, was one of the most famous pioneers of the Maumee valley. After leaving Fort Wayne, about 1820, he settled at Swan Creek, and he and Samuel Allen founded Vistula, which became part
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of Toledo .. There was a question of boundary between Ohio and Michigan, and Stickney was the leader in the " secession " of the Toledo settlement from Ohio to Michigan, and afterward, during times of canal speculation, back to Ohio. The last move resulted in the Toledo war of 1835, worthy of the pen of " Diedrich Knickerbocker." Of this, Stickney was the hero. He was a man of considerable attainments, and had an estimable wife, Mary, daughter of the celebrated Gen. Stark. His eccentricities furnished much amusement, especially his selection of names for his children, the boys being dubbed One, Two, etc., and the girls named after the states.
In 1815 the fort was rebuilt, logs being hauled by the soldiers from the forest, covering the site of the residence of Samuel Hanna, deceased, and that vicinity. About the buildings a stockade was made of pickets, twelve and a half feet long, put in in sets of six, with a cross piece, two feet from the top, let in and spiked. They were firmly planted in a trench three and a half feet deep. Aside from the rivers there were no available routes in any direction, although there was the Wayne trace which could be followed by horsemen to Fort Recovery, one toward the site of Chicago, along which the carrier of the military mail found no hut or trace of white men until he reached Fort Dearborn; shorter traces that led down the Maumee on each side, and one to the reserva- tion of the unfortunate Capt. Wells on Spy run. The fording places ยท were Harmar's, 100 rods below the old Maumee bridge, now obliterated, and one above it. At the former ford the first observation of indepen- dence day that is recorded, occurred in 1810, by Capt. Rhea and other officers, who took dinner under an old elm, afterward known as the " post office," because on that very day the courier arrived with mail from Detroit and government dispatches. By this route, the mail was carried to Chicago and Green Bay for several years. In 1817, Major Whistler was removed to Missouri, being succeeded by Major Josiah H. Vose, of the Fifth regiment, who held command until April, 1819, when, much to the regret of the few settlers and traders, the fort was abandoned forever, and only the campfires of the numerous Indians and their noisy pow-wows, remained to furnish a variety to the life of the pioneers at the site of the future city. Among the residents then, were John B. Bourie, one of the earliest traders, and Samuel Hanna and James Bar- nett. Mr. Hanna built a hewn log house on the corner of Columbia and Barr, and he and Barnett opened a wholesale house to supply traders, in the following year, 1820. Their goods came from Boston by ship to New York, by way of Albany to Buffalo, by lake to Swan Creek (Toledo), and thence up the Maumee on pirogues. In 1820, Francis Comparet engaged in the Indian trade, and became with Alexis Co- quillard, who afterward did business at South Bend, and Benjamin B. Kercheval, who became Indian agent, who came at the same time, the agents of the American Fur Company, which was established here in 1820. George W. and William G. Ewing began trading in 1822 and in 1825 Peter Kiser established himself as a butcher and issued rations to
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the Indians at the forks of the Wabash and on Eel river while treaties were being made with them. Allen Hamilton made his home here in 1823, as deputy register, and soon became the confidential adviser of Richardville.
The status of the settlement at about this time may be inferred from the letters of Capt. James Riley, who came from his survey in Ohio, to visit the place in 1819, and was impressed by the remarkable possibili- ties of the location as a "depot of immense trade." He said: "The fort is now only a small stockade. No troops are stationed here, and less than thirty dwelling houses, occupied by the French and Ameri- can families, form the settlement. But as soon as the land shall be sur- veyed and offered for sale, inhabitants will pour in from all quarters to this future thoroughfare between the east and the Mississippi river. I was induced to visit this place for curiosity, to see the Indians receiving their annuities and to view the country. While here at that time, lev- eled the portage-ground from the St. Mary's to Little river, and made some practical observations, as aftertime has shown them to be." He wrote that the St. Mary's had been almost covered with boats at every freshet for several years. He describes this as a "central point combining more natural advantages to build up and support a town of importance, as a place of deposit and trade and a thoroughfare, than any point he had seen in the western country." He said at this time there were assem- bled about 1,000 whites from Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and New York, to trade with the Indians during payment, and that they brought whisky in abundance, which they dealt out to the Indians and kept them contin- ually drunk and unfit for business. Horse-racing, drinking, gambling, debauchery, extravagance and waste were the order of the day and night, and the Indians were the least savage and more christianized, and the example of those whites was too indelicate to mention." This Capt. Riley had a world-wide notoriety on account of his shipwreck and captivity on the coast of Africa.
He advised the speedy survey of the lands which soon followed, and every inducement to rapid settlement, and encouragement by the gov- ernment of this " future emporium of Indiana." As an earnest of his faith he purchased a number of tracts at Willshire, moved his family there, laid off a town, built a grist-mill, and surveyed, in 1822, all the country on both sides of the St. Mary's, embracing Fort Wayne, and also about twenty townships, of six miles square, between the St. Mary's and the Maumee. It will not detract from the value of his historical statements to recall that Capt. Riley was famous for snake stories, and that his most famous one related that snakes were so numerous in a certain field he was running a line across, that ever and anon an angry serpent would fasten its fangs in his leathern breeches. Slashing their heads off with his knife, he calmly proceeded, and after completing his work, found thirty-eight snake heads fastened to him. One of the houses outside the fort, but within range, was the council house, the headquarters of the Indian agent. The first was destroyed in the siege of 1812, but a
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new one was built in 1816, on lots 32 and 33, the county addition, and was first occupied by Major B. F. Stickney. This building was subsequently replaced by the residence of Mr. Hedekin, and the old council house well is still in use. The year following the. erection of this house, Major Stickney, in a letter to the superintendent of Indian affairs, gives some interesting observations concerning the aborigines. He spoke despondingly of the prospect of civilizing the Indians, the insurmounta- ble obstacles being the insatiable thirst for intoxicating liquors on their part, and the thirst for gain on the part of the white people. Not only were they averse to the civilization of the whites, but viewed the charac- ter of the latter in an unfavorable light on philosophical grounds, believ- ing them to be always actuated by motives of trade and speculation. Said he: " All the Miamis and Eel River Miamis, are under my charge, about 1,400 in number; and there are something more than 2,000 Pottowatomies who come within my agency." The Indians gathered here in great numbers during 1815, to receive rations according to the treaty of Greenville, and they remained in the country, harmless in their relations to the whites, until about 1846, when all those not installed upon reservations were transferred to the plains beyond the Mississippi, a change which they endured with patient sorrow, for the power of the Miamis ended forever with the days of Little Turtle, their famous chieftain.
In 1822 the little village had a postoffice, of whom Samuel Hanna was the functionary; the Maumee mail came once a week by horseback, Mr. Suttenfield being the contractor. For one trip the Fort Dearborn mail was carried on foot by Samuel Bird, a Pleasant township settler, an old soldier who rebuilt the fort. He carried mail several years. In 1824 hotels were added to the conveniences by William Suttenfield and Alexander Ewing, who each paid a license of $12.50, and each occupied corners at the intersection of Columbia and Barr streets. " Washington Hall," as Ewing's tavern was known, was managed by him until 1829, when Robert Hood and Abner Gerard became the proprietors, and they in turn were succeeded by Samuel Sauer. To give an idea of the population at this time it may be stated that in 1823, when Indiana was divided into two congressional districts, and John Test was elected to congress from the first district, there were only about fifty votes cast in the whole of northern Indiana. In 1822 two famous men, Gen. Lewis Cass, and the historian, H. R. Schoolcraft, landed from a canoe by which they had come up the Maumee, en route to the Mississippi. A notable feature of the town site at that time was a pond, covering about one lot, lying about half a square east of the court-house and between Berry and Columbia streets. A little brook meandered from the southwest down the west side of what is now Harrison street past the Berry Street Methodist Episcopal church, into the St. Mary's. Near the site of the church was a " fishing hole," much frequented. Among the hazel bushes along this creek the Indians were accustomed to idle, and on its banks one day a Shawnee Indian, being asked to drink out of the stream by a Miami,
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received as he was stooping a deadly knife-thrust from his companion. The Shawnees who were encamped to the southeast were enraged, and two days later a band of that tribe painted and armed for the fray, came up and halted upon an elevation at what is now the corner of Clinton and Washington streets. Diplomacy was at once brought into action, and it was managed to appease the outraged tribe by the gift of several horses, and many trinkets and other goods. Thus, the story goes, the creek came to be known as Shawnee run.
Another famous Indian murder was the killing of a half-breed Indian- negro woman, by Newelingua, or Big-Leg, a Miami. The woman, whom he claimed as a slave, frequently stole meat from his cabin, he asserted, and he finally threatened to kill her if she did not desist. Her kleptomania was unconquerable, however, and she fled to Fort Wayne and took service in a white family to escape her fate. Big-Leg kept his promise, however. Finding her doing a washing, he stealthily crept up, and plunged a knife through her body. Looking at her corpse, he exclaimed, "Wasn't that nice!" The settlers took a different view of it, and although the not infrequent murders among the Indians were unpunished, except by their own vendetta, the villagers decided to draw the line at invasion of their homes for such outrages. Big-Leg was con- sequently imprisoned in the old county jail. Being told that he would be hung he was concerned about what the nature of that ceremony was, and finally concluded that it was something like the weighing of venison by the traders. He communicated this to his friends, who soon brought a dog near the jail, where Big-Leg could have a glimpse of them, and proceeded to " weigh" the canine with a rope about his neck upon an improvised scaffold. The violent contortions of the victim of this experi- ment gave the Indian a great aversion to "weighing," and he pleaded that he might be shot instead. His friends desired his release, and sought to exchange another Indian of less importance for him. He was prosecuted by James Perry, before Judge Charles H. Test, William N. Hood, associate judge, at the May, 1830, term of circuit court, and con- victed, but recommended to mercy. The governor pardoned him, and he moved to Kansas, with other Miamis in 1848.
Among the well-known residents of Fort Wayne between 1812 and 1838, besides those already mentioned, were F. D. Lasselle, who became a merchant on the south side of Columbia street, and subsequently sold out to the Miami Indians, the store being then managed by Chapine (Richard Chute); William S. Edsall, a trader, associated with the Ewings; James Aveline (or St. Jule, as he was then called, father of Francis Aveline) who came from Vincennes previous to 1824; the father of Zenas Henderson, who kept a trading house at the site of the Dewald store, and was succeeded by his son (Zenas Henderson & Co. were licensed in 1831 to keep a ferry across the St. Mary's at the old ford, where the county road crosses leading to Pigeon Prairie, Mich.); Peter Gibeau, who manufactured candy, and his father, said to have lived to the age of one hundred and five years; Ribedean, Francis Minie and
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John B. Bequette, who manufactured trinkets for the traders all over the west; Benjamin Smith, a grocer; Anthony L. Davis, the first county clerk; Stephen Coles; Joseph L. and Thomas W. Swinney, respectively sheriff and treasurer; Thomas Johnson, a prominent lawyer; James Lillie, Samuel Lillie, who opened a hotel in 1835; Anthony Lintz, a shoe- maker; Dr. Lewis G. Thompson, O. W. Jefferds, still living, proprietor of the woolen mill; Henry Cooper, the first school teacher and a famous lawyer; Robert Hood and Benjamin Cushman, who were the associate judges in 1837; Hon. I. D. G. Nelson and David H. Colerick, both dis- tinguished in law; John Cochrane, builder of many of the old mansions; Samuel Sauer, a hotel keeper; Merchant W. Huxford; James B. Dubois, a jolly French tailor; Jesse L. Williams, Henry Rudisill, Royal W. Taylor, Philo Taylor, Samuel Freeman, merchants; F. P. Randall, Henry and John Steer, Thomas Hamilton, a merchant, brother of Allen; William Rockhill, one of the first county commissioners and justices, afterward congressman; Hugh Hanna, in 1826-7, and John Majors, 1836, pioneer carpenters; John Spencer, receiver public moneys; John E. Hill; Thomas Tigar, founder of the Sentinel; George W. Wood, of the same paper; John M. Wilt, L. P. Ferry, a prominent lawyer; Philo Rumsey, now living at Omaha; Major Samuel Edsall, who became state senator; Robert E. Fleming, clerk of the circuit court for sixteen years; Will- iam H. Coombs, a distinguished lawyer; Michael Hedekin, who became a contractor on the canal; Hon. Hugh McCulloch; Marshall S. Wines, a contractor on the canal, miller and legislator; John Trentman and Oliver Morgan, who each founded famous business houses; William N. Hood, an associate judge; Joseph Holman; David Pickering, elected sheriff in 1830; Dr. James Ormiston; Capt. Robert Brackenridge, reg- ister of the land office; Philip C. Cook, 1828, blacksmith; Isaac Mar- quis, and Absalom Holcomb, who built the first tannery in 1828.
Among the first farmers near by was Capt. Hackley, son-in-law of Capt. Wells, who cultivated in a primitive way a few acres now in the northern part of the city.
While the treaty of Greenville (1814) was going on, Peter Edsall and wife, from New York, kept a boarding house in a shanty, and saved enough to move to St. Mary's, where a similar gathering enabled them to clear enough to buy a farm on Shane's prairie. The father died and the mother and nine children moved to Fort Wayne in 1824. Before this the eldest boys, Samuel, John and Simon, made frequent trips to Fort Wayne, and cut hay on the prairie west of the fort where the water stood so high that the grass had to be carried to high ground to dry. Then Capt. Riley resided at Willshire, but there was only one house between Shane's prairie and Fort Wayne, that of George Ayres, on Twenty-four mile creek. The widow Edsall occupied a cabin on the St. Mary's, near the usual route of the Indians to the rival trading es- tablishments of the Ewings, Barnett & Hanna, and Comparet & Coquillard. William S. Edsall was an attache of the corps of United States topographical engineers, under Col. Shriver, which was detailed in
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1826 to survey a route for the Wabash & Erie canal. An idea of the fatality that accompanied that work may be obtained from the fact that after beginning work at Fort Wayne in the spring of that year, but very little was done before the entire party was prostrated by sickness, and soon afterward Col. Shriver died at the old fort. Col. Asa Moore succeeded him, and the survey was continued to the mouth of the Tip- pecanoe, and continued down the Maumee in 1827-8, until Col. Moore also fell a victim to the malaria. Young Edsall established a ferry and soon became acquainted with W. G. Ewing, and eventually became a clerk with the Ewings. He subsequently took charge of a branch house at Huntington, where he became county clerk and recorder. In 1836 he returned to Fort Wayne, and formed a partnership with his brother Samuel. In 1839 he became a partner in the great firm of Ewing, Edsall & Co. In that spring he took a horse-back ride through the west, as far as Madison, Wis. He became register of the land of- fice in 1843, and in 1846, became a partner of his brother in merchan- dise and milling. The Edsalls originated the plank road from Fort Wayne to Bluffton about this time, a very important enterprise. In 1853, they made a contract for making the road-bed of the Wabash rail- road from the state line forty-seven miles, and carried the job through, although they received little pay until they had completed the work, and meanwhile wages had risen, and the cholera had swept off workmen by hundreds. These are only instances of the large and beneficent en- terprises in which the Edsalls were engaged. The second railroad they also did much to secure. Major Samuel Edsall died in February, 1865. In 1868, at the close of three years' business life in Chicago, William S. was elected clerk of the circuit court by the unanimous vote of the county.
Hon. Hugh McCulloch visited Fort Wayne in I833, on the invitation of Dr. Lewis G. Thompson, whom he met at South Bend. He was making a trip of inspection, starting from Boston, and, says the distin- guished writer, in his " Men and Measures of Half a Century," " Fort Wayne was about as uninviting in every respect except its site as any of the towns through which I had passed." " In 1833, the stockade of the fort, enclosing two or three acres, and a number of hewn log houses, was still standing." " Uninviting as Fort Wayne was in many respects it was fortunate in the character of its settlers -intelligent, far-seeing, wide-awake men, among the most prominent of whom was Samuel Hanna, one of that class to which the west has been indebted for its public improvements. Commencing business in a small way with his brother-in-law, James Barnett, he became the leader in all enterprises which were undertaken for Fort Wayne, and the country around it; the most important of which were the Ohio & Indiana, and the Fort Wayne & Chicago railroads. The construction of these roads was uphill work from the start. Again and again the companies were on the verge of bankruptcy, and nothing saved them but the faith, energy and unyielding tenacity of Mr. Hanna.
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" Allen Hamilton was a protestant Irishman of a respectable but im- poverished family. He joined a small party of his countrymen who were about to emigrate to Canada. In due time he reached Montreal, and after spending a few days in that city in fruitless efforts to find em- ployment, he proceeded on foot to New York, and being equally unsuc- cessful there, he pushed on in the same way to Philadelphia. Here he was after a weary search kindly given a place by an old Quaker, and this was the turning point in his life. From that day his career was one of uninterrupted success. In a conversation with him in the spring of 1834, I said that a friend of mine, a ship-master, tired of the sea, was coming to Fort Wayne, with $15,000 in cash. 'That is a large sum,' said he, 'if I had that amount of clear cash, I should consider myself rich.' He died about twenty-five years from that time, leaving an estate worth a million or more. Nor was his good fortune confined to the acquisition of wealth. He was equally fortunate in his family rela- tions. Especially fortunate was he in having sons who (unlike the sons of most rich men in the United States), are adding to the estate which their father left them, and at the same time maintaining his good reputation.
" William G. Ewing and his brother George W., formed the firm of 'W. G. & G. W. Ewing.' They had come from Ohio, and with Mr. Hanna, Mr. Hamilton and others whom I shall mention, were among the first settlers of northern Indiana. As there were at that time no surplus agricultural productions in that section, the only business opening for them was trade with the Indians and white hunters and trappers in furs and skins. Commencing in a small way at Fort Wayne, they rapidly extended their field of operations, and in a few years from that time at which they bought the first coonskin, the firm became one of the most widely known and successful in the northwest. But large and profitable as was their trade, the bulk of their large fortune was the result of investments in real estate, the most fortunate of which were in Chicago and St. Louis. Enterprising, laborious, adventurous men they were, but so devoted to business, so persistent in the pursuit of gain, that they had no time to enjoy the fruits of their labors. Charles W. Ewing, their brother, was a lawyer, and one of the most graceful and fascinating speakers, one of the most accomplished and agreeable men socially, that I ever became acquainted with. He had a splendid physique and a classic face. He was an excellent singer and story-teller. He had made a study of Shakespeare, and could quote the finest passages from the works of the great master in a manner that could hardly be surpassed by distinguished actors. So thoroughly equipped was he for success in the higher walks of life that the most distinguished positions would have been within his reach, if his convivial habits had not led him into dissi- pation which terminated prematurely a career, the opening of which was full of promise.
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