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 24
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one agreed upon, of $25,000, as long as the tribe existed. There were various other smaller considerations and annuities. At the forks of the Wabash, October 23, 1834, another treaty was made conveying much of the reservations, and at the same place, November 6, 1838, the Miamis ceded nearly all that was left of the reservations for $335,680, and the government stipulated to possess the Miamis of, and guarantee to them forever, a country west of the Missouri river, to remove to, and settle on, whenever said tribe may be disposed to emigrate, and " this guarantee is hereby pledged. Said country to be sufficient in extent and suited to their wants and condition." The treaty sets out that whereas John B. Richardville is very old and infirm, his annuity shall be paid him without his removal. The latter received title again to several reservations and $6,800 in money. At the same place, November 28, 1840, the residue of the " big reserve," on the south side of the Wabash, was ceded, for $550,000 and other consideration, and there was an agreement to pay Richardville $25,000, and Francois Godfroy $15,000 for claims they had against the tribe. By the treaty of 1854, we learn that the Miamis ceded 500,000 acres set off to them by act of con- gress, February 25, 1841, west of Missouri (Kansas), on condition that they were to each take 200 acres, and near their reserves to have 70,000 acres in a body in common and a section for school purposes. There is a lengthy settlement of previous transactions; the $25,000 annuity is to cease in 1855, and an annuity of $7,500 is to be paid for twenty years, and $50,000 invested for the tribe. Finally, in 1868, the unfortunate Miamis, in spite of all the " forevers " and " pledges" theretofore made, are required to make a treaty by which they are removed to the Indian territory, and confederated with the Peorias, Kaskaskias, Weas, Pianke- shaws, and from this last refuge, if any of them remain, no one can say how soon they will be called on to depart.
In the spring of 1828, the Indian agency at Fort Wayne was removed from Fort Wayne to Logansport, at the suggestion of Gen. John Tipton. This distinguished man had up to that time served as agent at Fort Wayne, with the Miami and Pottawatomie Indians, from March, 1823, and in the fall of 1826, he secured valuable concessions from the Indians. John Tipton was born in Sevier county, Tenn., August 14, 1786. When seven years old, he was orphaned by the murder of his father by the Cherokees. In 1807, he moved with his mother to the Indiana side of the Ohio. He served under Harrison before and during the battle of Tippecanoe, became a captain and advanced to. the rank of brigadier- general. He served as sheriff, legislator, was one of the commissioners whe selected Indianapolis as the capital, was one to adjust the Indiana and Illinois boundary, and served as United States senator from 1832 to April 5, 1839, when he died at Logansport.
Opening of Land to Settlement. After the treaty of St. Mary's congress passed an act, approved May 8, 1822, which provided that this new domain "lying east of the range line separating the first and second ranges east of the second principal meridian extended north to
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the present Indian boundary, and north of a line to be run, separating the tiers of townships numbered twenty and twenty-one, commencing on the old Indian boundary, in range thirteen east of the said principal meridian, in Randolph county, and the said district be bounded on the east by the line dividing the states of Ohio and Indiana, shall form a district, for which a land office shall be established at Fort Wayne." One of the provisions of that act was, that until the lands embraced in the specified limits had been surveyed, or a sufficient quantity thereof " in the opinion of the president, to authorize a public sale of lands within the same," a register of the land office and a receiver of public moneys should not be appointed. Consequently those offices were not filled until the year following, when President Monroe appointed Joseph Holman, of Wayne county, receiver of public moneys, and Samuel C. Vance, of Dearborn county, register. The necessary proclamation having been issued the land office was opened for the sale of lands to the highest bidder, on the 22d of October, 1823, the office being located in the old fort. At this first sale, John T. Barr, of Baltimore, Md., and John McCorkle, Piqua, Ohio, were the most extensive purchasers, the principal tract being described as " the north fraction of the southeast quarter of section 2, township 30 north, of range 12 east," upon which they subsequently laid out the original town of Fort Wayne, embracing 118 lots. The "Old Fort" grounds were not then subject to sale, having been reserved for the use of the Indian agency, including some forty acres.
Alexander Ewing was also a principal purchaser at this first sale, entering the east half of the southwest quarter of section 2, which lies immediately west of the Barr and McCorkle tract, and upon which Ewing's and Rockhill's additions were afterward laid out. The tract known as the "Wells' pre-emption," lying in the forks of the St. Joseph's and St. Mary's rivers, having been by act of congress, May 18, 1808, set apart to Capt. Wells, who was authorized to enter it, when adjacent lands should be subject to sale, at $1.25 per acre - was purchased by his heirs. The offices were continued here during a period of twenty- one years.
On the inauguration of President Jackson, in 1829, Capt. Robert Brackenridge succeeded Capt. Vance, and Gen. Jonathan McCarty, of Fayette county, became receiver. On the election of the latter to con- gress, he was succeeded by Col. John Spencer, who served until 1837. The officers after that date were: Receivers-1837, Daniel Reid, of Wayne; 1841, Samuel Lewis, of Allen; 1841, I. D. G. Nelson, of Allen. Registers-1837, James W. Borden, of Wayne county; 1841, William Polke, La Porte county; 1843, William S. Edsall, of Allen county.
At the time of Col. Spencer's taking the office, there were but 222 entries of sales of land on the books, and the receipts amounted to only about $100,000. The country around for a great distance, was then still an almost unbroken wilderness. Under the impulse given to spec- ulation and emigration in the years 1835 and 1837, the sales increased
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to an enormous extent, so much so, that in the short period of eight months they reached the sum of $1,620,637, and in a single year to over $2,000,000. Col. John Spencer, who held the receivership at Fort Wayne for a longer period than any other man, incurred, on account of the large amounts of money he had to handle and the dangers of communication with other towns, extraordinary expenses in the administration of his office, and in the auditing of his accounts a deficit was found against him. His property was taken to meet this, and he was subjected to expensive and tedious litigation. He persistently contested the matter, and finally an accounting made under a special act of congress of 1847 showed that instead of a deficit, there was a balance due him of over $500. His property was returned to him. In a pamphlet he published to enforce his subsequent claim for damages, he gives the following facts regarding his history: He was born in Kentucky, and emigrated to Dearborn county, Ind., in 1797. At the age of twenty he became an ensign in the Indiana militia and was soon afterward captain. At the age of twenty-five he was elected sheriff of Dearborn county, served two terms, and after an interval of one term by another, he was elected again and re-elected. In 1822, he was made adjutant of the Fifteenth militia, and two years later, major. In 1825 he organized the Fifty-fifth regiment and served as its colonel six years.
Joseph Holman, first receiver of the land office, representative and treasurer of Allen county, was a prominent figure in the early days. He was born near Versailles, Ky., and was married November 22, ISI0, and went to housekeeping two days afterward in a house built by himself of logs. He came to Wayne county, Ind., in 1805, one of the very first settlers there. In the war of 1812 he was a soldier, and built a block- house on his farm for the protection of the neighbors. He was a mem- ber of the convention which framed the constitution of the state of Indiana in 1816. His father, George Holman, when a young man was captured by the Indians and ran the gauntlet at Wapakoneta, and was sentenced to death at the stake; but after witnessing the burning of a companion, was saved by a Shawnee who had taken a fancy to him. Joseph Holman first became conspicuous in 1807 when he was selected by an anti-slavery "log-convention" to confer with the settlers at Clark's grant, concerning the nomination of a delegate to congress in opposition to the choice of the southern towns. He was instrumental in securing the election of Jonathan Jennings to that office. His brother William was a pioneer Methodist preacher.
In 1827, congress by an act approved March 2, granted to the state of Indiana, "for the purpose of constructing a canal from the head of navigation on the Wabash to the foot of the Maumee rapids," every alternate section of land equal to five miles in width on both sides of the line to be fixed for the canal. Consequently, the line not being yet known, the sale and entry of land was stopped for the time, and settle- ment considerably retarded within the supposed limits of the canal grant, and it was not until 1830 that an office for the sale of canal lands was
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opened at Logansport, and not until October, 1832, that the Fort Wayne office did business. The minimum price of these lands was $2.50 per acre, but so long credit was given the purchasers that the proceeds availed little for the prosecution of the work.
In the winter of 1830-31, Major Samuel Lewis was appointed com- missioner of the Wabash and Erie canal and the canal land office, just referred to, a position he held for ten years. Major Lewis was one of the pioneers of Allen county, and a very prominent man in the early history of northeastern Indiana. He was a native of Mason county, Va., son of Col. Lewis, who was an officer in the war of the revolution. Major Lewis removed to Cincinnati in ISII, where he remained some time, and then at the age of twenty-one, went to Brookville, Ind., and engaged in business. He was elected to represent his county in the general assem- bly, and subsequently was appointed by President J. Q. Adams, Indian sub-agent, to fill which position he removed to Fort Wayne in 1827. By President William H. Harrison he was appointed receiver at this place, an office he held until the official revolution following the president's death. His various official functions, and natural ability, made him one of the foremost men of the embryo city. While at Brookville, he was married to Katherine Wallace, the sister of ex-governor David Wallace, of Indiana, and aunt of the distinguished soldier and author, Gen. Lew Wallace. Their daughter, Frances, born at this city, was in I875, mar- ried to John F. Curtice, of Fort Wayne. He is a native of Indiana, born at Dublin, Wayne county, February 28, 1850, and is the elder of two living children of Dr. Solon Curtice, who was born in Clark county, Ohio, in 1820, and his wife, Mary Hazzard, born on the eastern shore of Maryland in 1820. He received his collegiate education at the Ohio Wesleyan university at Delaware, Ohio, which he entered in 1866, and was graduated in 1868. In 1869, he came to Fort Wayne, and after reading law in the office of Coombs & Miller, was admitted to the Allen county bar in 1871, but never practiced, the profession of the law not being to his taste. For several years he has been largely engaged in the real estate and loan business, and has been highly successful.
About 1823, the farm settlement in the valley of the upper Maumee began, though "squatters" had previously made them homes at various remote places. In 1819, four years previous, the nearest habitation of a white man on the Wayne trace was that of George Ayres, near Will- shire, Ohio; on the St. Joseph trace, toward Lake Michigan, the nearest house was that of Col. Jackson, on Elkhart prairie; about the time of the opening of land for settlement, the house of Joel Bristol was erected near Wolf lake, in what is now Noble county; to the south and south- west the nearest habitations of white men were the house of one Rob- inson, distant thirty miles on the Wabash, and the mission station of a few Quakers, at the forks of the Wabash, where they gave the Indians instruction in agriculture. John Stratton; coming up from Richmond in 1824-5, mainly by the Robinson trace, found not more than six or eight houses between Richmond and Fort Wayne, the best one a hewn log
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house, used as a tavern. With the opening of the lands immigration began at once to set in, mostly from the state of Ohio, where the pioneers already began to feel crowded, and where the price of land had advanced considerably. Many from the southeast came down the St. Mary's with their goods in pirogues, which was the name for the hollowed sycamore logs, sometimes from trees of large size and made forty feet in length, capable of carrying five or six tons. The propelling power consisted of a man in each end who stood and with long poles pushed the boat against the current. It was customary to charge $3.00 per ton for freight from Toledo on these crafts. Some pioneers journeyed by wagon, finding, when they entered the Maumee valley, that it was a hard road to travel, up and down the sides of steep ravines, and guided by traces that were appropriately so called, for they were not roads. They found the land heavily wooded, in places covered with luxuriant vines, which in some instances the pioneer did not attempt at first to eradicate, but pushed aside as he planted the corn to find its way up from beneath them. The forest tangles were difficult to penetrate, and when the chosen spot was found then harder work followed with the axe, before a habitation could be made ready and the life of the settler be said really to begin. There was abundant supply of food ready for those who were ready with the rifle, and hardly any were not. Deer abounded. An old settler, Mr. Castleman, counted forty-five at one time in one drove on Little prairie, and for several years it was great sport to hunt deer on the Maumee. The hunter floating down silently. in his pirogue, would find the animals in considerable numbers in the water to escape the mosquitoes, with only their heads protruding above the surface to furnish a mark for his unerring rifle. There was a profusion of smaller game, and the hunting of bears was a common thing. Daniel Notestine, an early settler in the Cedar creek district, tomahawked two in the forests, besides killing three with his rifle. The Indians were yet numerous and remained many years on their reserva- tions, but in the days of settlement they were peaceable and kind to their pale-faced neighbors. With meat in abundance, and corn, potatoes and wheat from the little "deadenings," the settler had few wants to be supplied by the use of money, and it was well that it was so, for money was very scarce. The only things that would at all times command money were the pelts of the deer, mink and coon, and they almost attained the dignity of currency. Every spring, the settler's cabin would be well covered with coonskins, the reward of vigorous hunting, and each representing about $1.00. At weddings, corn bread served instead of cake, and venison took the place of the daintier modern dishes, but the marriage vows were not more lightly heeded.
Early Enterprises .- The early settlers suffered their main incon- venience on account of their distance from grist-mills. They must either make a wearisome journey into Ohio for a small grist, or by the use of a wooden mortar and pestle, crack corn into a coarse sort of meal, from which " johnny-cake " could be made, for the manufacture
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of which a "johnny-cake" board hung in every cabin. Or corn and pork could be boiled together, forming the favorite dish known as "hog and hominy." A primitive grist-mill, called the " corn-cracker," was a great convenience to a wide region about it, although the grinding was of a very imperfect sort. Such a mill was put in operation in 1828 on Six-mile creek in Adams township, by Joseph Townsend, who also used the water power to propel a saw-mill. Famous grist-mills in those days were that built by James Barnett and Samuel Hanna at the site of the later Esmond mills; Wines' mill, which was built on the south bank of the Maumee by one Coles, and sold in 1838 to Marshall Wines; and the mill built by Henry Rudisill and Henry Johns on the west bank of the St. Joseph, the water power being gained by a dam about 300 feet above the mill. When this mill was built in IS30, it was hailed with gratitude by the settlers to the north of Fort Wayne, who had been traveling many miles to mill, and they all joined heartily in the work of constructing the dam. The demand for lumber on the part of the early settler was very limited. He busied himself at first in fell- ing the trees to make an opening, and to obtain logs for his cabin, and ยท while this was being done, he, and ofttimes his wife and children also, slept in "God's first temples," the forests, under the shelter of a tree, or under a temporary hut of bark, raised on poles. The logs being cut into lengths, with the help of the other members of the little colony or the "neighbors " gathered from a wide territory, some logs without trimming or hewing other than the necessary notches at the ends, were laid as the foundation, and on these by means of skid-poles and forked sticks in the hands of the men, other similar rough logs were laid. The roof was made of rude clapboards, about three feet long, and six inches wide, called "shakes," laid somewhat as shingles are, and weighted with poles. The huge slab doors were pinned together with wooden pins, hung on wooden hinges, and from the wooden latch passed a buck- skin "latch-string " to the outside. The light came through the door and down the chimney of mud and sticks or through a hole in the side covered by a greased cloth or paper. The stove or fire place was a sort of crib addition, with back walls and jams of clay. The floor was made of rough slabs or " puncheons," over which many a pioneer baby learned to walk, with many a bump. All that was needed for these build- ings, or for the furniture, was made by the settler himself, with maul and wedge and axe, and clapboards and puncheons were the only lumber known at first.
But the settlers who came in after the opening of the lands in regu- lar form, soon demanded better accommodation, and hewn log houses began to appear, which were a great advance over the previous rough structures, often not even chinked with mud. It was not long until the saw-mill began to supply lumber for the settlers' wants, for none of these primitive structures were adopted with any other motive than to provide temporarily for the necessities of life. Those who loved the unhewn log house went further west to keep on the edge of civilization.
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In 1835 the first steam saw-mill in northern Indiana was built by Ben- jamin Archer and his sons, on the land of David Archer, on the St. Joseph river, two and a half miles north of the present city limits. David Archer and his son John went to Dayton, Ohio, for the boiler and other machinery, and it was hauled through the woods to the site of the mill from that distant point, the boiler being drawn by six yoke of oxen, and the rest of the machinery by horses. The magnitude of this opera- tion, and its extreme tediousness, can hardly be imagined by one in this day of " fast freights." When the machine caravan reached Shane's prairie, bad roads were encountered, and young Archer was compelled to return home for another team of oxen before the journey could be completed. Unfortunately this mill was soon afterward destroyed by fire, and enterprise in this direction received a decided check in the upper Maumee valley. The mill was operated for three years by Benjamin Sunderland. The next steam saw-mill was that of Henry Rudisill, on the St. Joseph river, erected in 1841. He added an upper story and in that operated a carding mill also. In the same year that the Archers built their steam mill, Klinger & Comparet built a saw-mill on Beckett's run, which was operated by water power.
Clearings were not made by the early settlers until a considerable period after the opening of the land, except by cutting away the under- growth of briers, grapes, haws, spice, gooseberries, pawpaws and the like. The bushes were cut down or grubbed out; the smaller trees were chopped down, and their bodies cut into lengths of twelve to fifteen feet, and the brush piled in heaps. The large trees were left standing, but "deadened" by girdling. In a dry time the brush heaps were burned over; a large area was scorched by the burning of the leaves, and the soil underneath would then be especially fertile. Sometimes the brush would be piled about the larger trees, which were easily killed in the same operation that removed the undergrowth. To get the logs out of the way, there would be a "log-rolling," to which the neighbors were invited, who came with wooden hand-spikes, and put all the logs in heaps, to be burned. The trees that did not fall were gradually cut down, and so the clearing proceeded hand in hand with tillage of the fields.
The best plow at first was the bar-share, the iron part of which was a bar of iron about two feet long, with a broad share of iron welded to it. At the extreme point was a coulter that passed through a beam six or seven feet long, to which were attached handles of corresponding length. The mold-board was of wood, split out of winding timber, or hewed into a winding shape. Some used on new ground only a shovel plow. Sown seed was brushed in with a sapling with a bushy top, dragged butt forward. The harrow or drag was of primitive construc- tion, and was sometimes made of a crotched tree. The grain was har- vested with the sickle until the trees were out of the road, and the threshing was done with the flail, two sticks of unequal length fastened together with a thong, with which the inexperienced were in more dan- ger than the wheat piled on the floor.
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ANNALS OF THE, TOWNSHIPS.
ANNALS OF THE TOWNSHIPS.
In an account of the settlement of those portions of the valley of the upper Maumee without the limits of the city of Fort Wayne, refer- ence will of necessity be frequently made to the townships as they are now limited, all being with slight exceptions bounded by the township and range lines of the government survey. In the days when the settle- ments were made however, these township divisions were mainly unknown. At the first session of the county board, May 31, 1824, Wayne township was defined as embracing the whole of Allen county. So it remained until January, 1826, when all that portion east of the line between ranges 12 and 13, or broadly, that part east of the juncture of the rivers, was formed into Adams township. In 1828, the northern halves of these townships were set apart as St. Joseph township, and this was four years later divided into Washington and St. Joseph.
The first division of Adams township was in September, 1834, when Root township was set off, including Marion and part of Adams county. Marion was given its present limits in August, 1835. Jackson was set off May, 1837; Jefferson and Madison, March, 1840; Monroe in March, 1841. From the original Washington township, Perry was set off in September, 1835, then embracing all township 32, range 12, the east half of range II, and the territory north. Then Eel River was set apart, and Lake in May, 1837. Out of the former comprehensive St. Joseph township, Maumee was set off in March, 1836; Cedar Creek and Spring- field in September, 1837; the latter at first included Scipio, which was established in 1843. Milan township was created in March, 1838, with irregular boundaries, and was given its present limits in September, 1840. From old Wayne township, Aboit was partitioned in May, 1836; Pleas- ant in June, 1842, and Lafayette in 1846. The boundary lines of these three townships were afterward adjusted somewhat to the courses of Little river and one of its tributaries.
WAYNE, ADAMS, WASHINGTON AND ST. JOSEPH.
These four townships which are now limited to the district twelve miles square, near the center of which the city lies, were the only town- ships known to the earliest settlers. Within their present limits, how- ever, the first rural homes of Allen county were made. The history of the early settlement of Wayne township is so intimately connected with that of the city of Fort Wayne, that no attempt will be made to treat upon it further. No villages have been established in it except that of Lewisburg, which was platted by Lewis Mason, on section 30, Janu- ary 2, 1837.
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