Curling Back

(Fort Wayne Monthly “Along the Heritage Trail with Tom Castaldi” - Feb 2012, closes. Dec 1, 2011, No. 86)

At the beginning of the new year of 1887, on January 3rd, members of the Fort Wayne Curling Club gathered on the ice-crusted lake at the estate of businessman John H. Bass’ beautiful “Brookside” home to compete for a “point medal.”  Contestants that day included James K. Mann, Thomas Kavanaugh, John Kidd, Fred A. Hull, R. Craik, W. Miller, and James Gillie. John Kidd won that curling match by one point over an impressive performance by Thomas Kavanaugh.  

Years later in 1891, a “bonspiel” or curling exhibition was staged on that same lake which is part of the present-day campus of the University of Saint Francis. In her book, John Henry Bass and his Brookside, Grace Leslie Dickerson wrote about her Grandfather Bass and his fondness for Galloway and Black Angus cattle imported from Scotland. With the prized animals came Scottish herdsmen, “bringing with them their bagpipes and Collie dogs. Several of these men stayed on at Bass Farm, and in the winter they enjoyed playing their native game of curling on the ice of Bass Lake.”  

Sixty-two years later on Sunday, January 18, 1953, the Journal Gazette announced that memories of that exposition would be recalled at the Memorial Coliseum in an upcoming highlight during the Komets-Grand Rapids hockey game on the next Tuesday evening January 20th.  According to the newspaper, curling was a popular activity in the Fort Wayne area in the early part of the nineteenth century with regular matches played at Brookside and at the old Caledonia Curling Rink located at State Street and Spy Run Avenue.  Now, expositions like the one to be played before the upcoming hockey game had once again created a lot of interest among winter sports fans.

So the sport of curling, which dates back several centuries, has some fairly deep roots here in Northeastern Indiana.  Most of us are familiar with this on-ice sport while watching the Winter Olympic matches with a contestant ever so carefully sliding a large teakettle-like object on an icy surface and whose teammates eagerly sweep away at the ice helping influence the stone object as it comes to rest at a distant down-course target.

It’s an old Scottish game played as a match between two teams of four players each who slide a total of eight “stones” down the lane into the “house” with its coveted bulls-eye target. The idea is to see which team can get their stones closest to the center spot of the circle. But not just any old stone was used.  These are highly polished granite complete with a gleaming brass handle and weigh over forty pounds. Knocking away the opponents’ stones to clear the way for a teammate shooting later makes for an exciting chess-like strategy with shuffleboard-like contest-on-steroids event.

Under the current leadership of Craig Fischer, president, together with co-founders Greg Eigner, Jerri Mead and Dan McCoy of the “Fort Wayne Curling Club,” a revitalization of this exhilarating team game is being reconstituted.  An active organization, the Fort Wayne Curling Club has been hosting a renewal of the ancient sport with its annual Fort Wayne Summerspiel.  It has been held at the Lutheran Health SportsCenter played on an ice surface that is about one-hundred-forty feet long and fourteen feet wide. Circular stones measuring approximately twelve inches in diameter and weighing about forty-two pounds are once again seen sliding carefully across an icy playing surface. At each end of the course is the "house" a circle twelve feet in diameter with a target called the “button.” Sliding a stone across the ice so it stops inside the circle closest to the center is the object that competing teams of four players seek. Each team has a captain called a “skip” who directs the teammates’ actions to knock an opponent’s stone out of position or to set up a guard stone to obstruct an opponent’s efforts. The other team members position themselves along the course with brooms to sweep.  This action reduces the friction between the traveling stone and the ice, allowing the stone to travel farther and/or curl less.  A stone must be touching any part of the circle to be considered for scoring, which is accomplished by counting the number of stones of like color extending out from the button until encountering the closest opposing team’s stone. Teams come to compete in the Fort Wayne Summerspiel from all over the U.S. and Canada, some with Olympic experience.

Curling is a sport that takes a short time to learn and a lifetime to master. The curling club has monthly “Learn to Curl” sessions and after a single session participants are making shots and having a grand time and qualify to join one of the club’s two leagues.  (For more information, log on to www. fortwaynecurling.com.) 

Curling continues to be celebrated here in Fort Wayne. The 125th anniversary of the 1887 exposition played on Bass Lake at the University of Saint Francis, weather permitting, is to be recreated this January to commemorate that team of old skipped by Kavanaugh and Kidd who defeated the team headed by Gillie and McKay by a score of thirty-five to eighteen.  Curling is Back!

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Allen County Historian Tom Castaldi © is author of the Wabash & Erie Canal Notebook series; hosts “On the Heritage Trail” which is broadcast Mondays on 89.1 fm WBOI; and “Historia Nostra” heard on Redeemer Radio106.3 fm. Enjoy his previously published columns on the History Center’s blog “Our Stories” at historycenterfw.blogspot.com.

An Early Road: Fort Wayne to Tiptonsport

(Fort Wayne Monthly “Along the Heritage Trail with Tom Castaldi” - December 2011, No. 85)

John Tipton moved the Indian Agency from Fort Wayne to Logansport, Indiana, in 1828 and set up his office in Alexander Chamberlain’s large log house on the south side of the Wabash River across from the mouth of the Eel River. Chamberlain is remembered as having erected the structure to accommodate travelers along a trail that extended all the way from Terre Haute to the junction of the Little Wabash River at Huntington then on to Fort Wayne and down the Maumee to Lake Erie.

Benjamin Stuart a twentieth century Wabash Valley historian noted in a book he published 1924, that a line of stagecoaches was making regularly scheduled trips around the year 1828 between Fort Wayne and Terre Haute. A glance at our Indiana maps of the 1830s makes it clear that this route connected the National or Cumberland Road at Terre Haute giving it national significance.

Roads such as this one might better be described as “openings” which enabled the traveler to keep the track and not get lost. The roads were meant to serve the immediate necessities of the times, improved by bridges which may be nothing more than several logs, sometimes halved, set in a creek dedicating a larger hollowed-out log set in the center allowing water to pass through as a culvert.

H. S. Tanner produced an 1833 map of Indiana for the New Universal Atlas and likewise S. A. Mitchell prepared his in 1834 which was reproduced in Logan Esarey’s History of Indiana. Both indicate a road connection between Fort Wayne and Terre Haute was made through the wooded landscape that was Indiana. The two maps show the road following the north bank of the Wabash River from Fort Wayne to Logansport where it intersected with the Michigan Road.  Here the road crossed to the south bank. During the early years, the crossing was made by fording the river between the present-day bridges now designated as Indiana Highway 29 and Indiana 25. Between Logansport and Lafayette the road continued west through a town named “Tiptonsport.”  A promising river valley village, it was named for John Tipton who had served under William Henry Harrison at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811.  Tipton rose to the rank of major in 1812 and by 1822 became a Major General.  During 1820, while serving in the State legislature, he was appointed to the committee that located Indianapolis as Indiana’s capital, and he went on to represent Indiana in 1821 helping to set the Indiana’s boundary with Illinois.

Obviously, Tipton has had a lasting influence on much of Indiana and especially on Allen County when it was formed in December 1823. Bert Griswold wrote in his 1917 history, “the name of Allen was suggested by General John Tipton who was an admirer of Colonel John Allen, the gallant Kentuckian who, after the relief of Fort Wayne in 1812 lost his life at the battle of the River Raisin, in Michigan south of Detroit.”

As noted, Tipton was the Indian Agent in Fort Wayne first assigned to the position in 1823 serving in that capacity until 1828 later moving the agency’s location. Soon he was being eyed for higher office in Washington DC.  During the years 1832 to 1839 Tipton served as a U.S. Senator advocating for a harbor at the mouth of Trail Creek but lost to those in favor of it at the mouth of the Chicago River.  Had Tipton won his point, Chicago today might be in Indiana near the site of present-day Michigan City.

Several sites have been named for John Tipton in Indiana, a township in Cass County, Tipton County and its county seat as well.  One forgotten village named Tiptonsport was where the early road from Fort Wayne to Terre Haute passed.  As a town, Tiptonsport succeeded for a time and was in competition to become the county seat of Carroll County before Delphi won the designation. However promising, the community of Tiptonsport vanished from the map. During the 1840s the Wabash & Erie Canal route followed the Wabash River valley ignoring the town located on the south side of the river.  

By selecting a new route across the river on the north side, a new village emerged along the canal at a lock site. It took the name New Franklin. Once platted, it populated quickly and mostly by the businesses from nearby Tiptonsport.  However, when the canal went out of business in the 1870s, New Franklin went out of business too and no longer exists.  For community developers it is a strong reminder that a place name usually takes a backseat to transportation access. When Tipton surveyed the Indiana Illinois line in 1821 he described the village of Chicago consisting of about nine or ten houses.  A port on Lake Michigan, Illinois & Michigan Canal and railroads certainly has had an affect on the growth of that-then Tiptonsport-sized settlement of the 1820s.

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Allen County Historian Tom Castaldi© is author of the Wabash & Erie Canal Notebook series; hosts “On the Heritage Trail” which is broadcast Mondays on 89.1 fm WBOI; and “Historia Nostra” heard on Redeemer Radio 106.3 fm.  Enjoy his previously published columns on the History Center’s blog “Our Stories” at historycenterfw.blogspot.com.

Red Coats through Fort Wayne

(Fort Wayne Monthly “Along the Heritage Trail with Tom Castaldi” - November 2011, No. 84)

Fort Wayne was once described as that “Glorious Gate” by the Miami War Chief Little Turtle who noted that here was the place where his people’s words moved in all directions of the compass. Those words did not fall on deaf ears when the French and British came to our Three Rivers region. The newcomers found that this land, which later became Allen County was a crossroads of important rivers and trails.  To the west was a route known as the “Carrying Place” or “Portage.” It was described as a nine-mile land barrier over the continental divide separating the Maumee and Wabash river systems and the most direct all-water way from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico.  More specifically the land barrier joined the navigable portions of the St. Mary’s and the Little Wabash rivers. It should be noted that the distance across the portage may be lessened during times of heavy rains or advancing flood waters.

The 1763 Treaty of Paris ended the hostilities of the French and Indian War ceding all of Canada and French holdings in the Ohio Valley to the British.  The English did not pay much attention to the new territory which we know today makes up much of the Middle West.  However, it did not take the British long, to engage in a war of revolution against the American colonies beginning in 1775.

In August 1778, it came as a surprise to the British leader Lieutenant-Governor Henry Hamilton at Detroit when he learned from a messenger the news of an attack on British-held Kaskaskia on the Mississippi by the Americans with the French inhabitants offering no resistance. Hamilton sent an officer to Vincennes with instructions to disable its fort’s cannon. Meanwhile, in September Hamilton began preparations to lead a flotilla from Detroit to the fort at Vincennes made up of British Red Coat Regulars, with some French militia, and civilians as well as several Indians from various tribes.

During the autumn of 1778, Hamilton led his troops down the Detroit River to Lake Erie.  He then steered up the Maumee River over the present-day site of Fort Wayne heading for the Wabash River directing his boats downstream to take possession of Post Vincennes.

When the English army came to what is now southwestern Allen County on October 29th they faced a serious obstacle. Hamilton wrote, “we arrived at one of the sources of the Oubache (Wabash)…the waters were so uncommonly low that we should not have been able to have passed but that at the distance of four miles from the landing place the beavers had made a dam which kept up the water.”  There was enough space for only one boat at a time and the way was encumbered with logs and stumps that his men were obliged to remove. Once debris was cleared it took as many as twenty-two men to move just one of their thirty-two feet long boats over the tight spots.

When water levels were low between the rivers, boat passengers broke open the beaver dams to raise the water level that made it possible for boats to pass.  Hamilton said that it would have been impossible were it not for several beaver dams which created deep slack-water reservoirs. He ordered the boats to be gathered above the dams before breaking them open. By breaching a dam the impounded water was released with boatmen acting quickly to maneuver their crafts through on the crest of the small floods caused by breaking the dams.

It sounds as if those early travelers were being unusually rough on the industrious beaver community.  However, there was a payback. To show their gratitude for aiding in the flotation over the summit a tradition emerged that held the beaver in high esteem and neither the Indian people nor the White traders would molest or hunt them.

Hamilton’s expedition reached Vincennes on December 17, 1778, finding Captain Leonard Helm in command of a handful of Americans.  No shots were fired and Captain Helm secured favorable terms before surrendering the fort to the overwhelming force.  Taking possession of the fort and town, Hamilton sat back waiting for milder weather before moving his army to Kaskaska where Colonel George Rogers Clark was preparing his rag-tag army. Two months later Clark who had received authority from the state of Virginia to lead a counter-offensive moved to take back Vincennes. The surprise action halted the British aggression and a captured Hamilton was sent back to Virginia as a prisoner.  

Five years later in 1783, the Treaty of Paris was signed officially ending the Revolutionary War.  It established independence for the United States as well as set the boundaries between Canada and the U.S.  

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Allen County Historian Tom Castaldi© is author of the Wabash & Erie Canal Notebook series; hosts “On the Heritage Trail” which is broadcast Mondays on 89.1 fm WBOI; and “Historia Nostra” heard on Redeemer Radio 106.3 fm.  Enjoy his previously published columns on the History Center’s blog “Our Stories” at historycenterfw.blogspot.com.

State Historical Markers in Allen County

(Fort Wayne Monthly “Along the Heritage Trail with Tom Castaldi” - Oct 2011, No. 83)

Revised February 26, 2016 per information received from Indiana Historical Bureau

Have you noticed the historical markers with the distinctive gold on the aluminum cast raised letters with the painted blue background?  They are known as the Indiana History Bureau format or “State Format” markers for short. Other organizations that sponsor and support historical signage include the Allen County Fort Wayne Historical Society, the Fort Wayne Bicentennial Heritage Trail, and the Daughters of the American Revolution are among them.

When applying for a state historical marker, it must be deeply researched then pass the approval of a panel of experts and the requestor must be able to come up with the $2,200 current cost before the markers can become a reality. These large markers commemorate significant people, organizations, places, and events in Indiana and American history.

Allen County has a rich history and can be considered well documented with markers. In the myriad of the heritage remainders, state format markers have been put in place.

One marker located on Fort Wayne’s southeast corner of Center and Huron streets is at the Camp Allen Park playground entrance and was erected by the Indiana Civil War Centennial Commission. It commemorates the Civil War mustering-in camp where the 30th, 44th, 74th, 88th, and 100th Indiana Regiments and the 11th Indiana Battery were organized.

A second marker is at the “Home of Philo Farnsworth” found on St. Joseph Boulevard near the intersection with East State in Fort Wayne.  Placed in 1992, it celebrates the famous television inventor who was living here in this home between 1948 and 1967. Farnsworth is credited for, “perfecting the image formation mechanism which enabled the first effective image transmission in 1927.” His company, Farnsworth Radio and Television Corporation, was located in Fort Wayne from 1938-1949.

A marker was placed at the corner of West Main Street and Growth Avenue to commemorate the February 22, 1832, groundbreaking of the Wabash & Erie Canal.  When completed the canal would link Lake Erie at Toledo with Evansville on the Ohio River.  It was long a site that historians wrote and talked about and took a lot of research to determine where the marker in 1992 was most appropriately to be placed

 Guldin Park is the site of where one of the area’s several forts once stood.  The park is located on the southeast corner of the Van Buren Street Bridge in Fort Wayne, and in 2000 the Indiana Historical Bureau and Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Indiana collaborated to install a marker. With separate text on two sides of the marker, it recalls where the French built a fort in 1722 named Fort Saint Philippe. It was one of three French forts built in what is now Indiana to protect French fur trade from the encroaching English. The opposite side tells of the strategic waterway system connecting Great Lakes regions with Mississippi River Valley and the use of the portage between the Maumee and Wabash rivers.

 Just beyond the U.S. 24 east interchange of I-469 bypass in New Haven Indiana Historical Bureau, Canal Society of Indiana, and New Haven Kiwanis placed the Gronauer Lock No. 2 marker in 2003. It too has two separate texts on two sides. One notes that the Wabash & Erie Canal lock was discovered in June 1991 during excavation for highway construction was named for lock keeper Joseph Gronauer. On the reverse side the text mentions the many artifacts and pieces of timber that were recovered and a portion of the timbers that were sent to be used as an exhibit in the Indiana State Museum in Indianapolis.

If you want to spend an enjoyable afternoon, take the time to drive around our historic county and don’t overlook the many markers on the sites where history was made.

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Allen County Historian Tom Castaldi© is author of the Wabash & Erie Canal Notebook series; hosts “On the Heritage Trail” which is broadcast on 89.1 fm WBOI; and “Historia Nostra” heard on Redeemer Radio 106.3 fm.  Enjoy his previously published columns on the History Center’s blog “Our Stories” at historycenterfw.blogspot.com.

Louis William Bonsib

(Fort Wayne Monthly “Along the Heritage Trail with Tom Castaldi” – September 2011, No. 82)

Louis William Bonsib

Louis Bonsib, artist and advertising executive, was born in Vincennes, Indiana, in March 1892, a grandson of his name sake who had immigrated to the United States from Alsace-Lorraine during the years of Napoleon Bonaparte. He and four brothers or step brothers made the trip to New Orleans in the mid-1800s.  How the name became Bonsib from whatever the surname was in Europe remains a mystery. Grandfather Louis met Henriette Caspermor, married and moved to Vincennes. Here the couple became the parents of four children. The youngest, John F. Bonsib and father of Louis W. Bonsib, was born in 1862.

John opened a business buying bicycle parts and assembled them for sale. Later he opened a furniture store which became quite a successful venture.  By 1890 John met and married Ida Brown and two years later Louis W. Bonsib was born. Unfortunately, Ida died in 1894 and Louis was cared for by his Aunt Molly.  It was she who encouraged Louis to pursue his natural art talent drawing and painting leaves.  By the time Louis was fifteen, he heard a lecturer speak about building a radio to transmit Morse code. Louis built and assembled a radio from parts he could find and using a window screen for an antenna, was able to communicate with a distant friend.

Later as crystal radio sets became available Louis was able to produce a better radio and while still in high school he was granted a license to operate the first ham radio in the state of Indiana.  Modern Electrics magazine featured him in an issue to show the achievements of a young amateur. It was so early in the days of radio that Louis was able to purchase and sell parts to companies and individuals interested in building their own sets.

Although first pursuing art courses in 1910 through the International Correspondence School, Louis had visions of becoming an electrical engineer.  That same year he enrolled at the University of Cincinnati and later at Vincennes University. Not entirely pleased with his choice, he decided to enroll at Indiana University in 1912 and in 1914 was studying Sociology at the University of Illinois. Returning to IU he was accepted into the Phi Beta Kappa Fraternity while a member of the wrestling team. He also started as the center on the football team and found the time to work on the IU yearbook, the Arbutus.  He graduated Summa cum laude and took a position with the Indianapolis Engraving Company. It led him into the advertising agency business and in 1923 he set up his own shop in Peru, Indiana.  Not pleased with the business’ performance he moved his activities to Fort Wayne.

At first, the Fort Wayne clients did not think to pay for the artwork produced by ad agencies. Louis thought differently and demanded payment which the clients did without complaint. In 1926 to solidify the agency-client relationship, Louis organized the Fort Wayne Advertising Club which thrived until the Great Depression came along. After World War II the Ad Club was reconstituted and Louis initiated a speakers’ bureau that found him traveling the Midwest promoting the opportunities an advertising agency offers business operations. Serving as many as twenty accounts in Indiana, Ohio and Michigan, Bonsib grew the agency concentrating on radio and automobile manufacturer clients. Others included Wayne Pump and Magnavox.  In 1941 he listed more than one hundred companies that had been or continued as Bonsib Advertising clients. Bonsib Advertising grew and became one of the most successful and highly regarded agencies in the state.

Painting continued to be one of Louis’ passions, and he continued using his oils and watercolors to capture the scenes of favorite sites especially in Brown County.  Other locations took him around the world from Maine, Quebec and California, Appalachian valleys, to Hawaii, Japan, Alaska and Europe. If he did not have the time to paint on his visit, he’d photograph the scene to paint later. The celebrated Hoosier Salon exhibited his work in a gallery in New Harmony, Indiana, exhibitions in Chicago, and the Salon’s Broad Ripple, Indianapolis gallery.  Bonsib’s paintings hang today in many collections and in many private homes.  One titled, “Morning in Brown County” was presented to Indiana University’s Union in Bloomington, Ind., where L. W. Bonsib served as a board member in 1915-16. In 1939, commencement visitors to the university could view Bonsib’s, “Snow in Tennessee” which formed a part of that year’s prize-winning selections from the Hoosier Art Salon.

As Dr. Michael J. Mastrangelo stated in his December 2009 Quest Club paper reviewing the life of “Louis William Bonsib 1892-1979 More than an Artist,” Louis chose to donate the major portion of his library of over 200 art books and pamphlets to Vincennes University as well as several hundreds of his paintings. Not long after, the school honored him with an honorary doctorate degree.  A room at that university was dedicated in Bonsib’s honor for the Northwest Territory Art Guild in the Old State Bank Building.  He treasured the honor for being presented the first Silver Medal Award for lifetime achievement and service presented by Printers Ink magazine and the Advertising Federation of America.

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Allen County Historian Tom Castaldi© is author of the Wabash & Erie Canal Notebook series; hosts “On the Heritage Trail” which is broadcast Mondays on 89.1 fm WBOI; and “Historia Nostra” heard on Redeemer Radio 106.3 fm.  Enjoy his previously published columns on the History Center’s blog “Our Stories” at historycenterfw.blogspot.com.

Frances Slocum

(Fort Wayne Monthly “Along the Heritage Trail with Tom Castaldi” – August  2011,  No. 81)

 

Most Hoosiers are familiar with the story of Frances Slocum, born in 1773, the five year old daughter of Quaker parents who was kidnapped from her home in eastern Pennsylvania on November 2, 1778 by three Delaware braves.  When last seen she was being carried off on the shoulder of one of her captors, her red hair flying in her face and crying out for her mother.  Frances’ mother never gave up the hope of finding her daughter, and until her dying day urged family members to continue searching for the child’s return.

During the years of the great Revolutionary War many people, often children, who were abducted from their families by the natives were frequently treated with kindness and adopted as a member into their tribes .

After Frances was seized the Delaware party took her through western Pennsylvania, into Ohio and to the present site of Detroit.  During these early years of captivity, the tribe migrated into northeastern Indiana and the village of Kekionga near Fort Wayne.  Frances acclimated to the life of the Indian people assuming the name of Maconaqua meaning Little Bear and marrying a Delaware warrior.    Eventually, she married Shapoconah, a Miami war chief, who lost  his hearing and became known as Deaf Man.  

Leaving the Fort Wayne area, Frances and her chieftain husband moved west to live at the Osage Village on the bank of the Mississinewa near Peru, Indiana.  After the passing of her husband about 1833, Frances expressed no desire to return to her birth family. She had been with the Indian people for nearly sixty years before she revealed her white blood to anyone.  It happened in 1834 or 1835 when Colonel George Ewing, who operated the trading firm of Ewing, Walker & Company in nearby Logansport, and was making a tour among his customers on the Mississinewa.  Because the daylight was fast fading to darkness, Ewing asked for lodging overnight in Frances’ comfortable log house.  Growing old and frail, fearing that she had not much longer to live, she decided that it was time to reveal her origins.  Frances felt at ease speaking in the Miami language with the equally fluent Ewing of her abduction and life among the Delaware and Miami.  All she could recall was that her father’s name was Slocum and that they lived along a river that Ewing correctly identified as the Susquehanna near Wilkesbarre.  When Ewing returned to his store, he sent off  a letter to the Postmaster at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to be reprinted in the Lancaster Intelligencer. The letter told of Frances’ experience hoping that some Slocum family member might read the letter and come forward.  For some reason the Ewing letter was set aside and it was two years before it was published and Frances’ family finally learned of her fate. The family traveled to the Mississinewa but Frances would not give up her way of life. “I shall die here and lie in that graveyard, and they will raise the pole at my grave with the flag on it, so the Great Spirit will know where to find me.”

After her death in 1847, she was buried near her Mississinewa home along side her husband in the Bondy cemetery.  However, in 1965 when the flood control dams on the upper Wabash River were built to create the Mississinewa reservoir and flood the cemetery the graves were removed.  The relocation was a two-acre plot located on Bowman Road near the Frances Slocum State Forest.  To ensure that no one will disturb the resting place of this woman, who rose to a position of prominence among her adopted people, a new grave was opened, the remains set in place and entombed in concrete to insure security.

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Allen County Historian Tom Castaldi© is author of the Wabash & Erie Canal Notebook series; hosts “On the Heritage Trail” which is broadcast Mondays on 89.1 fm WBOI; and “Historia Nostra” heard on Redeemer Radio 106.3 fm.  Enjoy his previously published columns on the History Center’s blog “Our Stories” at historycenterfw.blogspot.com.

Megan's Mystery Monday - Finding Perspective

Hello fellow history lovers! I hope everyone had a great holiday season and is ready for more mysteries from the museum! Our first of the New Year is twofold.

To begin our Mystery Monday, there are some key facts to go over. As many of you know, the Historical Society has been a repository of local history for almost 100 years now. We house all sorts of things, some artifacts and some just the random collection of items over the years. Our mystery piece this week is one of the latter, a painting that came to us from the Historic Fort Wayne offices.

The History Center is home to many pieces like this, things that aren’t quite artifacts but are still held here. This painting was stored in the fine arts collection without an accession number. It was easy enough to show it to my boss and have her determine provenance, and soon enough we had a new entry made for it in the database. With one mystery solved, it was then on to filling the entry up with as much information as possible about the subject matter.

This painting, given the identification number INV 4535, portrays the Battle of Harmar’s Ford which took place in 1790. When I first stumbled upon this piece, what immediately struck me was the artist’s choice of perspective. I’m no expert in art but as a history student you’re taught to analyze many types of primary sources, including artwork. Every piece is made deliberately and thus every artistic choice is done with a goal or theme in mind. The painting makes a conscious effort to place the viewer on the side of the Native Americans, watching as they hold off the army of soldiers attempting to ford the river. This was a bit unusual to me, so I became intrigued.

I wasn’t familiar with the Battle of Harmar’s Ford, so after a little research I was able to gain a better understanding of why the artist chose the perspective he used. 

During the autumn of 1790, a series of battles took place within the Ohio River Valley between soldiers and Native Americans. Named after General Josiah Harmar, Harmar’s Campaign was fought in order to gain control of the Northwest Territory after news of increased conflict between settlers and Native Americans reached Washington in the east. To combat this, George Washington sent out a troop of soldiers to quell the Native Americans, who were led by Chief Little Turtle.

Accounts of the battles fought were bloody, the odds of victory often overwhelmingly in favor of the Natives, and the defeat equally as overwhelmingly embarrassing for the soldiers. The battles were typified by resounding defeats on the part of the soldiers, thus giving the military campaign its less flattering name, Harmar’s Defeat.  It became pretty obvious why the artist chose to depict such a scene, placing the viewer firmly behind Native American lines while the soldiers knee-deep in the river were shot down. This piece doesn’t sugar coat the colonial loss one bit.

As hard as it can be to admit it, history often times is not kind. It can be ugly, gruesome, and vilify those we’d rather consider heroes. Artwork like INV 4535 is a good example of history as a humbling power, reminding viewers that things weren’t as cut and dry as sometimes thought and that history is almost always a tumultuous conflict with contentious contenders.

If you’d like to learn more about Harmar’s Defeat and other early conflicts, check out the History Center’s 200 at 200 exhibit this February, Contention for the Confluence.

Until next time!