Second Fort from French to British

by Tom Castaldi

Have you ever taken the pleasant drive north on St. Joseph Boulevard along its name-sake river?  As you pass the intersection of St. Joseph Street, you are at the site of the second French fort of the mid 1700s once known as Fort St. Joseph.  French authorities in Quebec decided in 1750 that the old French outpost on the St. Mary's River two and a half miles west by river travel was no longer tenable.  The French built a new fort, called Fort St. Joseph, closer to the Miami settlement of Kekionga.  However, the French had lost the friendship of the local Indians of the region.  Now for a time, the natives’ allegiance was to the British and their more attractive trading centers in the territories of present-day Ohio.

Long a favored place among the American Indian tribes, the place that was to become Fort Wayne was at the western end of the Great Black Swamp and marked a principal passageway between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi Valley. When the Europeans first came among the Indian people of the Three Rivers, the newcomers also were attracted to the crossroads near the swamp which facilitated their travel and trade. Competition for the region was strong, evidenced by the flags that have waved over the land.

Captain Charles de Raimond, the French commandant, wrote to the governor of Canada, "my people are leaving me for Detroit nobody wants to stay here and have his throat cut."  The outbreak of the French and Indian War in 1755 led to the surrender of Fort St. Joseph to the British.  Down came the French banner and up went the British jack.  The fort was then occupied in 1760 by contingents of Roger's Rangers led by Lieutenant John Butler.  French power in the Old Northwest territories was ended and passed into British hands.

British relations with the Indians in its newly won territories quickly deteriorated in the face of arrogant traders and officials, broken promises, and withheld gifts.  The American Indians throughout the Great Lakes country united to drive out the British in the celebrated "Pontiac's Rising" of 1763.  Simultaneously, all the forts north of the Ohio River were attacked, and all but Detroit and Fort Pitt were taken.

At the old Fort St. Joseph, now renamed Fort Miami, an impending attack was signaled when three soldiers were killed by a Miami warrior outside the stockade gates on the night of May 25, 1763.  Ensign Robert Holmes, in charge of the small garrison, ordered the fort closed and prepared for siege.  Two English traders were captured that day by the Indians at Kekionga and witnessed what happened two days later when the fort fell.  A young Indian woman who lived with Commandant Holmes came to tell him that another woman lay seriously ill in a wiikiaami near the fort and urged him to come to her relief.  Having confidence in the young woman, Holmes came in sight of the large number of dwellings in the village when two muskets flashed and instantly killed the ensign.  The storyteller of the episode was shown Holmes' scalp the next day.

For the next thirty years, the Indians of Kekionga enjoyed the absence of a garrison.  During these years a large settlement of confederated tribes, centering on the Miami, emerged at the headwaters of the Maumee River, drawn together by the common hatred of the American intruders from the east. Defending their homes and fields, the Miami Confederacy, under Chief Little Turtle, struck back at the invading United States Army twice, once in 1790 and again in 1791, winning significant victories.  It would not last, however, because of the expansion of the new United States, which eventually overwhelmed the Indian people.  On October 22, 1794, another fort was erected in their midst called Fort Wayne.

Originally published in Fort Wayne Monthly “Along the Heritage Trail with Tom Castaldi” January 2010, No 62

 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.

Whistler and the Last Two American Forts at the Three Rivers

Old Fort Wayne in 1797

by Tom Castaldi

John Whistler came to America as a British soldier in the Revolution, under the command of General John Burgoyne. He was captured, paroled and sent back to England. His elopement with Anna Bishop, daughter of Sir Edward Bishop, a close friend of his father, brought the young man and woman to America where they made their first home at Hagerstown, Maryland, in 1790.

The following year, after joining the army of the United States, John Whistler came west with General St. Clair’s army. He escaped after suffering severe wounds received at the “Wabash slaughter field” handed to the Americans by Little Turtle’s warriors at Fort Recovery. Back in Cincinnati at Fort Washington Whistler returned to receive a new assignment and was joined there by his wife.

When General Anthony Wayne’s army arrived, Whistler joined them on the march into northwest Ohio where he participated in the Battle of Fallen Timbers. After defeating the Indian confederation under the leadership of the Shawnee brave Blue Jacket, on August 20, 1794, Wayne moved his “Legion of the United States” up the Maumee River to the large American Indian settlement of Kekionga at the confluence of the Three Rivers.

Wayne ordered a fort to be built in 1794 on the high ground overlooking the confluence of the Saint Mary’s and Saint Joseph rivers and the Miami town of Kekionga. In 1798, Colonel Thomas Hunt began construction of a second American fort at the Three Rivers. This fort, near present-day East Main and Clay Streets, was completed in 1800 and served as a replacement for the first hastily built one erected nearby to the south by General Wayne.

The American forts at the Three Rivers came under attack only once during nearly a quarter-of-a-century while they guarded United States interests in the midst of Indian territory. In 1815, after having withstood a siege three years earlier, this stronghold was replaced under the direction of now Major John Whistler. By 1816, Whistler, the Fort’s Commandant, was transferred to a new assignment in Saint Louis, Missouri. The fort Whistler had rebuilt during 1815 and 1816 was the last in the Three Rivers region and on April 19, 1819, was abandoned by the U. S. Army.

After the Battle of Fallen Timbers, Whistler and his wife resided in the fort at Fort Wayne, and here, in 1800, George Washington Whistler was born, one of fifteen children. George became “Whistler’s Father” the father of James Abbott McNeill Whistler whose renowned oil on canvas, “Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Painter’s Mother”, is known to the world as “Whistler’s Mother”.

The Indian Agency continued to operate in the fort after it was decommissioned by the government and the first school in Fort Wayne was established here by the Baptist missionary, Isaac McCoy, from 1820 to 1822. The land immediately around the fort was ceded to Allen County by an act of Congress in 1830 and it wasn’t until 1852 that the last building of the fort was demolished.

Originally published in Fort Wayne Magazine “Along the Heritage Trail with Tom Castaldi” – January 2008 No. 39 Allen County Historian Tom Castaldi is author of the Wabash & Erie Canal Notebook series; hosts “On the Heritage Trail,” which is broadcast at 6:35 a.m., 8:35 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. Mondays on WBOI, 89.1 FM; and “Historia Nostra” heard on WLYV-1450 AM and WRRO 89.9 FM. Enjoy his previously published columns on the History Center’s blog, “Our Stories,” at history centerfw.blogspot.com.

The Battle of Kekionga

by Tom Castaldi

 The Battle of Kekionga in October 1790 was the first battle fought by the United States Army after the War for Independence. The campaign had been ordered by President Washington against the Miami settlement of Kekionga, the center of Indian resistance to U.S. migration across the Ohio River.

     The U.S. campaign against Kekionga began in early October when General Josiah Harmar, a veteran of the Revolutionary Way, led his main force of 1,453 regular and militia soldiers up the Great Miami River valley north of Fort Washington (later, Cincinnati). A diversionary force under Major John Hamtramck had marched on the Vincennes area to draw the main concentration of Miami Indians and their allies, the Delawares and Shawnees, away from Kekionga, but the maneuver failed.

 On October 15, the vanguard of the U.S. forces reached Kekionga and found that the Miami had burned and abandoned their town. On October 17, Harmar’s main force reached the Indian town, but patrols failed to discover the Miami warriors. Two days later, on hearing reports of a gathering of Indian forces, Harmar sent about three hundred men under Colonel John Hardin (of the Kentucky militia) north of Kekionga to the Eel River region to search for the Indian warriors. On October 19, Hardin’s forces suffered a stinging defeat near present-day Heller’s Corners in an ambush led by the Miami war chief Meshekinnoquah (Little Turtle). Nearly all the U.S. Army regular soldiers were killed and the Kentucky militia fled. One regular officer, Captain John Armstrong, managed to survive by hiding all night in a swamp, listening to the Miami victory celebrations nearby. General Harmar completed the destruction of the area villages on October 20 and retreated from Kekionga on the 21st to a camp located nine miles to the south, near present-day Hessen Cassel.

    Learning that the Miami warriors had returned to Kekionga, General Harmar sent an attacking force back to the Indian town on the morning of October 22. Two companies of U.S. forces, under the command of Colonel John Hardin, took position along the west bank of the St. Joseph river. Three companies, under the overall command of regular army major John Wyllys, advanced across the ford of the Maumee River, hoping to entrap the Indians in Kekionga itself. The Miami warriors challenged the crossing, killing several men as they waded the ankle-deep Maumee River. In the corn fields and flood plain outside Kekionga, the main United States forces were destroyed and Major Wyllys and the cavalry commander, Major Fontaine, were killed by Little Turtle’s warriors who held the high ground to the north. By the end of the battle at midday, 183 United States soldiers had been killed, and about the same number of Indians had been slain. The Miami Confederacy had held its town, and General Harmar’s main force retreated to Fort Washington.

Originally published in Fort Wayne Magazine, “Along the Heritage Trail with Tom Castaldi” –September October 2004, No 7, p. 70