While John Hays was Indian agent at Fort Wayne, Benjamin Berry Kercheval served as his assistant at a salary of $500 a year. Kercheval was born at Winchester, Virginia, April 9, 1793, and went to Detroit when he was eighteen. Around 1818, Kercheval came to Fort Wayne and here served for a time as an interpreter for Benjamin Stickney. Later he became a representative of the American Fur Company, a position he held when he was employed by Hays. Hays used Kercheval a great deal and trusted him implicitly. In 1821, the birth of a daughter to Benjamin Kercheval and his wife, formerly Maria Forsythe, was an event of such interest to the Indians that they shortly adopted the child with solemn ceremonies as a member of the Miami tribe.
The national government recognized the growing importance of Fort Wayne in the establishment of a post office in 1820. Although Samuel Hanna was in reality the first man to serve as postmaster at Fort Wayne, Kercheval whose commission bore the date of February 4, was the first appointee of President Monroe. Hanna established the office in his store, after Kercheval evidently had declined to serve.
At this time there was one mail every two weeks from Cincinnati, and the only newspaper to find its way to the pioneer village regularly was the _Liberty Hall_ from Cincinnati. In 1822, in response to the demands of the town, the government established regular routes between Fort Wayne and Chicago, as well as the Ohio villages on the St. Mary’s.
The chief industry of the village in these early years continued to be trade with the Indians, either for their furs and peltries or for their annuity money. With the end of the Indian wars, the Miamis and neighboring tribes once more found time for hunting and trapping. At the same time the establishment of European peace in 1815, at the end of the Napoleonic era, brought about a sharp rise in the price of furs. New and powerful traders began to operate in the Maumee-Wabash area with many coming to Fort Wayne as the central point of the region.
We have already noted the firm established by Samuel Hanna and his brother-in-law, James Barnett in 1819. A year later the American Fur Company, operating from Detroit and owned by John Jacob Astor, established an important branch at Fort Wayne. Benjamin Kercheval, Alexis Coquillard, and Francis Comparet were its first representatives. Comparet and Coquillard, both came directly from Detroit for the purpose of establishing the company’s branch house at Fort Wayne. Comparet remained at Fort Wayne permanently, but Coquillard later established a trading station on the St. Joseph river of Lake Michigan, on the site of the city of South Bend, as an outpost of the company’s establishment at Fort Wayne.