Previous histories dealing with the early history of Fort Wayne, while furnishing valuable material, have either been incomplete or inaccurate, chiefly because many primary sources were not available to the writers or were not known to exist. I have made extensive use of primary material found in the Burton Collection at Detroit, the Chicago Historical Library, and the Fort Wayne Public Library as well as in the British Museum and the Public Records Office in London and the _Archives des Colonies_ in Paris. Part of the European research was made possible by a summer grant from St. Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Indiana.
Acknowledgments are due to many individuals who have so kindly given assistance, especially to the staffs of the various archives and libraries which I have used in Chicago, Detroit, Paris, and London. Mr. Albert Diserens, chief of the Indiana collection of the Fort Wayne Public Library, aided me in every way. A special debt is due to the officers and members of the Allen County-Fort Wayne Historical Society and in particular Mr. Fred Reynolds who assisted immeasurably in arranging for the publication of this work. To the late Reverend Thomas T. McAvoy of the University of Notre Dame I owe deep gratitude for first encouraging me to study the history of my hometown.
While almost all early American cities which originated as military outposts later changed their names—Cincinnati (Fort Washington). Chicago (Fort Dearborn)—or simply dropped “fort” from their titles—Defiance, Ohio—for some reason the citizens of Fort Wayne never followed this common practice. The old “Fort Wayne” fell into ruins, but the name survives. Undoubtedly few individuals have even wondered why, but I believe, or would like to believe, that somehow the later citizens of Fort Wayne wanted to retain an identity with the past—a past that is worth knowing and remembering. It is to these citizens—past and present and to my own family that I dedicate this book.
To know the history of any town is to know the significance of its geographical position. This is particularly true of the early history of Fort Wayne (Known to the Indians as Kiskakon or Kekionga[1] and to the French and English as Fort Miami). Therefore, it is necessary to explain the significance of the site of Fort Wayne in an era of exploration and trade when wilderness was king and waterways were the arteries of communication. The story of Fort Wayne begins as the history of the Maumee-Wabash portage. Located at the confluence of rivers, St. Joseph and St. Mary’s, which together form the Maumee or Miami of Lake Erie, Fort Wayne is situated at the northeast starting point of the seven mile portage to the Little River, (see map on page 2) Twenty-two miles southwest of Fort Wayne, the Little River joins the Wabash, which, in turn, empties into the Ohio and then into the Mississippi. The Maumee-Wabash portage was from the early seventeenth century until the mid-nineteenth century a vital overland link that tied together the great waterway systems of the St. Lawrence and Mississippi. In other respects the site of Fort Wayne was at the “crossroads”. From this point the traveler could journey northeast up the St. Joseph river into the present state of Michigan, or turn southeast up the St. Mary’s river into the central portion of the present state of Ohio. This, then, is the significance of the words of Little Turtle, the great Miami chief, who once called the site of Fort Wayne, “that glorious gate ... through which all the good words of our chiefs had to pass from the north to the south, and from the east to the west.”[2]