The conduct of Chief Richardville had been especially annoying to Major Whistler. At the outbreak of the war, Richardville hurriedly gathered his effects and fled with his family to the British lines and there remained, without taking an active part in the trouble, until 1814. When he returned to his home six miles east of Fort Wayne, Major Whistler invited him to a conference. He responded, but he appeared reluctant to attend the conference at Greenville. Finally he came, in company with Chief Chondonnai, a participant in the Fort Dearborn massacre, and placed his signature to the treaty.
In May, 1815, Major Whistler again informed General McArthur of his intention to rebuild the fort, provided he could receive permission from the War Department. Permission was granted and in the fall of 1815, Major Whistler directed the construction of the new fort to take the place of the one erected by the troops of Colonel Hunt fifteen years before. Thus it fell to the lot of the builder of the first Fort Dearborn to become in turn the builder of the last Fort Wayne. Although the troops were destined to remain in this fort only four more years, parts of it remained standing until 1852, and for a long time after the garrison evacuated it, the fort served the government agencies and some of the citizens as a useful shelter.
The best source of information in regard to this last fort is in the record of John W. Dawson, who, in 1858, gathered information from the early settlers and wrote a series of articles for the local paper.[39] According to Dawson, the fort enclosed an area about 150 feet square. The pickets were ten feet high, and set in the ground, with block houses at the southeast and northwest corners, which were two stories high. The second floor projected and formed a bastion in each blockhouse where the guns were rigged; that on the southeast corner commanding the south and east sides of the fort, and that on the northwest corner, the north and west sides. The officers’ quarters, commissary department and other buildings located on different sides formed part of the walls, and in the center stood the liberty pole from which the flag flew.
The plaza, in the enclosure was smooth and gravelly. The roofs of the houses all declined within the stockade after the shed fashion, to prevent the enemy from setting them on fire, and if fired, to protect the men in putting it out. The rainwater was carried along by wooden troughs, just below the surface of the ground to the flagstaff, and from thence led by a sluiceway to the Maumee.
Dawson believed that when Major Whistler rebuilt the fort, he did not include all of the ground covered by the fort built under Colonel Hunt’s direction. This conviction is substantiated by the fact that before building the new fort, Whistler expressed the opinion that the old fort was too large for the number of troops he had to defend it.[40]
Writing to General McArthur on October 17, 1815, Major Whistler reported that the new fort was almost completed. Only one section of the old fort needed to be taken down and replaced by the new. Whistler expressed the belief that the new fort was the most substantial in the West. “The pickets”, he wrote, “were 12½ feet long and were put in sets of six, with a cross-piece two feet from the top, set in and spiked, and a trench dug 2½ feet deep, into which they were raised.”[41] The major added that he was anxious to complete the work as he expected difficulties with the Indians, who declared their intention to continue the war against the United States. Benjamin Stickney, also writing from Fort Wayne, expressed the same belief.[42]
However, the threatened outbreak of the Indians did not materialize. British intrigue had come to an end, and the red men lacked another leader as capable as Tecumseh. Many Indians continued to congregate at Fort Wayne in the years following the War of 1812. They came for reasons of trade or to receive their annuities or possibly from a feeling of sympathy and attraction for the scenes of their old home and gathering place, but aside from some petty quarrels among themselves, nothing war-like was ever again manifested in the relations of the Indians and whites at Fort Wayne.
[1]John Logan as a small child had been adopted by General Benjamin Logan of Kentucky. In 1813, Logan was killed while undertaking a most hazardous mission. “More firmness and consummate bravery has seldom appeared in the military theatre.”, wrote General Winchester in his report to Harrison.
[2]After the war, Bondie was rewarded by being appointed issuing commissary for the Fort Wayne garrison.
[3]Stickney’s account of the siege first appeared in the Fort Wayne Times, May 27, 1856.