With Major Vose came Dr. Trevitt, assigned to the post as surgeon’s mate and Lieutenant James Clark. One of the first tasks undertaken under Major Vose’s direction was the erection of a new council house to replace the one burned during the siege. It was a two-story structure, which in later years was used as a school house and as a residence. The garrison in 1817 consisted of fifty-six men.
On October 6, 1818, the Miami nation ceded to the United States that part of their land to the south and southwest of Fort Wayne. This section of land lay between the Wabash near the mouth of the Racoon Creek and St. Mary’s river as far north as the portage at Fort Wayne. The treaty was concluded at St. Mary’s, Ohio, with Governor Jennings, Lewis Cass, and Benjamin Parke, serving as commissioners of the United States and Chief Richardville acting as principal spokesman for the Miamis. This treaty, together with one concluded with the Wyandots the previous year, gave to the United States complete ownership of the territory south of the Maumee and Wabash rivers. Thus the way was opened for travel and settlement in Indiana as far north as Fort Wayne.
According to the treaty of St. Mary’s, many sections of land near Fort Wayne were reserved for individuals designated by the Miamis. These individuals included the following: Chief Jean Baptiste Richardville, Joseph Richardville (the chief’s son), Francis LaFontaine, the son of George Hunt, Little Little Turtle, Josette Beaubien, Eliza C. Kercheval (daughter of Benjamin Kercheval, sub-agent at Fort Wayne) John B. Bourie, Ann Hackley (the daughter of William Wells), and the children of Maria Christina DeRome and LaCros. A reading of these names indicates the strong influence the early French traders had acquired over the Miamis by intermarriage. As mentioned in an earlier chapter, Richardville’s father, Joseph Drouet de Richerville was a French trader.
The granting of individual reserves to the chiefs and other men favored by the Indians in the treaty of 1818 led to a dangerous innovation in land and Indian policy which later permitted the traders to grab the choice land sites before the government attained control of it. In the later treaties the Indian traders and agents combined their resources to secure the best sections of land through the consent of the Indians in payment of actual or supposed debts.
The year 1819 witnessed an important and significant change at Fort Wayne, the departure of the troops and the abandonment of the fort as a military stronghold. The formal evacuation took place on April 19, 1819, in pursuance of orders issued by the Secretary of War. The treaty of St. Mary’s and the westward movement of the settlers had carried the frontier beyond Fort Wayne. At the time of the departure of the troops, the garrison consisted of Major Vose, one post surgeon, two captains, one first lieutenant, five sergeants, four corporals, four musicians and seventy-five artillerymen and privates—ninety-six men in all—in addition to a group of women and children. Major Vose and his men went directly to Detroit by way of the Maumee, in pirogues. They took from the fort its equipment of heavy armament, including one six and one twelve-pounder cannon. Fort Wayne was the last of the Indiana posts maintained by the government and had served as an American fort for more than a quarter of a century.
It is not surprising that the news of the evacuation came as a shock to the few families and the traders who had built their log houses just outside the fort. When the day of departure came, the few settlers who comprised the village felt a loneliness as their sense of security gave way for the moment to a realization of the coming days of isolation and possible danger. In every direction stretched unbroken wilderness and while the Indians had been subdued, the abundance of whiskey given them by the traders made them at times a menace to the safety of the village.
The fort buildings, vacated by the military, now came under the control of the civil authorities, represented by the Indian agent, Benjamin Stickney. For a number of years thereafter the wooden fort with its bastioned blockhouses, officers’ quarters, and barracks, housed such civil, governmental, and private enterprises as the Indian agency, the United States land office, and the first Protestant mission school. Moreover, the opening of the barracks to the settlers not only made safe and comfortable living quarters for those already located there, but induced other settlers to choose this immediate region. Even at this period, the shelter of the stockade brought a feeling of security, and the fort was not without its convenient firearms and supply of ammunition. For a considerable period all but those of stoutest heart sought refuge within its walls with the coming of darkness.
Although the depression of 1819 in the Northwest checked the tide of immigration temporarily, there were some travelers and homeseekers who came to stamp their names upon the small settlement, which continued to be known as Fort Wayne even after the evacuation of the troops. These settlers included James Barnett, who was with Harrison’s army of relief in 1812 and who returned in 1818 as a permanent resident and trader; Paul Taber and his sons, Cyrus and Samuel, and his daughter, Lucy, all of whom came in 1819; Francis Comparet, who came in 1819, and who in 1820, together with Alexis Coquillard and Benjamin B. Kercheval, established a post for the American Fur Company at Fort Wayne; Dr. William Turner, a former post surgeon, who returned to Fort Wayne in 1819 and later served for a short time as Indian agent; and James Aveline who with his family came from Vincennes to Fort Wayne in January, 1820.
Among these early settlers who found their way to Fort Wayne in 1819, was Samuel Hanna, pioneer trader, judge, legislator, canal builder, railroad enterpriser, and banker. In many respects, Samuel Hanna was to become Fort Wayne’s most active citizen as the small community grew from a mere village to a city during his lifetime. Born in Scott county, Kentucky, in October, 1797, and later moving to Dayton, Ohio, with his parents, he came to Fort Wayne from St. Mary’s Ohio, where he had been engaged in supplying goods for the government during the Indian treaties of 1818. He was twenty-two years old when he came to Fort Wayne. Hanna built at once a log house on the site which later became the northwest corner of Barr and Columbia streets. Here, having formed a partnership with his brother-in-law, James Barnett, a trading post was opened. Many of their goods which came from the east were purchased from Abbott Lawrence at Boston; the shipments were made by water to New York, thence up the Hudson river and across to Buffalo, and from there to Fort Wayne by way of Lake Erie and the Maumee.
Upon the abandonment of the fort by the military, the government sent James Riley, a civil engineer, to Fort Wayne to survey the lands around the fort belonging to the United States, preparatory to the sale of a portion of the military reservation to the settlers. Riley was a noted author of that day, having published in 1817 Riley’s Narrative, a 554 page book on his experiences in Africa as a slave of the Arabs. His prominence and the fact that he was well known in Washington because he had spent several years there, lent weight to his recommendations concerning the Fort Wayne lands.