Chapter VI
Platting of Fort Wayne and the First Local Government
While the traders, large and small alike, were thus successfully evading any effective control over their operations, Fort Wayne was developing from a frontier army post and portage center into a very prosperous community. Its strategic location, the opening of a land office in 1822 and its selection as the county seat of Allen county brought many new settlers to the area.
The land office was established at Fort Wayne by an act of Congress on May 8, 1822.[1] The coming of Joseph Holman of Wayne county, appointed by President Monroe to serve as the first register of the land office, and Captain Samuel C. Vance of Dearborn county, as the receiver of the public moneys, was the signal for great activity in securing the choicest sites when the sale should open in the fall of 1823.
Register Holman and Captain Vance established their office in the old fort where much of the clerical work of the business came under the direct supervision of a young man who accompanied Captain Vance as his assistant, Allen Hamilton. Hamilton later became one of the most foremost merchants in the Fort Wayne area. He was born in Tyrone county, Ireland in 1798 and came to America in 1817 to retrieve the family wealth which had been lost by his father. In this he was quite successful after arriving at Fort Wayne. As a trader, he became a good friend of the Miamis, and in particular Chief Richardville. In this manner he was generally able to obtain choice land sites from the Indians in exchange for payment of their debts. He and Tipton later became partners in buying and improving Indian lands for speculation. In political affairs he was not so successful, later incurring the powerful opposition of the Ewings by reason of his friendship with the American Fur Company.
The act that set up the land office at Fort Wayne provided that all public lands for which the Indian title had been extinguished and which had not been granted to or secured for the use of any individual or individuals or appropriated and reserved for any other purpose were to be opened for sale. It was necessary to make some decision about the fort and public buildings which had been used by the Indian agency since the withdrawal of the garrison in 1819. Upon the recommendation of Lewis Cass, the site of the fort and thirty acres additional were withheld from the sale in order that the Indians assembling for councils or annuity payments might have a place for encampment. The land speculators were bitterly disappointed and made periodic efforts to secure part of the valuable reserve. Tipton was one of the principal opponents of its sale as long as the agency remained at Fort Wayne.[2]
On October 22, 1823—the thirty-third anniversary of Harmar’s defeat on this same spot, and the twenty-ninth anniversary of the dedication of the original fort—the government land sale was opened in the fort. John T. Barr, a merchant of Baltimore, Maryland, and John McCorkle, an active citizen of Piqua, Ohio, combined their resources and purchased the tract which is known as the Original Plat.
Neither of these original proprietors of Fort Wayne chose to make his home here. Nothing is known of the activities of John T. Barr in Baltimore, beyond the showing of the Baltimore city directories of his period, which refer to him as a merchant. More is known, however, of the activities of John McCorkle. He was born at Piqua in 1791. As the owner of a carding mill, gristmill and oil mill, he laid the foundation for a prosperous future and became Piqua’s most enterprising citizen. In 1819, together with John Hedges, he furnished supplies of beef and bread to the Indians at Fort Wayne while they were awaiting their annuity payments. Two years later he founded St. Mary’s, Ohio. He was actively engaged in state and national politics in 1829, when he died at the age of thirty-eight.
Barr and McCorkle came to the Fort Wayne land sale together, in a bateau, which they propelled down the St. Mary’s river. For the original tract, they paid twenty-six dollars per acre, in that year an extravagant price for western land.[3] They took immediate steps to plat the property and to offer it for sale in the form of business and residence lots. A surveyor was employed to lay out the property which today would include that part of Downtown Fort Wayne bounded on the north by the Nickel Plate Railroad, on the east by Barr Street, on the south by Washington Boulevard, and on the west by the alley between Calhoun and Harrison streets. The plat consisted originally of 110 lots. There were four north-and-south streets and five east-and-west streets.
Alexander Ewing secured eighty acres of ground immediately west of the Barr and McCorkle tract. This later became known as “Ewing’s addition”. The tract known as “Wells pre-emption”, lying between the forks of the St. Mary’s and St. Joseph rivers, having been set aside by Congress for Captain Wells as early as 1808, was purchased by his heirs at the minimum price of $1.25 an acre.
The land offices were continued at Fort Wayne during the period of twenty-one years. The positions connected with it were considered excellent rewards for political service. Thus, with the inauguration of Jackson in 1829 Holman and Vance were removed. Later appointees were also appointed or removed according to the political fortune of their parties.