Compiler." Who were the first white men to visit this place?"

Judge. "The tradition of the Indians, which is undoubtedly true, is that one of the missionaries from St. Joseph came to Kekionga about four years before La Salle came in 1680. La Salle was the next to follow the missionaries."

Compiler."When and where was the first stockade built at Fort Wayne?"

Judge: "In one local history already published, it is stated that La Salle was at Kekionga in 1680, and at that time caused a small stockade fort to be built here.* The statement is made on the authority of Mr. Goodman, who claims to have obtained his information from the French records at Montreal and Quebec. But in the year 1705, Santer Vincennes, of the French army, was at Kekionga, and found here, at that time, several Indian traders from Pennsylvania. It has been generally supposed that then it was that Vincennes, by the direction of the Governor-General of Canada, erected the French stockade north of the present Catholic hospital, between the canal and the St. Mary's river, in the old Tipton or Rock Hill orchard, near the residence of Judge McCulloch, our late secretary of the treasury, on the same spot where Mass was first said by the Catholic priest in 1676. This was the stockade, 'the dim outlines of which were traced by General Wayne in 1794.'"

Compiler." What became of this fort?"

Judge.-"It was destroyed by the Indians at the time of 'Nicholas's' conspiracy.'

Compiler." Judge, a good many people get this conspiracy mixed up with Pontiac's conspiracy. This is a sorry mistake. Will you state your recollections of Nicholas's conspiracy?'

*The statement that La Salle built a fort at the head of the Maumee in 1680, is probably incorrect. He was at that time returning from his somewhat disastrous Mississippi expedition, and being on a journey to Canada, in search of the Griffin, and out of supplies, it is unreasonable to assume that he erected a fort at this place. The author is of the opinion that the early records in Quebec and Montreal show only that La Salle reported the place as well suited for a fort.

Judge.-" About the year 1745 the celebrated Indian chief of the Huron tribe, called by the French and English, Nicholas, but whose Indian name is said to have been Sandosket, and who lived at the Indian village where the city of Sandusky, Ohio, now stands, formed a conspiracy to destroy all the French ports and settlements northwest of the Ohio. The French post at Kekionga, erected by Vincennes in 1705, fell in this war. It was burnt by the Indians-the Miamis, the Otta was and the Pottawatomies assisting the Hurons."

Compiler.-"Did the French government cause another fort to be erected here?"

Judge. "Yes; Captain Dubuisson, of the corps of royal engineers, was sent here, and erected a new fort in 1748. He did not erect this fort on the same spot where Vincennes erected the stockade in 1705, but at a point not far distant to the west, and near the present canal aqueduct, and a little to the cast of the residence of Judge Lowry. The fort, or rather a part of its foundation, was still standing when Colonel John Johnson came here in 1800."*

,

In the conversation which we have given with Judge it will be seen that there were two French forts or stockades erected at Fort Wayne, one in 1705 and the other in 1748. Following this chain of events, we next come to the English fort which was erected on the east bank of the St. Joseph's river, by Ensign Holmes, in the fall of 1760, or winter of 1760-61. With the fall of Canada in 1759, all the French forts in the northwest fell into the hands of the British, and Major Rogers was sent to Detroit with an army to occupy them. Ensign Holmes, with a small detachment, came to Fort Wayne, but finding the old French post here unfit to protect the garrison, at once commenced the erection of the English fort.

Our readers will remember that the British occupation of the northwestern outposts was distasteful to the Indians, who,

* The compiler of this work, who visited Fort Wayne, received much more valuable information from John P. Hedges and Judge Borden. He was also aided by J. L. Williams, F. P. Randall, John Hough, Mr. Edgerton, and many others.

during the old French war, had continued fast allies of their French father. This dissatisfaction was soon augmented into a spirit of revenge by the insolence of British officers, and the Indians, in the Spring of 1763, were strongly united under the great Ottawa chief, Pontiac, determined upon driving the red coats from their country. Francis Parkman, the ablest American writer on the Indian wars of North America, has given us a volume on this Pontiac war a literary treasure of rare merit-in which he gives us a graphic and thrilling account of the fate of Ensign Holmes and his feeble garrison at Fort Wayne. Our mention of this affair is necessarily brief.

The Miamis of the Maumee had taken up the hatchet at the will of the Ottawa chief, and in the Spring of 1763, the valley around Kekionga resounded with many a savage warwhoop. Holmes had observed the savages gathering with unusual demonstrations, and, suspecting their designs, kept a close watch upon their movements. Nevertheless he became a victim to savage ingenuity.

An Indian girl with whom Holmes was intimate, and in whom he placed too much confidence, by compulsion, it is said, went into the fort and told Holmes that there was a sick squaw lying in a wigwam not far from the fort, and expressed a desire that he should go and see her. The fatal hour had come.* Unsuspectingly, and with a view to serve and perhaps relieve the supposed sick squaw, (knowing perhaps something of medicine; for, it would seem, had there been a surgeon in the fort, he would have been more likely to have at least been called on by the Ensign than for Holmes to have gone himself,) preceded by the Indian girl, he was soon without the enclosure of the garrison, and advancing with cautious steps in the direction of the hut wherein lay the object of his philanthropic mission. Nearing a cluster of huts, which are described to have been situated at the edge of an open space, "hidden from view by an intervening spur of the woodland," the squaw directed him to the hut wherein lay the supposed

* Parkman's Conspiracy of Pontiac; Bryce's History of Fort Wayne, etc.

invalid. Another instant a few more paces and the sudden crack of two rifles from behind the wigwam in view, felled Holmes to the earth, and echoed over the little garrison, startling the guards and inmates into momentary surprise and wonder. Amid the confusion, the sergeant unthoughtedly passed without the fort to ascertain the cause of the rifle shots. But a few paces were gained, when, with loud, triumphant shouts, he was sprung upon by the savages and made a captive; which, in turn, brought the soldiers within, about nine in all, to the palisades of the garrison, who clambered up to see the movement without, when a Canadian, of the name of Godfroi, (or Godfri) accompanied by "two other white men," stepped defiantly forth, and demanded a surrender of the fort, with the assurance to the soldiers that, if at once complied with, their lives would be spared; but, refusing, they should "all be killed without mercy." The aspect before them was now sadly embarrassing. Without a commander-without hope, and full of fear, to hesitate, seemed only to make death the more certain, and the garrison gate soon swung back upon its hinges; the surrender was complete, and English rule, at this point, and for a time, at least, had ceased to exercise its power.

But we have some local traditions of this affair. Mrs. Laura Suttenfield, one of the "Mothers" of Fort Wayne, living there since 1814, whose portrait appears in another place in this work informed one of the compilers that she became acquainted with this woman in 1815; that she and her family lived neighbors to her for several years. At the period of Mrs. S.'s acquaintance with the woman, she had a son, a man of some years. On one occasion, being at the hut of the woman, the man, her son, came in intoxicated, and somewhat noisy, and the woman, by way of an apology to Mrs. S., remarked that he was a little SQUABBY, or drunk; and concluded with the remark that he was a SAGINASH, (English); and from the age of the man, the inference is drawn that he was a son of Holmes. After leaving here, the woman took up her residence at Raccoon Village. She lived to a very old age, and was known to many of the early settlers of Fort Wayne. Mrs. Suttenfield's recollections