On the fourteenth of September, 1794, the army under the command of General Wayne commenced its march toward the deserted Miami villages which stood at the confluence of the rivers St. Joseph's and St. Mary's. This place was reached on the seventeenth of October, and on the following day the site of Fort Wayne was selected. The fort was completed on the twenty-second of November of the same year, and garrisoned by a strong detachment of infantry and artillery, under the command of Colonel John F. Hamtramck, who gave to the new fort the name of Fort Wayne.*

The Kentucky volunteers returned to Fort Washington, and were mustered out of the service. General Wayne, with the Federal troops, marched to Greenville, where he took up his headquarters during the winter, and where, in the month of August, 1795, after several months of active negotiation, this gallant officer succeeded in concluding a general treaty of peace with all the hostile tribes who inhabited the territory of the United States northwest of the Ohio.

The treaty of Greenville, which was effected through the good offices of General Wayne, opened the way for the flood of emigration which from that day, flowed from the Eastern States into the Northwestern territory.

Aside from military affairs in the northwestern territory, there was but little of civil progress worthy of mention in a history of Indiana. In July, 1796, after the treaty between the United States and Spain had been concluded, the British garrisons, with their arms, artillery and stores, were withdrawn from the posts within the boundaries of the Uni States northwest of the Ohio river, and a detachment of Amer ican troops, consisting of sixty-five men, ur.der the command of Captain Moses Porter, took possession of the evacuated post of Detroit in the same month. In the latter part of the year 1796, Winthrop Sargent proceeded to Detroit and erected the county of Wayne, and established a civil government in that quarter. This county of Wayne, now the most wealthy county in Monigan, formed a part of the Indiana territory until its division, in 1805, when the territory of Michigan was organizeu.

* A new fort was bull on the site of this fort in 1814.

CHAPTER IX.

IN

ORGANIZATION OF THE INDIANA TERRITORY.

N the previous chapters we have briefly traced the history of the military, political and civil events, in the territory of the United States northwest of the Ohio, from its organization to 1800, when the territory of Indiana was erected. Let us now enter upon what we may call the history of Indiana proper. Heretofore we have been compelled, owing to the very large tract of territory over which the government extended its control, to include the events that transpired in neighboring States. This may now be avoided. We have already said that by the treaty of Greenville the lands of Indiana were made available to settlers. Notwithstanding this event, bat few settlements were me until after the territory was organized. Yet most of the exag at the time the treaty was made were immediately snaged and improve Vincennes waren t this time was the largest settlement in the territory, was, in 1796, quite a town. Defended by Fort Knox, its citizens were enabled to prosecute a paying trade with the Indians, and to improve the agricultura. resources around them. At this date the town contained about fifty dwelling houses, all presenting a thrifty and tidy appearance. Each house was surrounded by a garden fenced with poles, and peach and apple trees grew in most of the inclosures. Garden vegetables of all kinds were cultivated with success, and corn, tobacco, wheat, barley, and cotton grew in the fields around the village in abundance.

Adjoining the village was Fort Knox, inclosed by a ditch eight feet wide, and by sharp stakes from six to eight feet high. This palisade, protected by the gnns of the fort, was a

sufficient fortification against hostile Indians. A Frenchman who visited Vincennes in 1796, writes of its inhabitants at that date: "The day after my arrival a court was held to which I repaired. On entering, I was surprised to find the

audience divided into races of men in person and feature widely differing from each other. The fair or light brown hair, ruddy complexion, round face, and plump body, indi

* * *

cative of health and ease, of one set, were forcibly contrasted with the emaciated frame and meager, tawny visage of the other. The dress, likewise, of the latter denoted their indigence. I soon discovered that the former were new settlers from the neighboring States, whose lands had been reclaimed five or six years before, while the latter were French of sixty years standing in the district. The latter, three or four excepted, knew nothing of English, while the former were almost as ignorant of French. I had acquired, in the course of the year, a sufficient knowledge of English to converse with them, and was thus enabled to hear the tales of both parties. The French, in a querulous tone, recounted the losses and hardships they had suffered, especially since the last Indian war, in 1788. * They complained that they were cheated and robbed, and especially that their rights were continually violated by the courts, in which two judges only four of five were Frenchmen, who knew little of the laws or language of the English. Their ignorance, indeed, was profound. Nobody ever opened a school among them till it was done by the able M. Rivet, a polite, well educated, and liberal minded missionary, banished hither by the French revolution. Out of nine of the French, scarcely six could read or write; whereas, nine-tenths of the Americans, or emigrants from the east, could do both. * * * * I could not fix, with accuracy, the date of the first settlement of Vincennes; and notwithstanding the homage paid by some learned men to tradition, I could trace out but few events of the war of 1757, though some of the old men lived before that period. I was only able to form a conjecture that it was planted about 1735. These statements were confirmed, for the most part, by the new settlers. They only placed the same facts in a different point of view. They told me that the Canadians (for by that name the French of the western colonies are known to them) had only themselves to blame for all the hardships they complained of. We must allow, say they, that they are a kind, hospitable, sociable sect; but then, for idleness and ignorance, they beat the Indians themselves. They know nothing at all of our civil or domestic affairs. Their women neither sew, nor spin, nor make butter.

*

The men take to nothing but hunting, fishing, roaming through the woods, and loitering in the sun. They do not lay up, as we do for winter, or provide for a rainy day. They can not cure pork or venison, make sourkrout or spruce beer, or distil spirits from apples or rye-all needful arts to the farmer."

In 1800, at the organization of the territory, the social con dition of Vincennes had advanced considerably from the state which this French writer represented it in 1796. The French settlers had become more industrious from the example set them by the settlers from the eastern States, and like them, had improved their small lots of land, and were living in a greater degree of civilization.

Aside from Vincennes, in 1796, there was a small settlement near where the town of Lawrenceburg now stands, in Dearborn county, and in the course of that year a small settlement was formed at "Armstrong's Station," on the Ohio, within the present limits of Clark county.

In 1800, when the territorial government of Indiana was organized, although many parts of the State had been settled for more than fifty years by whites, yet the territory was but a wilderness. Its numerous rivers were not disturbed except by an occasional canoe loaded with furs, which the Indians and half-breed propelled with oars. Its scattered settlements were filled with scenes and incidents of border life, many of which were full of romantic situations. In the meanwhile, however, a considerable traffic was carried on with the Indians by fur traders at Vincennes, Fort Wayne, and at different small trading posts which were established on the borders of the Wabash river and its tributaries. "The furs and peltries which were obtained from the Indians," says Dillon, "were generally transported to Detroit. The skins were dried, compressed, and secured in packs. Each pack weighed about one hundred pounds. A pirogue, or boat, that was sufficiently large to carry forty packs, required the labor of four men to manage it on its voyage. In favorable stages of the Wabash river, such a vessel, under the management of skillful boatmen, was propelled fifteen or twenty miles a day, against the