Recent Documentary Acquisitions to the Indiana Historical Society Library relating to Fort Wayne Howard H. Peckham* Source material on Fort Wayne (the fort, not the city) has never been plentiful or even satisfactory. There- fore, the Indiana Historical Society Library was happy to acquire a series of fourteen letters, two documents, and four garrison returns in the early period of 1799-1814. These letters and documents, all written at Fort Wayne, were sent to Colonel Jacob Kingsbury (died 1837) , a Revolutionary War officer from Connecticut who had continued in service in the United States Army. He was a lieutenant in the First Infantry Regiment in 1789 and rose to be colonel of the regiment in 1808. Kingsbury commanded Fort Mackin- nac in 1804 and was sent the next year to the mouth of the Missouri River to establish Fort Belle Fontaine. He was in Detroit in 1810 and 1811. In 1812 he went on sick leave to Connecticut and after the war broke out was on duty at Newport, Rhode Island, where his officers addressed him. He retired from the army in 181Ei1 The letters and documents, by date and author, are as follows : 1799 June 13, Colonel John F. Hamtramck, order signed, 1 P. 1799 June 14, Hamtramck to Jacob Kingsbury, ALS,* 2 P. 1800 July 27, J. B. Laplant, receipts signed, 1 p. 1810 March 5, Captain Nathan Heald to Kingsbury, ALS, 1 p. 3 810 March 22, Captain John Whistler to Kingsbury, ALS, 1 p. 1810 May 17, Captain James Rhea to Kingsbury, ALS, 2 P. 1810 August 11, Rhea to Kingsbury, ALS, 1 p. *Howard H. Peckham is the secretary of the Indiana Historical Society, Indianapolis, Indiana. 1 Francis B. Heitman, Historical Register of the United States Amy (Washington, 1890), 390; M. M. Quaife, Chicago and the Old Northwest (Chicago, 1913), 154-155. 2 Autograph letter signed. 410 Indiana Magazine of History 1810 September 6, Rhea to Kingsbury, ALS, 2 p. 1811 March 2, John Johnston to Kingsbury, ALS, 2 p. 1811 March 31, Rhea to Kingsbury, ALS, 1 p. 1811 June 1, Rhea to Kingsbury, ALS 1 p. 1811 June 4, Rhea to Kingsbury, ALS, 2 p. 1811 November 3, Rhea to Kingsbury, ALS, 3 p. 1812 September 21, Ensign Daniel Curtis to Kingsbury, ALS, 11 p. 1814 November 1, Whistler to Kingsbury, ALS, 2 p. 1814 December 2, Whistler to Kingsbury, ALS, 1 p. The garrison returns are dated: 1810 January 31, Captain Heald’s company. 1810 March 31, Captain Heald’s company. 1814 October 31, Major Whistler’s company and militia. 1814 November 30, Major Whistler’s company and mili- tia. The long letter from Ensign Daniel Curtis is an eye- witness account of the siege of Fort Wayne. It is of so much interest that it is printed below. Ensign Curtis also wrote an account of the siege to a friend named James Cullen C. Witherell on October 4. This letter was printed in Charles E. Slocum, History of the Maumee River Basin (Defiance, Ohio, 1905), 277-279, and has formed the chief basis of our knowledge of what went on between the fort and the Indians during the four weeks’ siege.3 The new letter, written Sep- tember 21, tells almost the same story and is obviously the original from which the later one was prepared. There are slight variations in spelling and punctuation in the letter 3The letter was also rinted a year later in Friend Palmer, EuTZ~ Dugs in Detroit (Detroit, hichigan, 1906), 880-885. There the recipient is identified as “Cullen Colburn Witherell, uncle of Senator Thomas W. Palmer. To have been the uncle of Senator Palmer, he would have to have been the brother of Mary Amy Witherell Palmer (the mother of the senator) and the son of James Witherell (1759-1838), judge of the Supreme Court of Michigan Territory, 1808-1828. The eldest son of the judge is listed as James C. C. Witherell, born in Vermont in 1791. After attending Middlebury College, he moved with the family to Detroit and served with his father as a volunteer officer in 1812. Both men had to surrender with General Hull and were sent to Kingston, Ontario, where they were released on parole. They went to Vermont, where James C. C. died in 1813. Silas Farmer, The Historg of Detroit and Michigan (2 vols., Detroit, Michigan, 1889 11, 1133. The letter from Curtis, which he may never have seen, evidl ently was kept by his sister, but it is not among the Palmer family papers or the Witherell papers in the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit. A copy of Curtis’ letter to Kingsbury, September 21, 1812, exists in Kingsbury’s letter book, 1812- 1813, No. 121, in the Burton Historical Collection. Fort Wayne (The Fort) 411 to Witherell but too much cannot be made of this difference because Slocum evidently used a free hand in editing the letter. One curious change, which either Curtis or Slocum made, is the substitution of the word “Aborigines” for “Indians”’ in many places. Additions in the letter to Witherell are indicated where they occur in the letter to Kingsbury below. One paragraph in the Witherell letter is new and was substituted for another paragraph in the Kingsbury letter. Finally, the latter is slightly longer than the former. I have not been able to locate the original manu- script of the letter to Witherell, if it still exists, so Indiana is the richer for having the letter to Kingsbury in safe custody. The writer, Daniel Curtis, was born in New Hampshire but was commissioned in the army from Michigan. He was made an ensign in the First Infantry Regiment on January 3, 1812, and was sent to Fort Wayne in June. At the end of the year he was promoted to second lieutenant and was made a first lieutenant in 1814 and a captain in 1820. For some reason he was dismissed from the army in 1821, was reinstated the next year, and dismissed finally in 1823. Most of his military service was spent at Fort Wayne, and for a few weeks in 1817 he was acting commandant.‘ He married Eliza, daughter of Major John Whistler, the builder and first commandant of Fort Dearborn, 1803-1810, and commandant of Fort Wayne, 1814-1816. War was declared by the United States on Great Britain, June 18, 1812. News of it was received at Detroit on July 9. Fort Mackinac was not informed before it was attacked by the British and captured on July 17. General William Hull, commanding the Army of the Northwest, opened a brave offensive by invading Canada from Detroit and then hesitated. He felt that Fort Dearborn (Chicago) was at the mercy of the English or their Indian allies and decided that it should be evacuated. Accordingly he wrote to the commandant, Captain Nathan Heald, on July 29, ordering him to give up the post and retire to Detroit. At the same time he wrote to the commandant of Fort Wayne, Captain James Rhea, advising him of this decision. The resulting 4 Heitman, Historical Register of the United States Army, 214; Bert J. Griswold, Fort Wayne, Gateway of the West, 1802-1819, in Indiana Historical Collections (Indianapolis, Indiana, 1916- ) , XV (1927), 36011. 412 Indiana Magazine of History actions are well known. The garrison of Fort Dearborn was attacked right after it left the fort, on August 15, and more than half of the party was massacred. Meanwhile, General Hull had abandoned Canada and surrendered Detroit without a fight on August 16. The Potawatomi then laid siege to Fort Wayne, which was relieved only by the arrival of troops under General William Henry Harrison on Sep- tember 12. This is the background for Ensign Curtis’ letter. Fort Wayne Septr. 21st 1812. Hond. Sir, As our difficulties have in some measure subsided, and as I have been so fortunate as to survive the siege, it affords me the highest satisfaction to have it in my power to communicate to you some, among many, of the most important occurrences since my arrival at this place. I arrived here on the 5th June last,5 and was, and still continue to be highly pleased with the place and my situation, except, perhaps I might have been better suited with a little more active employment than I have had till about twenty days past. Nothing worthy of notice has transpired since my arrival here till the 7th Ulto. on which our Capt:6 received a note from Genl. Hull stating that Fort Dearborn was to be evacuated and requesting him to communicate the same to Capt. Wells7 and Mr. Stickneys and for 6 “and killed two deer on the way” (Letter to Witherell). 6 James Rhea of New Jersey served in the militia in 1791 and was with General Anthony Wayne at Fallen Timbers in 1794. He was com- missioned an ensign in the Eleventh Infantry in 1799, and the next year was transferred to the First Infantry. In 1807 he was made a captain. He was serving at Detroit in 1810, when he was appointed commandant at Fort Wayne, succeeding Captain Nathan Heald. In July, 1812, he conducted the funeral service of Chief Little Turtle. He resigned from the army at the end of the year. Heitman, Histom’cal Register of the United States Army, 546; Griswold, Fort Wayne, Gateway of the West, in Indiana Historical Collections, XV, 302, 365. 7 William Wells was born in Kentucky and stolen by the Miami as a boy. He married first Little Turtle’s sister and then his daughter and fought against Harmar and St.