CITYSCAPES
Coveted portage anchored early Fort Wayne
By MICHAEL HAWFIELD
from the archives of The News-Sentinel
Portage Boulevard is a small street running between the southern side of Rockhill Park and Taylor Street on Fort Wayne's west side. Apart from one historical marker in Rockhill Park, it is all that remains physically to remind us of one of the principal reasons there is a community here.
The portage, a place where early travelers carried their canoes from one
river to another, connected the St. Marys River - and thus the St. Joseph and
Maumee Rivers - to the Little River, then the Wabash River, and finally the
Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.
It is one of the shortest such routes between rivers in the heart of the
continent. Fort Wayne was the only place in the most direct passage from Lake
Erie to the Gulf of Mexico that a trader bearing his wares two centuries ago
had to leave the water and haul his cargo overland.
This was a great advantage to the traders. The wealth and prestige of the
Miami Indians who lived at the eastern end of the portage also were greatly
enhanced by their control of the portage. It is also among the chief reasons
that Anthony Wayne chose to build a fort here.
There were other portages between the great bodies of water that helped to
open the center of the continent. The Fox-Wisconsin River portage and the
"carrying place" between the Chicago and Illinois Rivers are among the best
known. The first used in Indiana (1679), and the shortest overland route
anywhere, was the 4 -mile track at today's South Bend, between the "Big St.
Joseph" and the Kankakee Rivers.
Portages led to great river
All of these portages led to the fabled Great River, or Mississippi,
which the very earliest travelers dreamed would take them to China and Japan.
But the Fort Wayne portage was the most direct route. Chief Little Turtle well
understood its importance and best described it when he called it the
"Glorious Gateway to the West" in 1795.
Although this portage was vital to the creation of Fort Wayne, it is a
route almost impossible to trace today. The best guess is that its eastern end
was at the great western bend in the St. Marys River near Swinney Park, or, in
the wet season, near the present-day intersection of Portage Boulevard and
Taylor Street. The western end was in Aboite Township near the crossing of
Hamilton Road and U.S. 24, at the headwaters of the Little River and near
Aboite Creek. Usually the route was about 9 miles long. In times of drought
or when beavers dammed the streams, however, one source notes that a canoe
might have to be carried 40 miles to the area of modern Huntington. But in
times of great flood, a canoe might be paddled the entire distance from the
St. Marys to the Little River without any carrying.
Drainage destroyed track
The actual track of the portage, however, is lost. The great 1880s
drainage project that emptied the 18,000-acre swamp in Aboite Township has all
but destroyed the frontier appearance of the land. But there probably were
several paths following high ground, depending on the season and whether it
was wet or dry.
This was an ancient portage. Used by the American Indians for thousands of
years, it was a major highway for Indian tribal movement out of the Wabash
valley and areas to the south and into northeastern Indiana and beyond. It was
first noted by Europeans in 1698, although it may have been known to exist as
early as 1632.
Because of the intense hostility of the Iroquois nation who regularly
raided the area and expelled the friendly tribes, the Maumee-Wabash portage
was the last of the great Midwestern portages to be exploited.
After the Iroquois were chased out in the 1690s, the Miamis were persuaded
to return to the Three Rivers and rebuild their village of Kekionga. They also
resumed control of the portage. Friendly to the French, the Miami allowed the
"voyageurs" and ragamuffin fur traders to travel to the interior, for a price.
Even as late as the 1870s, the portage area was commonly called the "Marais
de Peage," or Toll Road Swamp.
One of the oldest documents concerning the Fort Wayne area is the trade
agreement between the Miamis and brothers Pierre and Francois Roye, signed in
May 1719. By this agreement, the two Frenchmen were given trading privileges
at the Indian village of Lalabiche on the St. Marys River, near the area of
today's Van Buren Street bridge at Guildin Park.
Site of first fort
In 1721, not far from this site, the first fort, known as Fort Miami, was
built. To this place were brought the staples of trade, such as capotes (wool-
blanket coats), yard goods, steel knives, guns and black powder, and vermilion
by the pound. In exchange, the precious hides of fur-bearing animals,
especially beaver, were taken out, carried down the Maumee River to Lake Erie
and eventually to Quebec or other eastern markets.
The portage made the Miamis wealthy, and they came to enjoy power and
prestige in the region. Control of the crucial crossroads was the object of
British occupation of the Three Rivers area during the French and Indian War
that ended in 1763. Control of the portage was also a goal of the western
commanders of both the American and the British armies during the
Revolutionary War.
In the Indian wars that followed the Revolution in the 1790s, the
disastrous campaigns of the American generals Harmar and St. Clair were aimed
at the portage area. Anthony Wayne's successful campaign against the Indians
also was ultimately aimed at the conquest of Miamitown and control of the
portage.
Little Turtle defeated
By the time Chief Little Turtle, defeated at the Battle of Fallen Timbers
in 1794, came to the treaty grounds at Greenville, Ohio, the next year, a fort
had already been built by the Americans on the high ground overlooking the
confluence of the three rivers and the eastern end of the portage (the first
Fort Wayne).
Little Turtle pleaded for two main concessions from the Americans: Miami
possession of the confluence of the three rivers, and joint ownership of the
portage itself. "It was always ours," he told General Wayne. "This carrying
place has heretofore proved, in a great degree, the subsistence of your
younger brothers (predecessors). Let us both own this place, and enjoy the
common advantage it affords."
Wayne denied the chief's pleas, noting that by military right the United
States must control the ground around its fort "as far as their cannon can
command," and that such a profitable place was a public domain and should not
be the preserve of one party. Little Turtle finally had to agree to Wayne's
terms and signed the treaty.
Although the Miami nation's domination ended, control of many of the
profits of the "Swamp Toll Road" remained in the hands of Little Turtle's
sister, Tacumwa. For years before the War of 1812, when her son took over her
interests, Tacumwa had built a prosperous trade along the portage.
The importance of the portage began to decline sharply with the coming of
the Wabash and Erie Canal in the 1830s. By the Civil War, it was little more
than a track through the eastern marshes of the county. With the great
drainage project of the 1880s it virtually disappeared, leaving behind the
community to which it gave birth.
--Oct. 19. 2, 1993
