SITE OF FORT MIAMIS First white settlement in Indiana; fortified by French by 1712. Located among the Miami Indians. Burned in 1747 and rebuilt on the St. Joseph River. [ This marker was along the St. Marys River. ]
Post Miami – The First French Fort
The Mary Penrose Wayne Chapter, NSDAR, erected the original plaque on the southwest corner near the Van Buren Street bridge over the Saint Mary’s River on September 16, 1932. After the original marker was lost in a flood, the chapter replaced the original with a large, white metal sign on June 12, 1983. This sign is located on the southeast corner of the bridge in Guldlin Park. The text of the marker reads:
POST MIAMI
THE SITE OF THE FIRST FRENCH FORT
BUILT ABOUT 1680
It was installed in 1948 by the Indiana Historical Bureau and stated: First white settlement in Indiana; fortified by French by 1712. Located among the Miami Indians. Burned in 1747 and rebuilt on St. Joseph River from Indiana Historical Markers. There was also an 1983 DAR marker shown in a Google map photo.
French built a palisaded fort on this strategic site in 1722; named Fort Saint Philippe des Miamis. One of three French forts built in what is now Indiana to protect French fur trade from encroaching English. First of five forts built over time within a square mile of the center of present-day Fort Wayne.
Side two:
Nearby confluence of St. Mary's and St. Joseph's rivers forms Maumee River, a strategic central part of the waterways system connecting Great Lakes regions with Mississippi River Valley. Using a portage between Maumee and Wabash rivers, travelers could journey nearly 2,500 miles by water from French Canada to Louisiana.
Where the First French Forts Stood on page 34 of The pictorial history of Fort Wayne, Indiana : a review of two centuries of occupation of the region about the head of the Maumee River by Griswold, B. J. (Bert Joseph), 1873-1927; Taylor, Samuel R., Mrs, Publication date 1917 on Archive.org. A map drawn by Father Jean Bonnecamps while on the site of Fort Wayne in 1749 (forty-five years before the coming of General Wayne) shows that the French fort of that period (Post Miami) stood on a site which may now be described as a point on the right bank of the St. Mary's river, a short distance north of the Nickel Plate railroad tracks (see map). The commandants in succession appear to have been Jean Baptiste Bissot, Sieur de Vincennes (1697), Francois Morgane, Sieur de Vincennes (1725), Ensign Douville (1734), Ensign Dubuisson (1747), M. de Raimond (1748). Ralmond, in 1750, abandoned the place and erected the last French fort on a site at the junction of the present St. Joe boulevard and Delaware avenue, on the St. Joseph river, a point also within the present city of Fort Wayne.
Fort Wayne’s first fort was built as a dream of the French, and especially the renowned 17th century explorer Robert Sieur de La Salle, to create a wilderness empire that arced through the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River valley from Quebec to New Orleans. Is the first sentence of the First Fort of the Fort by Tom Castaldi, local historian posted October 9, 2014 on History Center Notes & Queries blog. Fort Miami (Indiana) at Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
The First French Fort on the West Central Trail Guldlin Park at ARCH ( Architecture and Community Heritage).
Page 43 in Chapter V--1733-1749 The Last French Posts of the Site of Fort Wayne is WHERE THE LAST FRENCH FORT STOOD — SCENE OF THE HOLMES MURDER OF 1763 in The pictorial history of Fort Wayne, Indiana : a review of two centuries of occupation of the region about the head of the Maumee River by Griswold, B. J. (Bert Joseph), 1873-1927; Taylor, Samuel R., Mrs, Publication date 1917 on Archive.org. The landscape is a view looking up the St. Joseph river in Fort Wayne from a point near the junction of St. Joe boulevard and Delaware avenue. On the high ground at the right. M. de Raimond erected the last of the French forts in 1750. Raimond at that time abandoned the site on the St. Mary's river, near the present Nickel Plate railroad tracks. It was from the new fort that Raimond wrote in alarm to the French governor of Canada that "nobody wants to stay here and have his throat cut: if the English stay in this country we are lost — we must attack and drive them out." In 1760, the fort fell to the British. Ensign Robert Holmes, three years later, was murdered by the Indians and the men of the garrison were taken prisoners. The Murder of Holmes is discussed on page 60.
Newspaper ad Do You Know That Fort Wayne Was Once a French Fort! with a map showing 1750 Post Miami.
For Throwback Thursday, we thought you all might enjoy the first in a series run around late April of 1937 as advertising for Wolf and Dessauer (Iconic Fort Wayne Department Store) in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette. As noted the information was gathered from author B.J. Griswold's "History of Fort Wayne". This is Number One in a 10 part series, so keep an eye out next Thursday for Number 2. As a sidebar, these were undated, so we researched dates from pieces of articles which appear on the flip side. Did you know that Johnny Dickshot of the Pittsburgh Pirates hit a home run on April 27, 1937????? We didn't think so!
