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Agricultural Machinery, &c..—Seven establishments are engaged in the handling of agricultural machinery, whose annual sales exceed $180,000. These goods, however, are chiefly manufactured abroad. Bakeries.—Ten are reported. The value of the raw material consumed and aggregate profits, would make a good exhibit, if they could be ascertained. Bank and Bankers.—Statistics of this important element that exercises so great power on the business of a community, could not be ascertained. There are five institutions, however, and all substantial. The Fort Wayne National Bank is one of the oldest and Fort Wayne in 1872 - 391 most solid institutions in Indiana—having existed prior to its organization under the National Banking act during many years, under a State Charter, and organized and managed, chiefly, by Hon. Hugh McCulloch, late Secretary of the United States Treasury, and now principal of a leading banking house in London. Then there is the Merchant's National, the Bank of Hamilton, Allen & Co., the Fort Wayne Savings Bank and the First National Bank. Band Saw Mill.—[See "Black Walnut Lumber and Sawed Chair Stuff." Also, " Saw Mills."] Boarding Houses.—Thirty-six. Boiler Makers.—Three, employing in the aggregate a capital and manual force that renders it one of the most important industries of Fort Wayne. Statistics of one of these appears under the head of "Stationary Steam Engines, Boilers,'' &c., the establishment of J. C. Bowser & Co. Book Binders.—Two, Dumm & Fleming and Davis & Bro. Books and Stationery.—Four well-stocked establishments. Boots and Shoes.—Thirty-five the stocks being mostly imported. Black Walnut Lumber and Sawed Chair stuff—Hoffman Bros. employ in this industry sixty hands, and produce an annual value amounting to $125,000. Car Wheels.—The establishment of John H. Bass gives employment to eight hundred hands in the manufacture of car wheels, boilers, &c. Carpets, Oil Cloths, &c.—Two houses are engaged exclusively in this trade. Carriages and Wagons.—Six establishments manufacturing extensively. Chair Stuff.—One by J. R. Hoffman & Bros. Children's Carriages.—Three firms engaged in this manufacture. Cigars and Tobacco.—Twelve establishments, the larger number of which manufacture cigars. Clothing.—It is estimated that twelve clothing establishments make annual sales amounting to $250,000, and that about twenty per cent. of this amount is manufactured in Fort Wayne. Drugs, Medicines, &c.—Fifteen stores, one of which, (Meyer, Bros. & Co.,) wholesale to a large amount, and the store of H. G. Wagner is one of the most attractive business houses in the city. Dry Goods.—Nine establishments, one of which sells only at wholesale. 392 - Fort Wayne in 1872. Other Stores.—Six flour and feed, one variety, nine liquor and wines, twelve sewing machine agencies, two periodical depots, twelve millinery, twelve notions, four looking glasses, five harness, saddler &c., four hair work, jewelry, &c., six hats and caps, one hoop skirts and corsets, four fur dealers, ten furniture, fourteen gentlemen furnishing goods, five fruit dealers, five fancy goods, eight stove a hardware, four china, glass and queensware, one dental goods and one tin and glassware. Groceries.—Three wholesale and sixty-eight retail houses. The sales during the current year of one of these houses is estimated at $800,000. Two establishments trade in guns, pistols, &c., seven in hides, pelts and furs, four in horse collars, one in knitting machines, one in lap window shades, six in leather, findings, &c., five in lime, plaster and cement. Gas Works.—The Fort Wayne gas works use thirteen miles of street main, and supply six hundred and six customers. There is probably no establishment, either in Europe or America, which contains in its management so large a degree of science and intelligent business skill as that which, chiefly under Mr. H. H. Edgerton, sec- retary of the company, controls the Fort Wayne gas works. Hotels.—There are twelve well-conducted hotels, name Mayer, Aveline, American, Harmon, European, Exchange, Fox, Hedekin, Old Fort, Phillips, Robinson and Union. Iron, Steel and Heavy Hardware.—The estimated sales of these lines of goods, made by two firms, exceed annually $750,000 a considerable proportion of which is at wholesale. Photographers.—The city contains five photograph galleries. One of these, under the management of J. A. Shoaff, produces works of art equal to those issued from the best establishments in the United States. The proprietor has devoted his life to his profession, and is owner of Shoaff's Automatic Solar Camera, and other improvements which enable him to produce with marked accuracy miniature or life-size likenesses. The photographs from which were engraved the likenesses of Messrs. A. P. Edgerton, Pliny Hoagland, J.L. Williams and Win. S. Edsall, were executed by Mr. Shoaff. Plows.—The Fort Wayne Steel Plow Company, have invested a capital of $65,000, and give employment to thirty-five hands. The company have the capacity of making 10,000 plows annually, equivalent to a gross product of $100,000 in value. Fort Wayne in 1872 - 393 Saw Mills.—Four saw mills produce nearly six millions feet of lumber annually. The owners of two that manufacture the larger proportion of this amount, are Hoffman Bros., who make use Of an invention, a patent for which was secured by one of them, and the proprietorship of which exists in the firm, that is of sufficient public value to render a special mention justifiable. The invention is one of the most important that has been made, relating to the lumber product, during the present century. It is known as Hoffman's Patent Band Saw Mill, and the following are some of its features : It is a new application of the principle of the Band Saw, heretofore in use only for scroll sawing, to a purpose that makes it successful i converting into lumber the largest logs that are gathered from then forest. An elaborate description of it cannot here be given, but the . following points are justly claimed for it : 1st. Saving of Lumber. Ordinary saws cut five-sixteenths of an inch saw-kerf, while many in actual practice cut three-eights.. This Band saw Cuts ONE-TWELFTH. In sawing 1,000 feet of inch boards, a saw cutting five-sixteenths of an inch will turn 312 feet of lumber, into sawdust. This saw, cutting one-twelfth of an inch kerf, makes. 83 feet into sawdust. This shows a saving of 229 feet of lumber on each thousand feet of inch boards sawed. In sawing thinner lumber-the saving is greater. In valuable timber the saving in sawdust alone pays the first cost of the mill in six months. 2d. Saving of Power. Twelve-horse power is all that is required to cut 5,000 feet of hard wood lumber, or 8,000 feet of soft, per day. 3d. Making Better Lumber. With this saw can be made boards of any required width, limited only by the size of the log. They leave no offset. 4th. Freedom from Danger.—Every year scores, if not hundreds, of men are killed or maimed by circular saws. These saws are perfectly safe. Stationary Steam Engines, Tubular and Fluid Boilers, Tanks and Saw Mills..—The house of J. C. Bowser & Co., use raw material to the amount of $75,000, manufacture annually a value of $200,000, and employ an average force of seventy-five hands. This firm, the members of which consist of Messrs. Jacob C. Bowser, Joseph R. Prentiss and Daniel M. Falls, are each, in his sphere, thoroughly practical and energetic business men ; and as evidences of the remarkable success of their enterprise, it may be stated that their work is shipped chiefly to New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and other States east; thus, by reason of the character of their goods, 394 - Fort Wayne in 1872. coming into successful competition with establishments founded when the Maumee Valley was comparatively a wilderness. The person who, even twenty years ago, would have suggested that an establishment for the manufacture of the heaviest iron machinery would one day spring up at what was then the small town of Fort Wayne, and ship their work to the Atlantic States, would have been considered but a small remove from insanity. Yet the fact exists, and to business men of their stamp is the city of Fort Wayne largely indebted for its unexampled prosperity. Watches, Clocks, Jewelry, Solid and Plated Silver Ware, &c.—Five jewelry establishments make sales amounting annually to $200,000. The house of Messrs. Geo. J. E. Mayer and F. Voirol, opposite the Fort Wayne and First National Banks, Main street, is among the most reliable and extensive in Indiana, and justly noted for the pure quality of their goods. The city also contains eight lumber yards, five livery stables, fourteen meat markets, five saddlery and harness stores and shops, eleven barber shops, and ten confectionery establishments. Among the manufacturing establishments not heretofore enumerated, are the following: One flax mill; one linseed oil mill; four marble manufactories; three mattress manufactories; one mustard manufactory; one paper mill; one paper box factory; one organ factory; one pottery; the Fort Wayne agricultural works, manufacturing reapers and mowers; six breweries; two brass foundries; four broom factories; four candy factories; ten bakeries; four cooper shops; one basket maker; thirteen blacksmith shops; two establishments manufacturing trunks, valises, etc., and giving employment to thirty-six hands; two chair factories; fourteen dressmakers, one hat and cap establishment, employing eleven hands; four planing and flooring mills, one of which employs eighty-five men, and turns out an annual product, including building material, amounting to $80,000; one spice mill; one woolen mill; one spoke and hub factory; two manufactories of staves and heading; three tanneries; one umbrella maker; five upholsterers; three vinegar factories; and two establishments that manufacture window blinds and shades. Standing upon the cupola of the Court House, and looking over the city, and counting the chimney or " smoke stacks," one discovers that there are twenty-nine manufacturing establishments in Fort Wayne operated by steam. Pioneer Notes—William S. Edsall - 395 Transportations--Railroads.—Primarily, and when the North West was only inhabited by Indian tribes:and scattered settlements of French and English traders, clustered around military posts, the town was the entrepot for a trade of considerable magnitude between Lake Erie and the country west and south, and also was the gate-way of the early commerce that floated down to it on the St. Mary's, in flat-boats and pirogues. These primitive and expensive means of transport were succeeded by the canal, opened in 1843, and this by the railroad system. It would be a matter of public interest to trace the origin and progress of the several railroad lines, which have exercised an influence so powerful in securing the rapid concentration of population and wealth at Fort Wayne. A dilligent and patient effort to obtain the necessary statistics was made, but failed chiefly by reason of the refusal of the local manager of the first established and most important road (the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne & Chicago,) to furnish the necessary statistics, although a clerical force was tendered free of charge to the company. The application made to W. F. Ray, Master Mechanic of the Toledo, Wabash & Western Railway Company, was more successful, and the substance of his communication is appended : The value of the shops at Fort Wayne, at present, is about $275,000, but these will be increased in extent and value soon. The number of men employed is about 300; what proportion of them have families residing in Fort Wayne, I cannot say, but should judge as many as two-thirds, and half that number, or as many as one hundred, own their houses where they live, and many own lots, intending to build on them. In addition to the two great lines mentioned, the following named roads have Fort Wayne as one of their terminating points : Grand Rapids & Indiana; Michigan Lake Shore; Fort Wayne, Jackson & Saginaw; Fort Wayne, Muncie & Cincinnati ; Cincinnati, Richmond & Fort Wayne. The seven lines now in operation, and others projected, are probably destined to place Fort Wayne the first in the list of Indiana's cities. Recurring to the era of the first settlement of the Maumee Valley by the Anglo Saxon race, there will be found much of value and interest in the reminiscences which follow :
NOTES REGARDING THE EDSALL FAMILY. An early pioneer of Fort Wayne, and identified with measures that secured its first public improvements, including canal, mud turnpike and plank road enterprises, as well as those involving im- 396 - Pioneer Notes—William S. Edsall. portant commercial schemes, and who is yet living, is William 8 Edsall, the present county clerk of Allen county, and the fourth son of Peter and Catharine Edsall, who emigrated from Orange county, New York, in the Year 1812. The family then consisted of the parents and four children. They reached Pittsburg by wag, ons, at which point they embarked aboard a flat boat, to which tile family and goods were transferred, and descended the Ohio river to Cincinnati. Here they landed, and the crew, securing the craft to a large tree on the bank of the river, encamped near the shore. During the night, and in a heavy wind and rain storm, the tree was uprooted, and, falling upon the boat, forced it to the river bottom, carrying with it nearly every vestige of their outfit, including even the bible, containing the family record. From thence they proceeded up to where Miamisburg, Montgomery county, Ohio, now stands, and rented a small piece of ground, and with the limited means lett, bought the necessary farming utensils and seeds for putting in a crop. They remained upon this rented land two years, and then removed to Darke county, near Greenville, where they resided pending the negotiations of the treaty; concluded at Greenville, July 22, 1814; at which place, by keeping a shanty boarding house, they recuperated sufficiently to get up respectable trains, and removed to St. Mary's, Ohio, (now Auglaize county,) and during the treaty-making, resulting in several treaties, [hitherto cited in this volume] made at that town with sundry tribes of Indians in the months of September and October, 1818, the family a second time resorted to the boarding house business, and were sufficiently rewarded to enable them, in 1819, to purchase an eighty acre tract of land on the south side of Shane's prairie, three miles south of Shane's Crossing; and here the husband and father died, in 1822. When the Edsalls located on the prairie, the families they found there were the Dennisons, Chivingtons, Roebucks, William B. Hedges and .Anthony Shane. In the meantime, since leaving New York, five children had been added to the household. The widowed mother, desiring to execute the oft-expressed wish of her husband to secure an education for her children—that being the sole aim of the life of herself and husband, of whom she was now bereft—removed, in 1824, to Fort Wayne. Reaching this place at the date mentioned, with a family of children now increased to nine—six sons and three daughters—she proposed to her three eldest sons, namely : Samuel, John and Simon, that they go out from her, and make free choice of their several trades, and stipulate for education as part consideration for their service—this form of apprenticeship then being in conformity with the law and custom of the country. The youngest of the three named. Simon, devotedly attached to his mother, declined to leave her, on the ground that his choice was that of farming, and furthermore that his energies would be required at home to aid in sustaining his mother and the younger members of the family in their rugged ways Pioneer Notes—William S. Edsall - 397 of life - his junior brother, William S., being then only thirteen years of age, and sup posed to be too young to contribute anything beyond the amount necessary to support himself. In accordance with this arrangement, Colonel agreed upon by the mother and children, Samuel, the eldest, made choice of the carpenter and joiner trade, and was apprentice to Colonel Hugh Hanna ; an John, the second, was apprenticed. to John McAllister, tailor. . .. The business life of William S. commenced under the circumstances hereafter mentioned: In 1826, a corps of united States Topographical Engineers, under command of Col. James Shriver, was detailed to survey a route for the Wabash and Erie Canal. In May or June of that year the survey was commenced at Fort Wayne, and but little progress and been made, when the whole party was prostrated by sickness, a Colonel Shriver soon. afterwards died in the old Fort. He was succeeded by his assistant, Colonel Asa Moore, under whose direction the survey was prosecuted during the years 1826 and 1827, down the Wabash to the mouth of Tippecanoe, and continued along the Maumee at the head. in 1827-28, until Col. Moore also fell a victim to disease, dying in his tent .d of the Maumee rapids, on the 4th. of October, 1828. Mr. Edsall was an attache of the is engineer corps, and suffered from the prevalent diseases of country. FORT WAYNE IN 1822. During the residence of the Edsall family on Shane's prairie, the senior and his three eldest sons, viz : Samuel John and Simon, in 1819 and 1820, made trips to Fort Wayne, in the summers of those years, and cut and cured hay for the subsistence of the stock of the traders at that point. The hay was obtained from the extensive prairie west of the Fort. The wants of the traders required large quantities of hay to subsist the stock of their Indian customers, who would congregate at the place during the winter months for purposes of trade. As exhibiting the general features of the prairie at that period, it is stated that principal portion of the grass was cut in places where the water covered the surface from six to fifteen inches, and the saturated herb was then placed on litters, and transferred to the higher ground for the purpose of curing. A portion of that same ground is now, though wet, tolerably adapted to purposes of tillage, and is susceptible of reclamation by drainage into the sources of the Wabash, and will ultimately become the most fertile portion of Allen County.
These summer trips of Mr. Edsall and his sons to Fort Wayne were satisfactorily remunerative, furnishing a market for the surplus farm products which they would carry to the Fort Wayne market on the outward trips, and the hay enterprise, realizing sufficient to afford considerable recompense. These visits impressed Mr. and
398 - Pioneer Notes—William S. Edsall.
Mrs. Edsall so favorably regarding Fort Wayne that they concluded it was destined to become an important point, favorable to the great purpose they had in view of educating their children; and a removal had been contemplated before the death of Mr. Peter Edsall, which occurred, as before stated, in 1822. After his death the three sons pursued the custom of their father, in spending the hay-making season at Fort Wayne.
In the summer of 1823, the elder brother being at Fort passing Gundy, a neighbor, was passing their house, on Shane's prairie, with a load of bacon for the Fort Wayne market, and it was agreed that Wm. S. should accompany him and ascertain the condition of his brothers. The distance was forty miles, and the trip to the Fort occupied ten days—there being no regular road, except the old trail of Gen. Wayne, and fallen timber frequently interposing obstacles in following it, and rendering it necessary to cut new passages. Between Shane's prairie and the Fort, there was only one house, and that on the Twenty-Four Mile Creek, occupied by George Ayres, a British deserter. Capt. Riley, however, was residing at Willshire, on the opposite bank of the river . Reaching Fort Wayne, the junior Edsall found occupying the block houses within the iort, Gen. John Tipton, Indian Agent, Jos. Holman, Receiver, and Samuel C. Vance, Register of the United States Land Office; two taverns, kept respectively by Colonel Alexander Ewing and Colonel William Suttenfield--the former situated on the south side of Columbia street, corner of Barr, and the latter on the opposite, or diagonal, corner of the same streets; and to the proprietors of these two taverns Mr. Gundy sold his freight of bacon. The merchandise business was principally in the hands of the licensed Indian traders, namely.: Comparet & Coquillard, agents of the American Fur Company ; Colonel Alexander Ewing, and his sons, Wm. G. and George W. ; George Hunt, Chief Richardville, James Barnett, Samuel Hanna and Thomas Forsyth; a retail gingerbread, candy and beer establishment, kept by the father of the late Xenas Henderson, (the latter being a lad at the time.) The latter establishment occupied the site on Columbia street, where now stands the hardware store of B. W. Oakley & Son. Among those, then residents of the place, and connected with the Indian trade, were Francis Aveline, alias St. Jule, father of the late Francis S. Aveline, who built the Hotel in the city now known by the family name; James Peltier,father of Louis Peltier, now a resident of Fort Wayne; John Baptiste Bruno, Richard Chobert, Francis and Charles Minnie, John Baptiste Bourie, father of the late John B. Bourie, Joseph Barron, John P. Hedges, John B. Bequett, (an Indian trinket manufacturer,) John Baptiste Durett and Antoine Gamblin.
Among the farmers of the neighborhood were Captain Hackley, (son-in-law of the distinguished Captain Wells,) who cultivated very imperfectly a few acres, which now constitute the northern margin of the city, and whose Louse stood upon the ground near
Pioneer Notes--- William S. Edsall - 399
the foot of Calhoun street, on the north bank of the St. Mary's.
Among the names above mentioned, one of the most far-sighted a philanthropic, was that of James Barnett. Discovering, clearly, an en in the rude condition of the country in which he lived, that Fort Wayne was destined to become a city of importance, he gave freely of his time and energies to every. scheme that was detised to give the place a start in the race of business life ; and no appeal for the exercise of Christian charity was ever made to him without meeting with a generous response.
He passed through Fort Wayne a few years after the close of the last war with Great Britain, driving a lot of hogs for the use of the garrison at Fort Dearborn. He subsequently, as before mentioned, established himself in business at Fort Wayne, and actively engaged in every well-devised enterprise designed to promote the public prosperity.
The writer is informed by the subject of this sketch, that at the time this survey was made, there were only six white families resident of the whole district between Fort Wayne and the mouth of the Tippecanoe river—a distance of 134 miles. These were Champion Helvey, at the confluence of the Salamonie with the Wabash; Major Harsh, (brother-in-law of Col. McCorkle, one of the original proprietors of Fort Wayne,) who occupied a tenement on the old treaty ground where Wabash now stands ; Benjamin Chamberlain, residing at the mouth of Eel river, opposite Logansport ; Major Daniel Bell, then on the ground upon which is now Logansport; Mrs. Hicks, at the mouth of Rock creek, twelve miles below Logansport, and an old Mr. Baum, at the mouth of Deer creek, now the town of Delphi.
The widow Edsall occupied a cabin on the banks of the St. Mary's, near where the county jail is now located, and which was near the usually traveled route of the Indians trading at the rival establishments of Wm. G. & George . W. Ewing, Barnett & Hanna, Francis Comparet and Alexis Coquillard. In the seasons when the Indians came to trade they would generally encamp on the opposite, or north side of the St..Mary's, and cross over and spend a portion or the whole of the day on the Fort Wayne side. Canoes were in demand to ferry the Indians, and also frequently the traders, and young Edsall discovered an opportunity of making some money for the use of the household by the establishment of a ferry. Among others, the Ewings, on their visits to the Indian camps, were frequently his customers; and Wm. G. Ewing, after some acquaintance, thus formed, proposed to the boy that he engage with himself and brother, an hed become instructed in the mysteries of trade and commerce. The proposition was highly acceptable to the lad, but he referred it to his mother, and an arrangement was concluded, and in Oetober,1827, at. the of sixteen years, a contract was made by which he entered their service, and continued until 1832, spending the last two years with George W. Ewing, at Logansport, In the spring of the last named. |
