82 EXPKDITIOiV TO THK ' 



the time of the year when they attend to their farming 

 avocations, the chiefs had used their influence to keep their 

 people from going to the fort. This delay prevented the 

 immediate distribution of the annuity, and offered to 

 the most idle and worthless of the tribes an inducement 

 and an excuse for frequenting the town. 



Fort Wayne, as it now stands, was erected in 1814, on the 

 site of the old fort, the situation of which had been selected 

 by General Wayne after his victory over the Indians. It 

 is a square palisade, protected at two of its angles by block 

 houses, calculated to be defended with artillery. The fort 

 is considered as a good specimen of stockade fortification, 

 which answers very well as a defence in Indian warfare. An 

 improvement which it possesses, and which these works 

 do not all present, is that of giving to the roofs of the bar- 

 racks and other buildings enclosed by the palisade an 

 inclination in one direction only, and this towards the area 

 of the work ; the advantage of which is to afford to the 

 besieged a protection against their assailants, when forced 

 to ascend the roofs, in order to put out fires occasioned by 

 arrows conveying combustibles to the tops of houses, as is 

 frequently practised by the Indians. The fort lies on the east 

 side of St. Mary river, immediately opposite to its junction 

 with the St. Joseph. On the other side of the Maumee we 

 were shown the spot rendered conspicuous by the defeat of 

 General Harmer's army in 1791. This might, we think, 

 more correctly be called Harden's defeat, as by the account 

 of it furnished both by Marshall and Ramsay, it appears 

 that the detachment that was cut up was commanded by 

 Colonel Harden.* Indeed, the whole of the country about 

 the upper part of the Grand Miami and Maumee, (generally 



• Marshall's life of Washington, Vol. 3. p. 302. 



