Ft. Wayne's Historic Iroquois Fort Circa 800 A.D.

Ft. Wayne's Historic Iroquois Fort Circa 800 A.D.

Artist's depiction of Ft. Wayne's historic Iroquois fortification circa 800 A.D.

5 forts were constructed in Fort Wayne from 1715 to the abandonment of the last after the War of 1812. The oldest fort was constructed by the Iroquois around 800 A.D., but unlike its the later French, British and American fortifications this one can still be seen today.   

ALLEN COUNTY, INDIANA

The History of Allen County Indiana, 1880

“Prehistoric Remains” by R. S. Robertson:

     Northern Indiana has many proofs of the presence of this race recorded almost indelibly upon its soil, and they have left some of their monuments in Allen County, but not as many, nor so extensive, as ones found in Ohio or to the southern part of Indiana.

While some of them were pushing upward, and making great settlements along the tributaries of the Ohio, others had passed further up the Mississippi, discovered The great Lakes, and entered into quite extensive copper mining operations on the shores of Lake Superior. Colonies had occupied Michigan, and as far south in Indiana as the Kankakee, and it from them, we think, that Allen County received the marks of their occupation. All along the valley of Cedar Creek, in DeKalb County, their mounds and earthworks appear in considerable number, but decrease in number as we proceed southward onto Allen County, and we totally wanting in the southern portion of the county.

    Still further down the river, on the west side, opposite Antraps Mill, is a semi-circular fort with its ends on the riverbank.

A series of  horseshoe shaped forts extended from the St. Joseph River in Allen County, (north of Ft. Wayne) down the Maumee to Toldeo, Ohio. The width of each of the forts was 200 feet.  Another fort was also located just west of Allen County at the headwaters of the Eel River in Whitley County.

The linear walls of Fort Wayne's first fort  leads to the riverbank and are still distinguishable along with the exterior moat.  This embankment once held a wooden stockade.

The largest earthen wall of the Iroquois fort is on the end on the north side of the work.  The wall no longer encloses the two parallel walls that run to the river, because a part was destroyed from farming.

Directions to 222 burial mounds and earthworks in Indiana, Ohio West Virginia, Kentucky and Michigan can be found in the most comprehensive guide to the ancient world.

GET IT HERE!

Iroquois Fish Weir on the Eel River, Wabash County, Indiana

Iroquois Fish Weir on the Eel River, Wabash County, Indiana

Large stone V - shaped Eel weir located in Wabash county, on the Eel River

View of the fish weir from the bridge.

The end of the fish weir has this chute where the Eel clkuld have been scooped up in baskets.

Contact-era accounts attest to the use of weirs by the various nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. Beauchamp (1900:133) mentions that the Onondagas and Oneidas employed eel weirs (of an indeterminate type) on the Onondaga River at Caughdenoy. He claims that "(e)arly travelers described these," although he provides no references. He may be referring to the account of Dablon, a Jesuit missionary to the Oneida, who wrote in 1670: "Our savages construct their dams and sluices so well, that they catch at the same time the Eels, that descend, and the Salmon, that always ascends" .

Beauchamp, William M., 1900: Aboriginal Occupation of New York

 Again, a description of this weir is lacking. An 1894 Bureau of American Ethnology report noted at the time that "(s)tone fish weirs yet remain in some New York streams, though many have been destroyed." That report specifically mentioned a stone weir in the Seneca River, and also refers to an account dating nearly 100 years earlier attesting to the existence of stone weirs in the Seneca River. This earlier account noted that they were "V"-shaped, being "well made of field stones of considerable size" (Thomas 1894:549). In 1900, Beauchamp described one of the Seneca River weirs (reported to be near Baldwinsville) as having "three bays of unequal length reaching up to the river as it tended to the north shore. It was built of fieldstone and was about 1,200 feet long." He claimed that the remains of a second weir existed nearby, and that "others are found elsewhere" (Bradley 1987:210).