Eel River Post — Little Turtle's Fort
Near Fort Wayne, Indiana
Ten rods north of this spot stood one of the most historically layered sites in northern Indiana. A Miami trading post operated here in the mid seventeen hundreds, serving the fur-trade network of the Great Lakes. Later, the brilliant Miami war chief Little Turtle is said to have fortified the site, using it as a stronghold during the decades-long conflict over the Ohio Valley.
Little Turtle, whose real name was Mihšihkinaahkwa, led the Miami Confederacy to two of the worst American military defeats of the early republic, crushing General Harmar in seventeen ninety and General Saint Clair in seventeen ninety-one. After the Treaty of Greenville in seventeen ninety-five, the United States built a house for Little Turtle at this very site as a gesture of diplomatic recognition. That house was spared when Colonel Simrall razed the associated fort in late eighteen twelve, during the opening campaigns of the War of eighteen twelve.
