Recollection Of Pioneer Life in The in Maumee Valley By Mrs. Ruth (Shirley) Austin Part 3

    Very few white people lived in that vicinity at the time of our arrival. Four French families were living in log cabins on the banks of the Maumee, above the point, and three American families on the Augliaze, one mile above the fort-two of these by name of Driver, one a silversmith, the other a shoe maker. Six miles below Fort Defiance, at Camp Number Three, there lived three American families, namely: Mr. John Perkins, Mr. Montgomery Evans, and Mr. Hively. Two of these families had looms, and wove flax and tow linen. Every farmer's wife took her spinning wheel with her to the new country. There were no sheep in that region then. In 1824, my brother James bought three sheep in Urbana, and drove them out to Defiance. There were two trading houses; one of these was just outside the fort, on the banks of the Maumee, and was kept by a Frenchman; the other was on the other side of the Maumee and was kept by Mr. Rice. The latter was quite a store; with everything for the Indian--blankets, bright cotton shawls, beads, ribbons, cloth (such as was worn by the squaws for strouds), and bright calicoes, used by the squaws for short sacques that came below the waist. The calico was 50 cents per yard. The Indian men wore calico shirts.

    The traders made the most profit from selling whiskey to the Indians.

    Mr. Burroughs was a blacksmith, and lived near  r ice's.

   The Ottawa Indians brought most of their trade to Defiance. It consisted of fur pelts of the otter, beaver, raccoon, bear, muskrat, mink, fox,and wild cat, also dressed deer skins; and besides these, beeswax (from the wild honey), ginseng, cranberries, and wide gooseberries.

    The squaws made beautiful floor mats out of the large rushes which grew on the islands and at the river's edge. They colored some of the rushes black, other yellow. The mats were from one and a half to yards long and one yard wide.
    All the travel, of both white and Indians, passed through the fort, except that which went on the river in pirogues or in bark canoes.
    At that time, there was not a white person living between Fort Defiance and Fort Wayne, Ind.
    Travelers planned so they could go through with the mail-carrier who carried the mail from Piqua to Fort Meigs (now Maumee City), or went in companies.
    There was a great deal of travel from Detroit to Fort Wayne, Green Bay and Chicago.
    All this passed through Fort Defiance.

    The Government paid the Miami Indians their annuities at Fort Wayne. The money, all silver, was  carried on pack-horses through Defiance. Four or five gentlemen, with the men who drove the pack-horses, made up the company. They had to camp out in the wilderness, but I never heard of any being molested in any way. Our fears in regard to the hostility were groundless. There were very few depredations committed by the men on the property of the whites, and when they did, it was when drunk on the whisky sold to them by the traders. Sometimes pigs would be found with arrows in their sides. If any white man's property was damaged by Indians, the amount of damage claimed and sworn to was paid by the Indian Agent out of the annuities of the whole tribe to which the offenders belonged.