William Wells (soldier)
William Wells | |
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Relations | Little Turtle, Samuel Wells |
William Wells (c. 1770 – 15 August 1812), also known as Apekonit ("Carrot top"), was the son-in-law of Chief
Apekonit of the Miami
Wells was born at Jacob's Creek, Pennsylvania, in 1770. He was the son of Samuel Wells, a captain in the Virginia militia during the American Revolutionary War.[1] The family moved to Louisville, Kentucky, in 1779 and settled on Beargrass Creek when William was nine and, shortly after, his mother died. After Miami warriors ambushed settlers evacuating Squire Boone's station in 1782, Wells' father was killed in a second ambush the following day, and young Wells went to live with the family of William Pope. Two years later in 1784, he and three other boys were taken captive by an Eel River Miami and Delaware raiding party and taken to Indiana. Wells was 13 years old at the time.
Wells was adopted by a chief named Gaviahate ("Porcupine"), and raised in the village of Kenapakomoko (Snakefish Town) on the Eel River, six miles north from Logansport in northern Indiana. His Miami name was "Apekonit" (carrot), perhaps in reference to his red hair.[2] He seems to have adapted to Miami life quite well and accompanied war parties – perhaps even serving to decoy flatboats along the Ohio River.
Wells was located and visited by his brother Cary around 1788 or 1789. He visited his family in Louisville but remained with the Miami, perhaps because he had married a Wea woman and had a child. His wife and daughter were later captured in a raid by General James Wilkinson in 1791 and taken to Cincinnati. Meanwhile, under the command of the great Miami war chief Little Turtle, Wells led a group of Miami sharpshooters at St. Clair's defeat in 1791,[3] the biggest victory the Native Americans ever won against the U. S. Army. The next year, in an effort to free the Indians held hostage, Wells returned to Louisville. In Louisville his brother Sam encouraged him to travel to Cincinnati to meet with Rufus Putnam, who hired Wells to help him make a treaty with the Native Americans in Vincennes,[3] where the hostages were freed. Putnam then hired Wells to spy on the confederated Indian councils in 1792 and 1793 along the Maumee River in northwest Ohio.
While his first wife was held captive in Cincinnati, Wells married Little Turtle's daughter Wanagapeth ("Sweet Breeze"), with whom he had four children. The children of Wells and Wanagapeth were Anne, wife of Dr. William Turner of Fort Wayne; Mary, wife of James Wolcott; Rebecca, wife of James Hackley of Fort Wayne; Jane Turner, wife of John H. Griggs; and William Wayne Wells, a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point.
On 11 September 1793, Wells arrived at
Wells became the equivalent of a
Wells was wounded a few days before the Battle of Fallen Timbers when, on a dare, he led his group of spies into a camp of 15 Delaware warriors and struck up a casual conversation. The spies fled when they were finally discovered, but Wells was shot in the hand and received fractures to his wrist.[8] He still was able to give Wayne crucial advice about when to attack that helped secure the victory. The next year he was an interpreter for the Wabash Indians (Miami, Eel River, Wea, Piankeshaw, Kickapoo, and Kaskaskia) at the Treaty of Greenville, in which the Indian confederation ceded most of Ohio. As interpreter he stood between his father-in-law Little Turtle, who was the only chief to vigorously resist the terms imposed, and General Wayne, Wells's commander in chief. Little Turtle, who was the last to sign the treaty, requested that Wells be sent as an Indian agent to the Miami stronghold of Kekionga, now under American control and renamed Fort Wayne.
William Wells, U.S. Indian Agent
Following the Treaty of Greenville, Chief Little Turtle asked that Wells be appointed as a US
When
In 1805, Governor Harrison sent General
After Sweet Breeze died in 1805, William sent his daughters to live with his brother, Samuel Wells, in Kentucky. He and Little Turtle traveled to Vincennes, where they gave a "friendly disposition ... toward the government," Harrison wrote. "With Captain Wells, I have had an explanation, and have agreed to a general amnesty and act of oblivion for the past."[12] William and Little Turtle signed Harrison's Treaty of Grouseland. In 1808, however, Wells led a group of Indian chiefs from different tribes, including Miami Chiefs Little Turtle and Richardville, to Washington, D.C. to meet directly with President Jefferson. This infuriated Secretary of War Henry Dearborn, who fired Wells and replaced him with his rival, John Johnston.[13]
In 1809, William married his third wife, Mary Geiger, daughter of Colonel Frederick Geiger.
Wells had the support of the Miami chiefs and of Kentucky Senator John Pope and went to Washington, DC to challenge Johnston's decision. Ultimately, Wells' position was left in the hands of territorial Governor William Henry Harrison who, though distrustful of Wells, sided with the Miami out of fear that they could join Tecumseh if provoked.[16] William Wells continued to act as United States Indian Agent in Fort Wayne, and was able to keep the Miami out of Tecumseh's confederacy. He was the first to warn United States Secretary of War Henry Dearborn in 1807, of the growing movement led by Tecumseh and his brother.[17] William's eldest brother, Colonel Samuel Wells, and his father-in-law, Frederick Geiger, were both at the Battle of Tippecanoe; Geiger was wounded in the initial attack.[18]
Wells also established and managed a farm in Fort Wayne, which he jointly owned with his friend Jean François Hamtramck.[19] He petitioned Congress for a 1,280-acre (5.2 km2) tract of land at the confluence of the St. Joseph and St. Mary rivers in 1807, which was granted and signed by President Jefferson.[b] Little Turtle died in his home in 1812, and was buried nearby.
Fort Dearborn
In 1812, the Madison administration failed to notify the frontier that the United States was about to declare war on Great Britain. As a result, the British and Indians knew several days before the Americans that hostilities had broken out. Hundreds of Potawatomi warriors surrounded Fort Dearborn (present day Chicago) and demanded its surrender. Wells led a group of Miami Indians from Fort Wayne, Indiana, to aid the evacuation of Fort Dearborn. Among the Americans under siege at Fort Dearborn was his niece Rebekah Wells, wife of the post commander Nathan Heald. Wells' intent was to offer protection to the garrison and their families – about 96 people, about a third of which were women and children – as they abandoned the post and walked east to Fort Wayne. Negotiating with the Potawatomi, who surrounded the fort along the Chicago River, they were allowed to leave the fort, but the destruction of whiskey and guns enraged the Potawatomi, who then attacked once they had marched south from the fort, a massacre known as the Battle of Fort Dearborn. Nathan and Rebekah Heald were both wounded, but were taken into captivity by the Potawatomi and eventually ransomed to the British.
Wells, who was acting as a scout in advance of the party, knew the Indians would attack and had painted his face black: a sign of bravery, a sign to the Potawatomi that he knew their intentions, and as a sign that he knew he was going to die. As the evacuated garrison walked down the beach, Wells rode in advance to keep an eye on the Potawatomi, and he was one of the first to fall when they attacked. The "battle" took place in the dunes along Lake Michigan about a mile south of the Chicago River, in what is now downtown Chicago. Wells was shot and killed by the
Wells had a will dated 1810 that instructed his wife Mary "Polly" and five of his children to "share and share alike."[24] Polly remarried in 1817 to Robert Turner in Louisville.[24]
Legacy
The following are named for William Wells:
- Wells Street in Chicago, Illinois
- Wells County, Indiana
- Wells Street in Fort Wayne, Indiana
Notes
- ^ Allison (1986), p. 100.
- ^ Carter (1987), p. 84.
- ^ a b Hogeland (2017), p. 262.
- ^ Gaff (2004), pp. 149–150.
- ^ Gaff (2004), p. 173.
- ^ Allison (1986), p. 106.
- ^ Allison (1986), p. 110.
- ^ Gaff (2004), pp. 285–287.
- ^ Allison (1986), p. 119.
- ^ a b Allison (1986), p. 120.
- ^ a b Allison (1986), p. 121.
- ^ a b Poinsatte (1976), pp. 46–47.
- ^ Allison (1986), p. 123.
- ^ Carter (1987), p. 205.
- ^ Poinsatte (1976), p. 31.
- ^ Carter (1987), p. 207.
- ^ Poinsatte (1976), p. 50.
- ^ Carter (1987), p. 216.
- ^ Poinsatte (1976), p. 36.
- ^ Journal of the Senate of the United States of America, 1789–1873, November 26, 1807
- ^ Journal of the Senate of the United States of America, 1789–1873, March 18, 1808
- ^ Birzer (2005).
- ^ Gaff (2004), p. 363.
- ^ a b Heath 2015, p. 397.
References
- Allison, Harold (1986). The Tragic Saga of the Indiana Indians. Turner Publishing CompanyPaducah. ISBN 0-938021-07-9.
- Birzer, Bradley J. (2005). "Miamis". Encyclopedia of Chicago. Chicago Historical Society.
- Carter, Harvey Lewis (1987). The Life and Times of Little Turtle: First Sagamore of the Wabash. Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0-252-01318-2.
- ISBN 0-8061-3585-9.
- Heath, William (2015). William Wells and the Struggle for the Old Northwest. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 9780806151472.
- Hogeland, William (2017). Autumn of the Black Snake. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. LCCN 2016052193.
- Poinsatte, Charles (1976). Outpost in the Wilderness: Fort Wayne, 1706–1828. Allen County: Fort Wayne Historical Society.
- Winkler, John F. (2011). Wabash 1791: St. Clair's Defeat. Osprey Campaign Series. Vol. 240. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84908-676-9.
- William Wells at ohiohistorycentral.org
- The U.S. Library of Congress has a 10 May 1801 letter written by William Wells to Meriwether Lewis—then secretary to President Thomas Jefferson, requesting a meeting between Little Turtle and President Jefferson.