A Map of Fort Wayne About 1812 – Showing Also Certain Earlier Happenings

Pictorial map of Fort Wayne depicting when it was on Indiana’s frontier.

This pictorial map serves as a visual storyteller for the early history of Fort Wayne, Indiana. Striking illustrations are centered on an image of the fort as it likely appeared in 1812, at the confluence of the St. Mary’s, St. Joseph, and Maumee Rivers.

Nearby villages of Delaware, Miami, and Shawnees are also shown; along with regional geographic features like trails, portages, fords, and marshes. Text accompanies many of the illustrations and provides background information, captions, and historical notes. The border provides additional information in the form of a chronology, biographies of important residents, and the fort’s role in the War of 1812.

The image was drawn in 1933 by Noble E. Brainard for the 100th anniversary of the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel. Based on the map’s distribution and institutional availability, it’s possible that copies were distributed at the World’s Fair held in Chicago that year. According to Terence Henley;

“Noble Eyck Brainard was born on September 3, 1893, in Buda, Illinois. Like Marie Goth and Constance Forsyth, he was a teacher. For a time he lived in New Mexico, but he also worked as a civil servant in the Philippines and in Fort Wayne, where he resided from the 1920s on. Brainard married Amelia Zichgraf in 1924 in Fort Wayne… Brainard died on October 28, 1956, and is buried in his adopted home city.”

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