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1818 – into the canal era
Founded: Francis Comparet came up the Maumee to Fort Wayne in 1818 as a fur trader and built one of the town's first permanent trading establishments: a brick residence with an adjoining store and trading house on Columbia Street, standing by 1830, and later a warehouse on the canal basin.
Founder: Francis Comparet, French-Canadian trader. His son Alexander C. Comparet's Reminiscences of Old Fort Wayne (1906) names Comparet and the Ewings as "the most extensive fur traders in this country" in the post's last fur-trade years.
What it did: Fur trade and general merchandising at the head of the Maumee — buying furs and country produce, selling trade goods and supplies to settlers, traders and the Miami community.
Course: The house stood on Columbia Street, the town's first commercial row. The canal-basin warehouse put the firm on the Wabash & Erie Canal trade when the canal reached Fort Wayne in the 1830s–40s. The Comparet name continued in Fort Wayne commerce into the directory era: the 1858–59 Williams' directory lists Comparet, Hubbell & Co., commission, forwarding and produce merchants, with D. F. Comparet as a partner.
Fate: The fur trade itself faded with the Miami removal of 1846; the family's commission and produce business carried the name past the canal era. No single closing date for the original trading house is recorded.
Sources:
- Alexander C. Comparet, Reminiscences of Old Fort Wayne (1906).
- John W. Dawson, Charcoal Sketches of Old Times in Fort Wayne (1872).
- Williams' Fort Wayne Directory, 1858–59 (Comparet, Hubbell & Co.).