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Colonel · The officer who named Fort Wayne
On the record
On 22 October 1794 he dedicated and named Fort Wayne — fifteen cannon rounds for fifteen states, on the fourth anniversary of Harmar’s Defeat. The city keeps 22 October 1794 as its official founding date.
Jean-François Hamtramck — John Francis in American service — was baptized 16 August 1756 at Montreal, the son of a Luxembourg-born father. He came south with Montgomery's invasion of Canada in 1775 and stayed in American service through the Revolution, fighting in the Sullivan Expedition and at Yorktown. After the war he commanded at Vincennes (Fort Knox) from 1787 to June 1793, then joined Wayne's Legion as a lieutenant colonel; at Fallen Timbers he commanded the left wing, the 2nd and 4th Sub-legions, and was cited for bravery. Wayne appointed him the first commandant of the new Fort Wayne on 21 October 1794, and the post was dedicated and named the next day. Hamtramck farmed a large tract near the fort in partnership with William Wells. In July 1796 he took formal United States possession of Detroit, and he was promoted colonel in 1801. His first wife, Marie Josephe Edeline, drowned on 21 May 1796 descending the Wabash from Fort Wayne to Vincennes; his son John Francis Hamtramck, born at Fort Wayne on 19 April 1798, became a West Point graduate and a Mexican War colonel. Hamtramck died at Detroit on 11 April 1803. The Michigan city of Hamtramck bears his name.
Find them on this page
- § 02 — the Story of Fort Wayne section
From the fort history and marker transcription cited in § 02; Wikipedia, "Jean-François Hamtramck"; Detroit Historical Society; Bald, Indiana Magazine of History (1948); Ball State University, Forts of Fort Wayne.