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by 1876 — 1915 and after
Tribes that were not tribes: The Improved Order of Red Men was, in the plain terms the record supports, a benefit society of white men that dressed its lodge machinery in borrowed Native dress — chiefs became "sachems," dues became "wampum," locals became "tribes" — and Fort Wayne's tribes took their names from the Miami ground the city stands on. The 1876–77 directory lists two: Maumee Tribe No. 23, meeting Tuesdays over 80 Calhoun Street, and Chippewa Tribe No. 26, Thursdays at Berry and Harrison. By 1891–92 the city's tribe was Mechecannochqua Tribe No. 106, meeting Tuesday nights in the Trentman Building with Isaac Prime as sachem; the Fort Wayne Weekly Sentinel of June 13, 1906, reports its semi-annual election of officers as routine lodge news, and the 1915 directory still finds Tribe No. 106 at 219 West Berry on Wednesday nights, with its degree auxiliary, the Mechecannochqua Association of Haymakers No. 106½, and a women's council, Minnewa Council No. 69 of the Degree of Pocahontas, meeting in Dehm's Hall. The irony is in the names and needs no embellishment: an order that excluded Native people organized itself, in the city Little Turtle's people had ceded within living memory, under a Miami word for its tribe. What the members got for the performance was what every order in this section sold — sick benefits, a burial, and a room of brothers on a weeknight.
Sources:
- Edmondson's Fort Wayne city directory, 1876–77 — Maumee Tribe No. 23 and Chippewa Tribe No. 26.
- R. L. Polk & Co., Fort Wayne city directories, 1891–92 and 1915 — Mechecannochqua Tribe No. 106, the Haymakers, Minnewa Council No. 69.
- Fort Wayne Weekly Sentinel, June 13, 1906 — "Red Men Elect Officers," Tribe No. 106.