Richardville was the richest man in Indiana · worth $23 million today · born under a miraculous apple tree.

The man's outline, from the treaty record. Jean Baptiste de Richardville — Pinšiwa, “Wildcat” — was born about 1761 at Kekionga, son of Tacumwah, and became the Miami's last civil chief. He built his fortune with his mother on the fur trade and on fees for the long portage between the St. Marys and the Little River, portage income reported as high as $100 a day in strong seasons, and he signed treaties from Greenville in 1795 to the Treaty of the Wabash in 1840. He died at Fort Wayne in August 1841: the date is most often given as 13 August, with one older account saying 31 August, and this record prints the conflict rather than choosing. Contemporaries priced the reputation themselves: Henry Schoolcraft called him “the most wealthy man of the native race in America,” and historian Donald Chaput judged him “one of the richest men in the United States.” The Genealogical Society's Richardville page states he held $200,000 in gold and silver at his death (about $6.8 million in its conversion) — a figure with a source attached, printed here to show the distance between a sourced estimate and the unsourced “$23 million.” His house at 5705 Bluffton Road was built in 1827 for $2,200 — $600 of federal money under the Treaty of Mississinewas (1826) and $1,600 of his own — the first Greek Revival house in northeastern Indiana and the oldest Native American building in the Midwest; it was designated a National Historic Landmark on 2 March 2012. The History Center's own page calls it “the only extant treaty house in the nation”; this record keeps this section's more cautious phrasing alongside that wording, as printed above.

Added sources: Richardville summary; History Center, Richardville House; Visit Fort Wayne; ACGSI, Richardville page