Press Release Event Date:  Monday, July 8, 2019

For further information contact Laura Rager                                                                                       260-982-0672  nmhistory@cinergymetro.net

“The Forks of the Wabash”

Monday, July 8, the NM Historical Society will host Ms. Elizabeth Sanders, President of the Historic Forks of the Wabash, as she presents a program on the Forks of the Wabash and the settlement located in Huntington. The program will be held in the Assembly Room at Timbercrest Retirement Center, 2201 East Street, at 6:30 p.m. It is open to the public at no cost and will be enjoyable for audiences of all ages.

Ms. Sanders serves as President of the Board of Directors as well as providing presentations as an interpreter and guide at the settlement. The mission of the Forks of the Wabash organization is to share the story of how the various cultures, from Miami Indians to the European settlers, met at the junction of the various tributaries entering the Wabash River and later the Wabash and Erie Canal. The story unfolds as you learn how these vastly different groups influenced each other and how together they established the community of Huntington.

The Forks of the Wabash is important because it is where the last Miami Chiefs, Chief Jean Baptiste Richardville and Chief Francis Lafontaine, met with the American government to negotiate a series of treaties between 1834 and 1840 which ultimately led to the Miami people leaving the area by 1845. On this site is the house that Chief Richardville had built specifically to host these events during the annual Tribal Councils held by the Miami.

The Miami people held their annual conference at the Forks of the Wabash for several hundred years. During that period, they became integrated with the European community and were able to achieve wealth and receive an education that eluded many other American Indian groups. It was a credit to the negotiating skills of Chief Frances Lafontaine that many of the Miami were able to maintain their presence in Northeastern Indiana.

“The Forks of the Wabash” program will be the first in an ongoing series of programs made possible through a grant from Indiana Humanities in cooperation with the National Endowment for the Humanities. The North Manchester Center for History has been chosen by the Smithsonian Institution to host their Museum on Main Street traveling exhibit, Crossroads: Change in Rural America, March 21-May 2, 2020. Support for Museum on Main Street has been provided by the United States Congress.