"The
first white man whose name is lastingly identified with the geography of this county is
Peter Loramie, or Laramie, inasmuch as his name is permanently affixed to an important
stream. He was a Canadian French trader who in 1769, seventeen years after the destruction
of Pickawillany, at the mouth of the
Loramie, established a trading post upon it. The site of Loramie’s store, or station,
as it was called, was up that stream about fifteen miles, within a mile of the village of
Berlin (now Fort Loramie) and near the west end of the Loramie reservoir. Col. John Johnston (owner of the Johnston
Farm in Miami County and Indian agent) wrote to me thus of him:
"At the time of the first settlement of Kentucky a Canadian Frenchman, named
Loramie, established there a store or trading station among the Indians. This man was a
bitter enemy of the Americans, and it was for a long time the headquarters of mischief
towards the settlers.
"The French had the faculty of endearing themselves to the Indians, and no doubt
Loramie was, in this respect, fully equal to any of his countrymen, and gained great
influence over them. They formed with the natives attachments of the most tender and
abiding kind. ‘I have,’ says Col. Johnston, ‘seen the Indians burst into
tears when speaking of the time when their French father had dominion over them, and their
attachment to this day remains unabated.’
"So much influence had Loramie with the Indians, that when Gen. Clarke, from
Kentucky, invaded the Miami valley in the autumn of 1782, his attention was attracted to
the spot. He came on and burned the Indian settlement here (at Upper Piqua), and plundered
and burned the store of the Frenchman, about sixteen miles further north.
"The store contained a large quantity of goods and peltry, which were sold by
auction afterwards among the men by the general’s orders. Among the soldiers was an
Irishman named Burke, considered a half-witted fellow, and the general butt of the whole
army. While searching the store he found, done up in a rag, twenty-five half-joes, worth
about $200, which he secreted in a hole he cut in an old saddle. At the auction no one bid
for the saddle, it being judged worthless, except Burke, to whom it was struck off for a
trifling sum, amid roars of laughter for this folly. But a moment elapsed before Burke
commenced a search, and found and drew forth the money, as if by accident; then shaking it
in the eyes of the men, exclaimed, ‘An’ it’s not so bad a bargain after
all!’