Neither of these original proprietors of Fort Wayne chose to make his home here. Nothing is known of the activities of John T. Barr in Baltimore, beyond the showing of the Baltimore city directories of his period, which refer to him as a merchant. More is known, however, of the activities of John McCorkle. He was born at Piqua in 1791. As the owner of a carding mill, gristmill and oil mill, he laid the foundation for a prosperous future and became Piqua’s most enterprising citizen. In 1819, together with John Hedges, he furnished supplies of beef and bread to the Indians at Fort Wayne while they were awaiting their annuity payments. Two years later he founded St. Mary’s, Ohio. He was actively engaged in state and national politics in 1829, when he died at the age of thirty-eight. Barr and McCorkle came to the Fort Wayne land sale together, in a bateau, which they propelled down the St. Mary’s river. For the original tract, they paid twenty-six dollars per acre, in that year an extravagant price for western land.[3] They took immediate steps to plat the property and to offer it for sale in the form of business and residence lots. A surveyor was employed to lay out the property which today would include that part of Downtown Fort Wayne bounded on the north by the Nickel Plate Railroad, on the east by Barr Street, on the south by Washington Boulevard, and on the west by the alley between Calhoun and Harrison streets. The plat consisted originally of 110 lots. There were four north-and-south streets and five east-and-west streets. Alexander Ewing secured eighty acres of ground immediately west of the Barr and McCorkle tract. This later became known as “Ewing’s addition”. The tract known as “Wells pre-emption”, lying between the forks of the St. Mary’s and St. Joseph rivers, having been set aside by Congress for Captain Wells as early as 1808, was purchased by his heirs at the minimum price of $1.25 an acre. The land offices were continued at Fort Wayne during the period of twenty-one years. The positions connected with it were considered excellent rewards for political service. Thus, with the inauguration of Jackson in 1829 Holman and Vance were removed. Later appointees were also appointed or removed according to the political fortune of their parties. While the proprietors of their newly purchased land were busy preparing for the sale of lots, the state legislature on December 11, 1823, passed an act creating the county of Allen, with jurisdiction over what is now Wells, Adams, DeKalb, and Steuben counties and portions of Noble, LaGrange, Huntington, and Whitley counties.[4] This area included practically all of northwestern Indiana. The name of Allen county was suggested by John Tipton, who was an ardent admirer of Colonel John Allen, the gallant Kentuckian who, after aiding in the relief of Fort Wayne in 1812, lost his life at the battle of the River Raisin in Michigan.