William Polke, Fulton County's first white settler, came in 1830 to survey the Michigan Road. In 1831 he built a log cabin trading post on the south bank of the Tippecanoe River, and in 1832 it became the county's first post office, called Chippeway, where he served as post master. Kidnapped by Indians in 1782 at age 7, he was adopted by an Indian family and learned the Indian language. He later served as interpreter between General William Henry Harrison and Tecumseh at Vincennes in 1810, was wounded in the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811, and was a member of the convention that wrote the first Indiana state constitution in 1816. In 1838 he was the federal conductor on the forced removal of the Potawatomi Indians, who camped here and a mile north along Michigan Road to his white house, a stagecoach inn he had built in 1832.