logs, having three gateways. Within the inclosure the traders dug a well, which furnished an abundant supply of fresh water during the fall, winter, and spring, but failed in summer. At this time Pickawillany contained four hundred Indian families, and was the residence of the principal chief of the Miami Confederacy. With the security of a stockade fort, traders began building storehouses to contain their trade goods and to store the skins and furs they received in trade from the Indians. Trent describes these storehouses as ordinary log cabins, the trading being carried on below, while an "upper storey" or "loft" was used as a place to store away skins and combustible material ... The articles of traffic on the part of the whites were firearms, gunpowder, lead, ball, knives, rings, rum, medals, hatchets, flints, blades, cooking utensils, shirts and other articles of wearing apparel, tobacco pipes, paint, etc .... Some of the traders would run regular "caravans" of fifteen or twenty horses, making several trips during the year. The presence of a fort and a trading post attracted many English traders to the village seeking a new source of skins and furs. Hunters from many nearby communities began visiting Pickawillany regularly to trade, and the accumulation of European trade goods gave Memeskia increased influence over neighboring tribes, as he could strengthen alliances through gift-giving, a standard Native American practice. The French became increasingly concerned that the Miamis were considering "a general revolt against the French in pursuance of their plan of making themselves masters of all the upcountry." Visit by John Patten, 1750 In November 1750 John Patten, a Pennsylvania trader, stopped at Pickawillany on his way to trade with Native communities on the St. Marys River. While trading with the Indians, Patten was invited to Fort St. Philippe, where he was arrested and his goods confiscated. He was later taken to Quebec and examined by Governor La Jonquiere and his Council at Château Vaudreuil in Montreal on 19 June 1751. Patten stated that at Pickawillany he "found upwards of fifty Traders, including servants, lodging in cabins belonging to the Miamis Indians; that the name of their chief was La Demoiselle; that those cabins were in a fort." Patten was then sent to France, and in 1752 was released through the help of friends, whereupon he returned to Pennsylvania. In his deposition to the Pennsylvania Assembly on 17 October