author
B. J. (Bert Joseph) Griswold
1873–1927
Best remembered as a lively Fort Wayne historian and illustrator, he turned local stories into books filled with sketches, maps, and character portraits. His work preserves the feel of early Indiana life while showing the eye of a cartoonist and newspaper man.
1 Audiobook
Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks
by B. J. (Bert Joseph) Griswold
About the author
Born in 1873 and deceased in 1927, B. J. Griswold — Bert Joseph Griswold — is associated with Fort Wayne, Indiana, as a writer, illustrator, and local historian. Catalog and reference records credit him with works including Some Fort Wayne Phizes, Crayon and Character, and The Pictorial History of Fort Wayne, Indiana.
His best-known historical work is The Pictorial History of Fort Wayne, Indiana (1917), a large, illustrated survey of the region created with Mrs. Samuel R. Taylor. Library and archive records note that the book includes hundreds of his own pen drawings and maps, which helps explain why his writing often feels visual as well as documentary.
Griswold is also remembered in local historical material as a civic worker and newspaper man, and Wikidata identifies him as an illustrator and cartoonist based in Fort Wayne. Taken together, those roles fit the books he left behind: practical, curious, and closely tied to the people and places of northeastern Indiana.