General Anthony Wayne was an American military leader and statesman, serving as a United States Army general during the American War of Independence (1775-1783) and Northwest Indian War (1792-1795). He became known as "Mad" Anthony Wayne for his daring military exploits and notorious temper. Born in Easton, Pennsylvania in 1745, Wayne was educated in Philadelphia where he was later employed by Dr. Benjamin Franklin as a surveyor and land agent. Wayne began his military career at the start of the American Revolutionary War in 1775, eventually rising to the rank of major general. After the war he retired from the Army to serve in the Pennsylvania State Assembly, and later moved to property in Georgia where he served as a delegate to the state convention to ratify the Constitution in 1788 and represented Georgia in the Second US Congress in 1791. President George Washington recalled General Wayne to military service on the frontier in the Northwest Indian War. Wayne returned to Pennsylvania where he oversaw the training and recruitment of the Legion of the United States in the first formal basic training facility for the United States military. General Wayne and his legion won a decisive victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers (1794), securing the Old Northwest territory firmly under American sovereignty, an area including the modern states of Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan. After the capitulation of the Indian tribes in 1795, Wayne remained in command of the military units on the frontier. While in command of the American forces in the Northwest, he died peacefully at Fort Preque in modern-day Erie, Pennsylvania in 1796. His bones were returned and laid to rest at St. David's in Radnor, Pennsylvania, near his family home. A legend says that many bones were lost along the roadway that encompasses much of modern U.S. Route 322, and that every January 1 (Wayne's birthday), his ghost wanders the highway searching for his lost bones.

Batman co-creator Bill Finger named the Bruce Wayne character after Robert the Bruce and General Anthony Wayne. Bruce Wayne's origin story in DC comics depicts him as one of General Wayne's direct descendants. Wayne Manor has been described as located on property originally granted to General Wayne in gratitude for his service during the American Revolution. General Wayne's actual ancestral home, the "real" Wayne Manor, is known as Waynesborough and is a National Historic Landmark located in Paoli, Pennsylvania. It was home to seven generations of Waynes before becoming a museum.