Fort Jefferson was a

fortification A fortification (also called a fort, fortress, fastness, or stronghold) is a military construction designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Lati ...

erected by soldiers of the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...

in October 1791 during the

Northwest Indian War The Northwest Indian War (1785–1795), also known by other names, was an armed conflict for control of the Northwest Territory fought between the United States and a united group of Native Americans in the United States, Native American na ...

. Built to support a military campaign, it saw several years of active fighting. Today, the fort site is a

historic site A historic site or heritage site is an official location where pieces of political, military, cultural, or social history have been preserved due to their cultural heritage value. Historic sites are usually protected by law, and many have been re ...

Establishment

Located in present-day Darke County in far western

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

, the fort was built under the direction of General Arthur St. Clair in October 1791 as an advance post for his campaign from Fort Washington against local Native Americans.Wilson, Frazer. ''History of Darke County Ohio: From Its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time''. Vol. 1. Milford: Hobart, 1914. A square of approximately on each side, the fort was built of wood and intended primarily as a supply depot; accordingly, it was originally named "Fort Deposit."Fort Jefferson
Ohio Historical Society, 2010. Accessed 2010-04-10. Before St. Clair's army departed the fort, a

court-martial A court-martial (plural ''courts-martial'' or ''courts martial'', as "martial" is a postpositive adjective) is a military court or a trial conducted in such a court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of members of the arme ...

was conducted for an unknown crime; the three soldiers who were convicted and hanged became the first whites to be executed in present-day Darke County. One month later, after St. Clair's army was badly defeated in battle near modern-day Fort Recovery to the north, the scattered remnants of his force reconstituted at Fort Jefferson. Because it was not intended to house many soldiers, and because few supplies were actually stored at the fort, St. Clair found the fort insufficiently large for his men; consequently, he took most of his surviving soldiers and returned to Fort Washington, leaving only a small garrison to guard his many wounded. It is believed that the garrison was under the command of Captain Joseph Shaylor.

Siege of Fort Jefferson

The defeat of the American army in late 1791 left Fort Jefferson deep in enemy territory. Determined to drive the American soldiers back to the

Ohio River The Ohio River () is a river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing in a southwesterly direction from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to its river mouth, mouth on the Mississippi Riv ...

, a Native American force (possibly under the command of

Simon Girty Simon Girty (14 November 1741 – 18 February 1818) was an interpreter with the British Indian Department during the American Revolutionary War and Northwest Indian War. As a child he and his brothers James and George were captured and adopted b ...

) raided the fort in the early Summer 1792. This raid began on 25 June 1792, with an attack of one hundred warriors against a party gathering hay for the fort's supplies, and left sixteen soldiers dead or missing. It is possible that another raid was conducted a short while later with the intention of capturing or killing Captain Shaylor. Local histories suggest the attackers exploited Shaylor's love of hunting by imitating

wild turkey The wild turkey (''Meleagris gallopavo'') is an upland game bird native to North America, one of two extant species of Turkey (bird), turkey and the heaviest member of the order Galliformes. It is the ancestor to the domestic turkey (''M. g. dom ...

calls to lure Shaylor and his son into the woods. Captain Shaylor escaped the ensuing pursuit, but his son was killed. The fort came under siege intermittently for three years, as continued Native American attacks were made to neutralize the outpost.

Wayne's campaign

As the United States Army prepared to return to the offensive in the western Ohio country, Fort Jefferson became more than an isolated location outside of the control of the hostile Miamis: projections were created of using the fort as a base for the protection of local settlers and for raids on nearby Native Americans. When

Anthony Wayne Anthony Wayne (January 1, 1745 – December 15, 1796) was an American soldier, officer, statesman, and a Founding Father of the United States. He adopted a military career at the outset of the American Revolutionary War, where his military expl ...

and his Legion of the United States, fresh from Legionville, began their expedition to avenge St. Clair in the fall of 1793, they erected a new supply fort at the site of Greenville, north of Fort Jefferson. Nevertheless, they relied heavily on the supplies of Fort Jefferson in their campaign during the following year.

After the war

After the end of the war, white settlers began to take up residence in the vicinity of the abandoned fort. A blockhouse was built by one nearby resident in 1810; by 1820, more settlers had built houses, a mill, and a school near the fort site. The settlement developed into Fort Jefferson, Ohio. In the fall of 1907, the Greenville Historical Society dedicated a memorial on the site of the fort. Fort Jefferson was further recognized in 1970 when it was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

. The area designated as historic encompasses approximately .

References

External links