The Chenoweth Massacre of July 17, 1789 was the last major Native American raid in present-day Louisville, Kentucky.
Captain Richard Chenoweth, builder of Fort Nelson, was stationed with his family northeast of present-day Middletown when a large band of Native Americans (likely Shawnee) attacked from across the Ohio River. They killed three of Chenoweth's children, Levi, Margaret and Polly and two of the soldiers. Chenoweth's wife, Margaret "Peggy" née McCarthy was pierced through the lungs by an arrow and seriously wounded. She faked death while an attacker took her scalp. She survived and wore a hat for the rest of her life to conceal the scars. Two soldiers were captured alive and were ritually burned at the stake near the springhouse. [1] [2]
Chenoweth Station was likely targeted in the raid because it was relatively isolated from the nearest settlements of Linn's Station and the Falls of the Ohio. What is now called the Chenoweth Fort-Springhouse, where Chenoweth and his wife took refuge, has been preserved and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Scott County is a county located in the central part of the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2020 census, the population was 57,155. Scott County is part of the Lexington-Fayette, Kentucky Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its county seat and largest city is Georgetown.
Jefferson County is located in the north central portion of the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2020 census, the population was 782,969. It is the most populous county in the commonwealth.
Zachary Taylor National Cemetery is a United States National Cemetery located at 4701 Brownsboro Road (US-42), in Louisville, Kentucky. It is named for Zachary Taylor, the 12th president of the United States, who is buried there with his wife, Margaret Mackall Smith Taylor. Zachary Taylor National Cemetery was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on November 3, 1983. As of 2014, the cemetery has over 14,000 interments and is one of seven national cemeteries in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and one of 112 in the United States. Those buried at the national cemetery served in six wars: Spanish–American War, World War I, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, and the Persian Gulf War.
The Original Highlands is a historic neighborhood in the Highlands area of Louisville, Kentucky, United States.
The history of Louisville, Kentucky spans nearly two-and-a-half centuries since its founding in the late 18th century. The geology of the Ohio River, with but a single series of rapids midway in its length from the confluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers to its union with the Mississippi, made it inevitable that a town would grow on the site. The town of Louisville, Kentucky was chartered there in 1780. From its early days on the frontier, it quickly grew to be a major trading and distribution center in the mid-19th century and an important industrial city in the early 20th. The city declined in the mid-20th century, but by the late 20th, it was revitalized as a culturally-focused mid-sized American city.
Clifton is a neighborhood east of downtown Louisville, Kentucky USA. Clifton was named because of its hilly location on the Ohio River valley escarpment. Clifton is bounded by I-64, N Ewing Ave, Brownsboro Road, and Mellwood Ave.
Corn Island, formerly Dunmore's Island, was an island in the Ohio River at head of the Falls of the Ohio, just north of Louisville, Kentucky. Estimates of the size of Corn Island, now submerged, vary with time, as it gradually was eroded and became submerged. A 1780 survey listed its size at 43 acres (170,000 m2). It then extended from what is now Louisville's Fourth to Fourteenth Streets. The first settlement that later became Louisville on the mainland was established on the island in 1778 by George Rogers Clark.
The Point was a thriving 19th century neighborhood in Louisville, Kentucky, east of Downtown Louisville and opposite Towhead Island along the Ohio River. It was also located north of the present day Butchertown area.
During the 18th and early 19th centuries, the French, British and U.S. forces built and occupied a number of forts at Vincennes, Indiana. These outposts commanded a strategic position on the Wabash River. The names of the installations were changed by the various ruling parties, and the forts were considered strategic in the French and Indian War, the American Revolutionary War, the Northwest Indian War and the War of 1812. The last fort was abandoned in 1816.
Beckley is a neighborhood of Louisville, Kentucky located along North Beckley Station Road and the Chenoweth Run watershed. It is sometimes referred to by its largest subdivision, Lake Forest.
Beargrass Creek is the name given to several forks of a creek in Jefferson County, Kentucky. The Beargrass Creek watershed is one of the largest in the county, draining over 60 square miles (160 km2). It is fairly small, with an average discharge of 103 cubic feet per second at River Road in Louisville.
Fort Hill is a promontory overlooking downtown Frankfort, Kentucky. It is the site of two earthwork forts from the American Civil War. Fort Hill is on the National Register of Historic Places and is now a public park.
Kentucky was a southern border state of key importance in the American Civil War. It officially declared its neutrality at the beginning of the war, but after a failed attempt by Confederate General Leonidas Polk to take the state of Kentucky for the Confederacy, the legislature petitioned the Union Army for assistance. Though the Confederacy controlled more than half of Kentucky early in the war, after early 1862 Kentucky came largely under U.S. control. In the historiography of the Civil War, Kentucky is treated primarily as a southern border state, with special attention to the social divisions during the secession crisis, invasions and raids, internal violence, sporadic guerrilla warfare, federal-state relations, the ending of slavery, and the return of Confederate veterans.
Fort Nelson, built in 1781 by troops under George Rogers Clark including Captain Richard Chenoweth, was the second on-shore fort on the Ohio River in the area of what is now downtown Louisville, Kentucky. Fort-on-Shore, the downriver and first on-shore fort, had proved to be insufficient barely three years after it was established. In response to continuing attacks from Native Americans and the threat of British attacks during the Revolutionary War, Fort Nelson was constructed between what is currently Main Street and the river, with its main gate near Seventh Street. It was named after Thomas Nelson Jr., then the governor of Virginia.
Pigeon Roost State Historic Site is located between Scottsburg and Henryville, Indiana, United States. A one-lane road off U.S. Route 31 takes the visitor to the site of a village where Native Americans massacred 24 settlers shortly after the War of 1812 began.
The Town Clock Church, now the Second Baptist Church of New Albany, Indiana, United States, is a historic church located at 300 East Main Street, within the New Albany Downtown Historic District. It was constructed in 1852 as Second Presbyterian Church, in what was then the largest city in Indiana. It is near the Ohio River, across the border from Louisville, Kentucky.
James John Floyd (1750–1783) was an early settler of St. Matthews, Kentucky, and helped lay out Louisville. In Kentucky he served as a Colonel of the Kentucky Militia in which he participated in raids with George Rogers Clark and later became one of the first judges of Kentucky.
Floyd's Station was a fort on Beargrass Creek in what is now St. Matthews, Kentucky. In November 1779 James John Floyd built cabins and a stockade near what is now Breckenridge Lane. In 1783, John Floyd, future Governor of Virginia was born in the Station. The pioneer's father was killed by Indians twelve days before the birth of his son. The station was one of six on Beargrass Creek and was involved in local conflict with Native Americans in the area for the next five years. All that remain today of Floyd's Station are a spring house and cemetery.
Fort Jefferson was a fortification erected by soldiers of the United States Army in October 1791 during the Northwest Indian War. Built to support a military campaign, it saw several years of active fighting. Today, the fort site is a historic site.
The Chenoweth Fort-Springhouse is a historic stone structure near Avoca Road near Middletown, Kentucky. Built about 1786, it is believed to be the oldest standing structure in Louisville, Kentucky, and was the site of the Chenoweth Massacre, a 1789 Native American raid during the Northwest Indian War that was the last raid in Jefferson county. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. It is on privately owned land.
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