Fort Steuben was a fortification erected in Feb. 1787 on the Ohio River in eastern Ohio Country at the northern end of the Seven Ranges land tract to be surveyed. It was at the location of the modern city of Steubenville, Ohio. The fort was built by Major John Hamtramck and named for Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, a Prussian army officer who had served under General Washington. The original purpose was to provide protection from Indians for the first surveyors to venture into the Northwest Territory.
Acquired by Great Britain from France following the 1763 Treaty of Paris, the Ohio Country had been closed to white settlement by the Proclamation of 1763. The United States claimed the region after the 1783 Treaty of Paris that ended the American Revolutionary War. The Congress passed the Land Ordinance of 1785 as a formal means of surveying, selling, and settling the land and raising revenue. The survey was to begin in present-day East Liverpool, Ohio, on the north bank of the Ohio River where it leaves Pennsylvania, and then work westward into present day Ohio. The Geographer of the United States, Thomas Hutchins, assisted by surveyors from a number of states, began the survey on September 30, 1785. On October 8, word was received of an Indian attack on the Tuscarawas River. He and his men were scared, and returned to Pittsburgh after only a few miles of the first westward line, (the Geographers Line), had been completed. [1] Hutchins returned to New York that autumn.
On July 20, 1786, Hutchins and his group gathered at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to resume their survey. Fort Harmar had been constructed at the confluence of the Muskingum River and Ohio River, present day Harmar district of Marietta, Ohio. [2] Hutchins had requested federal troops for protection. Colonel Josiah Harmar ordered Major John Francis Hamtramck and some of the First American Regiment to guard the surveyors. [1] Hamtramck felt it necessary to build a fort to protect the surveyors, and to prevent squatters from settling in the area. [3]
The site was chosen for a fort on October 11, 1786. [1] Major Erkuries Beatty, [4] who made a drawing seen here, described the site as 47 miles below Fort McIntosh and 23 above Wheelin‘, a site he erroneously calls Mingo Bottom. [5] Major Beatty described the fort:
It is about 120 yards from the river on very high excellent bank of commanding ground. A square with a large blockhouse on each corner and picquets between each blockhouse form the fort. . .The big gate fronting the main on the west, and the sally port the river, with the guard house over the latter. The blockhouse serves for all the men and the officers‘ houses are each side of the big gate, the back part of them serving as a row of pickets. It is garrisoned by Capt. Hamtramck‘s and Mercer‘s companies, the former commanding.
— Major Erkuries Beatty, 1787 [5]
Hamtramck named the fort for military officer Baron von Steuben on January 2, 1787, and completed construction January 8. [1] On May 23, 1787, Hamtramck was ordered to evacuate, as the surveyors were by then closer to Fort Harmar. Troops were sent to Fort Harmar, while supplies were sent to Fort Henry in Wheeling. The fort was destroyed by fire in 1790, and not rebuilt. In 1797, Bezaleel Wells founded the city of Steubenville on the site. A replica of the fort and visitors center have been constructed on the site as a tourist attraction that also includes the original Steubenville Federal Land Office.
Arthur St. Clair was a Scottish-American soldier and politician. Born in Thurso, Scotland, he served in the British Army during the French and Indian War before settling in Pennsylvania, where he held local office. During the American Revolutionary War, he rose to the rank of major general in the Continental Army, but lost his command after a controversial retreat from Fort Ticonderoga.
Steubenville is a city in and the county seat of Jefferson County, Ohio, United States. Located along the Ohio River 33 miles (53 km) west of Pittsburgh, it had a population of 18,161 at the 2020 census. The city's name is derived from Fort Steuben, a 1786 fort that sat within the city's current limits and was named for Prussian military officer Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben. It is a principal city of the Weirton–Steubenville metropolitan area, which had a 2020 population of 116,903 residents.
Josiah Harmar was an officer in the United States Army during the American Revolutionary War and the Northwest Indian War. He was the senior officer in the Army for six years and seven months.
The Northwest Territory, also known as the Old Northwest and formally known as the Territory Northwest of the River Ohio, was formed from unorganized western territory of the United States after the American Revolution. Established in 1787 by the Congress of the Confederation through the Northwest Ordinance, it was the nation's first post-colonial organized incorporated territory.
The Land Ordinance of 1785 was adopted by the United States Congress of the Confederation on May 20, 1785. It set up a standardized system whereby settlers could purchase title to farmland in the undeveloped west. Congress at the time did not have the power to raise revenue by direct taxation, so land sales provided an important revenue stream. The Ordinance set up a survey system that eventually covered over three-quarters of the area of the continental United States.
The Ohio Country, was a name used before 1787 for a region of North America west of the Appalachian Mountains north of the upper Ohio and Allegheny rivers, and extending to Lake Erie. The area encompassed present-day northwestern West Virginia, Western Pennsylvania, most of Ohio, and a wedge of southeastern Indiana.
Jean-François Hamtramck (1756–1803) was a Canadian who served as an officer in the US Army during the American Revolutionary War and the Northwest Indian War. In the Revolution, he participated in the Invasion of Quebec, the Sullivan Expedition, and the Siege of Yorktown. In the history of United States expansion into the Northwest Territory, Hamtramck is connected to 18th century forts at modern Midwest cities such as Steubenville, Vincennes, Fort Wayne, and Detroit. The city of Hamtramck, Michigan is named for him.
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 American nations known today as the Northwestern Confederacy. The United States Army considers it the first of the American Indian Wars.
Fort Wayne was a series of three successive military log stockades existing between 1794 and 1819 on the confluence between the St. Mary's and St. Joseph Rivers in northeastern Indiana, in what is now the city of Fort Wayne. The fort succeeded the original Fort Miami near Kekionga, the principal village of the Miami; The origins of which date back to the early 1700s.
The point of beginning is a surveyor's mark at the beginning location for the wide-scale surveying of land.
Thomas Hutchins was an American military engineer, cartographer, geographer and surveyor. In 1781, Hutchins was named Geographer of the United States. He is the only person to hold that post.
Fort Washington was a fortified stockade with blockhouses built by order of Gen. Josiah Harmar starting in summer 1789 in what is now downtown Cincinnati, Ohio, near the Ohio River. The physical location of the fort was facing the mouth of the Licking River, above present day Fort Washington Way. The fort was named in honor of President George Washington. The fort was the major staging place and conduit for settlers, troops and supplies during the settlement of the Northwest Territory.
The Northwestern Confederacy, or Northwestern Indian Confederacy, was a loose confederacy of Native Americans in the Great Lakes region of the United States created after the American Revolutionary War. Formally, the confederacy referred to itself as the United Indian Nations, at their Confederate Council. It was known infrequently as the Miami Confederacy since many contemporaneous federal officials overestimated the influence and numerical strength of the Miami tribes based on the size of their principal city, Kekionga.
The First American Regiment was the first peacetime regular army infantry unit authorized by the Confederation Congress after the American Revolutionary War. Organized in August 1784, it served primarily on the early American frontier west of the Appalachian Mountains. In 1815, following the end of the War of 1812, it was consolidated with several other regiments to form the 3rd Infantry Regiment.
The Beginning Point of the U.S. Public Land Survey is the point from which the United States in 1786 began the formal survey of the lands known then as the Northwest Territory, now making up all or part of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The survey is claimed to be the first major cadastral survey undertaken by any nation. The point now lies underwater on the state line between Ohio and Pennsylvania. Because it is submerged, a monument commemorating the point is adjacent to the nearest roadway and located on the state line between East Liverpool, Ohio and Ohioville, Pennsylvania. The area around the marker was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965.
The Harmar campaign was an attempt by the United States Army to subdue confederated Native Americans nations in the Northwest Territory that were seen as hostile in Autumn 1790. The campaign was led by General Josiah Harmar and is considered a significant campaign of the Northwest Indian War. The campaign ended with a series of battles on 19–22 October 1790 near the Fort Miami and Miami village of Kekionga. These were all overwhelming victories for the Native Americans and are sometimes collectively referred to as Harmar's Defeat.
The Seven Ranges was a land tract in eastern Ohio that was the first tract to be surveyed in what became the Public Land Survey System. The tract is 42 miles (68 km) across the northern edge, 91 miles (146 km) on the western edge, with the south and east sides along the Ohio River. It consists of all of Monroe, Harrison, Belmont and Jefferson, and portions of Carroll, Columbiana, Tuscarawas, Guernsey, Noble, and Washington County.
Seven Ranges Terminus is a stone surveying marker near Magnolia, Ohio that marks the completion of the first step in opening the lands northwest of the Ohio River to sale and settlement by Americans. This survey marked the first application of the rectangular plan for subdividing land.
The Congress Lands North of the Old Seven Ranges was a land tract in northeast Ohio that was established by the Congress early in the 19th century. It is located south of the Connecticut Western Reserve and Firelands, east of the Congress Lands South and East of the First Principal Meridian, north of the United States Military District and Seven Ranges, and west of Pennsylvania.
The Congress Lands East of Scioto River was a land tract in southern Ohio that was established by the Congress late in the 18th century. It is located south of the United States Military District and Refugee Tract, west of the Old Seven Ranges, east of the Virginia Military District and north of the Ohio River, French Grant, and the Ohio Company of Associates.