Fort Jefferson

c/o Site Operations Department
The Ohio Historical Society
1982 Velma Avenue
Columbus, OH 43211
614-297-2630 1-800-686-1535

Depiction of Battle at Fort Jefferson "St. Clair had selected a site on a rather low, rounded gravel knoll, about five miles south of modern-day Greenville, Ohio, for the location of his new fort of deposit. Although he said that the site was "proper enough" for a post, his men thought the location too accessible to the enemy. It was surrounded by small knolls and was susceptible to have the supply of water cut off because the fresh spring that issued nearby was about 100 feet distant. "

--Wiley Sword
President Washington's Indian War; The Struggle for the Old Northwest, 1790-1795

Fort Jefferson park and monument marks the site of an advance outpost of General Arthur St. Clair, built in October 1791. It was named in honor of Thomas Jefferson, then Secretary of State. One of a chain of defensive forts built to protect army supplies from Indians, it served as a supply base throughout the campaigns of General St. Clair and General Anthony Wayne. It was abandoned in 1796.

The monument is made of faced granite field boulders, six feet square and twenty-feet tall. The area is maintained as a roadside park with a picnic shelter and grills. No part of the fort remains.

LOCATION

Fort Jefferson is on County Road 24 at State Route 121, four miles south of Greenville in the city of Fort Jefferson in Darke County.