Interested in early American history? Want to learn more about the early days of Ohio's history and development as a state?
You can read about those historic high points in a book, or, better yet, you can book a road trip to Defiance in northwestern Ohio.
The area figures prominently in the days before Ohio's admittance to the union as a state in 1803
French missionaries appeared in the area during to the late-1600s and early-1700s, joining the Native peoples already living in the area.
The Defiance area became home to a trading center at the confluence of the Maumee and Auglaize Rivers. The site also hosted a council of Native leaders attended by members of the Miami, Shawnee, Wyandot, Seneca, Ottawa, Delaware, Kickapoo, Pottawatomie, Chippewa, Iroquois and Mohawk tribes in 1793.
British envoys arrived in the area during the late-1700s intent on enlisting the Native population in the area in their efforts to disrupt the settlement of citizens of the then-new United States.
The Americans responded by sending U.S. General "Mad" Anthony Wayne to establish a fort in 1794 at the current site of the Defiance Public Library grounds. Wayne's charge was to end British and Native American control of the area.
Wayne built a rough square fort with a blockhouse at each corner. The fort had a wall of earth eight feet thick and a ditch of eight feet deep around the sides to protect it.
Wayne boasted about the fort's ability to withstand attacks, reportedly saying "I defy the English, the Indians, and all the devils in Hell to take it".
That was how the army outpost became Fort Defiance, although there is some debate as to whether the quote belongs to Wayne or another military officer. The city and county containing the fort site also eventually claimed Defiance as a name.
By 1796, after a victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers helped the Americans gain control of the Northwest Territory (present-day Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin), Wayne abandoned the fort.
The Americans began using the vacated Fort Defiance as a trading post.
Military activity returned to the area as the fort became one of America's westernmost outposts used by General William Henry Harrison during the War of 1812.
A trip along the Ohio Revolutionary Memorial Trail is a great way to more easily visualize some important events in the early history of our country by actually seeing where that history happened.
One of the best places to start your hunt for history and the plethora of helpful historical markers in Defiance and the surrounding area is right beside the library on the appropriately named Fort Street.
I happened to be looking down as I wandered around the site on a rainy day and spotted a stone marking the fort's original gateway. It was just one of many markers I saw at the library grounds commemorating and explaining the historic events that happened there.
The fort itself is long-gone, but you can still see some faint outlines of the square fort's walls in the form of mounded dirt and a pair of cannons overlooking the confluence of the Maumee and Auglaize Rivers.
A marker erected on the site in 1925 boasts of the fort and its role in role in the defeat of the tribes "without loss of blood", although it conveniently neglects to mention that after victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, General Wayne ordered the destruction of all Native American villages and crops within a 50-mile radius of the fort.
Another marker on the ground near the fort site noted that the last of the Native American tribes left the area during the 1830s (when the U.S. government moved them further west). The marker also notes that buffalo roamed this area as late as 1718.
Continue your history hunt by checking out this historical marker list for more sites at Independence Dam State Park, along route 424, in downtown Defiance and more.
Want to learn more about Defiance and its early history? Check out History of Defiance County, Ohio Illustrated 1883 a Kindle edition of the reprint of this historical book from the Cornell University Library.
© Dominique King 2015 All rights reserved
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