Losantiville When Judge
John Cleves Symmes contracted with the Continental Congress to purchase 1,000,000 acres in southwestern Ohio known as the
Symmes Purchase in 1788, it reserved 15 acres to the federal government for a fort. In summer 1789, Fort Washington was built to protect early settlements located in the Symmes Purchase area, including Losantiville, Columbia and Northbend. Gen.
Arthur St. Clair was appointed governor of the
Northwest Territory by vote of Congress on October 5, 1787. When Governor St. Clair arrived at Losantiville [Cincinnati] the settlement consisted of two small hewed log houses and several cabins. Maj.
John Doughty, under orders from Gen.
Josiah Harmar, was engaged with a small military force in finishing the construction of Fort Washington. The population of the crude village, exclusive of the military, probably did not exceed one hundred and fifty. Three days after Gen. Harmar took up his quarters at Fort Washington, on January 1, 1790, Governor St. Clair was received with due ceremony by the troops and citizens of Losantiville. Fort Washington was distinguished by its large size: it was larger than a modern city block and designed to house up to 1500 men. Gen.
Josiah Harmar described it as "one of the most solid substantial wooden fortresses. . .of any in the Western Territory." The stockade's walls were two stories high with blockhouses located at each corner.
Indian campaigns The fort was used as a staging point and to supply all the northern forts. It played a key supporting role in three Indian campaigns: Harmar's Campaign 1790, St. Clair's Campaign 1791, and Gen. "Mad" Anthony Wayne's campaign in 1793-94. In 1790, Harmar used Fort Washington to launch an expedition against Native Americans in northwest Ohio, especially the
Miami Indians, whose principal city was
Kekionga (modern-day
Fort Wayne, Indiana). On October 22, 1790, Gen. Harmar's army was ambushed and massacred by Indians led by Chief
Little Turtle. The Indians of the
Northwest Territory were in open revolt aided by the
British. Indian raids came close to Cincinnati, despite the presence of the nearby Fort Washington. In the spring of 1793, Major General Anthony Wayne moved his forces from the training center at
Legionville, PA, down the
Ohio River by barge to a camp outside Fort Washington that was called
Hobson's Choice. In the fall, Wayne departed Fort Washington and moved his army northward, past
Fort Jefferson, to build Fort Greene Ville.
Decline and sale By 1802, Fort Washington had fallen into disuse and disrepair, and was manned by only half a company (about 35 men). In 1803 it was replaced by the larger
Newport Barracks established to house the Kentucky Militia. It was opened just across the
Ohio River in
Newport, Kentucky.
James Taylor Jr., an influential resident of
Newport, Kentucky, had lobbied his cousin
James Madison to place the post in Newport. On February 28, 1806, Congress directed the Secretary of the Treasury to cause the site of the abandoned fort to be surveyed and laid off into lots, streets and avenues conforming to the plan of the city, and to sell the lots to the highest bidders at a sale at the Cincinnati Land Office. The survey, certified July 8, 1807, shows the fort's boundaries to be Fourth Street to the north, Ludlow Street to the east, the Ohio River to the south, and Broadway to the west. ==Rediscovery==