The Chenoweth Massacre of July 17, 1789 was the last major Native American raid in present-day

Jefferson County, Kentucky 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 (with more than twice the population of second ranked ...

(

Louisville Metro The government of Louisville, Kentucky, headquartered at Louisville City Hall in Downtown Louisville, is organized under Chapter 67C of the Kentucky Revised Statutes as a First-Class city in the state of Kentucky. Created after the merger of the ...

). Captain Richard Chenoweth, builder of

Fort Nelson Fort Nelson may refer to: Canada *Fort Nelson, British Columbia, a town *Fort Nelson River, British Columbia * Fort Nelson (Manitoba) (1670–1713), an early fur trading post at the mouth of the Nelson River and the first headquarters of the Hudson ...

, was stationed with his family northeast of present-day Middletown when a large band of Native Americans (likely

Shawnee The Shawnee are an Algonquian-speaking indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. In the 17th century they lived in Pennsylvania, and in the 18th century they were in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, with some bands in Kentucky a ...

) 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 A faked death, also called a staged death or pseudocide, is the act of an individual purposely deceiving other people into believing that the individual is dead, when the person is, in fact, still alive. People who commit pseudocide can do so by l ...

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. 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 The Falls of the Ohio National Wildlife Conservation Area is a national, bi-state area on the Ohio River near Louisville, Kentucky in the United States, administered by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Federal status was awarded in 1981. The fal ...

. What is now called the

Chenoweth Fort-Springhouse 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 17 ...

, where Chenoweth and his wife took refuge, has been preserved and is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

See also

References

Further reading