Fort Recovery is a

village A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...

in Mercer County, Ohio, United States. The population was 1,501 at the 2020 census. The village is near the location of Fort Recovery, first established in 1793 under orders from General

Anthony Wayne Anthony Wayne (January 1, 1745 – December 15, 1796) was an American soldier, officer, statesman, and a Founding Father of the United States. He adopted a military career at the outset of the American Revolutionary War, where his military expl ...

. The town is located near the headwaters of the

Wabash River The Wabash River () is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed May 13, 2011 river that drains most of the state of Indiana, and a significant part of Illinois, in the United ...

History

Two significant battles of the

Northwest Indian War 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 Americans in the United States, Native American na ...

took place at Fort Recovery. At the time, Ohio was claimed and populated by Native American nations, and conflict broke out when the young United States established settlements north of the

Ohio River The Ohio River () is a river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing in a southwesterly direction from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to its river mouth, mouth on the Mississippi Riv ...

. In 1791,

Northwest Territory The Northwest Territory, also known as the Old Northwest and formally known as the Territory Northwest of the River Ohio, was formed from part of the unorganized western territory of the United States after the American Revolution. Established ...

governor Arthur St. Clair led a campaign north from Fort Washington to pacify the

Western Confederacy 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 it ...

Kekionga Kekionga (, meaning "blackberry bush"), also known as KiskakonCharles R. Poinsatte, ''Fort Wayne During the Canal Era 1828-1855,'' Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Bureau, 1969, p. 1 or Pacan's Village, was the capital of the Miami tribe. It wa ...

. Instead, the United States force was destroyed in the early morning of November 4.

St. Clair's Defeat St. Clair's defeat, also known as the Battle of the Wabash, the Battle of Wabash River or the Battle of a Thousand Slain, was a battle fought on 4 November 1791 in the Northwest Territory of the United States. The U.S. Army faced the Northweste ...

remains the greatest loss by the United States Army to a Native American force. As a direct result of the Native American victory, the

Legion of the United States The Legion of the United States was a reorganization and extension of the United States Army from 1792 to 1796 under the command of Major General Anthony Wayne. It represented a political shift in the new United States, which had recently adop ...

was founded and placed under the command of General "Mad Anthony" Wayne. In late 1793, Wayne led 300 men to the site of St. Clair's defeat and deliberately had Fort Recovery built there. On December 25, they identified the site due to the large amount of unburied remains. Private George Will wrote that to set up camp, the unit had to move bones to make space for their beds. On June 30 of the following year, a large Native American force and a few British officers conducted the Siege of Fort Recovery. Although the Legion suffered high casualties, they were able to maintain control of the fort, in part because they had recovered cannons lost by St. Clair in 1791. Wayne used Fort Recovery as a staging ground for advances into the territory. He ultimately defeated the Native American confederacy at the

Battle of Fallen Timbers The Battle of Fallen Timbers (20 August 1794) was the final battle of the Northwest Indian War, a struggle between Indigenous peoples of North America, Native American tribes affiliated with the Northwestern Confederacy and their Kingdom of Gre ...

in August 1794. In 1795, confederacy representatives signed the

Treaty of Greenville The Treaty of Greenville, also known to Americans as the Treaty with the Wyandots, etc., but formally titled ''A treaty of peace between the United States of America, and the tribes of Indians called the Wyandots, Delawares, Shawanees, Ottawas ...

, which ceded control of most of the modern state of Ohio, using Fort Recovery as a reference point for the border between Native American and United States territories. In 1818, a Virginia soldier who fought at the battle of St. Clair's Defeat returned to the area in search of silver he left by a standing oak tree. The soldier remained in the area for an unknown amount of time and was later found dead in the woods. In 1852, a local resident struck metal with a grubbing hoe. The metal was iron bands encasing a small wooden box, and 900 Spanish

doubloon The doubloon (from Spanish language, Spanish ''doblón'', or "double", i.e. ''double escudo'') was a two-''Spanish escudo, escudo'' gold coin worth approximately four Spanish dollars or 32 ''Spanish real, reales'', and weighing 6.766 grams (0.218 ...

s were found, valued at $ (equivalent to $ in today's dollars). In September 1851, the town organized Bone Burying Day, to inter the remains of bones that had been discovered from the battles at that location.

Geography

Fort Recovery is located at . According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Fort Recovery has a total area of , of which is land and is water. The northwest corner of the Greenville Treaty Line is located in Fort Recovery. Fort Recovery is located at the confluence of a number of major area roads, including State Route 119, State Route 49, Sharpsburg Road, Union City Road, Wabash Road, and Fort Recovery-Minster Road. Fort Recovery was a stop along the New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad that connected Buffalo to Chicago and St. Louis. The

passes through Fort Recovery.

Demographics

2010 census

As of the census of 2010, there were 1,430 people, 555 households, and 391 families living in the village. The population density was . There were 589 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the village was 97.7%

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

, 0.1%

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

, 0.1% Native American, 0.1% Asian, 0.7% from other races, and 1.3% from two or more races.

Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...

or Latino of any race were 1.1% of the population. There were 555 households, of which 32.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 56.8% were married couples living together, 9.9% had a female householder with no husband present, 3.8% had a male householder with no wife present, and 29.5% were non-families. 27.9% of all households were made up of individuals, and 12.1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.58 and the average family size was 3.16. The median age in the village was 34.8 years. 28.2% of residents were under the age of 18; 6.6% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 26.7% were from 25 to 44; 24% were from 45 to 64; and 14.7% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the village was 51.0% male and 49.0% female.

Notable people

* Richard Butler, general killed at

St. Clair's defeat St. Clair's defeat, also known as the Battle of the Wabash, the Battle of Wabash River or the Battle of a Thousand Slain, was a battle fought on 4 November 1791 in the Northwest Territory of the United States. The U.S. Army faced the Northweste ...

, buried at Fort Recovery * Rick Derringer, rock guitarist, vocalist, and entertainer * Richard Schoen, award-winning mathematician at the

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Irvine, California, United States. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, U ...

* Henry Schwartz, U.S. Senator from

Wyoming Wyoming ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States, Western United States. It borders Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho t ...

Gallery

File:Gville_Treaty_Line_marker.jpg, A Greenville Treaty Line marker at Fort Recovery File:FtRecovery Cannonballs.jpg, Cannonballs left from the battle are on display at the Fort

References

External links

Historic Fort Recovery

Fort Recovery
on Ohio Historical Society site {{Authority control Villages in Mercer County, Ohio Villages in Ohio