Fort Recovery - Attack On Fort Recovery

Attack On Fort Recovery

On June 30 1794, a supply column left Fort Recovery for Fort Greenville, under the command of Major William McMahon and escorted by ninety riflemen under Captain Asa Hartshome and fifty dragoons under Lieutenant Edmund Taylor. It had only gone about a quarter mile when it was attacked by a Native American force, commanded by Blue Jacket and including a young Tecumseh. The dragoons cut a retreat back to the fort, but thirty-two men were killed, including Captain Hartshome and Cornet Daniel Torrey. Thirty more men were wounded. An unknown number of Native Americans were killed.

During the night, a scouting company under Captain William Wells reported that there were British officers behind the American Indian lines, and that they had brought powder and cannonballs, but no cannons. The Native Americans were looking for U.S. cannons that had been buried after St. Clair's Defeat, not knowing that they had already been recovered by the Legion of the United States. The next day, July 1 1794, the Native American forces attacked the fort again, but began to withdraw by noon and were gone by nightfall.

Fort Recovery was a reference point used to define the boundary line established in the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, following Wayne's victory in the Battle of Fallen Timbers. In 1800, it was used as a reference point in defining the initial boundaries of the Indiana Territory when that was first set off from the original Northwest Territory. When Ohio was admitted as a state in 1803, the boundaries had been adjusted and Fort Recovery was not mentioned as a reference point for the boundaries of the state.