Stockades in the Wilderness

In the Ohio River-Great Lakes region, decades of conflict between pioneer settlers and Native American nations erupted into full-scale war in the 1790s. As new communities such as Cincinnati, Columbia, and North Bend were founded throughout the vast Miami Purchase, southern Ohio became the bloody battleground of this nameless war. To counter the ever-present threat of attack, southwestern Ohio's pioneering settlers "forted up" in small stockades and fortified cabins that offered some protection for their families. Today, nothing is visibly left of these vital protective "stations" except a few historic markers or local cemeteries. In this book, you will discover their people, their stories, their locations, and their role in the war that ended with the Treaty of Greeneville in 1795, and how and why some of them developed into the southern Ohio communities that we know today.