Ohio History Journal

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480 Ohio Arch

480      Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

 

 

 

SOME ERRORS CORRECTED.

 

BY CHARLES E. SLOCUM, M. D., PH. D., DEFIANCE, OHIO.

The following, regarding several historic places in north

western Ohio, is submitted as a plea for greater care by writers

and speakers that errors in historical data may lessen rather than

increase:

 

FORT MIAMI, THE STILL-EXISTING EARTHWORKS OF WHICH ARE

WITHIN THE PRESENT LIMITS OF THE VILLAGE OF MAU-

MEE, OHIO.

The pamphlet containing the "Appeal of the Maumee Valley

Monumental Association to the Congress of the United States,"

in the winter of 1885-86, reads, regarding Fort Miami, in part as

follows: "*  * * by order of Glencoe, Governor of Canada,

it was re-occupied in 1785, as a military post * *  * in 1795

it was again abandoned * * *."

Whether these statements were copied, as they read in the

pamphlet, from a former publication or not, is not known to the

writer. Canada's Governor thus referred to bore the name Sim-

coe, not Glencoe, and the British did not build, nor re-occupy, Fort

Miami in the year 1785. Lieutenant-Colonel John Graves Sim-

coe, of good repute in the British army in the Revolutionary war,

was Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, under Lord Dorches-

ter, from 1791 to 1794. He it was who built Fort Miami, and in

April, 1794.

This fort was evacuated by the British garrison July 11, 1796,

not in I795 as stated in the pamphlet; and it was immediately

occupied by a detachment of United States troops that was en-

camped near by for this purpose. It was soon thereafter aban-

doned on account of there being no need of a fortification so near

(within seven miles direct line) of Fort Industry.

In the pamphlet containing "A Collection of Historical Ad-

dresses (relating to) the Battle Fields of the Maumee Valley, De-

livered Before the Sons of the American Revolution, District of