GROUP PRESERVING FIRST U.S. BOOT CAMP
By Mary Alice Meli (Reprinted from the June 5, 1996, South County Times of Lawrence County, Pa.)
The first step on a long and bumpy road to historical preservation for Legion Ville was taken last week by Beaver County and state officials, according to an Ellwood City member of the Legion Ville task force. Legion Ville, America’s first military boot camp was named by Maj. Gen. "Mad" Anthony Wayne, the military genius who created it in 1792. The camp was located along the Ohio River between Baden and Ambridge in Harmony Township. Bob Barensfeld of Chapel Drive and other members of the task force attending a meeting with Beaver County commissioners and Larry Williamson, director of Pennsylvania Parks and Recreation. He said the discussion focused on a strategy to negotiate a fair price for about 16 acres of the original 50-acre site and to get funding from the state to acquire it. The process could take several years. Barensfeld said the task force was formed about six months ago to spur government interest at all levels.
"The historical significance of the site is unparalleled. All knowledgeable federal historical experts put Legion Ville on a par with Independence Hall, Valley Forge and like historical sites," he said. The site is important to all of Western Pennsylvania, including Ellwood City, Barensfeld said, "and deserves to be preserved and restored. It’s the first United States training site established after America became a nation." Beneath today’s grasses and trees, local archaeologists have discovered pottery shards, metal bullet moulds, buttons, a bayonet scabbard, evidence of post holes, building lines and fire pits. Archaeologist Pat Riley of Hopewell, president of the Legion Ville Historical Society, believes there’s much more. He said his dream is to excavate the site and then convert it into an historical park. "This is the most intact federal area in the United States," Riley said. "Of all Wayne’s installations, this one is the most pristine." However, each day the weather brings destruction to remaining features and artifacts, he said.
In a way, Legion Ville’s story begins at the end of the American Revolution in 1783 when the Treaty of Paris was supposed to make the British go away. It didn’t. The British knew the pitiful, undertrained, poorly led First American Regiment was all that was left of the revolutionary force. The British pulled back to their outposts along the Great Lakes in Ohio, Michigan and New York where they could continue in the fur trade. To keep the new Americans from moving west without violating the treaty themselves, the British incited the Wea, Kickapoo, Potawatami, Piankashaw, Miami, Wyandot, Shawnee, Mingo and Delaware tribes to do it for them. The American Indians had their own reasons for wanting to staunch the flood of settlers whom, they knew, wanted land.
By 1790, the settlers and military expeditions had set up forts along the Ohio River to Cincinnati and tensions had grown to hostilities. Indian raids had settlers screaming for protection. Two major military assaults in 1790 and 1791 against the brilliant Miami Indian chief Little Turtle failed disastrously, losing supplies, equipment and half the nation’s forces. Congress was forced to reverse its opposition to a standing professional army and pass the U.S. Militia Act.
This gave President George Washington the funds to train and equip new recruits. The Legion of the United States was born, named after the legions of Julius Caesar. Washington appointed Wayne commander-in-chief of the yet-to-be formed force and told him to spare nothing in the way of supplies to get his army ready to end the threat to westward expansion. Why Wayne? He wasn’t really mad, as in insane. He was fearless and fiercely determined, once continuing an attack on a British stronghold during the Revolution even though he’d been shot in the head. As a result, he was mercilessly strict with his men, using court martials, floggings, brandings, running gauntlets and public humiliation for training infractions. On the other hand, he saw to it they were clothed, fed and paid promptly, which earned their admiration.
Upon receiving his orders from Washington, Wayne left Philadelphia for Pittsburgh. The promise of a job in the army brought all manner of men. At least 1,500 were waiting in Fort Lafayette in the small outpost that was then Pittsburgh when Wayne arrived. With little to do, the men began to drink, steal and brawl. Wayne decided to move them to an isolated area to begin training. In early November 1792, Wayne sent 200 men to a spot 22 miles north along the Ohio to clear the ground for the new encampment. By the end of the same month, the river was high enough to carry ships with 2,500 men, supplies and equipment to the new Legion Ville. The camp was a cantonment, or fort without walls. It was fortified by the Ohio River on the west and ravines with wide streams on the south and north. Four fortifications were located at each of the four corners where artillery and soldiers could protect the camp from attack on any side. Five hundred buildings were constructed with supply storehouses, billets for the cavalry, riflemen and infantry, stables, officers’ housing Wayne’s house, a parade ground and a small graveyard.
At the end of April 1793, Wayne and his force set out for the Ohio, taking a year to build forts along a route that took him into the heart of Chief Little Turtle’s land near Toledo. There, in August 1794, Wayne’s Legion defeated the Miamis at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. Two years later, the Legion accepted the formal surrender of all British posts in the United States.
