Fort McIntosh — Attraction in Beaver

Now, a beautifully manicured HISTORICAL public park honoring the Revolutionary war. The fortress was constructed in 1778 under the direction of Lt. Col. Cambray-Digny, a French engineer, and named in honor of General Lachlan McIntosh. The fortress was the site of the signing of the Treaty of Fort McIntosh on January 21, 1785. It was occupied until it was abandoned in 1791. After the Revolution, the fort was the home of the First American Regiment, the oldest active unit in the United States Army.

The fort was in the form of a trapezoid, about 150 feet on each side, with raised earthen bastions on each corner. Log palisades connected the bastions, and a 15 foot wide ditch protected three sides of the fort, with the 130 foot slope to the Ohio River protecting the other side. Inside were three barracks, warehouses, officer's quarters, a forge, kitchen, and powder magazines. The fort may have had either two or four iron cannon. Paraded by the Daughters of...

Despite the importance of this stunning, river-side site - where colonists and American Indians died in battle for separate belief systems - the 2017 granite monument and placards amount to a travesty in terms of outmoded, poorly-researched history and hurtfully worded narratives. The images demean American Indians, who are depicted twice: as two semi-nude, menacing savages; and a domesticated lackey wearing a beaver hat and leading mounted colonists against his own people. Women have been erased from history, despite the fact that the Daughters of the American Revolution funded the original,...

Clean and well-maintained; there are plenty of markers around to let you know what you're looking at. It can be easy to take local history for granted when you've lived in a given region for a long time. But it's nice to be able to drop into history like this in the middle of the day. Less than half an hour, and you get a feel for a very different time and set of circumstances in a place you might have driven past...