Fort Jennings

How Fort Jennings began

Fort Jennings takes its name from a stockade built near the site in 1812: on September 21 of that year, General William Henry Harrison ordered Colonel William Jennings and his regiment of Kentucky militia to cut a road from Fort Barbee at St. Marys toward Defiance and build a fort partway along it, part of a chain of forts supplying Harrison's Northwest campaign. Civilian settlement did not follow for decades -- the first permanent settlers arrived around 1850 -- and the village incorporated in 1881.

Settled c. 1850, platted 1847, incorporated 1881.

Where the name comes from

Named for a stockade fort that Gen. William Henry Harrison had built on the Auglaize river in 1812-13, in honor of its commandant, Colonel Jennings, who was stationed there with three regiments of militia while awaiting reinforcements delayed by high water. Jennings sent a detachment under Capt. William D. Jones from the fort to the Ottawa villages of Upper and Lower Tawa on the Blanchard river in August 1813 or 1814, which burned the villages and destroyed their crops after finding them deserted. Colonel Jennings's own first name and unit are not given in this source; Wikipedia's identification of him as Col. William Jennings of Kentucky militia could not be independently confirmed here.

Before the town

No Native American village or mound specific to the Fort Jennings site itself was located, but the fort played a direct role in county Native American history: in 1813 or 1814 Colonel Jennings sent a detachment of militia from the fort down the Auglaize and up the Blanchard river to the Ottawa villages known as Upper and Lower Tawa (near present-day Ottawa village), found them deserted, and burned them after a week of feasting on the Indians' stores.

Nations recorded here: Ottawa.

Timeline

1. 1812-09-21 — General William Henry Harrison orders Colonel William Jennings's Kentucky militia regiment to cut a road from Fort Barbee (St. Marys) toward Defiance and build a fort along the way; the fort is completed that October.
2. 1813 — Colonel Jennings sends a militia detachment under Capt. William D. Jones from the fort to the Ottawa villages of Upper and Lower Tawa on the Blanchard river; finding the villages deserted, the troops burn them and destroy the crops before returning.
3. 1825 — Samuel Washburn becomes the first settler in what is later Jennings Township, buying two farms he soon clears and sells; Isaiah Clawson and William Cochran take them in 1827-28.
4. 1828-08-09 — Thomas Washburn is born, the first white child born in Jennings Township.
5. 1833 — Several German families, including John Disher, Henry Wellman and the Raabes (C., Henry and John), settle in Jennings Township; the township takes a temporary organization in 1832-33 with William Cochran as first justice.
6. 1834 — Only seventeen votes are cast in Jennings Township at the fall election.
7. 1847 — The town of Fort Jennings is platted.
8. 1850 — The first permanent civilian settlement is made at Fort Jennings.
9. 1852 — Christian Raabe opens the town's first general store.
10. 1876 — The Clover Leaf railroad is built through the town, giving farmers an outlet for their corn to outside markets.
11. 1881 — Fort Jennings incorporates as an Ohio village.
12. 1910 — The village census is 336.

Stories

A Supply Fort, Then a Forty-Year Wait

Fort Jennings began as a link in a chain, not a town. In September 1812, with the War of 1812's Northwest campaign still in its opening year, General William Henry Harrison needed a supply route running north from Fort Barbee at St. Marys toward Defiance, and he ordered Colonel William Jennings's Kentucky militia regiment to cut the road and build a fort roughly midway along it. The soldiers did their work quickly, finishing the post that October, and for the duration of the war the fort served its narrow military purpose: a stopover for men and stores moving between more famous posts like Fort Meigs and Fort Stephenson, without ever becoming a settlement in its own right. What is striking is how long the gap ran afterward. No permanent civilian settlement took root at the site until around 1850, nearly four decades after the fort itself was built and long after the war it had supplied was history -- so the village that eventually incorporated in 1881, and that still carries Jennings's name, was founded by farmers who arrived two generations after the soldiers who gave the place its name had gone home.

A Week of Feasting, Then a Burning

While Colonel Jennings's regiment waited out high water at the fort in 1813 or 1814, he sent a small detachment -- Capt. William D. Jones, Knowles Shaw, Aaron Howard, James Howard, and Henry and Thomas Montgomery -- north on a foraging expedition to the Ottawa villages of Upper and Lower Tawa on the Blanchard river, near where Ottawa village now stands. The soldiers crossed the river near the present Glandorf bridge and found the towns already deserted. Rather than turn back empty-handed, they spent a week helping themselves to the villages' roasting ears, chickens and fat hogs before burning the towns and destroying the standing crops on their way back to the fort. The county's 1915 historian noted dryly that Colonel Jennings thereby "left his name as a monument to the township and also the town" -- the same name still carried by the fort's namesake village and Jennings Township today.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · archive.org · archive.org

Mostly private wells The water here

• Ottoville Village100% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)

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Winners in bold. Results from the county board of elections' official canvass unless marked.

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-09-16

Source: Ohio EPA eDocument portal (edocpub.epa.ohio.gov), indexed 2026-10-14. Facilities are placed on the map from Ohio EPA's own map layers, EPA's Facility Registry, coordinates written in the filings, or a geocoded street address. A permit filed under a private person's name (most are household septic systems) is counted but never named, placed or linked; licenses for individual workers and open-burning notices are left out entirely.

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