W. P. A. Cemetery Survey - The Old Kentuckian Burial Grounds

In this series, some of the general surveys of Defiance County cemeteries will be shared, transcribed as written on the original W.P.A. reports, with a few punctuation and/or spelling changes for readability.  The surveys were probably done around 1936.

 The Old Kentuckian Burial Ground

1. Name of Cemetery:

The Old Kentuckian Burial Ground at Winchester's Camp Number Three.

2. Location, how reached:

This historic burial ground is situated four miles east of the city of Defiance, Ohio on U. S. 24 and on the bank of the Maumee River, in the Independence Dam State Park.  In fact, it now comprises a part of the park.  It is directly across the road from the old Rohn house, mentioned under Architecture.  The Miami and Erie Canal takes up a part of this old burial ground.  It is reached from Defiance, Ohio, by going east on U.S. 24 along the north bank of the Maumee River for four miles just below the State Dam.

3. Name and address of caretaker:

This old burial ground, now being a part of the Independence State Park, is kept up by the sate of Ohio and the Park Board of Defiance County, also the C.C.C. boys in the last two years have did much work in and around here.  A shelter house is built on the grounds of the old burial ground.  For direct information, see Mr. Ed. Bronson, secretary of the Defiance County Park Board.

4. General description, size, appearance, denomination, fencing, etc.:

How any acres this burial ground originally contained cannot be accurately determined.  It is at the site of Gen. Winchester's Camp #3, during the winter of 1812 - 1813, the hardest winter ever suffered by white men in this part of the world.  

Winchester had built his fort in this year near the old site of Fort Defiance on the Auglaize River, and from here sent out groups of men to the east and west.  To the east and along the north bank of the Maumee River, he sent six hundred men, all of a Kentucky Regiment that had come up to Fort Winchester early in the fall from Kentucky as a strengthening for Winchester's troops.  And this company, he sent four miles down the river and established Camp #3, which at that time overlooked the old Shawnee town which stood on what is now the Rohn farm.

These Indians were the worst of the lot and, being incited by the British and renegades like Simon and James Girty, started to wipe out the whole regiment.  To make matters worse, no one was put in command of these Kentuckian troops and they had only a handful of supplies.  Winchester had promised to send a leader and food later.  But Winchester, himself, got hard up, and a lot of his men at Fort Winchester died and many deserted, taking all the food and rations they could carry.  So these some six hundred soldiers were left to starve.

Every time a man would step out of the block house or rather an old wooden log stockade, the Indians would shoot at him.  This winter was also very cold.  The men could not even get wood with thousands of trees around because the Indians were so hostile.

That winter over three hundred men died and were buried in this place.  Some from exposure and others starvation.  History says that the men used their moccasins to make soup out of and then fried all the leather they could find, even pieces of harness.  They killed the few horses they had and ate them.

When the canal was built in 1837 - 1848, thousands of bones were found, as the canal was dug directly through the burial ground.  These bones were all reburied and this place is now what is called the Old Kentuckian Burial Ground.  The Park Board, under the supervision of Mr. Abram Smith and Edward Bronson of Defiance, Ohio, has been trying for some time to raise money enough to erect a memorial to these Kentucky dead who gave their lives that winter.

The place is now wild and shady; large trees, mostly elms, shade it.  It has on its south side the Maumee River and on its north, the Canal, in which water is still running here.  The plot is about 75 yards wide; the length is not known.

5. Name and date of first burial recorded:

All men buried here were in the years of 1812 - 1813 during the winter and ninety percent of them were from Kentucky.  

It was also here that Captain Logan, the Indian Warrior, who joined the American forces and left his own people, died, having been wounded several miles farther down the river at the mouth of Turkey Foot Creek.  Later his body was moved to Fort Winchester and buried. 

6. Names of important persons buried here; for what noted:

This graveyard is of importance as stated above as the burying place of 300 Kentuckian warriors of General Winchester's Army in 1812- 1813.

7. Markers of unusual appearance:

None at the present time.  A movement is on the way to erect a memorial here.

8. Unusual epitaphs:  None

9. Is cemetery used for new burials?  Never used, only the one winter, 1812-1813. 

(The Works Progress Administration was formed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in reaction to the Great Depression as a means of employing Americans and stimulating the economy.  Established in 1935, one of the projects of the W.P.A. was to conduct Historical Records Surveys, one of which included finding information on cemeteries and the graves of veterans.  The W.P.A. was disbanded in 1943, but the historical information provided on these surveys continue to be of interest and are, thankfully, preserved.)