Fort Dearborn (Mississippi)

Fort Dearborn, also known as Washington Cantonment, was a U.S. Army base in Mississippi Territory on the Natchez Trace in Adams County near the territorial capital of Washington.

[1] With approval from Thomas Jefferson and U.S. Secretary of War Henry Dearborn, territorial governor William C. C. Claiborne ordered construction of a blockhouse "about 400 yards from his house" on land donated by Joseph Calvit.

[4] The fort was sited on the "north bank of St. Catherine's Creek" in the vicinity of present-day U.S. Route 61.

[1] According to the U.S. National Park Service, "The site of Fort Dearborn is near the end of a plateau which is surrounded by ravines on three sides.

The site of Fort Dearborn has changed little since 1858, when Benjamin L. C. Wailes described it in his diary: 'The outline of the barracks can be seen by scraps of nails, pieces of brick, fragments of glass, pottery and crockery and military buttons, etc.