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(For personal use: WP:MILCG)

Fort Jefferson was a strategic military outpost established during the American Revolutionary War, located one mile south of present day Wickliffe, Kentucky. Construction of the fort was originally proposed by Governor Patrick Henry in 1777 but formally authorized by Thomas Jefferson (then governor of Virginia) in January of 1780 and was constructed the same year.

Thomas Jefferson’s instructions also specified the construction of a civilian community with the hopes that the gardens would supply food to the fort inhabitants. The (state?) of Virginia authorized General George Rogers Clark to distribute 300 land grants to new Fort Jefferson soldiers [2 – sec3]. This settlement became known as Clarksville.

The outpost and settlement served to protect against the threat of British and Native American raids, and to establish what was, at that point, young America’s westernmost border. It was formally evacuated on June 8, 1781 but temporarily resettled after the Jackson Purchase of 1818. There are no physical traces of the fort or town left today.

Geography
The fort used to be located one mile (conversion here) south of current day Wickliffe, Kentucky at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. The town of Clarksville bordered on Liberty Creek (now Mayfield Creek) with the fort positioned between the settlement and the Mississippi with eroded bluffs to the north.