Ohio River Valley

Seth Concklin: A Daring, Dedicated New York Abolitionist

April 26, 2026 by William M. Goodman 2 Comments

Many New Yorkers before the Civil War contributed to the abolition of slavery, and the dangerous work of helping enslaved African-Americans flee their captors. Take Calvin Fairbank, a New York Methodist pastor born 1816, who spent 17 years in prison for his missions to help enslaved people escape.

Seth Concklin, a New Yorker whose name and sacrifice were more familiar in the 19th century, died tragically in 1851 while trying to help a mother and her three children escape from slavery. [Read more…] about Seth Concklin: A Daring, Dedicated New York Abolitionist

Mary Jemison: ‘The White Woman of the Genesee’

January 26, 2026 by Jack Kelly Leave a Comment

Consider the story of Mary Jemison. She was born in 1743 aboard a ship as her Scots-Irish family journeyed from Dublin, Ireland, to Pennsylvania. They settled on the frontier just north of Gettysburg. She and her five siblings enjoyed a happy childhood on the “little paradise” of the family farm.

One April morning, when Mary was fifteen, a party of six Shawnee and four French warriors attacked their isolated home. Her two older brothers escaped, but the raiders captured the rest of the family. They forced the prisoners to march westward. After two days, Mary was given a pair of moccasins to replace her shoes. [Read more…] about Mary Jemison: ‘The White Woman of the Genesee’

Pontiac’s Uprising: The American Indian War for Independence

January 7, 2026 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

In April 1763, the American Indian War for Independence (1763-1766) — also called Pontiac’s Rebellion or Pontiac’s Uprising for the Ottawa Nation leader who organized a coalition against European colonial powers — started with the siege of Fort Detroit.

In July 1764, an English colonial force that included 500 Native fighters departed from Oswego for operations against Pontiac’s forces to the west. Attacks by Native forces spread east and south as a result of continued European colonists’ trespassing and settlement on Native lands. [Read more…] about Pontiac’s Uprising: The American Indian War for Independence

The Erie Canal’s Impacts on Indigenous People

November 19, 2025 by Guest Contributor 3 Comments

New York’s canal building boom and the urban explosion that it triggered dramatically accelerated the dispossession and disruption of traditional life ways of the region’s Native American inhabitants that had been initiated by the introduction of European trade, diseases, colonial wars, the American Revolution, and encroaching settlement by non-natives. [Read more…] about The Erie Canal’s Impacts on Indigenous People

Abolitionist Levi Coffin: Action, Not Words

August 26, 2024 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Levi Coffin was a legendary figure in the abolition movement who believed that action was more important than words in that struggle. Born in New Garden, North Carolina, on October 28, 1798, Coffin was raised in an anti-slavery Quaker family who immigrated to Indiana near the border with Ohio in 1826 to avoid slaveholders’ increasing persecution of Quakers. [Read more…] about Abolitionist Levi Coffin: Action, Not Words

The American Revolutionary War in the West

January 3, 2024 by Dr. Liz Covart Leave a Comment

In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World, Stephen Kling, Jr. guides us on an expedition through the American Revolution’s Western Theater.

The American Revolution and its War for Independence comprised the United States’ founding movement. The War for Independence also served as the fifth major war for European empire in North America. [Read more…] about The American Revolutionary War in the West

Some History of the Myaamia People

December 6, 2023 by Dr. Liz Covart Leave a Comment

In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World, Diane Hunter and John Bickers join us to investigate the history and culture of one of the Myaamia (Miami) people, one of the at least 1,000 Algonquian speaking Indigenous tribes and nations living in different areas of North America before the Spanish and other European empires arrived on the continent’s shores. [Read more…] about Some History of the Myaamia People

New York Steamboats & The Mississippi River

September 25, 2023 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

This article is excerpted from “The Keelboats and Flatboats of the Early Days — Discouragements Overcome by Fulton and his Associates,” originally reprinted from the New Orleans Times-Picayune in The New York Times on August 14, 1891. It was transcribed by Hudson River Maritime Museum volunteer Carl Mayer and slightly edited for clarity and annotated by John Warren.

Of the various persons who have disputed Robert Fulton’s laurels as the inventor of the first perfect steamboat, Edward West’s claims are the strongest. West, father of the noted painter William West [William Edward West, 1788–1859, provided numerous illustrations for the books of Washington Irving]. [Read more…] about New York Steamboats & The Mississippi River

The French and Indian War: A New York Perspective

August 31, 2023 by Peter Hess Leave a Comment

In the early 1750s, the French were establishing trading posts and building forts along western the frontiers of the British colonies. In the fall of 1753, in part to protect his own claims on Indigenous lands, Virginia Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie had sent 22-year-old George Washington (then a militia leader and surveyor) to deliver a letter to Fort Le Boeuf at what is today Waterford in northwest Pennsylvania, demanding they stop. [Read more…] about The French and Indian War: A New York Perspective

Field of Corpses: Arthur St. Clair & the Death of an American Army

March 9, 2023 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

November 4th, 1791 was a black day in American history. General Arthur St. Clair’s army encountered an Indigenous military force in what is now western Ohio.

In just three hours at what is known as St. Clair’s defeat, the Battle of the Wabash, or the Battle of a Thousand Slain, St. Clair’s force sustained the greatest loss ever inflicted on the United States Army by Native Americans — a total nearly three times larger than that incurred in the more famous Custer fight of 1876. [Read more…] about Field of Corpses: Arthur St. Clair & the Death of an American Army

Calvin Fairbank: Imprisoned 17 Years For Helping Enslaved People to Freedom

August 9, 2022 by Editorial Staff 3 Comments

Rev. Calvin Cornelius Fairbank was born November 3, 1816 in Pike, Wyoming County, NY. He began his academic studies at a seminary in Lima, Livingston County, NY, and became a licensed preacher in 1840. In 1842 he was ordained an elder in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and he graduated Oberlin College in Ohio two years later. At Oberlin he met John Mifflin Brown (1817-1893), a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church and an Underground Railroad activist.

Fairbank was a radical abolitionist who not only spoke out against slavery, but actively worked to free as many enslaved people as he could. [Read more…] about Calvin Fairbank: Imprisoned 17 Years For Helping Enslaved People to Freedom

Native American History: The Ohio River Valley and Great Lakes Region

February 6, 2019 by Dr. Liz Covart Leave a Comment

During the 17th and 18th centuries, the Ohio River Valley proved to be a rich Agrarian region. Many different Native American peoples prospered from its land both in terms of the land’s ability to produce a wide variety of crops and its support of a wide variety of small fur-bearing animals for the fur trade.

In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World: A Podcast About Early American History Susan Sleeper-Smith, a Professor of History at Michigan State University and author of Indigenous Prosperity and American Conquest: Indian Women and the Ohio River Valley, 1690-1792 (The Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, 2018), helps us explore this unique region and the important roles it played in the early American past. [Read more…] about Native American History: The Ohio River Valley and Great Lakes Region

Braddock’s Defeat: The Battle of the Monongahela

December 23, 2015 by Dr. Liz Covart Leave a Comment

Did George Washington start the French and Indian War?

Why should we remember a battle that took place over 260 years ago?

In this episode of the Ben Franklin’s World podcast, we investigate the answers to those questions as we explore the Battle of the Monongahela with David Preston, author of Braddock’s Defeat: The Battle of the Monongahela and the Road to Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2015). You can listen to the podcast here: www.benfranklinsworld.com/060

Ohio River Valley

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