Fort Washington ( Cincinnati , Ohio ) Fort Washington was a fort in the early history of Cincinnati , Ohio . The location is marked by a plaque at the Guilford School building , at 421 E 4th St , Cincinnati , which now occupies the site . The physical location of the fort was facing the mouth of the Licking River , above present day Fort Washington Way . In 1789 , Fort Washington was built to protect early settlements located in the Northwest Territory . The fort was located within modern - day downtown Cincinnati , Ohio and was used to protect settlers of that city in its early years . Gen . Josiah Harmar described it as " one of the most solid substantial wooden fortresses . . . of any in the Western Territory . " The stockade ' s walls were two stories high with blockhouses located at each corner . The fort was named in honor of President George Washington . Fort Washington provided military protection for the surrounding territories . Gen . Arthur St . Clair was appointed governor of the Northwest Territory by vote of Congress on October 5 , 1787 ; he filled the office until November 22 , 1802 . When Governor St . Clair arrived at Losantiville [ Cincinnati ] the settlement consisted of two small hewed log houses and several cabins . Maj . Doughty , under orders from Gen . Josiah Harmar , was engaged with a small military force in finishing the construction of Fort Washington . The population of the rude village , exclusive of the military , probably did not exceed one hundred and fifty . Three days after Gen . Harmar took up his quarters at Fort Washington , on January 1 , 1790 , Governor St . Clair was received with due ceremony by the troops and citizens of Losantiville . In 1790 , Harmar used Fort Washington to launch an expedition against Native Americans in northwest Ohio , especially the Miami Indians , whose principal city was Kekionga ( modern - day Fort Wayne , Indiana ) . The fort was used as a staging point and to supply all the northern forts . The fort would serve similar purposes for the remainder of the 1790s until the United States military moved its operation to the Newport Barracks . On October 22 , 1790 , Gen . Harmar ' s army was ambushed and soundly defeated by Indians led by Chief Little Turtle . The Indians of the Ohio Territory were in open revolt aided by the British . Indian raids came close to Cincinnati , despite the presence of the nearby Fort Washington . On June 1 , 1791 , John Van Cleve , a blacksmith of Fort Washington was stabbed in five places , killed and scalped by the Indians in an outlot of Cincinnati ( near the present site of Music Hall ) . General " Mad " Anthony Wayne was appointed Commander - in - Chief of the United States Army by President George Washington to subdue the Indians in the Northwest Territory . Wayne began at once to reorganize the army . In July 1792 he began training his men at Fort Lafayette at Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania . He then moved his forces to his purpose - built training center at Legionville ( the United States Army ' s first basic training facility ) during the winter 1792 – 93 . In the summer of 1793 , Wayne moved his forced down the Ohio River by barge to Fort Washington and waited for orders to attack . Washington was still trying to resolve problems through negotiation . He also established other Posts , a camp , Greenville , Ohio , in honor of his friend , Nathanael Greene , and another fort , Fort Recovery . After fighting for some time a treaty of peace was signed , on August 3 , 1795 , known as the Treaty of Greenville . In 1803 the smaller Fort Washington was replaced by the Newport Barracks . It was opened just across the Ohio River in Newport , Kentucky . James Taylor Jr . an influential resident of Newport , Kentucky had lobbied his cousin James Madison to place the post in Newport . When George Washington issued a patent for sale of 248 , 250 acres to Judge John Cleves Symmes , known as Symmes Purchase , on September 30 , 1794 , it reserved 15 acres to the federal government for the fort . On February 28 , 1806 , Congress directed the Secretary of the Treasury to cause the site of the abandoned fort to be surveyed and laid off into lots , streets and avenues conforming to the plan of the city , and to sell the lots to the highest bidders at a sale at the Cincinnati Land Office . The survey , certified July 8 , 1807 , shows the fort ’ s boundaries to be Fourth Street to the north , Ludlow Street to the east , the Ohio River to the south , and Broadway to the west . Fort Washington ' s name is retained as Fort Washington Way , a corridor of Interstate 71 that runs through downtown Cincinnati .