The importance of Fort Laurens today not only for the American Revolution, but for Ohio history, is that the fact that this was the only American cotton mill fort that was built here during the time of the American Revolution.

- If nothing else, it provides a concrete link to you know, our shared past.

This is a very small part of what made this country, and it didn't work out the way we thought it would, but it's still here.

- As the American Revolution is breaking out, both the British and the Continental Congress are sending agents to the Ohio territory to try to acquire or to persuade Native American alliances, or at least to to keep them neutral in the war.

Basically, all the tribes in Ohio the Shawnee, the Mingo, the Wyandot, are going to join with the British all except for the Delaware Nation, which was centered here in the Touch Wars Valley.

So Indian raids are starting to increase along the western frontier.

And they're getting to the point where they had to do something to try to stop these raids from occurring.

the major goal where they’re focusing is Fort Detroit which was the British headquarters in the West.

They're going to follow an ancient Indian path known as the Great Trail, out of what was then Fort Pitt, today's Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The problem was, is that it was a very late start in the year.

They reached the Tuscaroras River here in November 18th of 1778.

They decide to build a fort here and wait till the following year.

The Fort for most of its existence was really low on supplies.

It suffered not only a shortage of supplies and harsh weather, but also the fact that there was a lot of Native Americans that were in here and there was a number of ambushes and attacks that took place here during that period of time.

There was some 22 individuals or more that died here or were killed here.

And Native American contact conflicts here while they were at Fort Laurens.

About that same period of time in New York state and eastern Pennsylvania are suffering major raids from the Iroquois and British out of Fort Niagara and so another large campaign was being planned against those natives, led by General Sullivan, starting in 1779.

So the military focus kind of shifted from the campaign from here to attacking Fort Detroit to the Sullivan campaign.

Washington decided that this fort should remain.

Now, for about the last month or so, acting as a decoy as the Sullivan campaign is taking place.

And it worked out pretty well.

The British were panicking, they knew they were planning an attack against Detroit, and you not only had an American Continental Army sitting here, but you also had George Rogers Clark, who had successful campaigns down the Ohio and up until the Illinois Territory.

So you had General McIntosh's force sitting here and George Rogers Clark in the Illinois Country.

And so Detroit actually builds a bigger, stronger fort to defend itself.

They were more or less diverting supplies there to defend themselves, which actually helped the Sullivan campaign in New York.

- The forces that were here kind of dispirited and can beat up a little bit, just walked out.

They left the Fort.

They didn't even burn it, they just left the Fort.

And while it's not a huge glory militarily archeologically, it's fascinating because we know we have this tiny little slice of time that they're here for.

So, you know, we see a button or a gun flint.

We know it's from that period.

- As this area is being settled in the early 1800s, most of this area became kind of a farm field.

The site was dedicated as an official state park in 1917.

They start to develop the park grounds in the 1920s and 30s.

But still, the exact location wasn't really known until the first archeological major archeological excavations here in 1971 and 72.

A lot of the artifacts remains of materials found here on display, as well as other artifacts from the American Revolution.

And really, it's here to help educate the public today.

- Archeologically speaking, all of the artifacts are within two and a half to three feet of the surface.

After the fort was abandoned, the area was settled much later by farmers.

So the artifacts do get mixed up a little bit.

But what archeological research has found out is that while the vertical matrix may change for the artifact horizontally, it really doesn't go very far.

So we don't have a state of control for time, but we don't need it.

We know it's ten months.

The plans for the the grounds now, we will do a couple of years of archeology confirming that the foundations are where we think they are, and then we'll actually start to excavate the foundations and part of my job right now is sourcing logs so we can rebuild the palisade.

Next winter, when the museum closes for the season, we will start actually gutting the museum, reconfiguring the space, putting all new exhibits in some of them, hopefully using the archeology that we're turning up.

And then in 2028, we'll have the Fort rededication for its 250th anniversary.

Whether you're from Cleveland or Cincinnati, you know, Democrat or Republican, this is our history.

This is the thing that, you know, it's kind of an anchor that for whatever reason, this is Ohio.

You know, we’re Ohioans.

So it's our shared story.