- Benjamin Logan
Benjamin Logan (c.1742 –
December 11 ,1802 ) was an American pioneer, soldier, and politician fromShelby County, Kentucky . As colonel of the Kentucky Countymilitia (United States) ofVirginia during theAmerican Revolutionary War , he was second-in-command of militia inKentucky . Logan was a leader inKentucky 's efforts to become a state.Biography
Benjamin was born in
Augusta County, Virginia , the eldest son of David (1706-1757) and Jane (McKinley) Logan. At fifteen, Logan's father died, and Benjamin inherited his father's 860 acre (3.5 km²) farm. He would marry Ann Montgomery in 1772, and they raised eight children.In 1764, Logan saw service in
Henry Bouquet 's campaign against theShawnee Indians . In 1774, he was a lieutenant inLord Dunmore's War . The next year he moved toKentucky , then still part ofVirginia , starting the settlement of St. Asaph's, near Stanford, building Logan's Fort there.In 1776, he was appointed
sheriff andjustice of the peace . During the Revolution, he was the second ranking officer in the Virginia militia for Kentucky County, ascolonel ; and later became a general. He fought Indians north of theOhio River , under the command ofGeorge Rogers Clark , as well as in Kentucky. Logan and Clark were in frequent disagreement over strategy.After the Revolution, Logan was active in Kentucky politics, especially the campaign to establish it as a separate state. He served as the local representative in the
Virginia House of Delegates , from 1781 until 1787, where he first agitated for statehood for Kentucky.In the fall of 1786, Logan led a force of Federal soldiers and mounted Kentucky militia against several Shawnee towns in the
Ohio Country along the Mad River, protected primarily by noncombatants while the warriors were raiding forts in Kentucky. Logan burned the Indian towns and food supplies, and killed or captured a considerable number of Indians, including their chief, who was soon murdered by one of Logan's men.Logan's Raid and the death of the chief angered the Shawnees, who retaliated by further escalating their attacks on the whites, escalating theNorthwest Indian War .Logan was one of those who called for the Danville Convention, and was a delegate when they wrote the first Kentucky constitution in 1791 and 1792. After statehood, he served in the Kentucky state House of Representatives from 1792 to 1795. Logan later ran unsuccessfully for governor, in 1796 and 1800. In 1802, he died of a stroke at home, about 6 miles southwest of
Shelbyville, Kentucky , and was buried in a family plot there.Logan County, Kentucky andLogan County, Ohio are named for him, as is theBenjamin Logan Local School District in Ohio.References
* Talbert, Charles G. "Benjamin Logan, Kentucky Frontiersman." University of Kentucky Press, 1962, ISBN 0-935680-22-5.
External links
* [http://www.logansfort.org/index.html Logan's Fort website]
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