Click HERE to see the science experiment the 8th grade students did of the Wabash River!
Click HERE to read a
poem that 8th grade students wrote about the Wabash River!
Geographical Facts of theWabash:
| - | The source of the Wabash is 4 miles south of Fort Recovery on Highway 49. |
| - | It winds around for 70 miles before it comes back to Fort Recovery. |
| - | Wabash comes from the Miami Indian word Wah-bah-shik-ki, which means pure white. Many years ago the water was clear and white limestone was easy to see. |
| - | The Wabash River is 474 miles long. |
| - | Quabache is the French name for Wabash. |
| - | The course of the Wabash River was rerouted north in the late 19th century when the railroad came to Fort Recovery. |
| - | The Wabash empties into the Ohio River at the southwestern tip of Indiana at the 848-mile marker. |
| - | It is the 3rd longest river to empty into the Ohio River. |
| - | The Wabash forms the southern half of the border between Indiana and Illinois. |
| - | The Salamonia and Mississinewa Rivers flow into the Wabash. |
Historical Facts:
| - | Fort Vincennes (Vincennes, IN) is located near the Wabash River. Fort Vincennes was a very important fort during the Revolutionary War and the Federal period (1790-1795). George Rogers Clark captured Vincennes, thereby gaining control of The Old Northwest from the British. |
| - | The Wabash carried a much larger volume of water in the 1790s than it does now and was one of the main highways of Indian travel through this region. |
| - | In 1790, General Josiah Harmar ordered Lt. John Armstrong to explore the Wabash River. He wanted to know how close it was to Lake Erie, the depth of its waters, and the distance of it. We now know that the Wabash is not even close to Lake Erie. They did not know back then the extent of the Wabash River. |
| - | The two largest Indian battles in the history of the United States occurred on the banks of the Wabash River -- St. Clair's Defeat and the Battle of Fort Recovery. |
| - | Generaln Arthur St. Clair belived he was camped on the site of the St. Mary's River on the evening of November 3, 1791. In actuality, he was camped on the Wabash River. |
| - | The Wabash River separated the Kentucky militia from the main body of the army in 1791. In fact, the Kentucky militia was camped 900 feet away from the main army. |
| - | After St. Clair's Defeat, the Indians buried three of the cannons under a hollow tree across the Wabash. They remained there undisturbed until December 1793, when the fort was built. |
| - | The soldiers who built the fort and dug the well inside the fort did not like the taste of the water from the well. They dug a tunnel to the Wabash and drank water from the river. |
| - | Twice, shallow graves were dug for the dead (from St. Clair's Defeat) along the banks of the Wabash. The first grave was dug by Col. Wilkinson's men two months after the battle and the grave was so shallow that by springtime, the bodies had already become unearthed. General Anthony Wayne's men dug the second series of graves when they came to build the fort. Those graves remained along the riverbank until 1851 when two boys playing along the river discovered them. As a result of that discovery, the town had a Bone Burying Day on September 10, 1851 and the bones were burined in Pioneer Cemetery. |
| - | The Wabash was approximately 20 yards wide at the time of the battles. |
| - | Oubache is the French name for the Wabash. Wabash is an Indian word meaning white. LaSalle, in 1669, was the first white man to explore the stream. The Wabash was long used as a trade route by the Indians and white traders between the Great Lakes and the Ohio. Under French control, the river connected settlements that stretched from the St. Lawrence River to the Gulf of Mexico. |
| - | On the banks of the Wabash, George Rogers Clark wrested the Old Northwest from the British when he captured Vincennes. Not far from the Wabash, William Henry Harrison defeated Tecumseh's brother The Prophet in the Battle of Tippecanoe marking the beginning of the War of 1812. |
| - | With peace came the building of the Wabash and Erie Canal, one of the world's longest canals. It brought prosperity to interior Indiana and Ohio. |