One and one-half miles below the confluence of the Ohio and Little Kanawha rivers lies historic Blennerhassett Island, home of the Irish aristocrat Harman Blennerhassett and his wife Margaret from 1798 to 1806. Blennerhassett is known for his participation in the mysterious Aaron Burr military enterprise of 1806-07; the island was the staging ground for boats, supplies, and volunteers who departed in December 1806 for the wilderness of the lower Mississippi River. The Blennerhassetts occupied an elegant Palladian-style mansion that was rebuilt on its original site, 1984-1991.
Blennerhassett Island has been almost continuously inhabited for 13,000 years, for most of the time by prehistoric Indians. The famous Indian guide and trailblazer Nemocolin lived there in the 1760s. Other illustrious visitors to the island included George Rogers Clark, Johnny Appleseed, Henry Clay, Walt Whitman, and "Gentleman Jim" Corbet.
During the Civil War, in July 1863, members of the 15th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, commanded by Col. William Wallace, guarded the Blennerhassett Island ford at the lower end of the island during the famous raid into Ohio by Confederate forces under John Hunt Morgan. An anticipated crossing at the ford did not materialize.
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