Steubenville, Ohio is a small city on the Ohio River, on the state's eastern boundary with West Virginia. Steubenville is about 38 miles from Pittsburgh, PA.
The city was plotted in 1797, just after the creation of Jefferson County in which it is located. The town grew up around Fort Steuben, a fortress protecting the former Northwest Territory.
The city was named for Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, a Prussian aristocrat and soldier who offered his services to the Continental Army.
Baron Von Steuben, who had exaggerated both his noble lineage and his military experience, nevertheless performed invaluable service to General Washington in developing a plan for organizing military camps and training troops.
Baron Von Steuben shared the bitter winter of 1776 at Valley Forge, and he is credited with the impressive improvement in military effectiveness of the Continental Army in the New Jersey campaigns the following year.
(Baron Von Steuben is worthy of his own article; a life-long bachelor who traveled with a corps of young assistants, he left his entire fortune to the two young officers who had been his aides-de-camp during the Revolution.)
Like the town or Weirton, West Virgina, across the Ohio River, Steubenville prospered in the heyday of the steel industry, and suffered dramatic economic collapse in the last third of the 20th century.
A river town, Steubenville was known as "Little Chicago", both for the hustle and enterprise of the citizens and for the epidemic political corruption and illicit "industry" that the town supported.
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This vintage postcard was printed about 1910.
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Comments: 13
Have you ever visited Steubenville, by any chance?
His opinion changed during the course of Frederick's reign.
But the story cannot be verified.
Stoy BEN
STU ben
Stu BEN
I've no idea how he pronounced it. I published a book Revolutionary War Chronology & Almanac that includes a brief (4 page) biography of Von Steuben. He was an amazing man. Evidence the number of towns, cities, counties named after him. Thanks Peter.
The guides at Valley Forge, since I was a child, still speak of Von "STU-ben".