Colonel Josiah Harmar is given command of the First American Regiment in 1784, becoming the senior officer in the United States Army.

In a follow up to the 1784 Treaty of Fort Stanwix, where the Seneca nation had given up claims to the Ohio Country, the American government seeks a treaty with the remaining tribes having claims in the Ohio Country.

The United States sends a team of diplomats including George Rogers Clark, Richard Butler, and Arthur Lee to negotiate a new treaty at Fort McIntosh (present Beaver, Pennsylvania).

Josiah Harmar signs the Treaty of Fort McIntosh in 1785, the same year that ...

...he orders the construction of the eponymous Fort Harmar near Marietta, Ohio.

The representatives of the two sides in the Northwest Indian War meet in January 1785 at Fort McIntosh at the confluence of the Ohio and Beaver Rivers.

Representatives of the Wyandot, Delaware, Chippewa and Ottawa nations cede all claims to land in the Ohio Country east of the Cuyahoga and Muskingum rivers.

The tribes also cede the areas surrounding Fort Detroit and Fort Michilimackinac to the American government and return captives taken in raids along the frontier.

Colonel Harmar is a signatory to the treaty.

Problems with the new treaty soon arise, however.

Connecticut's Western Reserve extends west of the Cuyahoga River into the reservation lands.

Connecticut has already granted large tracts of land, later to be nicknamed the "Firelands", in the region to Revolutionary War veterans and Patriots who had lost their homes in the war.

Josiah Harmar, who also supervises the construction of Fort Steuben near present-day Steubenville, Ohio, is promoted to brigadier general in 1787.

John Cleves Symmes and Colonel Robert Patterson had been founded a settlement 1788 on the site of present Cincinnati, Ohio.

Surveyor John Filson (also the author of The Adventures of Colonel Daniel Boone) had named it "Losantiville" from four terms, each of a different language, meaning "the city opposite the mouth of the Licking River".

Ville is French for "city", anti is Greek for "opposite", os is Latin for "mouth", and "L" was all that was included of "Licking River".

Under the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, had which created the Northwest Territory, General Arthur St. Clair had been appointed governor of what is now Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, along with parts of Wisconsin and Minnesota.

He renames the settlement Cincinnati after the Society of the Cincinnati, of which he is a member, and it is here that he established his home.

The Society honors General George Washington, who is considered a latter day Cincinnatus, the Roman farmer who was called to serve Rome as dictator, an office which he resigned after completing his task of defeating the Aequians in no less than sixteen days, and was considered the role model dictator.

Josiah Harmar directs the construction in 1789 of Fort Washington, built to protect the settlements in the Northwest Territory, and named in honor of the President.

As Governor, St. Clair formulates Maxwell's Code (named after its printer, William Maxwell), the first written laws of the territory.

He also seeks to end Native American claims to Ohio land and clear the way for white settlement.

Fort Washington is built in 1789 to protect early settlements located in the Northwest Territory.

The fort is located within modern-day Downtown Cincinnati and iwill be used to protect settlers of this city in its early years.

General Josiah Harmar describes it as "one of the most solid substantial wooden fortresses. . .of any in the Western Territory."

The stockade's walls are two stories high with blockhouses located at each corner.

The fort is named in honor of President George Washington.

Fort Washington provides military protection for the surrounding territories.

General Arthur St. Clair had been appointed governor of the Northwest Territory by vote of Congress on October 5, 1787; he will fill the office until November 22, 1802.

When Governor St. Clair arrives at Losantiville [Cincinnati] the settlement consists of two small hewed log houses and several cabins.

Major Doughty, under orders from Gen. Josiah Harmar, is engaged with a small military force in finishing the construction of Fort Washington.

The population of the rude village, exclusive of the military, probably does not exceed one hundred and fifty.

The Treaty of Fort Harmar, an agreement between the United States government and numerous native tribes with claims to the Northwest Territory, is signed at Fort Harmar, near present-day Marietta, Ohio, on January 9, 1789.

Representatives of the Iroquois Six Nations and other groups, including the Wyandot, Delaware, Ottawa, Chippewa, Potawatomi and Sauk meet with Arthur St. Clair, the governor of the Northwest Territory, and other American leaders such as Josiah Harmar and Richard Butler.

The treaty is supposed to address issues remaining since the 1784 Treaty of Fort Stanwix and the 1785 Treaty of Fort McIntosh; but, the new agreement does little more than reiterate the terms of those two previous documents with a few minor changes.

The negotiations and document fail to address the most important grievances of the tribes, namely, the settlement of New Englanders in the Firelands portions of the Western Reserve, an area that extends into the territory set aside for the tribes.

Governor Arthur St. Clair had been authorized by Congress and Secretary of War Henry Knox to offer back some lands reserved for American settlement in exchange for the disputed Firelands of the Western Reserve.

St. Clair had refused to give up these lands and instead, through threats and bribery, has negotiated a treaty that simply reiterates the terms of previous treaties.

Several regional tribes, such as the Shawnee, have been excluded from the negotiations.

As a result, the Shawnee will refuse to abide by the treaty.

The new treaty will do almost nothing to stop the rash of violence along the frontier from confrontations between settlers and natives.

The failure of the treaty will lead to an escalation of the Northwest Indian War (or "Little Turtle's War") as the tribes try to expel the pioneers; it will continue for six years until the United States defeats the tribal alliance at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794.

Congress had ordered the Continental Army to disband after the conclusion of the American Revolution in 1783, and General George Washington had resigned his commission as commander-in-chief.

While the bulk of the Continental Army had been disbanded by the end of 1783, Jackson's Continental Regiment, commanded by Colonel Henry Jackson and a company of artillery under Brevet Major John Doughty, had remained in service.

On June 2, 1784, Congress had reissued the disbandment order, under the principle that "standing armies in time of peace are inconsistent with the principles of republican government, dangerous to the liberties of a free people, and generally converted into destructive engines for establishing despotism."

Jackson's regiment had been disbanded later in the month and Doughty's Battery had been retained at West Point guarding artillery and ammunition.

On June 3, 1784, Congress passed a new resolution:

    Resolved, That the Secretary at War take order for forming the said troops when assembled, into one regiment, to consist of eight companies of infantry, and two of artillery, arming and equipping them in a soldier-like manner: and that he be authorized to direct their destination and operations, subject to the order of Congress, and of the Committee of the states in the recess of Congress.

Thomas Mifflin, the president of Congress, had named his former aide, Josiah Harmar, to be the commander of the new regiment, with the rank of lieutenant colonel.

Harmar was commissioned as the regiment's "lieutenant colonel commandant" on August 12, 1784.

The new regiment is used primarily to man frontier outposts and guard against native attacks.

An artillery company of the new regiment is Captain John Doughty's Company of the former 2d Continental Artillery Regiment.

In 1786, Secretary of War Henry Knox had ordered Colonel Harmar to the outpost village of Vincennes to drive away the Kentucky militia, who fled at the approach of the First American Regiment.

Colonel Harmar had left one hundred regulars under the command of Major Jean François Hamtramck to build a new fort and conduct operations deep within Indian Territory.

The First American Regiment is renamed the Regiment of Infantry on September 29, 1789.

The Federal government sends General Harmar on expeditions against Native Americans and remaining British in the Northwest Territory in 1790.

After a few initial military successes, his force of fifteen hundred militiamen is defeated in October by a tribal coalition led by Little Turtle, in an engagement known as the "Harmar's defeat", "Battle of the Maumee", Battle of Kekionga", or "Battle of the Miami Towns".

Later, Harmar returns with a somewhat larger force and engages the coalition, but fights to a draw.