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Glenford Fort

Glenford · Perry County · Central Ohio

A stone-walled hilltop that stayed in one family for two centuries

National Register of Historic PlacesStone-walled hilltop enclosure

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Content last reviewed: September 2026 — this is when Field Notes Ohio's content was last checked, not a live status.
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A one-mile stone wall around a forested hilltop, now open by permit after two centuries in private hands.

Wall: Built entirely of stone, about a mile long, enclosing roughly 24 acres, with a base of sandstone bluffs
Interior: A distinctive stone mound (dismantled in 1987) and a squircle-shaped enclosure in front of the main gateway
Excavation: A 1987 dig recovered Adena spear points, pottery, a copper bracelet and pipe fragments, and postholes of an oval building
Rank: Described as the best preserved of the 14 Hopewell ridgetop enclosures in Ohio
First described: By Caleb Atwater in the early 1800s; mapped in 1820
Owner: Perry Soil and Water Conservation District, bought with a Clean Ohio grant and the Arc of Appalachia

The story

Glenford Fort is a ridgetop enclosure built by the Hopewell about 2,000 years ago, and it is unusual because its wall is made entirely of stone. The builders used a ridge of sandstone bluffs as the base and stacked sandstone on top, enclosing about 24 acres in a wall roughly a mile long. Inside stood a stone mound and, in front of the main gateway, a rounded-square enclosure. Caleb Atwater described it in the early 1800s and Squier and Davis measured the wall in 1847 at four feet high.

The fort survived in remarkable shape because it stayed in the hands of one family for close to 200 years. Then, in 1987, the landowner dismantled the mound in the interior, and the dig that followed found Adena spear points, potsherds, a copper bracelet and pipe fragments, plus postholes showing that an oval building had stood at the base. Radiocarbon dating put the mound at about 280 BCE. The Perry Soil and Water Conservation District later bought the site, with a Clean Ohio grant and the help of the Arc of Appalachia, so the public could visit.

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The Fort the Family Kept, and the Mound That Was Taken Down

For nearly 200 years, one family owned Glenford Fort and looked after it, and that is the reason it looks so much as it did when Caleb Atwater first saw it. The wall runs through old forest for about a mile, ridge-topped and quiet.

Then, in 1987, the mound in the middle was taken down. Digging through it turned up spear points, a copper bracelet and the ghost of a house: postholes in an oval, showing where a wooden building once stood before the mound was raised over it.

Behind the legend

The preservation and the excavation are both documented, and the two stories sit uncomfortably side by side. A Perry County newspaper account says the mound was dismantled in 1987 by the property owner, and the radiocarbon date of 280 BCE came from that work. The stone wall and the rounded square are of classic Hopewell design and are several centuries younger than the mound, which is why archaeologists think the Hopewell built on top of an older Adena site.

Perry County has more than 100 documented American Indian earthworks, and Glenford Fort was the first to be preserved for public visits.

If you go

Apply for a permit through the Perry Soil and Water Conservation District, then walk the wall through the woods. Try to find the squircle in front of the main gateway.