By Stephen Smoot
As the nation and some parts of the world celebrate America 250, the anniversary of the 1776 independence of the United States, few think much about the war only 20 years prior.
George Washington, a major in the Virginia militia, had in 1754 marched a small force towards the Forks of the Ohio, modern Pittsburgh. Virginia hoped that he could secure their claim to that strategic point before France, whose explorers extended their claims south from Canada. The young Washington ended up in his first combat, where he lost control of his Indian allies and had to sign a humiliating surrender.
Not long after, he accompanied General Sir Edward Braddock on his march with the 44th and 48th Regiment of Foot into the disastrous 1755 battle that killed the general and scattered a professional British force.
After the defeat, Washington wrote to Governor Robert Dinwiddie of Virginia that “I Tremble at the consequences that this defeat may have upon our back setlers, who I suppose will all leave their habitation’s unless their are proper measures taken for their security.”
The very next year, 270 years ago, Washington received the order to establish a chain of forts through the western frontier. Some of those sites have defined the human geography and even the early culture of the region as they run through modern Mineral, Hampshire, Hardy, Grant, and Pendleton counties in West Virginia.
Washington’s skirmish in 1754 touched off a conflict properly described as the actual first world war, called the French and Indian War in America and the Seven Years’ War everywhere else.. The British Empire stood on one side with its colonies in multiple hemispheres. Fighting alongside her was King Frederick the Great of Prussia, whose heroic leadership inspired a number of places named for him east of the Appalachians. The small German state of Hanover, home of the dynasty ruling Britain in that time, technically sided with Britain but contributed little.
The Five Nations of the Iroquois League served as the most effective of British allies in the conflict, but their rivals joined the French in driving eastward against the frontier settlements of Virginia.
The northern anchor of the planned forts for 1756 was Fort Cumberland, already a busy military and economic outpost. It was constructed in 1754 and served as the base for Braddock’s expedition.
The future Continental Army commander and first president knew the area well. At the age of 16, he assisted Lord Fairfax on his survey of property along the Potomac, as well as its South Branch and South Fork tributaries. Washington had responsibility not only for arranging the construction of new forts, and improvement of established positions, he also had to recruit militia for them.
A lifelong aversion to militia may have been born in his mind, expressing to Governor Dinwiddie a that t”here is very few Officers repaird hither yet, which has occasiond a very fatiguing time to me, to manage a number of selfwill’d, ungovernable People.”
From there south to the Virginia-North Carolina line, about 25 forts emerged as frontier sentinels. Roy Bird Cook, an early 20th century historian in West Virginia, stated in an article published in West Virginia history that they defended “A long region reaching out from the head of the Ohio River, swinging east to Wills Creek (Cumberland), and thence roughly following the Allegheny Mountains to North Carolina, received attention.”
Added Cook, “A chain of forts about twenty miles apart, designed to afford some protection for the settlers, was constructed during the next year. Many were the scenes of tragic episodes in which numerous lives were lost, especially in the region now along the South Branch of the Potomac.”
Though most frontier defenses took the moniker of “fort,” Cook described three general types. Most powerful were those whose size and potential strength merited the name of “fort.” Fort Cumberland fit this description, covering 200 yards according to a British officer’s notation. Surrounding the fort and barracks was a 12-foot wall constructed by vertically sinking the massive virgin timbers of the day into the ground.
Next in diminishing size and strength was the stockade, which generally featured a single large building surrounded by a wall. Approximately 20 miles south of Fort Cumberland, the first of the 1756 forts, Fort Ashby took on more of a stockade design. It was named for John Ashby, who Washington had met while surveying with Lord Fairfax. The first fortification on the South Branch River emerged at Fort Pearsall, modern Romney.
Cook also describes blockhouses, which were generally homes or other buildings fortified with thick walls and narrow gunsight windows. Private families, or a group of families, could certainly construct their own fortifications and man them as well as they could.
As modern residents and Washington know, much of the South Branch River runs through a very narrow canyon called “the Trough.” From the southern end, one emerges into the broad valley at Old Fields that extends upstream to Petersburg Gap. There, at what was then called “Indian Old Fields,” Captain Thomas Waggoner constructed Fort Pleasant.
Not large like Fort Cumberland, Fort Pleasant was, as Cook described, “a large stockade comprising cabins, palisades, and blockhouses. It was constructed by Captain Thomas Waggoner, an officer in Washington’s command.
Washington informed the Governor of the start of construction, stating that “I have already built two Forts on Patterson’s Creek (which has engag’d the chief of the Inhabitants to return to their Plantns) and have now order’d Captn Waggoner with 60 Men to build and Garrison two other’s (on places I have pointed out high up) on the South branch.”
Washington expected this fort to serve as a key defense in the network, calling it “a means of secureing near 100 Miles of our Frontier exclusive of the Command at Fort Dinwiddie on Jackson’s River.”
As settlers rushed into the rich soils of the valley downstream from Petersburg Gap, both Captain Waggoner and Washington saw the need to extend defenses. Three miles south of Moorefield was built Fort Buttermilk, Both this and Fort Pleasant saw attacks by Indians during the French and Indian War.
Potomac State College historian William Ansell once wrote of its peculiar name that “one story would have us believe that at the time the fort was being constructed, a party of Indians ventured into the area and so harassed the cows about that place that at milking time, they gave buttermilk instead of the standard variety.”
On the other side of the Gap, about two miles downstream of where the North Fork joins the South Branch near smoke hole, Fort Peterson emerged near modern Petersburg. Both were named after early settler Jacob Peterson.
What would become Pendleton County hosted three of Washington’s forts. History links by their fates Fort Upper Tract and Fort Seybert. Trout Rock Fort, on the South Branch River, was a stockade designed to serve 50 militia soldiers. That position, strategically situated in a narrow section of the valley, served as part of the defensive line moving upstream in the valley from Fort Upper Tract to Matthew Harper’s Fort in modern Highland County.
The fates of Fort Upper Tract and Fort Seybert will always resonate in Pendleton County with so many families in the region today able to point back to ancestors who fought and died at both locations.
“The enclosed letter from Capt. Waggener, will inform your Honor of a very unfortunate affair. From the best accounts I have yet been able to get, there are about 60 persons killed and missing.” George Washington wrote this to a future Virginia Supreme Court justice in a report of the disastrous attacks on both positions.
Chief Killbuck, one of three Delaware Indians to carry that name, led an expedition from near modern Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania eastward. The nearby French in Fort Duquesne, now Pittsburgh, certainly encouraged any disruption that their allies among the Indians could create.
Raiders from the Delaware and the Shawnee prized not mere disruption, but had their own purpose. Unable to forge and use metals such as iron, they saw in tools, cooking implements, and other useful items more of a treasure than Europeans found gold.
In August of 1756, Washington directed the indefatigable, and seemingly everywhere, Captain Waggoner to arrange “that I would have a Subaltern and twenty or twenty-five men sent to the upper Tract, to assist the Settlers in erecting a Fort[.] In this I presume they will give all imaginable assistance; as it is solely intended to promote their safety.”
The good captain already had his hands full contending with Indian attacks on Fort Pleasant, which he called “the Town fort.” After a council of war, Captain Waggoner could tell Washington that “Capt. Feild with 30 of his Men are willing to Remain at the Upper Fort till Decr, “ but “Since I wrote you last their has been a Man killed and Scalp’d within half a Mile of the Town Fort, And Two of his Sons taken Prisoners.”
Not long after, he assured Washington that a Lieutenant Lomax would take 20 more to Upper Tract. Nine months later, Washington reported to Governor Dinwiddie that Fort Upper Tract might be indefensible, saying “it is more in the Indian pass of the mountains” and “is too high up.”
Also, while Washington desired to have 100 militia at Upper Tract, pressure on the area south of Moorefield forced him to keep more troops at Fort Buttermilk.
April 27th and 28th 1756 still loom over the history of Pendleton County. Chief Killbuck’s Delaware and Shawnee Indians, as well as perhaps a few Frenchmen, swarmed Upper Tract first. Their attack erased the garrison and annihilated the fort, which was never rebuilt.
No warning crossed from the South Branch to the South Fork Valley as the expedition converged on Fort Seybert. Cook’s description of this post was nearly identical to that of Fort Pleasant.
Willis de Hass of the New York Historical Society wrote of the massacre at Fort Seybert in 1851. He described it as “a rude enclosure cut out of the heart of the forest” that “served as a place of resort for the people of all the adjoining settlements.”
As is recounted every year in “The Burning of Fort Seybert” presentation during the Treasure Mountain Festival, a siege of the fort wore down the defenders trapped inside. “The promise of safety,” wrote De Hass “lured the unfortunate victims . . . and they yielded quiet possession of the fort.”
It was not so quiet as that. One settler tried to take a shot at Killbuck, his aim spoiled by another who believed in the promises made. The chief welcomed those who surrendered by mashing the butt of his tomahawk into Captain Jacob Seybert, the fort commander’s jaw. Residents fled for their lives, but 41 were recaptured and 17 of them killed.
Eastern Indians generally had a custom of seizing women and children to incorporate into their own ranks, but had terrible contempt for men who surrendered to their arms, regardless of whether they were of Indian or European origin. Of the 24 women and children seized from the fort, most eventually returned home.
Until 1763 when British arms triumphed worldwide, the Allegheny frontier remained protected by the thin line of forts and the resilient men (and sometimes women) who manned them.
And so many of those families who held the line in 1756 enjoy descendants still living, working, and leading in the area ever since.
