Posted on 05/12/2009 9:14:38 PM PDT by BGHater
ALDERSON, W.Va. - Although it was occupied off and on for only about 10 years by Revolutionary War-era soldiers and settlers who left few traces of their presence behind, Arbuckle's Fort continues to shed light on the lives of those it protected.
During an excavation last weekend involving Concord University and Marshall University Graduate College students, new evidence surfaced about a likely black presence at the fort during the struggle for independence from Britain.
The frontier fortress was built on a bluff overlooking the confluence of Muddy and Mill creeks during the peak of tensions between Virginia settlers who developed farmsteads east of the Alleghenies and south of the Ohio River, and American Indians who had treaty rights to hunt there.
A series of Indian raids and militia counterattacks in the spring of 1774 prompted Virginia's colonial governor, Lord Dunmore, to order his militia to build a fort at the western approach to the relatively flat stretch of the Greenbrier Valley known as the Levels, site of present-day Lewisburg.
Construction took place under the direction of Capt. Matthew Arbuckle, whose militia company occupied the site, along with about 35 settler families living along Muddy Creek when Indian raiding parties were in the area. The fort was put to use almost as soon as it was completed.
In the summer of 1774, Indian raiders who had attacked a cabin along Muddy Creek and killed a settler fired on the fort as well, but failed to injure any of its occupants. In the fall of that year, Arbuckle and his garrison guided an army of 1,000 men under the command of Col. Andrew Lewis, the namesake of Lewisburg, up the Kanawha Valley to Point Pleasant, where the defining conflict of Lord Dunmore's war against the Indians took shape.
During the bloody Oct. 10 Battle of Point Pleasant, the militiamen successfully fought off an attack of a smaller force of Indians led by Shawnee Chief Cornstalk. Cornstalk was compelled to cede lands south of the Ohio.
But the raids resumed the following year with the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, during which the Indians partnered with the British in the frontier country west of the Alleghenies. A number of raids took place in the Greenbrier Valley, including a Shawnee attack on the Graham House at Lowell in 1777, in which two people were killed and one captured. The raiding party in that attack also fired on Arbuckle's Fort, but caused no injuries. Hostilities between settlers and Indians faded away during the 1780s, and ended about the time the British surrendered in 1783.
The fort had been abandoned for more than 200 years before archaeologists Stephen and Kim McBride, both Greenbrier County natives, conducted their first survey of the fort in 1997. Unlike some other frontier forts in present-day West Virginia excavated by the husband-wife team, Arbuckle's location was not difficult to establish.
"The old historical society marker for the fort was placed right on top of the fireplace stones for the blockhouse," said Stephen McBride.
At that time, little was known about the fort except its location, and from historic records, the names of many of the militiamen who served there.
The McBrides have returned to Arbuckle's Fort at least 10 times over the years to supervise excavations, many of them involving college history students, adult volunteers and public school students.
They have determined that the fort was a diamond-shaped log stockade, about 100 feet on a side, with semicircular bastions at its north and south ends. An observation platform was apparently a part of the north bastion. Inside the fort's perimeter was a blockhouse with a stone foundation and stone chimney. Large amounts of coal slag and unworked iron found inside the fort indicate that it contained a blacksmithing area.
Revolutionary War-era artifacts found at the fort over the years include spent lead shot, worn out gunflints, hand-wrought nails, shoe buckles, glassware fragments, one-fourth of a Spanish coin, and a letter seal bearing the word "liberty."
"Domestic artifacts are sparse, since people who lived in the area brought whatever they took to the fort back to their homes," said Kim McBride.
But the artifacts that do exist are easier to find at Arbuckle's than many other West Virginia frontier forts, because the fort site has remained virtually undisturbed since it was abandoned two centuries ago.
"These forts were often incorporated into barns or outbuildings, or the landowners built on top of them," said Stephen McBride. "You often find things from the 19th and 20th century on top of artifacts from the 1700s."
A number of Indian artifacts from prehistoric times have been unearthed at Arbuckle's Fort, but the site contains virtually no relics of human occupation since the Revolutionary War era.
Last weekend, history students from a Marshall University Graduate College class led by Dr. Robert Maslowski and a Concord University class taught by David Fuerst of the National Park Service helped the McBrides excavate a section of the fort near the blacksmithing area. The dig was funded through a West Virginia Humanities Council grant to the Summers County Historic Landmarks Commission, which has supported much of the McBrides' work on frontier forts in the Greenbrier Valley.
The dig was designed to "fill in the gaps in our spatial coverage of the fort," by excavating areas not yet uncovered during previous archaeological work at Arbuckle's.
In addition to more coal slag and iron stock from the blacksmith area, the students uncovered a number of pieces of flaked stone and the tip of a projectile left by Indians long before the fort was built.
They also found several wrought-iron carpentry and horseshoe nails, a fragment of green glass, and a small, narrow pit in which a metal knife blade and a small, eight-sided silver disc had been placed.
"We found a similar small eight-sided metal artifact about eight yards to the west of this one a few years ago," said Kim McBride. "It had a clear 'X' incised into it. The one we found this year has one line incised on it, but if the other side of the 'X' was there, it has been eroded away."
X-shaped markings on spoons, ceramics, coins and other artifacts have been found at sites where slaves are known to have lived.
"The X is typically interpreted as a cosmogram - a religiously charged item that reflects the universe and god-human relationships in West African cultures," said McBride. "It is typically seen as a positive force - to say good-luck charm might not be quite accurate, but a good analogy. We are thinking that the coin likely belonged to someone who worked in the blacksmithing area, and find this especially interesting since blacksmithing was a high-status occupation in Africa."
Historic records are sketchy regarding who served at the fort or sought its shelter, McBride said. "But we think it possible that one of the militia may have brought a slave with them, "she said, "or perhaps this artifact was owned by a free black person."
The McBrides hope to conduct more excavations at Arbuckle's Fort in coming years to gain a better understanding of how the fort functioned.
"One thing we're curious about is where the living quarters were for the people who stayed in the fort," said Kim McBride. "We've found a couple of what may be cellar pits that could have had a structure over them, and we've found some cast iron kettle fragments that could have been used at an outdoor cooking area."
In addition to providing protection, the frontier forts were used for community occasions such as weddings, and served as regional trading centers. People in a community identified with the structures, and wrote about "belonging" to a particular fort.
"The forts served as social centers and commercial centers until towns were established," said McBride.
Marshall University Graduate College students Kevin Pruitt (left) and Adrian Scott (foreground) excavate a section of the fort near an 18th-century blacksmithing area, while Andy Jordan (right) and another volunteer screen dirt for small artifacts. Students from both Marshall and Concord University took part in the dig.
An eight-sided silver talisman (top), believed to have been owned by a slave or free black, was found with a section of knife blade (right) in a narrow hole at Arbuckle's Fort.
Archaeologists Stephen and Kim McBride have traced the diamond-shaped outline of the Revolutionary War fort through excavations that began in 1997.
A crumbling historic marker is perched on the remnants of a blockhouse chimney at Arbuckle's Fort in Greenbrier County.
Rev War, maybe for inv. ping.
Frontier Fort, Rev War ping.
My ancestors built a frontier fort in what is now West Virginia in 1763 and it was used during the Rev. War.
Thanks for the great post, BGHater! AND the ping...
RevWar/Colonial History/General Washington ping list
(FreepMail me if you want to be placed on or removed from the list)
They didn’t find much, did they?
Thanks for the ping!
Hmmm. Historic marker itself becomes historic.
Thanks for the ping as well.
VERY interesting.
Mine too.
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Thanks BGHater and Pharmboy for those pings. |
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