West Virginia

Charles Town
Fort Ashby Restoration
Logan Massacre Site
Point Pleasant Battlefield
Prato Rio (Charles Lee Home)
Stephen House
Traveler's Rest (Horatio Gates Home)
Washington's Lands
Wheeling (Fort Henry)

To get the proper historical perspective on West Virginia in the colonial era and the Revolution, it is helpful to start with a map. The present boundary between West Virginia and Pennsylvania was agreed to in 1779. West Virginia separated from Virginia during the Civil War, and its northeastern panhandle includes the lower end of the strategic Shenandoah Valley.

Hence the colonial history of West Virginia is the history of the Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania frontiers. Its people were involved in the disputes over the Forks of the Ohio (see under pennsylvania), the Seven Years' War of 1754 to 1763 that followed, and Pontiac's War of 1763 to 1764. All these events were important to West Virginia not only because of the fighting but also because of the direct bearing these events had on settlement (see fort ashby restoration and washington's lands for further background).

Dunmore's War of 1774 can be considered to have started at the Logan Massacre Site and to have ended at the Point Pleasant Battlefield.

When the Revolution started in 1775 there were approximately twenty to thirty thousand white men, women, and children in what became West Virginia. These men had informal training in border warfare, and during the Revolution the "Berkeley [County] Riflemen" became famous as rangers along with their counterparts from Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia.

Homes of three prominent generals of the Revolution, Charles Lee, Horatio Gates, and Adam Stephen, have survived in the lower Shenandoah (see prato rio, stephen house, and traveler's rest). Landmarks associated with other major figures are identified by highway markers, many of which are mentioned in the following sections.

Like other border regions, during the Revolution western Virginia performed the useful function of absorbing the raids of Indians and Loyalists from British bases in Canada. In the Ohio Valley these came primarily from Detroit, and most of them hit the Kentucky settlements, but several major attacks were repulsed at Wheeling.

The state has many associations with George Rogers Clark, who explored the Ohio and Great Kanawha Rivers in 1772. At the Little Kanawha in 1774 he was preparing to move into Kentucky with a party of about ninety men recruited for the most part in western Virginia when his plans were delayed by Dunmore's War. After serving as a captain in this conflict he was a surveyor for the Ohio Company in Kentucky. In 1778 he stopped at Point Pleasant on his way down the Ohio to conquer the Old Northwest (see fort kaskaskia under Illinois and vincennes under Indiana).

Daniel Boone was a scout for the Virginia militia moving down the Great Kanawha to the Point Pleasant Battlefield in 1774. After the Revolution he suffered a series of heartbreaking personal reverses, eventually losing all his large holdings in Kentucky because the titles were found to be defective. During part of this period (1788–1795), he lived near Charleston and at Point Pleasant, operating a trading post at the latter place around 1790 to 1791 and representing Kanawha County in the Virginia assembly. (See also boone home under Missouri.)

In the period of Indian resistance that persisted long after the Revolution, the settlers of western Virginia continued to build frontier fortifications and fight off serious raids. Many highway markers, not included in this guide, pertain to these actions.

The West Virginia Department of Archives and History publishes an excellent guide to the state's nearly one thousand historical highway markers. It is titled Marking Our Past. Last updated in 2002, this 210-page book gives locations arranged by county, full inscriptions of the markers, more than one hundred photographs, and a history of the state's highway marker program, which began in 1937. This book can be purchased from the website or by mail ($15) from West Virginia Archives and History, The Cultural Center, 1900 Kanawha Boulevard East, Charleston, W.V. 25305. Phone: (304) 558-0230. The Department of Archives and History is part of West Virginia's Division of Culture and History and its website, www.wvculture.org, is extremely informative regarding the state's colonial past. The department encompasses almost every aspect of history and landmark preservation within the state, including the State Historical Society. The department's general phone number for information is (304) 558-0220.

West Virginia has a very rich history concerning the travel, property ownership, and family tree of George Washington. A website that merits exploration is www.washingtonheritagetrail.org. This site furnishes information on numerous self-guided tours, including the 112-mile scenic Washington Trail Tour. In addition, it gives details on many noteworthy colonial and Revolutionary-era landmarks.

Charles Town

Charles Town and vicinity, Jefferson County. A few miles west of Harpers Ferry, this picturesque region is remarkable for the surprisingly large concentration of historic colonial homes that survive in a fine state of preservation. Close to Charles Town are (these are each outlined separately later in the chapter) Prato Rio (off State Route 48) and Traveler's Rest (off County Route 1). Both of these were designated National Historic Landmarks in 1972. In nearby Martinsburg is the Stephen House (309 East John Street, open weekends, 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. for tours). These three places were the homes (albeit briefly) of Major Generals Charles Lee, Horatio Gates, and Adam Stephen.

The Charles Town racetrack has grown from its colonial origins into two flourishing modern facilities. The courthouse stands on land donated by Charles Washington, and the present structure incorporates the original one-room house of 1801. John Brown, captured at nearby Harpers Ferry, was tried here in 1859. The Jefferson County Museum Building (1965) houses the old Charles Town library, the county chamber of commerce, and a collection of exhibits pertaining primarily to the Civil War era.

The area has many homes of George Washington's brothers and their descendants. Surviving Washington houses are private, but they may be viewed from the outside. The most famous ones have been opened for the annual house and garden tour. These are:

Harewood, 3 miles west of Charles Town on W.Va. 51. Built by George Washington's brother Samuel around 1770, this large, two-story, limestone structure of Georgian style is noted for the plain dignity of its exterior and interior. The native pine paneling of the drawing room is exceptionally fine. While Lucy Payne Washington was mistress of Harewood, her sister Dolley and James Madison were married in this drawing room. A wing on the north is a modern addition that matches the original wing on the south. Samuel Washington's office and the family graveyard are on the grounds. This is a private residence and is still owned by a descendent of the Washington family.

Happy Retreat (Mordington), in Charles Town on Mordington Avenue at Blakeley Place. Charles Town is named for another brother of George Washington, Charles, who laid the town out in 1786 on 80 acres of his land. In 1780 he built the two wings of the house he called Happy Retreat, but the stone kitchen and adjoining smokehouse probably are older. The house was completed in 1837 by Judge Isaac Douglas and renamed Mordington, for his home in Scotland. (Since 1945 it has been known by the original name.) On the grounds is an octagonal schoolhouse resembling the one at Mount Vernon, but the stone slave quarters and barn have disappeared. Charles Washington was buried on the estate in 1799, and a DAR marker is on the supposed location of his grave. Privately owned.

Blakeley, 2.5 miles southwest of Charles Town. This fine house was built in 1820 by John Augustine Washington II, grandson of George Washington's brother John Augustine. John II moved to Mount Vernon (see under virginia) when he inherited it from Bushrod Washington. (John III sold Mount Vernon in 1858.) Blakeley is a private home in a beautiful rural setting. It is reached from Charles Town by driving south on U.S. 350 for about 2.5 miles, then west for about 1.5 miles. The house will be on your left (south). Privately owned.

St. George's Chapel ruins are marked on W.Va. 51 about 1.5 miles west of Charles Town near the entrance to another old estate, Piedmont. The chapel was completed in 1769 and used by local families, including the Washingtons.

Local information is available through the Jefferson County Chamber of Commerce. Phone: (304) 725-2055. Another good source is the small but informative Jefferson County Museum, 200 East Washington Street. Phone: (304) 725-8628. The museum is also the starting point and information area for a self-guided walking tour of Historic Charles Town.

Fort Ashby Restoration

Fort Ashby Restoration, town of Fort Ashby, Mineral County. Frontiersmen flowed across the Alleghenies into Indian territories after 1750 in such numbers that a wave of resistance was unleashed. Virginia authorities, concerned about maintaining their claim to this region and halting French expansion into the Ohio country, first sent George Washington to warn the French to pull back. Then they started building a system of fortifications and raising additional troops to protect the fort builders. After Braddock's Defeat in July 1775, the twenty-three-year-old Washington spent two years as commander of some seven hundred militia attempting to defend a frontier about 350 miles long. In 1755 and 1756 a chain of nearly one hundred forts existed. These varied from simple blockhouses to more elaborate military works; they stretched from Fort Cumberland on the Potomac (see under maryland) through the South Branch and Greenbrier Valleys. Many of these forts were manned during the Revolution and later. The booklet West Virginia Highway Markers (see West Virginia introduction) names more than seventy forts in the state, most of them associated with the period through the Revolution.

Fort Ashby is the only one of those structures that has survived. It was built in 1755 by Lieutenant John Bacon and garrisoned with twenty-one men. In August 1756 the place was attacked by French and Indians, who defeated a ranger company under Lieutenant Robert Rutherford. The fort is named for Colonel John Ashby, a frontier soldier who commanded here during and after the Revolution. Troops under General Morgan camped here in 1794 during the Whiskey Rebellion.

As restored in 1939 by the WPA, Fort Ashby is a large log cabin on a stone foundation with a ridged roof providing a commodious attic. Its most striking feature is a huge chimney built 14 feet wide and 4 feet thick. Well-marked, the site is at the junction of W.Va. 28 and 46 in the town of Fort Ashby. The fort is owned by the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Logan Massacre Site

Logan Massacre Site, Ohio River opposite the mouth of Yellow Creek (Ohio), Hancock County. The Indian war that ended on the Point Pleasant Battlefield was touched off by the treacherous murder of thirteen unsuspecting Mingo Indians by white frontiersmen led by Daniel Greathouse at "Logan's Camp," or "Baker's Cabin," on 30 April 1774. In a famous speech, Soyechtowa, generally known as Chief Logan, concluded with the words "Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one!" Logan satisfied himself by personally killing thirteen settlers in retaliation, but the violence between whites and Indians persisted. Controversy over the slaughter continues to this day.

Yellow Creek survives as a geographical name in Ohio, so there is no problem in locating the massacre site on the map. But the area has been devastated by floods in recent years, and it is difficult to locate this site on the ground today. The state highway marker is not much help, being about 6 miles east of the river on W.Va. 2 near U.S. 30 and stating that the massacre was "at this point." The map in Scribner's Atlas of American History places "Baker's Cabin Massacre, April 30" on the east bank of the Ohio River directly opposite the mouth of Yellow Creek. The National Survey has "Logan Massacre Site" among its "Sites Also Noted," but puts it in Ohio County. This is almost certainly an error.

Point Pleasant Battlefield

Point Pleasant Battlefield, city of Point Pleasant. The victory of the Virginians over the Indians in the pitched battle at this place on 10 October 1774 in Dunmore's (or Cresap's) War accelerated the settlement of Kentucky. Provoked by a series of atrocities that culminated in the Logan Massacre, the Shawnee moved to defend themselves in June 1774. Governor Dunmore of Virginia established headquarters at Pittsburgh, prepared to move down the Ohio with about two thousand militia, and ordered Colonel Andrew Lewis to lead a column of militia from southwest Virginia down the Kanawha River to its junction with the Ohio at Point Pleasant.

About 1,000 Shawnee, Miami, Wyandot (Huron), and Ottawa under Shawnee Chief Cornstalk attacked the 1,100 Virginians under Lewis at Point Pleasant early in the morning of 10 October. The battle raged until late afternoon before the Indians withdrew and left the Virginians in possession of the bloody field. Burying a brother and about fifty others, Lewis linked up with Lord Dunmore near the location of modern Chillicothe, Ohio. Chief Cornstalk sued for peace.

Most of the battlefield is covered by the modern city, but a portion is included in the 4-acre Tu-Endie-Wei Point Pleasant Battle Monument State Park. (Tu-Endie Wei means "the point between two rivers.") The park is located a mile north of the intersection of U.S. 35 and State Route 2, and is open dawn to dusk. Phone: (304) 675-0869. A tavern dating from 1796 is maintained here as a museum, and an 84-foot granite shaft commemorates the battle. There are graves of:

Ann Bailey (1742–1825). A frontier heroine, she was born in Liverpool and came to America in 1761. Her first husband survived Braddock's Massacre and was killed in the Battle of Point Pleasant. Ann thereupon assumed male garb and became a noted scout and messenger. Her second husband was John Bailey. The legend of "Mad Ann" grew as she performed amazing feats along the frontier and had narrow escapes from the Indians. Her most famous exploit was in making a solitary ride of 200 miles in three days from Fort Lee, on the site of Charleston, West Virginia, to Fort Savannah, on the site of Lewisburg, West Virginia, to get a supply of gunpowder that saved the fort in 1791. (The site of Fort Lee in Charleston is marked by a plaque in front of 1202 East Kanawha Boulevard.)

Charles Lewis. Youngest son of the founder of Staunton, Virginia, he was killed under his brother's command at Point Pleasant. He is identified as a colonel. The site of Fort Lewis, his stockaded home more vulgarly known as "Lewis' Hog Pen," is in the vicinity of Hot Springs and Warm Springs, Virginia, both of which are within his former frontier holdings (Va. Guide, 512).

Chief Cornstalk (c. 1720–1777). He returned to Point Pleasant with his son three years after the battle to warn the settlers that he might be forced by his tribe to renew hostilities. Held hostage, he and his son were then killed in retribution for the death of a white settler.

Another interesting burial is marked in the park. It is where Céloron de Blainville in 1749 buried one of the lead plates claiming the Ohio Valley for France.

The Point Pleasant historic site is near the bridges that span the Ohio River and the mouth of the Great Kanawha. It was here that the final phase of the all-day battle took place; other landmarks of the battle are obscured by the city of Point Pleasant.

Point Pleasant was visited by Washington in 1770 (see washington's lands). George Rogers Clark explored the region in 1772 and was here two years later when Dunmore's War disrupted his plans to lead a large party into Kentucky. Clark served as a militia captain in the operations that followed. In 1778 he stopped at Point Pleasant before continuing down the Ohio to become the conqueror of the Old Northwest. The site of Daniel Boone's trading post of 1790 is marked at City Park on U.S. 35 (see introduction).

Prato Rio (Charles Lee Home)

Prato Rio (Charles Lee Home), Leetown, Jefferson County. As the home of General Charles Lee (1731–1782), a major figure in the Revolution and one of its most colorful personalities, this primitive stone house will be of exceptional interest to serious students of early-American history.

Charles Lee attended school in England and Switzerland before joining his father's regiment as an ensign in 1747. He knew the American frontier well. After taking part in Braddock's Expedition of 1755 he went to the Mohawk Valley, purchased a captain's commission, married the daughter of a Seneca chief, and was badly wounded at Ticonderoga in 1758 but recovered sufficiently to take part in the capture of Fort Niagara and Montreal (1759–1760). Before being retired on half-pay in November 1763 he served with distinction in Portugal under Burgoyne. During much of the period 1765 to 1771 he was a soldier of fortune with the Polish army, becoming intimate with King Stanislaus Poniatowski, advancing to the grade of major general, and fighting the Turks.

In 1773 Lee came to America, immediately aligned himself with the rebel element, and went to work setting himself up for high military command in the coming war with England. As part of this program, Lee bought an estate in what was then Berkeley County in Virginia, now Jefferson County, West Virginia. On 17 June 1775 he became a major general in the new Continental army, subordinate in rank only to Washington and Artemas Ward. The latter faded quickly into obscurity, and Lee appeared to be a strong contender for Washington's position.

By amazing coincidence, another candidate, also an Englishman, had settled a few miles from Lee's estate and at about the same time. This was Horatio Gates (see traveler's rest).

Lee ruined himself in the Battle of Monmouth, New Jersey, in June 1778. This was his first real test as a combat commander, and he failed spectacularly. But it was his subsequent conduct that resulted in his conviction by a court-martial, suspension from duty for a year, and subsequent dismissal. During his suspension he lived at Prato Rio from July 1779 to mid-January 1780. He then moved to Philadelphia, where he died in 1782.

The name Prato Rio harks back to Lee's service in Portugal and means "near the river." Lee bought the property from Jacob Hite, and the simple little stone cottage—typically Pennsylvania German with its stoop and two front doors—is believed to have been built by the first white settler of the Shenandoah Valley, Joist Hite, for one of his sons. The original portion is one and a half stories with small-paned windows and outside end chimneys. Lee bought it in 1775 at the urging of Horatio Gates, and it is said that the three suspended generals, Lee, Gates, and Adam Stephen (see stephen house), met frequently at Prato Rio. In the WPA's West Virginia: A Guide to the Mountain State, the story is told of their toasting each other as "Lee, who was cashiered … because when he should have advanced he retreated," "Gates, who was cashiered because when he should have retreated he advanced," and "Stephen, who was cashiered because when he might have advanced or retreated he did neither." (References are to Lee at Monmouth, New Jersey, Gates at Camden, South Carolina, and Stephen at Germantown, near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.) This story is certainly apocryphal, especially as Gates was not cashiered from the Continental army.

At Prato Rio, Lee cultivated his famous eccentricities, living in seclusion with his Italian bodyguard, slaves, hounds, and horses. The unpartitioned ground floor of his house was divided by chalk lines into quarters (quite literally), one for the kitchen, one for guns and riding equipment, one for his library, and the other for his bed.

Prato Rio is easy to spot, being on a slight rise alongside the road (Route 48) from Leetown to Middleway and a few hundred feet southwest of Leetown. The latter is on most highway maps. A national fish hatchery near Leetown occupies land that was part of Lee's estate. The historic house is currently a private residence.

Stephen House

Stephen House, 309 East John Street, Martinsburg, Berkeley County. On a rocky hill of the town he founded in 1778 (after being court-martialed out of the Continental army) is the severely rectilinear and unadorned stone house built by General Adam Stephen in 1789.

Born in Scotland in 1718, Stephen had been educated at the Universities of Aberdeen and Edinburgh before serving in the Royal Navy as a surgeon (1746–1747). He came to America and practiced medicine in Fredericksburg, Virginia until 1754. After this he fought on the frontier in the Seven Years' War, achieving the rank of brigadier general of militia and being closely associated with Washington.

As early as 1750 Stephen had bought land in what is now Jefferson County, West Virginia, and in 1770 he acquired 255 acres farther west on the site of Martinsburg, with the intention of establishing a town. In 1773 he added 563 acres to his homesite, but during the next four years he spent most of his time as a military commander in Dunmore's War of 1774 and in the Continental army.

All the evidence indicates that Stephen was a highly unreliable combat commander. D. S. Freeman in his biography of Washington points out that when Washington discovered that Stephen had almost ruined his plans for surprising the Hessians at Trenton, New Jersey the day after Christmas 1776, "it was almost as if Fate had brought Stephen to the Delaware to mock him—Stephen, his one-time political rival, who had been suspected in the old days [of 1763] of making theatrical moves of no military value" (Washington, III, 98; and IV, 313 and 313n).

Nevertheless promoted to major general (an exalted rank during the Revolution), Stephen continued to build a reputation for sending his troops on misguided missions and then submitting false reports of their successes. The end came when his brigade collided with that of General Anthony Wayne in order to precipitate the debacle at Germantown, Pennsylvania on 4 October 1777. A court-martial convicted Stephen of conduct unbecoming an officer, including drunkenness, and he was dismissed from the service in November 1777.

Back on the frontier, however, he continued to be a major force until his death in 1791, shortly after completing the house that stands today as an important historic landmark. Now restored (open 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends for tours), the house is of native limestone with four rooms on each of the two main floors. The grounds slope to Tuscarora Creek. In 1959 the property was acquired by the city, and various organizations have since collaborated in its development.

Traveler's Rest (Horatio Gates Home)

Traveler's Rest (Horatio Gates Home), near Kearneysville, Jefferson County. Now being restored as a private home and not open to the public, this historic house was occupied off and on for eighteen years by General Horatio Gates (1728–1806).

A British professional soldier, Gates had become a close friend of Washington's during the disastrous expedition under Braddock toward Fort Duquesne in 1755. He was badly wounded in the decisive action. After more service in North America and the West Indies, he retired on half-pay in England (1765–1772) rather than accept further assignment in the colonies. In 1772 he returned with his wife and son after receiving a letter from Washington about land being available on the Virginia frontier, where Washington's brothers had settled.

Gates considered himself a victim of English society. Technically he belonged to the upper class, but was not at ease there because of his servant-class antecedents. He apparently saw in becoming an American the opportunity to gain social stature as a member of the landed gentry while striking back at the system he resented. Be that as it may, Gates became an early hero of the Patriot cause and was tremendously valuable because of his professional military ability as an administrator. His good fortune in his new world hit its peak when he got command of the Northern Department just as the tide was turning against Burgoyne's offensive in 1777. Horatio Gates thus became the victor of Saratoga when Washington's military record was approaching a near-fatal low. A growing sentiment that Gates should replace Washington as commander in chief did not lead to anything other than an intensification of partisan politics.

Gates blundered at Camden, South Carolina, one of the worst American defeats of the Revolution (the fall of Charleston costing the Americans far more). The general withdrew to Traveler's Rest in December 1780. Here he received a distinguished delegation from the Virginia House of Delegates, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, and Thomas Nelson being in the committee sent to inform him that the House had voted unanimously that no reverse could obliterate the glory of his previous services.

Throughout 1781 Gates kept up a correspondence with Washington and Congress, requesting an official inquiry. He spent most of April and May in Philadelphia on the same business. In August 1782 Congress finally informed Gates that it had dropped all plans of making the inquiry previously directed (5 October 1780), and ordered him to report to Washington at Newburgh, New York. Thus Gates was able to rehabilitate himself in the last days of the Revolution, rendering loyal and valuable support to Washington in the "Newburgh Conspiracy."

He returned home in 1783 and remained there until 1790. But the problem of slavery became too great for his inbred feelings of social equality, and he then moved to a farm on Manhattan. On the plot of land now bounded by Second and Park Avenues between 23rd and 30th Streets, he lived the last sixteen years of his life.

Traveler's Rest is a two-and-one-half-story limestone house with end chimneys and center porch. The "ground floor" is more a raised basement, and a flight of about ten steps leads to the porch and the fortresslike front door with its iron-strap hinges and gigantic lock.

To reach the site from Kearneysville (W.Va. 9), drive 0.6 mile southwest on the prolongation of Route 48 (toward Leetown and Middleway), turn right on the unimproved road, and continue 0.4 mile to the driveway leading to Traveler's Rest. It is currently a private residence.

Washington's Lands

Washington's Lands. Seven state highway markers refer to the large pieces of choice land acquired by Washington between 1750 and 1784. Three tracts are below Charleston on the Great Kanawha River, with markers at Dunbar Bridge (the Mouth of Tyler Creek Tract of 2,950 acres, extending more than 6 miles along the river), at St. Albans (the Cole River Tract of 2,000 acres, extending more than 5 miles along the Cole and Kanawha Rivers), and at Bancroft (the Poca River Tract of 7,276 acres, extending more than 12 miles along the Kanawha).

Three other tracts along the Ohio River are marked on W.Va. 2 at Pleasant View (the Millwood Tract of 4,395 acres, stretching more than 5 miles along the river), at Lubeck (3 miles east of Washington's Bottom, 2,314 acres with a river frontage of 5 miles), and at Round Bottom (587 acres patented by Washington in 1784).

Washington's first acquisition in West Virginia, surveyed by him in 1750, was where his brother later founded Charles Town. At this place is a marker referring to this "Bullskin," or Rock Hall Tract, which he eventually expanded to 2,233 acres.

Washington's appetite for land speculation was remarkable even for that time in American history. It developed early, when he became a surveyor for Lord Fairfax (1748), but was enhanced by military service on the frontier and the custom of granting land to veterans. William Crawford (1732–1782) remained a close friend and associate of Washington's after their first meeting on the frontier in 1749. He became Washington's agent in scouting for "valuable lands" in the Ohio Valley in defiance of the Proclamation of 1763 that prohibited settlement west of the mountains. As restrictions were lifted on the eve of the American Revolution, Washington made a canoe trip down the Ohio late in 1770. Starting off with his old friend and associate Dr. James Craik (1730–1814) and picking up Crawford at Fort Pitt, Washington drifted 250 miles through an extensive wilderness, carefully avoiding any notice of Indian habitation.

The region that struck Washington as being the Eldorado he sought was the peninsula formed by the lower 50 miles of the Great Kanawha River and the wide loop of the Ohio above the mouth of that river (now Point Pleasant). Washington and Craik carefully selected the specific parcels they personally wanted when the promised land grants were made. Although Washington was eventually to receive 30,000 acres here, he never saw the lands again. But many scholars now suggest that a number of his political decisions were guided by an interest in protecting his vast western land claims.

Wheeling (Fort Henry)

Wheeling (Fort Henry), Ohio River, Ohio County. When Captain Pierre-Joseph Céloron de Blainville led his expedition down the Ohio in 1749 to claim this vast region officially for France, he buried lead plates at a number of strategic points. One such place, later known as the Forks of Wheeling Creek (a highway marker is at the intersection of U.S. 40 and W.Va. 88), is now the manufacturing center of Wheeling (an Indian name). The Treaty of Fort Stanwix (see under new york) opened this territory for settlement. Ebenezer Zane and his brothers had already explored along the Ohio, and in 1769 they became the first permanent white settlers on the site of Wheeling. Their families arrived the next year from the vicinity of what is now Moorefield, on the south branch of the Potomac in Hardy County, West Virginia. Later in 1770 George Washington came through the infant settlement, with Dr. James Craik and William Crawford, prospecting for land speculations. Washington described the area of Zane's settlement in his journal before continuing on down the Ohio to the mouth of the Great Kanawha River (see washington's lands).

William Crawford was back at the site of Wheeling in 1774, this time to build a fort during Dunmore's War. Initially called Fort Fincastle in honor of Lord Dunmore (one of whose titles was viscount Fincastle), it was renamed in 1776 for Patrick Henry.

Fort Henry was the primary objective of many raids during the Revolution from the British base at Detroit. The first major attack, 31 August to 1 September 1777, was by about 400 Indians and Loyalists. Before settlers could take refuge in the fort, 23 of its 42-man garrison were killed. Reinforcements from nearby Fort Van Meter fought their way through and forced the raiders to withdraw, but the settlement of 25 cabins was burned. The noted Indian fighter Major Samuel McCulloch made his famous "leap" down a high bank into Wheeling Creek to escape pursuers after he was cut off from the relief column he was leading.

The last attack, which may technically be called the last battle of the Revolution, was the successful defense of Fort Henry during the period 11 to 13 September 1782. Some 250 Indians and 40 Loyalists participated in this operation, which was commanded by British officers. During one of these sieges the sister of Ebenezer Zane, Betty, volunteered to leave the fort and get a keg of powder from her brother's cabin. Taking advantage of the Indians' astonishment at seeing a woman stroll from the fort to the cabin, some 60 yards away, she then raced safely back with the powder.

Wheeling is an industrial city where no colonial charm remains. It extends a better effort of preservation toward its Civil War past. Highway markers at 12th and Chapline Streets (W.Va. 2 and U.S. 40 and 250) summarize the actions of 1777 and 1782. The site of the fort is marked by a bronze plaque on a stone nearby, on Main Street between 11th and Ohio Streets. The site of Fort Van Meter is marked northwest of Oglebay Park on the Consolidated School Grounds (Greggsville, Clinton, and Potomac Road). For information on these sites and on Wheeling's Civil War history, contact the Wheeling Convention and Visitors Bureau. Phone: (800) 828-3097.