The Older History

It’s all fine and dandy to talk about the days when the coal companies first came. Yes, that is a vital part of the history of Appalachia. However, there’s more to these mountains than that. In the days before the Revolutionary War, most of the Appalachian Mountains were in an area known as the Virginia frontier.

Life was harder than can be imagined on the frontier. No one was crawling down into holes and carving out the bowels of the earth, true, but frontier people lived constantly in the shadow of death. It could come in the form of starvation, disease, and forest accidents. Mountain lions and bears abounded in the early 18^th century.

The biggest fear was being raided by Shawnee warriors. In 1774, the Shawnee declared war on the settlers of the Virginia frontier. They then proceded to attack the isolated outposts, scalping and abducting, killing livestock, and burning the cabin before melting back into the forest.

Because of the raids, settlers gained permission to build their own civilian refuge forts. These were generally not staffed by military units. They would be built on a local farm that was decided to be the best site of defense. They may or may not have included the family’s home as part of the compound. The way these  forts looked varied greatly. Some were full compounds surrounded by a stockade wall, others were just a blockhouse that families camped around. Some had sleeping cabins or meeting houses. No two forts looked alike.

These forts, now long gone, were a vital part of Appalachian history. I believe they led to the sense of self-relieance that exists today. We cannot let that part of our heritage fade away, but there are very few places that focus on the pre-American frontier. One of those places in Prickett’s Fort in Fairmont, WV. The interpreters at Prickett’s Fort work hard to display accurately the daily life of the 1770s and 1780s, so that we do not forget how hard life was.

 (photo credit for all three pictures to BJ Omanson at Prickett’s Fort)

-M