Responding to the call of General Hand

Visitors to Pricketts Fort on July 4th were witness to a small-scale re-enactment of a recruiting officer from Fort Pitt calling on local farmers to volunteer as part of a company of militia being raised to join General Hand in a punitive expedition against Shawnee towns in Ohio in the summer of 1777. The call [...]

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War dead honored at Pricketts Fort

On May 31st, Memorial Day, Pricketts Fort held observances in memory of the men from Pricketts Fort who served in the following wars: the French & Indian War, Pontiac’s Uprising, Lord Dunmore’s War and the American Revolution. The observances also memorialized the descendents of these men who served in the Civil War. At the time [...]

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Tales of the Early Pricketts

Owing to conflicting claims in the Monongahela Valley, no land patents were issued before 1779, but many tomahawk entries were made prior to that time. Jacob Prickett, who located his claim in 1766, seems to have been the first settler in Marion County. In a deposition sworn to by the well-known Capt. William Crawford at [...]

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Backwoods Virginians and “The First Declaration of Independence”

There are many stories to be told of the earliest days of what is now West Virginia, and most have been told elsewhere already. But one story, which ties the origins of this region to the origins of the nation, deserves to be told more often. It involves a document which, while little known except [...]

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More on the Stephen Morgan description of Pricketts Fort

In my earlier article, Provenance for the Stephen Morgan description of Pricketts Fort, I quoted Glenn Lough who stated that Stephen Morgan “. . . gave the . . .  description  of Pricketts Fort to the editor of the Northwestern Journal (1822), who published it in that newspaper; later the article appeared in other newspapers, published at [...]

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Pricketts Fort origin accounts #1: Stephen Morgan’s description of the fort

Given the sustained interest over the decades in the actual origins of Pricketts Fort, and the difficulties in attaining any conclusive certainty regarding them, it would be useful to collect the earliest accounts we have of how the fort was built, and how itwas constituted, and transcribe them in full here on the Fortblog.  The [...]

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Recruiter for General Hand to be at Pricketts Fort, July 4

To All Brave, Healthy, Able Bodied and Well Disposed Young Men, in this Vicinity, Who have any Inclination to Join the Troops now Raisng under General Hand, at Fort Pitt, for the Defence of the Liberties & Independence of the United States against the Hostile Designs of Foreign Enemies TAKE NOTICE, that Saturday, July Fourth, [...]

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Ancestral Wars

On May 25th, Memorial Day, Pricketts Fort held observances in memory of the men from Pricketts Fort who served in the following wars: the French & Indian War, Pontiac’s Uprising, Lord Dunmore’s War and the American Revolution. The ceremony also memorialized the descendents of these men who served in the Civil War. At the time [...]

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Backwoods Virginians and the “First Declaration of Independence”

There are many stories to be told of the earliest days of what is now West Virginia, and most have been told elsewhere already. But one story, which ties the origins of this region to the origins of the nation, deserves to be told more often. It involves a document which, while little known except [...]

Read Full Post »