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Arbuckle's
Fort

  by 

Kim Arbogast McBride and Stephen McBride
University of Kentucky, Wilbur Smith Associates

 

 Arbuckle's Fort was a Revolutionary-era frontier fort located in Greenbrier County, one of many forts which helped white settlers colonize West Virginia. The fort stood on the property of John Keeney when it was built in the spring of 1774, under order of Captain Mathew Arbuckle.

Captain Arbuckle's militia company occupied Arbuckle's Fort from the spring to the fall of 1774. In September 1774, Captain Arbuckle and his men left the fort to help guide Colonel Andrew Lewis and the southwestern Virginia militia down the Kanawha River to Point Pleasant, where they fought in the Battle of Point Pleasant. Other militia companies occupied Arbuckle's Fort in 1776, 1777, and 1778. No definite attacks on this fort have been documented, although nearby settlers reported hearing gunshots near the fort in 1777. Spent lead shot has been recovered from archaeological excavations conducted in 1997.

The excavations established that the fort was diamond-shaped, about 100 feet on a side, and consisted of a log stockade with bastions at the north and south ends. A blockhouse with a stone foundation and a central stone chimney was located inside the stockade. Large amounts of slag and unworked iron are evidence of a blacksmithing area inside the fort. Artifacts recovered from the archaeological excavations include worn-out gunflints and a letter seal which expressed the inhabitants' Revolutionary zeal by imprinting the word "Liberty."

 

McBride, W. Stephen, Kim A. McBride, and J. David McBride. Frontier Defense of the Greenbrier and Middle New River Country. Lexington, Kentucky: University of Kentucky Program for Cultural Resource Assessment Report No. 375, 1996.

Jefferds, Joseph C., Jr. Captain Matthew Arbuckle: A Documentary Biography. . Charleston: Education Foundation Inc., 1981.

McBride, W. Stephen and Kim A. McBride. Forting Up on the Greenbrier: Archaeological Investigations of Arbuckle's Fort, 46GB13, Greenbrier County, West Virginia. Lexington, Kentucky: University of Kentucky Program for Cultural Resource Assessment Report No. 252, 1993.

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