Posted on 01/12/2024 8:31:12 PM PST by Libloather
A small town lawyer from West Virginia was in for an extraordinary surprise when he discovered a 253-year-old pre-Revolutionary War fort hidden inside the walls of his Monroe County plantation home.
John Bryan, 43, a self-described history buff and amateur archeologist, purchased the property in 2019 with a hunch that the large white clapboard farmhouse was built around an old log fort known as Byrnside's Fort.
'We had to buy the property first before being able to take a crowbar to it to see if the logs were inside the walls.'
It was originally built in 1770 by an early settler of Virginia named James Byrnside after his cabin was burned to the ground by Shawnee Indians on the same site in 1763.
The fort - which never came under attack during the Revolutionary War - has been occupied ever since by three families until 2019, when the last descendant passed away.
It is believed to be the only one left of its kind along the original Virginia frontier. 'Most, if not all, are nothing but stains in the ground (if archaeologists can even find them),' Bryan says.
'This one, you can see and touch all the original architectural features that nobody living has ever seen.'
After purchasing the home, Bryan began the painstaking process of removing the 1850s plaster to reveal the solid hand-hewn white oak logs of the fort.
In the process, he unearthed a priceless trove of artifacts belonging to the previous owners from a Civil War-era mourning dress, to 18th century Spanish silver coins, brass buttons from colonial coats, inscribed books from a Revolutionary War soldier garrisoned at the fort, World War I mementos, and hundreds of family photos and daguerreotypes.
Bryan's passion for pre-Revolutionary War history in the Greenbriar Valley of West Virginia is...
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Amazing and beautiful. My brother bought an old log cabin that had been disassembled. He is rebuilding it in Colorado, the logs look just the same.
This is fantastic!
As a family historian, I wish I had that kind of luck.
What a great story.
I have a friend who worked as a printer. A few years ago, an old lady and her driver came to the print shop. They had a box of papers stacked in order that she wanted bound into a book.
As my friend was collating everything, he called and asked if he could make a copy for himself. He also made me a copy.
The book was a compendium of family records and letters dating back to pre-revolutionary days. The family was in Georgetown, which is now part of Washington DC. Some of the stories detailed friendships with the Washington’s, Madisons’s and just about every other founding family and then into Civil War times.
It’s just another great reminder of just how young our Republic actually is.
Monroe is a big county. We live the county next to it.
Holy cow. What a piece of history.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
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