Warden's Fort
On Lost River there were two forts, one on the land now the residence of Jeremiah Inskeep, Esq. called Riddle's fort, where a man named Chesmer was killed; the other called Warden's fort, where William Warden and a Mr. Taff were killed, and the fort burnt down.
Footnote:
Warden's fort was at the present residence of Mr. Benjamin Warden, a grandson of the man that was killed, about thirty-five miles south west of Winchester.Source
A History of the Valley of Virginia
by Kercheval, Samuel, 1850 2nd edition, page 76
That was the incident.
When did it happen?
Kercheval does not state the year.
We explore when.
That's it.
That's out lead story.
Skip around.
Read bits and pieces.
Table of Contents
Arguments for 1756
The Battle of the Lost River was fought nearby, around March 1756
followed quickly by the Battle of the Trough, early April 1756
then followed by the Battle of the Great Cacapon, April 18, 1756.
One of the attacks in between those events could be an attack that killed William Warden.
Norman Baker writes,
'A stockade would be built around Warden's dwelling, probably in 1754.
It would be attacked by a party of Indians in the Spring of 1756.
Warden and a man named Taff were slain and the fort burned. It was in the vicinity during that Spring of 1756, that militia Captain Jeremiah Smith and his company of 20 men encountered and defeated a French-led war party, killing the French leader and five of the Indians."
Source is page 191, French & Indian War in Frederick County, Virginia.
Norman Baker is referring to Kercheval writing about that Lost River Battle of Jeremiah Smith. See top of Chapter VII, page 61.
Circumstances suggest this fort was attacked and burned in March 1756 after the Battle of Lost River.
The Lost River, referred to above, goes underground, then emerges as the Great Cacapon.
Map of the area:
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.
Southwest along the Lost River is the scene of Jeremiah Smith's battle with the Indians.
Accounts of this battle say it was either a draw or somewhat to Jeremiah Smith's advantage.
Those same Indians went on to the end of March beginning of April 1756 Battle of the Trough just outside Fort Pleasant,.
Then to the killing of Sieur D'ouville around North River Mills April 6, 1756.
Then on April 15, 1756 the Indians surrounded and threatened Fort Ashby
Then on to the Battle of the Great Cacapon April 18, 1756.
Arguments for 1758
Many ancestor and genealogy sites and find-a-grave sites state it was 1758.
Find A Grave website shows a picture of a tombstone showing 1758.
During this time the Forbes Expedition was in full swing. Many Cherokees and Catawba came north to Winchester VA to help.
John Hite who lived near this area, writes a letter 2 July 1758 to Colonel George Washington of an attack in this area. Hite complains that Rutherford's Rangers were forced to leave a group of its members to guard Fort Loudoun Winchester VA.
Our In habitants is all Fled from Messenuting [Massanutten area south of Winchester] and we are Generally in Great Fair [Fear] of the Enemy upon us at Some Quarter or other and as we have No other Dependens for any Intilegance But the Ranging Company, and that Being Weakend by Party Stationed at Fort Loudoun [Winchester VA] I hope therefore you will Think it Reasonably to alter that Property So that Those Rangers May be Restord to their former Duty to the Sattisfaction of our Inhabetants in General.1 I am Sir with Regard your Sincear friend and Hum. Servt
Rutherford of Rutherford's Rangers writes a letter 28 June 1758 to Colonel George Washington how his company of Rangers is too split up to defend this area while some of his Rangers are being ordered by Colonel George Washington to garrison Fort Loudoun in Winchester VA.
Did our allied Cherokees do this?
Founders Online notes: Col. William Byrd wrote Forbes from Winchester on 23 June [1758]: “The Indians here behave with the greatest Insolence, I do not know what to think of them. I have just recieved an Account from Massinuttin (a very thick Settlement about 40 Miles from hence) that on tuesday last [27 June] nine People were kill’d & six carried away; I fear the Cherokees did that Misschief. My Indians are very restless . . .”
Kercheval also mentions that Massanutten incident but does not mention Warden.
About the year 1758, a man by the name of John Stone, near what is
called the White House, in the Hawksbill settlement, was killed by Indians. Stone's wife, with her infant child and a son about seven or eight years old, and George Grandstaff, a youth of sixteen years old, w^ere taken off as prisoners. On the South Branch mountain, the Indians murdered Mrs. Stone and her infant, and took the boy and Grandstaff to
their towns. Grandstaff was about three years a prisoner, and then got
home. The little boy, Stone, grew up with the Indians, came home, and
after obtaining possession of his father's property, sold it, got the money, returned to the Indians, and w'as never heard of by his friends afterwards.
The same Indians killed Jacob Holtiman's wife and her children, Holti-
man escaping. They plundered old Brewbecker's house, piled up the chairs and spinning wheels, and set them on fire. A young wonian who lived with Brewbecker had concealed herself in the garret; and after the Indians left the house, extinguished the fire, a,nd saved the house from burning.
Brewbecker's wife got information that the Indians were coming, and ran off with her children to where several men were at work, who conveyed her across the river to a neighboring house. Mr. John Brewbecker now resides on tlic farm where this occurrence took place.
Footnote at bottom of this page:
The late Mrs. Rebecca Brinkcr, one of the daughters of George Bow-
man, on Cedar Creek, informed the author that she recollected when six-
teen families took shelter in her father's house.
The next footnote states:
Mr Brewbaker resides on the west side of the South fork of the
Shenandoah river, on Massanutten creek, in the new county of Page, and
has erected a large and elegant brick house on the spot where the Indians
plundered his father's dwelling. Rutherford of Rutherford's Rangers had under him a man named Samuel Fry (Benjamin Fry's son) who chases after the Indians in the Warden's Fort area back to Short Mountain. Some of our reenactors of the Virginia Regiment Capt George Mercer Company live on that Short Mountain.
Source for this is Norman Baker's French and Indian War in Frederick County, published 2000 by the Winchester Frederick Co Historical Society on page 159 on his section discussing Fry's Fort, page 159.
About the same time [previous page states 1758] the Indians forcibly entered the house of Mr. Young, who resided on the farm now owned by William Smith, Esq. not more than a mile from Zane's old iron works, and killed several of his family. They took an infant, dashed its head against a rock, beat out its brains, and left it lying on the ground. Two of Young's daughters, pretty well grown, were carried off prisoners.
Lieutenant Samuel Fry raised a force of between thirty and forty men, pursued, and came in sight of them, unobserved, at the Short mountain, near the Allegany. Fry's party prepared to fire; but unfortunately one of the white girls stepping accidentally before their guns, the intention was frustrated, and Fry being discovered the next moment, he ordered his men to charge. This was no sooner done than the Indians broke and ran off, leaving their guns, prisoners and plunder: the two young females were thus rescued and brought safely home. Why skip over 1757?
Maybe we should not dismiss the incident that occurred in this area in that year.
Did the attack mentioned here also involve attacking Warden's Fort? No.
The attack did occur north of Warden's Fort in the Cedar Creek area.
Warden's Fort sits near that attack on the Lost River/ Great Cacapon.
Founders Online notes:
Lewis Stephens (Ludwig Steffen), one of the German settlers coming into Frederick County in the 1740s, lived on Cedar Creek to the southwest of Winchester. His house, sometimes called Stephens’s fort, was just northeast of the northernmost bend in the creek, near the modern town of Marlboro. He was sheriff of the county until August 1757 and was now a member of the county court.
For the attack on 17 Sept. see Dinwiddie to GW, 24 Sept. (second letter), n.1, and GW to John Stanwix, 8 Oct. 1757. The raid was reported in a letter dated 29 Sept.: “a Number of the Inhabitants (I was told Thirty-four) were killed and carried off lately from Cedar and Stony Creeks; and that some of the Murders were committed within thirteen Miles of Lord Fairfax’s House” (Pennsylvania Gazette [Philadelphia], 6 Oct. 1757).
Both Cedar and Stony creeks are tributaries of the North Fork of Shenandoah River; Cedar Creek flows into the river at present-day Strasburg and Stony Creek joins the river a few miles to the south of Woodstock.
See Lewis Stephens letter of 20 Sept 1757 to Colonel George Washington.
See
more on that story here:
Where was the fort?
Map of the area:
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to go to interactive map.
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Descriptions of Fort site?
Samuel Kercheval in the above excerpt asserts
"Warden's fort was at the present residence of Mr. Benjamin Warden, a grandson of the man that was killed, about thirty-five miles south west of Winchester."
Norman Baker claims,
"Warden's land lay less than one-half miles northeast of Baker, at the intersection of Highways 55/259 and 29."
We show this location on this map here.
Source:
See Ward's Fort on page 191. A later edition has this on page 180.
French & Indian War in Frederick County, Virginia: With the Forts of the French & Indian War on the Northwestern Frontier By Norman L. Baker Winchester-Frederick County Historical Society, 212 pages, extensively illustrated, and indexed, 2000-2008.
Washington Surveys of Warden's land
Founders Online indicates
11 November 1749. For William Warden. 400 acres on Lost River.
Granted to William Warden, 4 June 1751.
George Washington was 16 years old when this survey was made.
He had accompanied Genn the official survey and George William Fairfax.
Here's what GW wrote of the survey for William Warden"
Then Surveyd for William Warden
a certain Tract of waste and ungranted Land
Situate in Frederick County
and on the Lost River of Cacapehon
and Bounded as followeth
Beginning at two Hickorys and an Elm on the Creek side
and runs
thence S 70 Wt
Two hundd & twelve Poles
to a Spanish Oak a Chesnut & a Maple
thence No 20 W:
Three hundred poles
to a Chesnut Oak a white Oak and Pine
thence No 80 E:
Two hundd and twelve pos
and from thence to the Beginning -
16 April 1750. For James Warden. 330 acres on Lost River.
Granted to James Warden, 15 June 1754.
Grant reissued to John Bare, 15 March 1775.
13 April 1751. Tract in dispute between Samuel Farrington and William Warden. 400 acres on Cacapon River.
Granted to Mary Nisewanger, 21 November 1757.
23 March 1752. For William Warden. 380 acres on North River.
Granted to Isaac Hite, 6 November 1770.
The grants for John Dunbar, John Elswick, Joseph How, Andrew Viney, Luke Collins, Barnaby McHendry, and William Warden are dated 1750 in Book G of the Northern Neck Grants, but it is clear from their context that they should be dated 1751. See Northern Neck Grants, Book G, 530–38, Vi Microfilm.
GW incorrectly dated the finished surveys for both George Nixon and James Warden. Nixon’s survey, according to GW’s field book, was run on 14 April 1750, but in its finished form it is dated 14 June 1750 (survey sold by Sotheby Parke Bernet, 28 April 1981, lot 180). Warden’s survey, which is dated 16 April 1750 in the field book, was finished with a 16 June 1750 date (NjP: De Coppet Collection).
Sources:
Historical Sign
The historical sign below is unclear on the location.
The word "near" in the sign's text really means more than 8 or 9 miles to the west on Route 48 Corridor H or west on Route 55.
If you reached Baker WV, then you passed what we believe to be the site of the fort.
We have not been able to locate the fort exactly.
The historical sign states
the attack was in 1758.
Up above are arguments
for and against
that claim.
Those arguments present
circumstantial evidence
for 1756
as well as for 1758.
There is one incident in 1757 in the area that should also be examined.
What does the area look like where the historical sign is located?
Use Google Car link to look around where this sign sits:
Does the Land Grant give a clue?
To determine where the fort sat , we look at the land grant.
Where did the fort sit on 400 acres of William Warden's land?
The description involves many trees.
Would it be interesting that any of those trees survived to become a "witness tree" ?
.
Lord Fairfax to William Warden Northern Neck Grants Book G, p. 534 Virginia State Land Office.
The Right Honourable
in that part of Great Britain
called Scotland
Proprietor of the
to all to whom this Present Writing
shall come sends Greeting
Know Ye that for good causes
for and in consideration
of the Composition to me Paid
and for the annual Rent
hereafter Preserved
I have given granted and confirmed and by these Presents for Me my Heirs and assigns do give grant and confirm unto William Warden of the county of Augusta a certain Tract of Waste and Ungranted Land in the said County and on the Lost River of Caccapehon and bounded as by a Survey thereof made by Mr. G. Washington
as Followeth:
Beginning at
two Hicorys and Elm
on the east Side
of the said River
thence running across
the Brown Loaf Mountain
[This Brown Loaf Mountain was not in GW's original description in the survey. We have not been able to find any mountain by this name. The mountain may have been renamed by the locals]
So. 70 W[?]
Two hundred and
Twelve Poles
to a Spanish Oak
chestnut Oak and Maple
on the same Said of the River
thence N. 20. W[?]
Three hundred Poles
to a chestnut Oak white oak and a Pine
thence No. 70 E
Two hundred and Twelve Poles
thence So. 20 E
Three hundred Poles
to the Beginning
Containing Four hundred Acres
Together with all Rights Members and appurtances thereunto
Belonging Royal Mines Excepted
and a full third part of all
Lead Copper
Tinn
Coals From Mines
and Iron Ore
that shall be found thereon
To have and hold the said Four hundred Acres of land Together with all Right Profits and Benefits to the same belonging or in any Wise appertaining Except before
Excepted To him the said William Warden his Heirs and Assigns Forever
He the said William Warden his Heirs and Assigns therefore Yielding and paying to Me my Heirs or Assigns or to my certain attorney or attorneys Agent of Agents or to the certain attorney or attorneys of Heirs or Assigns Proprietors of the said Northern Neck
Yearly and every Year on the Feast Day of St. Michael the Archangel the Fee Rent of one shelling Sterling Money
for every Fifty Acres of Land hereby Granted
and so proportionably for a greater or lessor Quantity
Provided that if the
said William Warden
his Heirs or Assigns
shall not pay the
before reserved annual Rent
so that the Land or any Part thereof
shall be behind
or unpaid
by the space of Two whole Years
after the same
shall become Due
if Lawfully Demanded that
then it may and shall be Lawfull for Me
my Heirs or Assigns Proprietors
as aforesaid my
or their Attorney or attorneys Agent or Agents into the above Granted Premises
to Reenter and hold the same
so as if this Grant had never Pass'd
Given at my office in the County of Fairfax within my said Proprietary and my hand and
seal Dated this fourth Day of June
in the twenty-fourth year
of the Reign of our Sovereign
Lord George the Second
by the Grace of God of Great Britain France and Ireland King
Defender of the Faith
&c Adomi
One Thousand Seven hundred and Fifty.
Fairfax
William Wardens Deed for 400 Acres of Land in Augusta County
Source for Lord Fairfax's Grant to Warden
Source for the Lord Fairfax Proprietorship maps above:
Witness Trees
.
.
END OF STORY TO BE UPDATED
Compiled by Jim Moyer posted on Wix website and Facebook Fort Loudoun Winchester VA page 4/15/2021,
updated 4/16/202, 4/5/2022, 4/6/2022, 4/9/2022, edited and rearranged 4/19/2024
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Sources:
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Historical Marker
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Kercheval
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Lost River - where does it go underground?
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Attack at Ft. Warden - 1758
Fort Warden was a small stockade fort in the vicinity of the present town of Wardensville, in Capon District, Hardy County (then Hampshire County). Here on the 11th of November, 1749, George Washington surveyed for William Warden, the builder of the fort, "a certain tract of waste and ungranted land." Here too, in 1758, William Warden and a Mr. Taff were killed by Indians, who burned the fort.
[Sources.—Toner's Edition of "Washington's Journal of My Journey over the Mountains, 1747-8," p. 87;
Kercheval's "History of the Valley," p. 115;
Source for above
Lost River Battle near Fort Warden
We believe the Battle of the Lost River occurred right before the attack and burning of Warden's Fort.
Both the battle and the fort are along the Lost River.
The Battle of Lost River was fought in late March of 1756.
Along the Lost River southwest of Warden's Fort is the scene of Jeremiah Smith's battle with the Indians.
Accounts of this battle say it was either a draw or somewhat to Jeremiah Smith's advantage.
Those same Indians went on to the Battle of the Trough just outside Fort Pleasant.
The story that Kercheval tells, sounds suspiciously very much like other battles, such as the Battle of the Trough on the South Branch of the Potomac and the killing of Sieur D'ouville around North River Mills and the Battle of the Great Cacapon. In all these stories there's a barking dog that complicated matters. And maybe there was a barking dog each time.
Here is the Battle of Lost River as told to and written by Kercheval:
A party of fourteen Indians, believed to be part of those defeated by
Capt. Smith, on their return to the west killed a young woman, and took
a Mrs. Neff prisoner.
This was on the South fork of the river Wappatomaka. They cut off Mrs. Neff's petticoat up to her knees, and gave her a pair of moccasins to wear on her feet. This was done to facilitate her travelling; but they proceeded no further than the vicinity of Fort Pleasant,* where, on the second night, they left Mrs. Neff in the custody of an old Indian, and divided themselves into two parties, in order to watch the fort.
At a late hour in the night, Mrs. Neff discovering that her guard was pretty soundly asleep, ran off.
The old fellow very soon awoke, fired off his gun, and raised a yell.
Mrs. N. ran between the two parties of Indians, got safe into Fort Pleasant, and gave notice where the Indians were encamped.
A small party of men, the same evening came from another small fort a few' miles above, and joined their friends in Fort Pleasant.
The Indians, after the escape of Mrs. Neff, had collected into one body in a deep glen, near the fort.
Early the next morning, sixteen men, well mounted and armed, left the fort with a view to attack the Indians.
They soon discovered their encampment.
The whites divided themselves into two parties, intending to inclose the Indians between two fires; but unfortunately a small dog which had followed them, starting a rabbit, his yelling alarmed the Indians; upon which they cautiously moved off, passed between the two parties of white men unobserved, took a position between them and their horses, and opened a most destructive fire.
The whites returned the fire with great firmness and bravery, and a desperate and bloody conflict ensued. Seven of the whites fell dead, and four were wounded. The little remnant retreated to the fort, whither the wounded also arrived.
Three Indians fell in this battle, and several were wounded.
The victors secured the white men's horses, and took them off. *
Just before the above action commenced, Mr. Vanmeter, an old man,
mounted his horse, rode upon a high ridge, and witnessed the battle.
He returned with all speed to the fort, and gave notice of the defeat. The old man was killed by the Indians in 1757.
After committing to writing the foregoing account, the author received
from his friend Dr. Charles A. Turley, of Fort Pleasant, a more particular narrative of the battle, which the author will subjoin, in the doctor's own words:
"The memorable battle of The Trough (says Dr. Turley) was preceded
by the following circumstances.
Footnotes:
*
Fort Pleasant was a strong stockade with block houses, erected on the
lands now owned by Isaac Vanmeter, Esq. on the South Branch of Potomac, a short distance above what is called the Trough.
*
This battle, is called the "Battle of The Trough." Messrs. Vanmeter, McNeill and Heath, detailed the particulars to the author. A block
house, with port holes, is now standing in Mr. D. McNeill's yard, — part of an old fort erected at the time of Braddock's War, the logs of which are principallv sound.
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Source:
A History of the Valley of Virginia
by Kercheval, Samuel, 1850 2nd edition, page page 64-65
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John Hite
John Hite is the eldest son of Jost Hite. He lived on Opequon Creek. He was the father-in-law of the commander of Fort Loudoun, Lt. Charles Smith. John Hite's place still stands. The architect designer of his place also designed Abrams Delight.)
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