Suzanne Stewart
Staff Writer
Since 1990, when they began a survey and research, Drs. Stephen and Kim McBride have been helping the Sheets family of Green Bank piece together the puzzle that is the pre-Revolutionary War fort on their land.
Countless hours have been spent on-site by countless volunteers and students, who have helped with excavations and digs at Fort Warwick, in hopes they will find artifacts and stains in the dirt that will reveal the past.
On July 15, the Mc-Brides gave a presentation at the Green Bank Observatory about the findings at the fort, including the mysterious shape of the structure.
“There are many things we can talk to you about, but we’re really focusing on one of the main questions from this recent grant, which is the structure of Fort Warwick,” Kim said. “It’s something that’s puzzled us for a long time, especially as we compared Fort Warwick to some other forts that we’ve excavated further down in the Greenbrier Valley.”
In her slide presentation, Kim shared diagrams and aerial photos of other forts in the Greenbrier Valley which are rectangular with two bastions on opposite corners. The bastions were built so that militiamen could cover two sides of the fort if it was attacked.
There are also forts in other areas where a house was used as part of the structure, with the stockade built around it.
“[Pictures show that] they are much more irregular, and irregular is kind of a good word to warn you about what you’ll learn about Warwick’s Fort,” she said. “It’s really taught us to not have too many preconceived ideas about these forts.”
Through research done at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., the McBrides learned that Fort Warwick was built in June of 1774 during the conflict called Lord Dunmore’s War. The fort was used throughout the American Revolutionary War.
Also included in those records was an early census, or tax list, that had a list of households in the area. There were 43 households, which could have represented between four and six individuals living in each household.
There were about 18 families that lived in the Fort Warwick area and would have used the fort for safety.
The first dig at Fort Warwick was in 2004 and the McBrides have returned every couple of years, as they get grant funding, to expand the dig to fully understand the structure and the people who built and used the fort.
“I want you to get a sense of what is our evidence in the ground,” Kim said. “Of course, we’re always looking for artifacts, and they’re very informative, but the main thing that we’re looking for to understand the structure of the forts are stains in the ground.
“We’re looking for different colors of dirt and also different textures,” she added.
As they were digging for stains, the excavators came across a cellar, a hearth and a bastion with stockade trenches on either end. But those trenches ended abruptly, which puzzled the McBrides.
“This is really odd how the stockade trench just stops right there,” Kim said. “It doesn’t match anything we have found on other fort sites, so Captain Moffett, Captain Matthews, they were doing some original thinking at Warwick’s Fort.”
The digs continued to reveal interesting and odd sections of the fort and in 2017, a circular brown stain was found.
“To be honest with you, we’re like, ‘wow, do we have a Native American house here on this fort site?’” Kim said. “We did a carbon dating, and it dates to the colonial era, so we were a little bit confused. Then Bob Sheets came to the rescue with a combination of oral history and documentary.”
Kim explained that Sheets shared a story that was passed down through the family and was published in The Pocahontas Times in 1934, that the fort was in a circular form and the roof was covered with sod and dirt to prevent fire from the enemy.
“This was really, really interesting to us,” Kim said. “Also in 2017, we found a little bit more stockade trenching at one of the other ends of the fort, so this was really great progress.”
With what they had at that point, the McBrides thought they knew where the section bastion would be located, but they were in for a shock.
This fort was unlike any other.
Stephen fast forwarded to the dig that was done in 2024 and shared what was found and more importantly, where it was found.
“We had this bastion and this stretch, and some funniness up here,” he said, pointing to a map. “Then even more exciting, we found a corner and a gate. We kept on doing the track hoe between those two points and found some isolated posts. It’s hard to determine whether these are part of the fort or just fence posts.
“We found these and then we expanded a little bit more and we got another bastion,” he continued. “The southern bastion, it’s right along the creek. These little stains are part of the bastion. Again, it kind of comes and goes.”
What was interesting about that bastion is that it was not opposite the one found earlier. It had a more centralized location along the south wall of the stockade.
Although it didn’t entirely make sense, the McBrides were still excited they finally found the second bastion.
They continued the digs and found posts that could have been used to fortify the forts walls, which would have been built differently than those found flanking the first bastion. Since there wasn’t a trench between those post holes, they concluded that the walls were not uniform.
They also concluded that the fort was built in an L shape, which is very unique and uncommon.
“It looked like, in a way, there are two halves of the fort with this western half being somewhat more strongly built than the eastern half,” Stephen said. “Before we came back, we were just scratching our heads with what was going on with these discontinuous stockade trenches. There were post holes in the gaps. We also had the building with the cellar and circular structure.
“We had two good bastions, and we had these two different paths of the fort, at least, that’s what it looked like,” he added.
Along with the odd shape, the fort was also larger than most. From east to west, the structure is 138 feet, which is larger than any other fort the McBrides have seen in the Greenbrier Valley. The north to south was 98 feet, which is closer to that of other forts.
Possible explanations for the discrepancies is that they changed the construction of the stockade and didn’t need to excavate trenches. It is also possible that individual buildings were built along the stockade wall and that would account for the lack of trenches between the posts.
“If you’ve ever been to Prickett’s Fort in Marion County or Boonesboro in Kentucky, there are log cabins that are built along the walls and sometimes they actually are part of the wall, so that’s another possibility,” Stephen said. “Or it could be a combination of all of those.”
Stephen added that the fort could have been built in two sections, which would explain the L shape.
In 2025, there was another revelation – a third bastion.
“We have three bastions,” Stephen said. “They’re not in opposite corners. There’s a mid-wall. [The third] bastion would have protected a wall and also given extra protection to people coming in the gate.
“That’s what the fort looks like now,” he continued, showing the most recent map. “It’s kind of rectanguloid with an L shape over here and again, there’s a mystery as to what is in these gaps. We don’t know.”
They will just have to continue digging to find the rest of the puzzle.
After sharing the discoveries about the structure of the fort, Stephen shared photos of some of the artifacts found, including ceramics, glass, buttons, pipes and more.
The McBrides also had a booklet for attendees that is a summary of the history of the fort and the work they have done thus far with the archaeological digs.
