Fort Seybert

In a 1758 surprise raid occasioned by the French and Indian War (1754–63), most of the 30 white settlers sheltering there were massacred by Shawnee and Delaware warriors and the fort was burned.

After the defeat of General Edward Braddock at the Battle of the Monongahela (9 July 1755), the white settlers of the Allegheny Mountains were largely unprotected from a series of Shawnee and Delaware Indian raids.

By the end of the year, the Virginia Regiment had increased its numbers by several hundred troops and began to temporarily man some of the settler forts that had been hastily thrown up by civilians or soldiers.

Colonel George Washington, the new 24-year-old commander of the Virginia Regiment, embarked on a campaign to protect the settlers of the upper South Branch and surrounding region by building up and manning frontier forts.

In August 1756 Washington wrote to Virginia Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie to say that ...we have built some forts and altered others as far south on the Potomac as settlers have been molested, and there remains one body of inhabitants at a place called Upper Tract who need a guard.

Beyond this, if I am not misinformed there is nothing but a continued series of mountains uninhabited until we get over to the waters of the James River, not far from the fort which takes its name from your Honor; and thence to May River.In November, Washington wrote again to Dinwiddie, in an effort to forestall panic among the settlers: In short, they [the inhabitants] are so affected with approaching ruin that the whole back country is in a general motion toward the other colonies; and I expect that scarce a family will inhabit Frederick, Hampshire or Augusta county in a little time.The same month Washington reluctantly agreed to a plan for a chain of 23 small forts along the wilderness frontier as proposed by the Virginia Assembly (he preferred fewer, but larger, stronger and better garrisoned, forts).

Robert Mackenzie, Lieutenant Christopher Gist had marched with six soldiers and 30 Indians, beginning on 2 April 1758, from the South Branch towards Fort Duquesne.

Seeing the futile situation that he faced, Seybert surrendered on the basis of promises by the war chief Bemino (known as John Killbuck) that their lives would be spared.

Following the surrender, however, the Indians massacred 17 to 19 people; took eleven captive — including Seybert's teenaged son, who returned to the region years later to render an account — and burned the fort.

They considered it impossible that the fort had consisted of almost a dozen log houses (as in the De Hass image) built so as to form a square or rectangle.