FORT SELLERS
This small stockade was situate near the junction
of Patterson's Creek and the North Branch River in what is now
Frankfort District, Mineral County, West Virginia. It has usually
been called Fort Sellars, and that designation will be used here, but
evidence that any person by the name of Sellars owned land or lived
in the vicinity of the fort is lacking. It has been stated by many
writers that George Washington surveyed land for Elias Sellars at the
mouth of Patterson's Creek in 1748, but there seems to be nothing to
show he ever surveyed any land at all at this place and if he did, it
was not in 1748. Washington traveled up Patterson's Creek in the
spring of that year with James Genn, Fairfax's surveyor, but no
surveying was done at the mouth of the Creek at that time. Genn
surveyed the Fairfax Creek lots later in 1748, but Washington was not
with him. Washington was not qualified to conduct surveys in 1748, as
he did not become a licensed surveyor until the next year. In July of
1749, he received appointment as the official surveyor for Culpeper County.
The confusion relative to the survey for Elias
Sellars apparently arises from the fact that on April 1, 1748,
Washington participated with Genn in a survey of Lot No. 7 on the
South Fork River above present Moorefield. Washington's diary states
that Harman Shoker and Elias Sellars (Cellers) were living on the lot
at the time of the survey. Hence if in 1748 any survey work was done
for Elias Sellars in which Washington participated, it was performed
more that fifty miles from the mouth of Patterson's Creek.
In May, 1748, Lot No. 22 of the Fairfax Patterson's
Creek survey was laid off by James Genn. This was the tract situate
at the mouth of the Creek, bordering that stream on the east and the
North Branch river on the north. Thomas Lord Fairfax conveyed this
parcel of land to his nephew, Phillip Martin, by deed dated June nth
of that year. Martin retained possession of the property until August
8, 1769, when he leased it to John Hartley. It was upon this lot that
the fort was undoubtedly built.
The first intimation that the Virginia authorities
contemplated building a fort at the mouth of the Creek is contained
in a letter by Washington to Lieutenant Colonel Adam Stephen dated
December 3, 1755. It was suggested to Stephen that he take a party of
men from Fort Cumberland and examine the hill at the mouth of
Patterson's Creek as Washington was of the notion it would be a very
good place upon which to erect a fort. Stephen must have quickly
attended to this order, for on December 21st, he reported without
enthusiasm to Washington that he found the valley at the mouth of
Patterson's Creek to be only eight hundred yards wide from hill to
hill, and that he did not think the territory there or any place in
the vicinity would make a good location for a fort.
But Washington was undeterred by Stephen's report.
ON January 9, 1756, he odored Stephen, who was then at Winchester, to
proceed to Fort Cumberland and when he reached Patterson's Creek, he
was to carefully examine the ground around Ashby's fort and from
there down to the mouth of the Creek to determine if he could find a
convenient place to locate a fort. Colonel Stephen must have fixed
upon a site near the mouth of the Creek, for by late March the fort
had been built. On April 22nd, Washington advised Governor Dinwiddie
that an officer and thirty men guarding stores at a "small fort
which we have at the mouth of Patterson's Creek" had been
attacked by a party of French and Indians and after a considerable
skirmish, the enemy had been driven off. On May 18th, Paymaster
Alexander Boyd was instructed by Washington to pay "the
detachment at the Mouth of the Creek".
The dimensions of this fort is not known, but it
was probably the same size of Fort Ashby, the stockade being ninety
feet square. The place did not figure too prominently in Washington's
plans for the defense of the frontier for on May 18th, he wrote
Colonels Stephen stating he wished it were possible to remove the
stores at the mouth of Patterson's Creek to Ashby's fort. Stephen was
further told that if he found it impracticable to remove the supplies
stored there, then the was to make the fort as strong as possible and
to strengthen the garrison. He was also instructed to "put a
more experienced officer than Mr. Brockenbrough (Lieut. Austin
Brockenbrough, 10th Company, Virginia Regiment) at it, whose youth
perhaps may be a means of his doing something inconsistent."
This stockade was one of the three defenses built
along Patterson's Creek during the Indian War. When built, it was
along or near the road leading from Winchester to Fort Cumberland, as
troops and convoys traveled down the Creek to its mouth, then forded
the North Branch so as to reach Cresap's road to Will's Creek. By the
summers of 1756, the road leading from Fort Ashby up Turner's Run
(formerly Cloverlick) to Kramer's at present Short Gap, following
generally the course of West Virginia 28, and thence to Fort
Cumberland, had been opened and the road down the Creek to its mouth
had somewhat fallen into disuse as a route to the Maryland fort.
There was thus a lessened need to maintain the fort at the mouth of
the Creek. The date of its abandonment, however, is not known.
It has been said that Fort Sellars was located on
the east side of the Creek, which would have placed it on the
northern end of Creek Ridge. Such a location appears highly unlikely
because of the steep climb which would have been required to reach it
from the Creek and it would have removed the garrison from the
vicinity of the ford across the North Branch which the place was
designed to guard. The probability is that the fort was located about
the center of the present village of Patterson Creek midway between
Creek Ridge to the east and the high ground to the west, which would
have placed it on Lot No. 22 of the Fairfax Patterson's Creek Survey.