Fort Vause (also known as Fort Vaux, Voss, Vass, Vance, or "Vass' Fort", and renamed Fort Lyttelton in 1757) was built in 1753 in

Montgomery County, Virginia Montgomery County is a county located in the Valley and Ridge area of the U.S. state of Virginia. As population in the area increased, Montgomery County was formed in 1777 from Fincastle County, which in turn had been taken from Botetourt Cou ...

, by

Ephraim Vause Ephraim Vause (1718–1774) was a pioneer of southwestern Virginia, and Fort Vause in present day Shawsville, Virginia, was named after him. "This fort was named for Captain Ephraim Vause who was the first settler in that region. His name has be ...

. The historic site is near the town of

Shawsville, Virginia Shawsville is a census-designated place (CDP) in Montgomery County, Virginia, Montgomery County, Virginia, United States. The population was 1,310 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Blacksburg, Virginia, Blacksburg–Christiansburg, Virgi ...

. It was attacked by French troops and Native American warriors in 1756, and most of the inhabitants were killed or taken prisoner.Waddell, Joseph Addison. ''Annals of Augusta County, Virginia, from 1726 to 1871''
Virginia Historical Society, Staunton VA: C. R. Caldwell, 1902. The fort was rebuilt in 1757 but abandoned by 1759.

History

The original fort was built in 1753 on the

Great Wagon Road The Great Wagon Road, also known as the Philadelphia Wagon Road, is a historic trail in the eastern United States that was first traveled by indigenous tribes, and later explorers, settlers, soldiers, and travelers. It extended from British Penn ...

leading from Philadelphia to North Carolina,Douglas McClure Wood, "I Have Now Made a Path to Virginia": Outacite Ostenaco and the Cherokee-Virginia Alliance in the French and Indian War," ''West Virginia History,'' New Series, Vol. 2, No. 2 (FALL 2008), pp. 31-60. West Virginia University Press
/ref> to protect the home of Ephraim Vause and his neighbors. There is no description of the fort, but privately-built fortified homesteads of this period were typically stockades surrounding the farmhouse and outbuildings, in some cases including a crude two-storey

blockhouse A blockhouse is a small fortification, usually consisting of one or more rooms with loopholes, allowing its defenders to fire in various directions. It is usually an isolated fort in the form of a single building, serving as a defensive stro ...

. Between 17 and 25

Virginia militia The Virginia militia is an armed force composed of all citizens of the Commonwealth of Virginia capable of bearing arms. The Virginia militia was established in 1607 as part of the English militia system. Militia service in Virginia was compulso ...

troops were stationed there in 1756, under the command of Captain John Smith.Lawrence Babits, Stephanie Gandulla, eds. ''The Archaeology of French and Indian War Frontier Forts.'' University Press of Florida, 2013.
/ref>Lena Gardner Sammons, "Fort Vause: The Site and the Story," ''Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society,'' Vol. II, No. 2, Winter 1965-66, pp 23-33
/ref>

Mary Draper Ingles Mary Draper Ingles (1732 – February 1815), also known in records as Mary Inglis or Mary English, was an American pioneer and early settler of western Virginia. In the summer of 1755, she and her two young sons were among several captives taken ...

and her husband

William Ingles William Ingles (1729 – September, 1782), also spelled Inglis, Ingliss, Engels, or English, was a colonist and soldier in colonial Virginia. He participated in the Sandy Creek Expedition and was a signatory of the Fincastle Resolutions. He was ...

took refuge in the fort after their home was attacked during the Draper's Meadow Massacre of July, 1755, in which Mary and her sons were taken prisoner. Mary escaped and returned to her husband, and in early 1756 they moved to Fort Vause. According to one source, soon after their arrival, Mary had a premonition that the fort would be attacked and asked her husband to leave.Transcript of John Ingles' manuscript "The Narrative of Col. John Ingles Relating to Mary Ingles and the Escape from Big Bone Lick"
, 1824. Another source states that a settler who had been captured by the Indians escaped and came to the fort with a warning that the Shawnee were preparing to attack them. William and Mary Ingles left the fort on 25 June.Hale, John P. ''Trans-Allegheny Pioneers (West Virginia and Ohio): Historical Sketches of the First White Settlers West of the Alleghenies, 1748 and After.'' 1886, reprinted 2002.
/ref>

Siege and destruction

Later the same day, at "about ten in the morning," Fort Vause was attacked by 25 French soldiers together with 205

Miami Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...

Ottawa Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern Ontario, southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the cor ...

and

Shawnee The Shawnee ( ) are a Native American people of the Northeastern Woodlands. Their language, Shawnee, is an Algonquian language. Their precontact homeland was likely centered in southern Ohio. In the 17th century, they dispersed through Ohi ...

warriors under the command of

François-Marie Picoté de Belestre François-Marie Picoté, sieur de Belestre II (17 November 1716 – 30 March 1793) was a colonial soldier for both New France and Great Britain. As a soldier in the French troupes de la marine, Belestre fought against British and American c ...

. John and Matthew Ingles, younger brothers of William, chose to remain at the fort after William decided to leave with Mary. John is credited with shooting a scout from a tree, and then sounding the alarm that the fort was about to be attacked. He was killed and his wife Mary and their children were taken prisoner. Matthew was out hunting at the time and was attacked on his way home. He fought hand-to-hand until his rifle broke, then with a frying pan handle, killing two of his attackers. He was taken prisoner by the Shawnee, but several years later was released or escaped. He died at

Ingles Ferry Ingles Ferry (sometimes referred to as English Ferry) is the site of a historic ferry crossing on the New River (Kanawha River tributary), New River in western Virginia, near the city of Radford, Virginia, Radford in Pulaski County, Virginia, Unite ...

, "a few months after his return."Pendleton, William Cecil. ''History of Tazewell County and Southwest Virginia: 1748-1920''
W. C. Hill Printing Company, 1920.

George Washington George Washington (, 1799) was a Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the first president of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1797. As commander of the Continental Army, Washington led Patriot (American Revoluti ...

wrote that a lack of vigilance by the sentries may have allowed the attackers to launch a surprise assault: "Indolent and careless, and always unguarded, he sentriesare liable to be surprized. By this means Vass’s Fort was taken (and the Garrison destroyed)." However, the fort's commander, Captain John Smith, after being warned by the escaped settler, had been able to send a message on 22 June to Captain William Preston requesting help.Patricia Givens Johnson, ''William Preston and the Allegheny Patriots,'' B. D. Smith & Bros., 1976
One source says the 17 defenders held off the attackers for three days, whereas another source says the siege lasted only 8 hours, during which 32 of the attackers were killed.Daniel P. Barr, ''The Boundaries Between Us: Natives and Newcomers Along the Frontiers of the Old Northwest Territory, 1750-1850.'' Kent State University Press, 2006.
/ref> The French commander Belestre, who was also wounded during the siege, later reported that he had lost "near 40 Men."Jim Glanville, "Remembering the attack on Fort Vause," ''Christiansburg News-Messenger,'' Wednesday, January 21, 2015; Christiansburg, Virginia
/ref> Eventually only three of the fort's defenders were still able to fight,Steele, Ian K. ''Setting All the Captives Free: Capture, Adjustment, and Recollection in Allegheny Country.'' Canada: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2013.
/ref> and their ammunition gave out, at which point the garrison surrendered on condition that they be permitted to leave.Joseph A. Waddell, "Indian Wars in Augusta County," in ''The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography,'' Volume 2, Philip Alexander Bruce, William Glover Stanard, editors. Virginia Historical Society, 1894
/ref>

Aftermath

At least 3 settlers were killed, and 22 were taken prisoner, including Ephraim Vause's wife, his three daughters, a slave he owned and two of his servants (Ephraim was away on the day of the attack). The fort was burned"To George Washington from Robert Dinwiddie, 12 July 1756," Founders Online, National Archives. ''The Papers of George Washington,'' Colonial Series, vol. 3, 16 April 1756–9 November 1756, ed. W. W. Abbot. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1984, pp. 259–261.
/ref> and Shawnee warriors tortured and burned one of the fort's soldiers, a man named Cole.Milo M. Quaife, "The Captivity of Peter Looney." ''The Mississippi Valley Historical Review,'' Volume 15, 1928-1929 Two other prisoners were killed, a badly wounded soldier and an elderly man. The other prisoners were taken down the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the main stem, primary river of the largest drainage basin in the United States. It is the second-longest river in the United States, behind only the Missouri River, Missouri. From its traditional source of Lake Ita ...

New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

, after which several of them were then sent to Detroit and eventually transported to France. The fort's commander, Captain John Smith, was sent to England in an exchange of prisoners and returned to Virginia in early 1758. On 3 April 1758 Smith submitted a proposal to the

Virginia House of Burgesses The House of Burgesses () was the lower house of the Virginia General Assembly from 1619 to 1776. It existed during the colonial history of the United States in the Colony of Virginia in what was then British America. From 1642 to 1776, the Hou ...

offering to lead an expedition against the Shawnee, but no action was taken. A relief expedition of 47 men sent by Major Andrew Lewis and led by Captain William Preston arrived on 26 June, and found the fort abandoned. Preston's men followed the Indians into Kentucky but were unable to reach them. On 10 July 1756, the French commander Belestre addressed a gathering of Shawnees allied with the French. His speech was recorded by a British prisoner, John Wotton, whose account was published in newspapers in Boston, New York and Philadelphia. Belestre was quoted, in part, as saying: :"I am now returned from war against the English, and have not compleated my Design so far as I intended. When I went away I thought to have gone down so far as the...

James River The James River is a river in Virginia that begins in the Appalachian Mountains and flows from the confluence of the Cowpasture and Jackson Rivers in Botetourt County U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowli ...

Richmond Richmond most often refers to: * Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada * Richmond, California, a city in the United States * Richmond, London, a town in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, England * Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town ...

]. My spies gave me great encouragement and told me that I could go down to that place undiscovered, and plunder their Store, for there is no Men down there, but some Tobacco-Carriers. [This was prevented] by a small Company of Men, ten or eleven, which kept me the best Part of a Day very hot engaged, and killed near 40 Men...You told me Virginia Men could not fight, but I did not find it so; for these few Men that I found, fought more like Devils than Men; if all Virginia is like them, we cannot get that Country." On 5 June 1757, Cherokee warriors defending Fort Cumberland (Maryland), Fort Cumberland on the Maryland-Virginia border captured Belestre, who had been leading raids against other English settlements. In late 1757, Ephraim Vause attempted to organize a military expedition to rescue the prisoners, which included his wife and daughters. A number of men known as "The Associators" volunteered for this proposed expedition, and a total of 300 troops were expected to join. John Madison and the Augusta County Militia offered their support, and food and other supplies were obtained. Early in 1758, however, plans for the expedition were abandoned due to constant disputes among the commanding officers. Vause left the Shenandoah Valley soon afterwards, moved to Kentucky, and sold his land to John Madison in 1760.Chalkley, Lyman. ''Chronicles of the Scotch-Irish Settlement in Virginia: Extracted from the Original Court Records of Augusta County, 1745–1800,'' vol III The Commonwealth Printing Company, Rosslyn VA, 1912.
/ref> Vause's daughter Elizabeth Levicee Vause was held prisoner until she was released by agreement with Colonel Henry Bouquet in 1763.

Peter Looney

One prisoner, a 23-year-old sergeant named Peter Looney (or Lewney), was taken by Shawnees to

Lower Shawneetown Lower Shawneetown, also known as Shannoah or Sonnontio, was an 18th-century Shawnee village located within the Lower Shawneetown Archeological District, near South Portsmouth in Greenup County, Kentucky and Lewis County, Kentucky. The population ...

in Ohio. He was then sent to Detroit, where he was adopted by a Native American family. He became a respected warrior and attended important diplomatic meetings with the French. He later escaped from his captors at

Niagara, New York Niagara is a town in Niagara County, New York, United States. At the time of the 2020 census, the town had a total population of 7,903. The town is named after the famous waterfall Niagara Falls. The Town of Niagara is in the southwestern porti ...

and reached Albany on 12 July 1757. He traveled to Philadelphia and then returned to Virginia, reporting on the fate of Captain Smith.

Rebuilding

Construction on a new fort was initiated by Captain Peter Hogg in 1756 as an earthworks and

palisade A palisade, sometimes called a stakewall or a paling, is typically a row of closely placed, high vertical standing tree trunks or wooden or iron stakes used as a fence for enclosure or as a defensive wall. Palisades can form a stockade. Etymo ...

construction.Mcbride, Kim A., "The Second Fort Vause: A Crucial French and Indian War Fort in the Roanoke Valley of Virginia," in Lawrence E. Babits, and Stephanie Gandulla (eds), ''The Archaeology of French and Indian War Frontier Forts'' Gainesville, FL, 2013; online edn, Florida Scholarship Online, 29 May 2014. Accessed 1 Sept. 2023.
/ref> On 27 July 1756, Governor

Robert Dinwiddie Robert Dinwiddie (1692 – 27 July 1770) was a Scottish colonial administrator who served as the lieutenant governor of Virginia from 1751 to 1758. Since the governors of Virginia remained in Great Britain, he served as the ''de facto'' head o ...

wrote orders on the fort's design: "It is agreed that...Fort Vaus be made at least one hundred feet Square in the Clear and that the Stockades be at least 14 feet Long." When completed, it was a 100-foot square four-bastioned earthwork with a 15-foot high log palisade, with barracks.Pete Payette, "Frontier Forts of Southwest Virginia," American Forts Network, 2009.
/ref> The fort was to be garrisoned with 100 men, although

recommended 150. He visited the construction site in October 1756, as part of his tour of inspection of Southwestern Virginia. Washington wrote to Governor Dinwiddie that "Vass’s place is a pass of very great importance, being a very great inroad of the enemy, and secure, if it was strongly garrisoned." He noted in a November, 1756 proposal for the construction of frontier forts that "The fort at Vass’s, (which Capt. Hogg is now building) is in a much-exposed gap, subject to the inroads of the southern Indians." The garrison was increased by an additional 70 men in May, 1757. Construction was delayed several times. Tools were difficult to obtain and they wore out quickly. The 30-man construction crew was paid sixpence per day, but in July 1756 they demanded an additional payment of 40 pounds of tobacco daily, which Washington refused to consider. Construction was still incomplete as of July 1757, and Washington was dissatisfied with the fort's location, writing to Hogg: "I have great complaints concerning your manner of carrying on the works at the Fort you are building. It has cost infinitely more money than ever was intended for it, and, by the injudicious spot of ground you have chosen to fix it upon, it has caused a general clamour." Washington replaced Captain Hogg with Lieutenant Thomas Bullitt, sending Captain Henry Woodward to supervise construction. On 29 July, Washington wrote to Woodward: :"As the Fort which Captn Hogg is building, and to which you are now going, has, either thro' bad conduct in the Director, idleness in the workman, or through some other cause which I can not comprehend, been of infinitely more expense to the country, and much longer about, than was ever expected–-You are required to finish it with the utmost dispatch; and in that in any manner, however rough, if it will secure you upon an attack." Construction was completed by mid-August, at which point the fort was renamed Fort Lyttelton. By 1 September,

Colonel Andrew Lewis Andrew Lewis (October 9, 1720 – September 26, 1781) was an Irish-born American surveyor, military officer and politician. Born in County Donegal, he moved with his family to the British colony of Virginia at a young age. A colonel in the ...

reduced the garrison to one officer and twenty men, but records for February 1758 show a garrison of 74 men and 8 officers. There is no mention of Fort Vause in colonial records after 1758, suggesting that it was abandoned, or possibly just used for storage. A single building from the second fort remained standing until 1903, when it was torn down.

Archaeological excavations

The Fort Vause Archaeological Site was established in 1968. Archaeological test excavations undertaken in 1968 identified the location and general size of the second fort as well as evidence of its predecessor. Excavations in 2005-2006 located three

bastions A bastion is a structure projecting outward from the curtain wall of a fortification, most commonly angular in shape and positioned at the corners of the fort. The fully developed bastion consists of two faces and two flanks, with fire from the ...

of the second fort, still visible today. Artifacts uncovered during these excavations included

wrought iron Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.05%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4.5%), or 0.25 for low carbon "mild" steel. Wrought iron is manufactured by heating and melting high carbon cast iron in an ...

nails, clay pipe stems, British Brown

stoneware Stoneware is a broad class of pottery fired at a relatively high temperature, to be impervious to water. A modern definition is a Vitrification#Ceramics, vitreous or semi-vitreous ceramic made primarily from stoneware clay or non-refractory fire ...

, salt-glazed stoneware, a

cast iron Cast iron is a class of iron–carbon alloys with a carbon content of more than 2% and silicon content around 1–3%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloying elements determine the form in which its car ...

kettle fragment, a gunflint, lead musket balls of several different calibers, and glass bottle fragments. The site is now on the property of the Hinshelwood family.

Legacy

Fort Vause is a National Landmark, file #060-0017. A brass plaque mounted on a stone

plinth A pedestal or plinth is a support at the bottom of a statue, vase, column, or certain altars. Smaller pedestals, especially if round in shape, may be called socles. In civil engineering, it is also called ''basement''. The minimum height o ...

was placed at the fort's site on 2 December 1969. A historical marker was placed near the site of the fort in 1998. A replica of the fort was built at the Explore Park in

Roanoke County, Virginia Roanoke County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, its population was 96,929. Its county seat is Salem, but the county administrative offices are located in the census-designated place of ...

in 2004.Photos of the Fort Vause replica at Explore Park in Roanoke, Virginia, by Pat and Chuck Blackley
/ref>

References

{{Reflist

External links

Photos of the Fort Vause replica at Explore Park in Roanoke, Virginia, by Pat and Chuck Blackley