New Garden Station

Research Note: The Wilkinson family arrived in America with letters of release from the Quaker meetings in Ireland. And, they communed with Quakers here in America for three generations. Many of the Quaker communities along their migration route were named New Garden.

In the beautiful New Garden section of Russell Co., VA, on the [north] side of the Clinch was another very early fort called the New Garden Station. This is another the historians have passed by and no historical marker denotes its existence, even the people now living in the area are unaware that a fort ever existed there. This section of Russell Co. was settled very early, in fact as early as 1769, and upon whose land and when the fort was built is not known.

Certainly it can be proven that the fort stood upon Thompson’s Creek [vic. Honaker VA], from this entry in Washington Co., VA Land Entry Book, dated August 20, 1780, which reads:

We, the Commissioners, etc...do certify that Israel Christian is entitled to 100 acres of land near the New Garden Fort, on the north side of Clinch River, on the waters of Thompson’s Creek.

The New Garden Station may have been built as early as 1774 and manned by the settlers in proximity to it. Certainly there is no militia list for it at this early date, and neither is it listed as one of the garrisoned forts under Captain Daniel Smith’s command at this time.

Settlers of the New Garden section would have been at the complete mercy of the Shawnee entering through the Sandy war passes, and sanctuary in either Elk Garden or Castlewood fort would have been miles away. Considering these conditions and the very early settlement of the area it seems that an early fort would have been a most urgent necessity of the settlers.

Both Andrew Lynam and George Huffaker in their pension application say they served at this fort under a Lieutenant James Leeper in the year 1777, with Huffaker saying that when he served there Alexander Smith and a Mr. Jackson lived there.

Robert Sinclair says in his pension claim that he served there in the fall of 1776 or 1777 under Captain William Norton. These statements not only prove the existence of the fort, but also that it did exist at an early date.

George William Settle in an unpublished history of Russell County entitled "A Brief History of the Earliest Generations and Events, Etc., In the Eastern Part of Russell Co., VA", page 53, states:

About one half mile north of Oaks Garage, or around 300 yards up the ridge from Robert Green’s was an Indian fort where twenty-five or thirty people lived for protection against the Indians. Some old man told me they would go down to the big spring below the road, eat and go back to the fort, but never without the men along with their rifles.

The oral history may actually pinpoint the location of the New Garden Fort.

    Emory L. Hamilton, Frontier Forts of Southwest Virginia, Historical Sketches of Southwest Virginia, No. 4, 1968, pp. 1 to 26 <http://www.rootsweb.com/~varussel/other/forts.html> 10 August 2004.

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This site is provided for reference only. Except where specifically cited, information contained is conjecture and should not be considered as fact.
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