Wilson Hill
Little is known about Priest’s Fort, which was built somewhere on this section of the Trail. Built is 1775, it was abandoned the next year along with all the other forts in Lee County west of Rocky Station.
Forts were of different types. First was the stockaded fort, familiar to us from cowboy movies. These were built of log palisades with the interior side of the wall being used as one of the walls of the interior buildings. The official forts built and maintained by the Militia were either this type, or of the blockhouse variety. Individual settlers would build strong log cabins with portholes cut in the walls of their upper story, and these would serve as sanctuaries for small neighborhoods. An example of the fort house that is still standing is Kilgore’s Fort on Big Moccasin Creek in Scott Co.
The requirements for the physical location on militia forts were quite exacting. The forts were placed so as to guard either a road or road junction, or a ford, or a gap in the mountains. They had to be within dependable rifle shot of a good spring, which as a practical matter usually meant within fifty yards, and they had to have no high ground over them within the extreme range of the long rifle, perhaps three hundred yards.
Every able bodied man from the Holston settlements was required to spend at least one month a year on garrison duty in the forward forts. During the worst of the wars, it was too dangerous to try to farm in the vicinity of the forts, so they were provisioned from the Holston Valley settlements. As a general rule the chain of forts in Virginia was maintained through 1794 when the Cherokee surrendered. The Shawnee fought on through the War of 1812.
Up ahead you will regain US 58, and about a mile west on that road you will see a Virginia Roadside Historic Marker on your right just as you enter the community of Rose Hill. On the high ground above the head spring of Martin’s Creek was located one of the most significant forts in Lee County. It was here that Martin’s Old Station was built.
In 1769 Dr. Thomas Walker, agent for the Loyal Land Company which owned 800,000 acres here, offered Joseph Martin £1,000 acres in Lee County if he would become the first settler in Lee County. Actually Walker made the same offer to another group led by the Kirtley brothers and a Captain Rucker, with the first group to arrive taking all. Martin’s group, which included his brother Brice, left eastern Virginia on March 1, 1769 and was the second to get away. Martin pushed relentlessly and after getting lost “in the cane break and laurel” between the Valleys of the Holston and Powell and being “completely exhausted, weak from hunger, and very discouraged”, Joseph found the Hunter’s Trace (another name for the Wilderness Trail) and they arrived in Powell Valley March 26th. The competing group did not arrive till April 15th.
Martin’s party quickly cleared land and built cabins on their claim. Martin wrote a letter describing the area. “The place we are now settled in is waters of Bear Grass, called by the hunters Powell’s River about a mile from the foot of a large ledge of mountains called Cumberland much resembling our Blue Ridge only considerably larger, much steep and running the same course.”
Soon a band of Indians came into camp, and a scuffle ensued. Fearful for their lives, the group left and returned to their homes in Eastern Virginia. Nevertheless, they had earned the honor of being the first settlers of Lee County.
In 1775 Martin was made agent for the Transylvania Company and was given specific authority to control the settlement of Powell Valley. He and another group of settlers returned to his Station, and between January and June they built a fort which was described by John Redd, who was a member of the party:
“Martin’s Fort was on Martin’s Creek. The fort was located on the north side of the creek. There were some five or six cabins; these built some twenty feet apart with strong stockades between. In these stockades there were port