Qualla: Fort Pleasant https://qualla.com/fort-pleasant en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:07 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/z/y/fort-pleasant-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Fort Pleasant https://qualla.com/fort-pleasant Fort Pleasant: Introduction https://qualla.com/fort-pleasant/ Photo credit Antony-22, CC BY-SA 4.0. Colonel George Washington was twenty-four years old in 1756 when he ordered a fort built on Isaac Van Meter's land along the South Branch Potomac. The French and Indian War was already underway, the western Virginia frontier was burning, and the place the Van Meters had settled in 1744 - known then as the Indian Old Fields - was suddenly a strategic point on the British colonial map. The cabin that came down for Washington's fort, and the great Federal-style brick house that eventually rose on the same ground, are still threaded through every chapter of this corner of West Virginia history.

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]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/z/y/fort-pleasant-wp/dnzy-fort-pleasant-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Fort Pleasant: Washington's First Visit https://qualla.com/fort-pleasant/ Photo credit Antony-22, CC BY-SA 4.0. George Washington was sixteen when he first saw the Indian Old Fields. He arrived in 1747-48 as a teenage surveyor, mapping the South Branch tract on behalf of Thomas, Lord Fairfax, the 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron, who claimed the land as part of his Northern Neck Proprietary. Th...

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]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/z/y/fort-pleasant-wp/dnzy-fort-pleasant-washingtons-first-visit.mp3 0:06 2 full Fort Pleasant: Fort Van Meter, Fort Pleasant, Town Fort https://qualla.com/fort-pleasant/ Photo credit Antony-22, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 1756, with French and Indian raiding parties pressing eastward, now-Colonel Washington ordered Captain Thomas Waggener to build a major fortification on Van Meter land. The new fort was substantial - blockhouses at the corners, supporting structures, room for soldiers and civi...

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]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/z/y/fort-pleasant-wp/dnzy-fort-pleasant-fort-van-meter-fort-pleasant-town-fort.mp3 0:06 3 full Fort Pleasant: The Great House https://qualla.com/fort-pleasant/ Photo credit Antony-22, CC BY-SA 4.0. Isaac B. Van Meter (1757-1837) and his wife Elizabeth Inskeep Van Meter completed the large brick mansion on the site before the end of the 18th century. They built it on the same ground as the old fort, and the house and the fort shared the name Fort Pleasant. The mansion was a ...

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]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/z/y/fort-pleasant-wp/dnzy-fort-pleasant-the-great-house.mp3 0:06 4 full Fort Pleasant: What Survives https://qualla.com/fort-pleasant/ Photo credit Antony-22, CC BY-SA 4.0. When the historian Samuel Kercheval visited Fort Pleasant in 1830, he found that not all of the old fort had been swept away. One of the blockhouses, with its portholes still cut into the walls and the logs particularly sound, was still standing seventy-four years after the fort ...

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]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/z/y/fort-pleasant-wp/dnzy-fort-pleasant-what-survives.mp3 0:06 5 full