Big Crab Orchard or Witten's Fort

Tazewell County · dedicated 2016 · Rte. 19/460 and Business Rte. 19, at Tazewell

Native Americans established a palisaded town nearby as early as ca. AD 1400. Thomas Witten and John Greenup built cabins here ca. 1771. Conflict between settlers and Indians intensified early in the 1770s as Native Americans of the Ohio Country resisted white occupation. Lord Dunmore, royal governor of Virginia, recommended the construction of a line of fortifications in June 1774. Witten's Fort, built on the hillside to the south, was garrisoned later that year by militia troops under Capt. Daniel Smith. No attack on Witten’s Fort was recorded. A replica of the fort was built in 1926.

David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

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under a mile from where William Gabby lived in the 1760s

what this marker records spans 1777 to 1789, overlapping William Gabby's years here

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