Note 3 — CHRONICLES OF BORDER WARFARE (continued 6)

Mr. McWhorter says that this fort stood on an eminence, where is now the residence of Minor C. Hall. Upon the fort being abandoned by the settlers, the Indians burned it. When the whites again returned to their clearings, a new fort was erected, locally called Beech Fort, “because built entirely of beech logs––beech trees standing very thick in this locality.” Beech Fort was not over 500 yards from the old West Fort; it was “in a marshy flat, some 75 yards east of the house built by the pioneer Henry McWhorter, and still extant as the residence of Ned J. Jackson.” In the same field where Beech Fort was, “Alexander West discovered an Indian one evening; he fired and wounded him in the shoulder. The Indian made off, and fearing an ambuscade West would not venture in pursuit. Two weeks later, he ventured to hunt for the red man. Two miles distant, on what is now known as Life’s Run, a branch of Hacker’s Creek, the dead savage was found in a cleft of rocks, into which he had crawled and miserably perished. His shoulder was badly crushed by West’s bullet.”

Henry McWhorter, born in Orange County, N. Y., November 13, 1760, was a soldier in the Revolution, from 1777 to the close. In 1784, he settled about two miles from West’s Fort; three years later, he moved nearer to the fort, and there built the house of hewn logs, mentioned above, which “is to-day in a good state of preservation.” McWhorter died February 4, 1848.––R. G. T.