Place:Fort Tackett, Kanawha, West Virginia, United States

About Fort Tackett

From "Biennial Report of the Department of Archives and History of the State of West Virginia", by West Virginia. Dept. of Archives and History, Ohio Valley Historical Association, Virgil Anson Lewis, Henry S. Green:

Fort Tackett

This was a small stockade erected by Lewis Tackett (name spelled Tachett, Tachet, Tacket, etc.) the first settler on the Great Kanawha River between the mouth of Elk River and the Ohio. He was a hardy frontiersman and one who passed through many an encounter with Indians in the Great Kanawha Valley. This fort was situated on the Great Kanawha about half a mile below the mouth of Coal River, now in Jefferson District, Kanawha County. The date of erection is unknown, but it was enumerated by the General Assembly among the Western defenses, January 5, 1788. Later in the same year, this fort was attacked and destroyed by Indians. Chris Tackett was killed,John McElheny and wife,with Betsey Tackett, Samuel Tackett, and a small boy were taken into captivity. The escape of John Young with his wife Keziah, who was a daughter of Lewis Tackett, and who had that day given birth to a child, is among the most remarkable incidents of our pionf'er history.

Sources.—"Calendar of Virginia State Papers," Vol. IV, p. '391; Howe's "Historical Collections, of Virginia." p. 343; Atkinson's "History of Kanawha County," pp. 13, 14, 136, 195, 196; West Virginia Historical Magazine, Vol. V. (1905), p. 35.

Ft. Tackett once stood near St. Albans. Fort Tackett was built in 1786 on land that originally belonged to George Washington and deeded to him for his service in the French and Indian War. 31 people lived there in 1790 when the Shawnee Indians attacked and captured several settlers and took them to Michigan. Most of them eventually escaped and returned to this area. Six months later they attacked again and killed Christopher Tackett and several children, kidnapped several others and burned the fort. Several hid from the attack and managed to escape to Ft. Clendenin, later Charleston. The first white child born in the Kanawha Valley was born here to Kizah Tackett. [History of St. Albans, West Virginia; http://www.stalbanswv.com/history.shtml]