PICKAWAY, W.Va. -- Run out of the Greenbrier Valley by repeated Indian attacks in 1755 and again in 1763, colonial pioneers returned for a third, permanent wave of settlement in this part of what is now West Virginia in 1769.

While the population of the Greenbrier Valley surged to nearly 4,000 in the five years that followed the settlers' return, conflicts between the settlers and Native Americans were far from over, continuing into the 1790s. The settlers built community forts for mutual protection when Indian raiding parties approached.

 Some forts were merely reinforced and heavily shuttered farmhouses equipped with narrow firing ports and a multi-day supply of food and ammunition. Others were larger, more elaborate affairs involving multiple buildings surrounded by stockade walls. Private citizens built many of the frontier forts, while others were erected and manned by Virginia militiamen.

Here, near the outflow of a permanent spring in the heart of Monroe County farm country known as the Sinks, settler James Thompson built a fortified home in about 1770.

Although there are several historic references to Thompson's Fort, there are no written descriptions of it, leaving historians puzzled over what it looked like.

"We know that it was in use in 1774, when Col. Andrew Lewis marched from the Greenbrier Valley to Point Pleasant" to fight Chief Cornstalk and the Shawnee, said archeologist Stephen McBride. "Some sick soldiers on the march were left here while the others marched on. Later, the fort was used to garrison militia troops during the Revolutionary War. It's an elusive site, as far as getting information about it goes. It's not well documented."

For the past 20 years, McBride and his wife Kim, also an archeologist, have dug away at the mysteries shrouding many of the more than 30 Revolutionary War era frontier forts built in present-day Greenbrier, Monroe, Summers and Pocahontas counties. Their work accounts for West Virginia's longest-running archeology project.

In addition to advancing the body of knowledge about life on the Trans-Allegheny frontier, the McBrides have helped hundreds of college and public school students get in touch with their area's history through field trips to dig sites and hands-on experience. Students of all ages have helped the McBrides and their excavation crews dig, sift and systematically survey such sites as Warwick's Fort near Green Bank and Arbuckle's Fort near Alderson.

For their ongoing work on frontier forts, the West Virginia Archeological Society on Saturday presented Stephen and Kim McBride with the Sigfus Olafson Award, the society's top honor for contributions to state archeology.

While the McBrides live and conduct most of their work in Kentucky -- Stephen is director of interpretation and archeology at Camp Nelson Civil War Heritage Park and Kim is co-director of the Kentucky Archeological Survey -- they grew up in the Lewisburg area and have long been fascinated with the Greenbrier Valley's time as a frontier outpost for European settlers.

In addition to establishing the locations of many of the region's frontier forts, the couple has uncovered much about what the forts looked like, and what life was like for the frontier families and militiamen who occupied them.

They have also learned more about how connected the settlers were with the cities to the east of the Alleghenies by finding and identifying the remnants of the material goods excavated at the sites.

At Thompson's Fort last week, in a dig done in cooperation with David Fuerst's Appalachian Archeology class at Concord University, the McBrides and their colleagues found a variety of 18th century items.

PICKAWAY, W.Va. -- Run out of the Greenbrier Valley by repeated Indian attacks in 1755 and again in 1763, colonial pioneers returned for a third, permanent wave of settlement in this part of what is now West Virginia in 1769.

While the population of the Greenbrier Valley surged to nearly 4,000 in the five years that followed the settlers' return, conflicts between the settlers and Native Americans were far from over, continuing into the 1790s. The settlers built community forts for mutual protection when Indian raiding parties approached.

 Some forts were merely reinforced and heavily shuttered farmhouses equipped with narrow firing ports and a multi-day supply of food and ammunition. Others were larger, more elaborate affairs involving multiple buildings surrounded by stockade walls. Private citizens built many of the frontier forts, while others were erected and manned by Virginia militiamen.

Here, near the outflow of a permanent spring in the heart of Monroe County farm country known as the Sinks, settler James Thompson built a fortified home in about 1770.

Although there are several historic references to Thompson's Fort, there are no written descriptions of it, leaving historians puzzled over what it looked like.

"We know that it was in use in 1774, when Col. Andrew Lewis marched from the Greenbrier Valley to Point Pleasant" to fight Chief Cornstalk and the Shawnee, said archeologist Stephen McBride. "Some sick soldiers on the march were left here while the others marched on. Later, the fort was used to garrison militia troops during the Revolutionary War. It's an elusive site, as far as getting information about it goes. It's not well documented."

For the past 20 years, McBride and his wife Kim, also an archeologist, have dug away at the mysteries shrouding many of the more than 30 Revolutionary War era frontier forts built in present-day Greenbrier, Monroe, Summers and Pocahontas counties. Their work accounts for West Virginia's longest-running archeology project.

In addition to advancing the body of knowledge about life on the Trans-Allegheny frontier, the McBrides have helped hundreds of college and public school students get in touch with their area's history through field trips to dig sites and hands-on experience. Students of all ages have helped the McBrides and their excavation crews dig, sift and systematically survey such sites as Warwick's Fort near Green Bank and Arbuckle's Fort near Alderson.

For their ongoing work on frontier forts, the West Virginia Archeological Society on Saturday presented Stephen and Kim McBride with the Sigfus Olafson Award, the society's top honor for contributions to state archeology.

While the McBrides live and conduct most of their work in Kentucky -- Stephen is director of interpretation and archeology at Camp Nelson Civil War Heritage Park and Kim is co-director of the Kentucky Archeological Survey -- they grew up in the Lewisburg area and have long been fascinated with the Greenbrier Valley's time as a frontier outpost for European settlers.

In addition to establishing the locations of many of the region's frontier forts, the couple has uncovered much about what the forts looked like, and what life was like for the frontier families and militiamen who occupied them.

They have also learned more about how connected the settlers were with the cities to the east of the Alleghenies by finding and identifying the remnants of the material goods excavated at the sites.

At Thompson's Fort last week, in a dig done in cooperation with David Fuerst's Appalachian Archeology class at Concord University, the McBrides and their colleagues found a variety of 18th century items.

Artifacts included hand-wrought carpentry and horseshoe nails, fragments of English-made plates and cups, pieces of Pennsylvania- or Virginia-made redware tableware, pieces of clear and olive bottle glass, a ceramic pipestem, dozens of chunks of bricks, and numerous gobs of daub -- sun-dried clay used to chink logs in a blockhouse or fortified home.

It was the McBrides' fifth excavation at the site in the last 10 years.

"Last year, we did shovel probes [small test pits] every five meters across the site," said Stephen McBride. "We found the largest collection of artifacts in the area that we're digging today. We think we're close to the fort site, but we haven't found any foundation features yet. We'd like to find the chimney base today, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen."

The McBrides also would like to learn whether or not the fortified Thompson house was surrounded by a stockade.

"The fort stopped being used as a home in the early 19th century and was taken down just before the Civil War, so there isn't a lot of 19th- and 20th-century stuff mixed in with the artifacts from the frontier time," said Kim McBride.

The fort site is covered by a seldom-plowed hayfield on what is now the Jeffrey Pritt farm, and should remain relatively intact for additional excavations in the years to come, she said.

"We know that the fort was garrisoned by local militia companies from Greenbrier and Botetourt counties, and maybe Montgomery County," said Stephen McBride. "The garrison probably involved 10 or 15 people serving under an ensign or a lieutenant."

Following the May 1778 attack by nearly 200 Native Americans on Fort Donnally and the 85 or so settlers it protected in Greenbrier County's Raders Valley, the militia garrison at Thompson's Fort was beefed up. No attacks are known to have taken place at the Monroe County fort.

Records indicate that James Thompson served as an ensign, then a lieutenant in the militia, and may have eventually been appointed a captain. He left the area after the Revolutionary War, sold his Pickaway farm to John Gray. The former fort was referred to as Gray's Blockhouse before it was torn down prior to the Civil War.

While learning more about life on the frontier by settlers and militiamen is the main focus of the McBrides' work in the Greenbrier and New River valleys, they also identify and record artifacts produced by the region's earliest occupants, Native Americans. A number of knapped stones turned up in the excavation pits at the Pickaway site.

As Kim McBride showed Concord student Doug Moore of Beckley how to prepare a completed excavation unit for photography prior to refilling, Stephen McBride and Concord instructor David Fuerst, an archeologist with New River Gorge National River, used shovels to backfill another completed unit.

"No features again!" McBride exclaimed at the absence of foundation stones or chimney remnants, as the day's digging activity drew to a close. "But this site has potential. ... It's fairly well preserved, and hasn't been built over and occupied. We'll be focusing on places like this."

Reach Rick Steelhammer at rsteelham...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-5169.