Fort Loudoun

Q-4-k

Here in May 1756, overlooking the frontier town of Winchester, construction began on Fort Loudoun during the period of the Seven Years' War. The fort, named for John Campbell, earl of Loudoun, was a square fortification with four bastions constructed of earth, wood, and stone. Col. George Washington, commander of the Virginia Regiment, designed the fort and supervised its construction until 1758. It served as Washington's command center for a series of forts authorized by the Virginia House of Burgesses and built on the frontier that extended from the Potomac River to North Carolina. A well, dug through limestone bedrock, survives.

Department of Historic Resources, 2006

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

W.W. Abbot and Dorothy Twohig, eds., The Papers of George Washington, Colonial Series, 10 vols. (Charlottesville: University of Press of Virginia, 1982-), multiple citations including 3:60-61, 4:10-11, 6:3-5; Fred Anderson, ed., George Washington Remembers: Reflections on the French and Indian War (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2004), 16, 35; Norman L. Baker, French & Indian War in Frederick County, Virginia (Winchester, Va.: Buckley's Printing, Inc., 2000); Andrew Burnaby, Burnaby's Travels Through North America (Reprinted from the third edition of 1798; New York: A. Wessels Col, 1904), 74-75; Executive Journals of the Council of Colonial Virginia (Richmond: Virginia State Library, 1925-1966), 6:96-99; Lion G. Miles, "The Winchester Hessian Barracks," Journal of the Winchester-Frederick County Historical Society 3(1988): 33, 58; Garland R. Quarles, George Washington and Winchester, Virginia, 1748-1758 (Winchester, Va.: Winchester-Frederick County Historical Society, 1974); Louis Waddell, "Defending the Long Perimeter: Forts on the Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia Frontier," Pennsylvania History 62(Spring 1995): 171-191; Winchester Historic District File, Department of Historic Resources Archives File (138-42), Richmond, Virginia [Note: Fort Loudoun is assigned the specific file number of 138-0042-0653].