orders from now Colonel George Washington. The fort was first known by the name of the Van Meter family, which had also assisted in its initial construction and maintenance. It was a substantial palisaded defense enclosing a blockhouse and log houses. (Washington's written instructions indicated a quadrangular shape with 90-foot-long walls, bastions in the corners, barracks, and a magazine.) Fort Pleasant was one in a chain of forts that ran along the frontier of the Allegheny Mountains and for a time it served as the local headquarters for the Virginia Regiment on the South Branch. It was never attacked directly by Indians but several raids occurred nearby. Soon after its construction, the Battle of the Trough (1756) took place a short distance to the north in and around the large river gorge known as The Trough. In 1757, working unprotected in his fields, Isaac Van Meter was attacked, scalped, and killed by Indians of the Delaware and Shawnee tribes. Renovations (1770s & '80s) There exists a map/drawing of Fort Pleasant signed by James Witt and dated May 1770. The drawing shows blockhouses at the corners of the fort, suggesting that the structure was either remodeled or totally rebuilt sometime after the end of the War. After the 1777 founding of Moorefield to its south, the fort was known as "Town Fort" due to its proximity to the new town. When Washington was in the region for the last time — he visited Abraham Hite at Old Fields on 28–29 September 1784 — he observed that the Fort Pleasant blockhouse was still standing. Eventually, Isaac's son Garrett Van Meter (1732-1788) had most of the old fort and original family cabin removed and built a strong brick structure — half above ground and half below — in place of them for defensive purposes. (Parts of this unwieldy structure, connected by enclosed steps, still exist.) The "Great House" (1790s) The large brick house at Fort Pleasant was completed by Garrett's son, Isaac B. Van Meter (1757-1837), and his wife Elizabeth Inskeep Van Meter, before the end of the 18th century. (It was built on the very site of the old fort, thus both Fort and house bore the name "Fort Pleasant".) The impressive residence is a massive double-chimney Federal-style building constructed of clay bricks fabricated on the Fort Pleasant farm. Its "giant order" columns — colossal columns spanning two stories — were among