Garard's Fort
Greene Township, Greene County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Site of frontier refuge in Revolutionary War. Station of a small detachment of Virginia militia in 1777, when this area was claimed as part of Monongalia County, Virginia. Near here, on May 12, 1782, the wife and three children of the noted Baptist minister, Rev. John Corbly, were killed while on their way to church; two of Corbly's other children were wounded in the same Indian attack but survived.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
During the Revolutionary War this was a fortified frontier refuge, garrisoned in 1777 by a small detachment of Virginia militia at a time when the region was claimed as part of Monongalia County, Virginia. Life here meant constant danger on a contested border. On May 12, 1782, in an Indian attack near here, the wife and three children of Baptist minister Rev. John Corbly were killed on their way to church, and two more of his children were wounded but survived.
Why it matters
It captures the brutal, overlapping conflicts of the Revolutionary frontier — where disputed colonial claims and Native resistance turned a walk to church into a battlefield.
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Related people
- · Rev. John Corbly
Related events
- · Corbly family attack, 1782
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Garard's Fort
Greene Township, PA · est. 1947
During the Revolutionary War, the far western reaches of Pennsylvania remained a dangerous frontier where settlers built fortified refuges against raids. Garard's Fort served as one such haven, garrisoned in 1777 by a small detachment of Virginia militia during the border disputes and warfare that gripped the Ohio Country. The marker also records the tragedy of May 12, 1782, when Native warriors attacked the family of Baptist minister John Corbly on their way to worship, killing his wife and three of his children.
Border Heroine
Monongalia County, WV
In 1779 the western Virginia backcountry—today's West Virginia—was a raw and violent borderland, caught up in the frontier fighting that raged alongside the Revolutionary War. Isolated cabins at settlements like Dunkard Creek stood exposed to sudden raids, and defense often fell to whoever was home when trouble arrived. This marker preserves one such account: a settler woman, Mrs. Bozarth, who by tradition seized an axe and fought off attackers in a desperate hand-to-hand struggle at her own door. Whether burnished by retelling or not, the story captures the peril that defined daily life on the far edge of American settlement.
Fort Gaddis
South Union Township, PA · est. 1946
Around 1764, on the old Catawba trail through the Pennsylvania backcountry, Thomas Gaddis raised a fortified house where settlers could take refuge during frontier raids. Such private strongholds were lifelines in a region where colonial and Native conflicts made isolated homesteads perilous. Gaddis himself later served as a colonel in the Pennsylvania Continental Line during the Revolution.
Col. William Crawford
Connellsville, PA · est. 1966
William Crawford was a frontier soldier and surveyor who settled near the Youghiogheny River after 1766, serving as George Washington's western land agent at a time when Virginia and Pennsylvania families were pushing across the Appalachians. During the Revolution he took up arms on the frontier, leading a 1782 expedition against Native villages along the Sandusky River in Ohio. The campaign ended in disaster: Crawford was captured and put to death, a killing that became notorious in the bitter borderland warfare of the era.