Fort Trial was constructed in 1756 near the Smith River as one of a series of forts authorized by the General Assembly on the frontier to protect settlers from Indians during the French and Indian War. The square fort was built of twenty-foot split timbers erected close together, with four feet of timber buried in the earth and walls about sixteen feet high. George Washington visited Fort Trial in 1756. It was abandoned near the end of the eighteenth century after hostilities between colonists and Indians had subsided.