About 1745, Daniel Harrison and his wife Margaret settled along Cook's Creek among the earliest pioneers west of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and their home became a center of frontier life. During the French and Indian War, Fort Harrison served as a gathering point for local families seeking protection from marauding Indians. The Vestry of Augusta authorized a Chapel of Ease at Daniel Harrison's Plantation, where Anglican services were held at the home or a nearby structure. The Harrison family also built and operated a grist mill, distillery, and general store, and Daniel Harrison, his brothers, and their descendants became prominent in Augusta and Rockingham County. Harrisonburg was named for Daniel's brother Thomas Harrison, and Daniel and Margaret's son Benjamin Harrison commanded Augusta County soldiers at the Battle of Point Pleasant during Dunmore's War in 1774 and later led Rockingham County troops during the American Revolution. Dayton was first known as Rifesville after Daniel Rife, who migrated to southwestern Rockingham County in the later 1700s, laid out about 25 lots, began selling them, and worked as a frontier merchant. In January 1832, village citizens first petitioned the Virginia legislature to establish the town as Dayton, then shortly afterward asked that it instead keep the old name Rifesville, but after another petition on February 19, 1833, the town was chartered as Dayton on March 6, 1833. The reason for the name Dayton remains unknown, though some towns took the name from Jonathan Dayton of New Jersey, a signer of the U.S. Constitution who also explored west of the original thirteen colonies. Dayton prospered, and the Warm Springs Turnpike, built in 1833, brought increased travel, new people, and twice-daily stagecoach connections north and south. The original Daniel Harrison House, built about 1749 of limestone with two-foot-thick walls, had four rooms, a center hall, and end chimneys with fireplaces in each room, and a brick northern extension added in the early 1800s contained six rooms and four fireplaces.