Native Americans established a palisaded town nearby as early as ca. AD 1400. Thomas Witten and John Greenup built cabins here ca. 1771. Conflict between settlers and Indians intensified early in the 1770s as Native Americans of the Ohio Country resisted white occupation. Lord Dunmore, royal governor of Virginia, recommended the construction of a line of fortifications in June 1774. Witten's Fort, built on the hillside to the south, was garrisoned later that year by militia troops under Capt. Daniel Smith. No attack on Witten's Fort was recorded. A replica of the fort was built in 1926.