View source for Fort Cocke

{{More citations needed|date=February 2024}}
'''Fort Cocke''' was a  [[stockade]], made of wooden [[palisade]]s up stream from [[Fort Ashby]]. It was a square ninety feet on a side and enclosed about 1/5 acre. [[Blockhouse]]s were built at each of the four corners. A [[barracks]] to house fifty men was constructed within the stockade.
It was built by Captain [[William Cocke]]'s First Company of Rangers under orders of [[George Washington]] dated October 26, 1755.  It has been suggested that the fort was probably completed within a month.{{By whom|date=December 2016}}

It was constructed south of George Parker's land.  This was on Lot 13 of the [[Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron|Lord Fairfax's]] [[Patterson Creek Manor]]. The [[fort]] was constructed on the east side of [[Pattersons Creek]], on a flat terrace above a rocky shelf overlooking the creek bottom, about {{convert|1.5|mi|km}} south of present [[Headsville, West Virginia]].

Being it was small, Fort Cocke was a place of limited refuge for settlers living in the [[Pattersons Creek]] Valley. After the capture of [[Fort Duquesne]], troops garrisoning the fort were gradually withdrawn and the fort was abandoned during the 1760s.<ref>Hannings, pp. 603–604</ref> In a 1770 trip down Pattersons Creek [[George Washington]] pointed out the place where the fort had stood indicating it has fallen to nothing within 15 years.

==See also==
*[[Fort Ashby]]
*[[Fort Ohio]]
*[[Fort Sellers]]

==Citations==
{{Reflist}}

==Bibliography==
*{{cite book |last1=Hannings |first1=Bud |title=Forts of the United States: An Historical Dictionary, 16th through 19th Centuries |date=2006 |publisher=McFarland |location=Jefferson, North Carolina |isbn=978-0-7864-1796-4}}

{{Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia}}

{{Coord missing|West Virginia}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cocke, Fort}}

[[Category:Landmarks in West Virginia]]
[[Category:Forts in Mineral County, West Virginia|Cocke]]
[[Category:French and Indian War forts|Cocke]]
[[Category:Forts in West Virginia|Cocke]]
[[Category:Colonial forts in West Virginia|Cocke]]
[[Category:British forts in the United States|Cocke]]
[[Category:1755 establishments in the Thirteen Colonies]]


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