Fort Kilmakronen

The following is of interest to those connected with the Smithfield Prestons with surnames of PATTON, THOMPSON, BUCHANAN, STALNAKER, BYARS, CAMPBELL AND HOPKINS.

From "Publications of Historical Society of Washington Co., VA" , p. 41-42 "On the Lee Highway (US 81) where the crossroad leads to Glade Spring" the D.A.R. chapter of Bristol, VA erected a marker that reads, "a short distance south is an old stone house built as a fort in 1776, and called Fort Kilmakronen. This plantation was one of the two surveys which John Buchanan made on the Holston and recorded March 1746." It is a tract of 2600 acres. There was evidence that this area had once been a large Indian settlement named Kilmakronen and had been occupied by natives of a higher than expected degree of civilization.

This land was patented to James Patton in 1753 and was described as 3,000 acres, known as "Indian Fields" and once inhabited by Samuel Stalnaker and others on the waters of the Holston River. This land was willed in 1750 to James Patton's daughter, Mary, who was married to William Thompson. James Thompson was at the time an infant grandson and was named to be inheritor of this land at his mother's death. Capt. James Thompson was living there in 1771 and built a stone house or fort frequently spoken of as Ft. Thompson.

The article goes on to say that James Thompson and his wife Catherine sold the land to their son, William Preston Thompson in 1809. Later William Preston Thompson's son, Evan Shelby Thompson sold the land to Col. William Byars.

It was on this land that Gen. William Campbell met a Tory, named Hopkins and chased him to the river, hauled him out, and hung him from a sycamore tree. The article states that Gen. Campbell and his wife had been returning from worship at the Ebbing Spring Meeting House, which also stood on the Kilmakronen land, about a mile from the house.