Kentucky History Treasures- Bryan Station

C1 3 women of fortitude to stand against great violent opposition.

We'll examine just one example at brian's station and discover how exceptionally brave women in that community gave them a fighting chance.

Dana zinger: brian's station was a fort, founded about 1776 in fayette county in what was then virginia.

It consisted of about 40 cabins in a parallelogram, and some of the inhabitants included close relatives of daniel boone as well as the future vice president of the united states, richard mentor johnson, when he was an infant.

Dana zinger: the night of august 15th, 1782, the fort was surrounded by a group of about 500 native americans, british and canadian rangers, led by two british captains.

And this was during the end of the revolutionary war.

So a lot of people don't realize fayette county had a connection to the revolutionary war.

The group of attackers, they were concealed among the corn, the hemp crop at that time, and the forest that surrounded the fort.

The attackers were not aware that the settlers knew their presence.

So, the settlers spent the night preparing for an attack silently and then the very next morning they knew they had to have water in order to survive an attack.

Dana zinger: business as usual, not to alarm the attackers because fetching water at that time was a chore of women.

So, if the men went out there, the attackers would know that they were aware of their presence.

They sent the women and the women without hesitation grabbed their buckets, went out, and the very nerve wracking long process, fetched the water.

Nerve wracking because they knew concealed just mere feet away were attackers ready to go.

Dana zinger: bravely they fetch the water.

They were able to return into the fort.

It gave them the opportunity to prepare, to make sure that their long rifles were ready to go and ready to defend.

And it also gave them the chance to do this without the attackers knowing that they knew that they were out there and surrounded.

The siege ended up victorious for the settlers.

Eventually the attackers realized that reinforcements were on their way, and so they abandoned their efforts and honestly, largely in part to the water that they were able to retrieve for the fort and the bravery of those women without hesitation going and getting that water without even questioning it, is amazing to me.

Dana zinger: in our collections, we have a rifle from 1780 that was supposedly used in the attack, in the siege, to defend the fort.

Also in our collection, we have a little dress, a toddler size dress that was supposedly by betsy grant, a niece of daniel boone, two years old at the time of the siege, and legend has it that she actually wore this dress during the siege.

Doug high: c1 3 to learn more about brian's station, visit our archive online at history.ky.gov.

From the kentucky history center and museums in downtown frankfurk, i'm doug high.

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