Children often imagine their bedrooms transformed into magical wonderlands, pirate ships at sea, battlefields, and forests filled with giant trees, but what if you grow up and still think your home holds something more than what your eyes can see?
That is precisely what happened to a man at his white clapboard farmhouse in West Virginia.
John Bryan, 43, discovered a 253-year-old pre-Revolutionary War log fort hidden beneath the thick layers of plaster coating the walls of his plantation home.
The large residence was erected by James Byrnside, an early Virginia settler, in 1770. The land where the house was built was initially home to a cabin that belonged to Byrnside. However, it was set ablaze by Shawnee Indians in 1763. After the fire, Byrnside built the plantation home on the site known as Byrnside Fort.
The fort was said to have served as a safehouse from marauding indigenous tribes, with scouts patrolling and giving warning signals of impending attacks, allowing locals time to seek refuge.
Three families occupied the property for over two centuries. The last surviving member of these families passed away in 2019, marking the end of a legacy that had spanned generations.
Bryan, a lawyer who is also an enthusiastic history buff and amateur archeologist, had his interest piqued that same year after a friend who was into metal detecting was granted permission to explore the farm. Although they could not enter the home, Bryan had a hunch that there was something special in that home.
After researching historical records, Bryan realized that a fort had once been on the property. Bryan hoped that, underneath the three-foot thick walls of the plantation home, he would find the log fort.
“There was no guarantee that there were any logs in there anymore, or, if there ever were in the first place,” Bryan told DailyMail.com. “So we had to buy it first to find out.”
“We closed on the place, and literally five minutes later, I drove out there, got a crowbar, and went upstairs to one of the bedrooms. Knocked my first hole in the plaster in the wall and uncovered the original logs,” he said.
Bryan began a four-year restoration process, removing the 1850s plaster to discover the hand-hewn white oak logs of the fort. From this effort came an even greater discovery: treasure upon treasure.
Some of the items Bryan found on the property were family photos dating back to the pre-Civil War-era daguerreotypes, countless 18th-century Spanish silver coins, pre-Revolutionary War brass buttons, and more.
“It’s just really neat because when you stand in the in the yard, you know people were living there when we were still a colony of England,” Bryan told DailyMail.com. “The Declaration of Independence hadn’t even been thought of at that point.”
‘We have every generation that’s American living at that house,” Bryan added, stating that he does not have plans to live at the house but is saving it for its historical significance.