Fort Harrison: The Limestone House That Held the Valley

The Daniel Harrison House near Dayton in Rockingham County, Virginia, is one of the oldest structures in the Shenandoah Valley. Daniel Harrison built it around seventeen forty-eight from local limestone, constructing it so solidly and positioning it so well that Virginia's colonial legislature designated it Fort Harrison during the French and Indian War, directing settlers to shelter here during raids. The house was originally surrounded by a wooden palisade and stories persist of an underground passage to a spring.

It is a two-story, three-bay structure that has outlasted every conflict the valley has seen. A local nonprofit, Fort Harrison, Incorporated, has owned and preserved it since nineteen seventy-eight. The city of Harrisonburg, twelve miles to the north, was named for a relative of the builder.