Kern's Fort

The first permanent settlement and oldest extant building in the Morgantown area, Kern’s Fort was built in 1772 by Dutch settler Michael Kerns. The site acquired its name for the wooden fortifications (no longer extant) that were erected around it in 1774 to ward off attacks from local Native American tribes. When these attacks were imminent, the fort was the gathering point on the west side of the Monongahela River. Located in the Greenmont Historic District of Morgantown, what remains of the fort is only Kerns’s residence, a side-gable log house. It originally featured two rooms divided by a central chimney with an attic sleeping loft, although a porch and rear shed-roofed addition were added in the early nineteenth century. The exterior is covered in wooden clapboards, now painted barn red, but the original fabric was hand-hewn chestnut logs that are still visible from the inside. Two square portholes, visible on the south side of the cabin, were notched into the wood so that muskets could be placed in them and fired at trespassers. The distinctive gabled wood-shingled roof has been covered by asphalt shingles. The structure has held up remarkably well and is still a private residence.