Fort Boreman Hill

Fort Boreman Hill. . The prominent known locally as Fort Boreman Hill encompasses almost 250 acres. However, the actual site of Fort Boreman, its gun stations, powder magazine, and winter quarters, utilized only a small portion of the hill., The same natural feature, panoramic views, and a commanding position above the Ohio and Little Kanawha rivers that enticed the military to position themselves here during the war also had encouraged early Indians to set up camps on the hill., Approximately one-half mile to the east, on a ridge overlooking South Parkersburg, was the site of the “Pest House.” The City of Parkersburg constructed it in 1867 as a place to quarantine victims of smallpox and other contagious diseases. Locally, the two-story house became known as the “house of doom”; many of the patients died and were buried in the pest house cemetery., To the left of the entry road, just before reaching the park entrance is the site of the infamous hangings of 1867. The men, Daniel Grogan, Thomas Boice, and Mortimer Gibbony, were convicted for the murder of Abram Deem, a well-respected Wood County farmer who was a Confederate sympathizer. Though local lore credits a notorious “hanging tree” as the gallows, the men were actually hanged from a scaffold., In 1893, on a knoll on the western side of Fort Boreman Hill, Gustavus Fries built a public park consisting of ten-pin bowling lanes, a dance hall, concession stand, and picnic areas. In addition to a shaded place to relax and enjoy a natural setting, Fries Park offered a venue for musical concerts and even hosted prize fights. The park remained active into the 1940s., Fort Boreman Hill has been the site of diverse uses for thousands of years; strategic defense, amusement, medical quarantine, and public hangings, and now, in continuance of its public service, as a place to memorialize and remember the past.