By Delana Gilmore | Tucked away on the highest point of Hog Mountain every fall you can feel the excitement of people rediscovering Gwinnett County’s earliest historic site, Fort Daniel, and its history. On Saturday, October 15 Fort Daniel Foundation will host the eighth annual Frontier Faire at 2505 Braselton Highway (Georgia Highway 124) with this year’s theme being, “Dynamic Borders”.
People of all ages can participate in supervised archaeological excavations. Past excavations on the site have uncovered musket balls, Native American pottery, buttons, nails, and much more. Visitors will be able to visit the Fort Daniel Museum and tour the Fort Daniel Archaeology Lab along with the popular ArchaeoBus, Georgia’s mobile archaeology classroom. Additionally, visitors can interact with re-enactors, watch frontier life demonstrations, and shop at the Hog Mountain Trading Post.
Storyteller Barry Stewart Mann will perform a new dialogue—especially created for Fort Daniel—at 10:30 a.m. and a special dedication of the new Major Tandy Key Blacksmith Shop will be held at 1:30 p.m. with the descendants of Major Key as special guests.
First built sometime in the early 1800s, “the fort at Hog Mountain” was originally a frontier fort located near the juncture of two treaty lines that separated the early settlers from the Cherokee to the east and north and the Creeks to the west and south. In October 1813 Major General Allen Daniel, commander of the Fourth Division of the Georgia Militia, ordered Brigadier General Frederick Beall, commander of the Second Brigade of the Georgia Militia, to supervise the construction of “a new fort at or near the place whereon the present fort stands which shall be sufficient for the reception of 200 men.” Beginning in January 1814, the newly reconstructed “Fort Daniel,” under the command of Major Tandy Key, was the staging ground for construction of a road through Creek territory to Standing Peachtree where another fort would be constructed, Fort Peachtree. This road became the original Peachtree Road.
Admission to the Frontier Faire is $2 per person or $5 per family. If you join the Fort Daniel Foundation at the Frontier Faire this year, you will get $5 off the annual membership fee. The Frontier Faire is cosponsored by the Fort Daniel Foundation and Gwinnett Archaeological Research Society. Fort Daniel Archaeological Site is owned by Gwinnett County and is managed by the Fort Daniel Foundation.
- For more information about Fort Daniel or archaeology in Gwinnett County contact Delana Gilmore at gwinnettarchaeology@gmail.com, or visit thefortdanielfoundation.org or thegars.org.
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