HIGHLAND COUNTY, VA - CEMETERIES – Nicholas Seybert Grave
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Source: Library of Virginia Digital Collection


LVA Titled Files: Survey Report, Nicholas Seybert grave:
                  1936 Sept. 28
                  Research made by Howard Hiner

Cemetery Location:  1 mile west of Forks of Waters, by the side of the road 
                    between Forks of Waters and Crabbottom, Virginia.  The grave 
                    is near the road and just outside the fence surrounding the 
                    old Seybert and Arbogast graveyard.
                    Highland County, Virginia


DATE:

1813.

OWNERS:

Nicholas Seybert and his descendants,
Mrs. William Arboghast, present owner. (1936)

DESCRIPTION:

This grave is in an open pasture.  It has no marker at present, but it is stated 
that a rock marked the grave at one time.  The ground has sunk where the grave 
is located.

HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE:

Nicholas Seybert was one of the most notable characters among the early settlers 
of Highland County.  He was a boy of fourteen when the Indian massacre of 1758 
occurred.  His father, Captain ___ Seybert, was in command of Fort Seybert, 
where the people had taken refuge when the massacre started.  Captain Seybert 
ordered the defenders of the fort to cease firing and had planned to open the 
gate and parlay with the Indians.  His son, Nicholas, was opposed to his and 
intended to shoot his father rather than have the gate opened and would have 
done so but the for intervention of some of the other occupants of the fort.  It 
is stated in the “History of Border Warfare” that he could have possibly saved 
the fort.

According to Waddell’s “History of Augusta County”, a man named Dyer was the 
only captive to return, but Nicholas Seybert, who had also been taken away, 
escaped from the Indians and came to what is now Highland County.  According to 
tradition he had with him all the gold he could carry in a sack.  He became a 
large landholder in the northern part of the county and at one time owned about 
three thousand acres of land.  He was a First Lieutenant in the Muster Roll, 
Captain Hull’s company, Second Battalion, Augusta Militia, 1779, according to 
the original paper in his own handwriting.

Fort Seybert is in what is now Pendleton County, West Virginia, near Brandywine, 
rather than in Highland County, Virginia.

Nicholas Seybert’s grave bears no inscription and there is no written record to 
verify where he was buried, but he did own land and lived near here and it has 
been handed down by his descendants that this is the place where he was buried.



SOURCES OF INFORMATION:

Informants:  T. D. Nesselrode, Franklin, West Virginia
             Charles Colow, Crabbottom, Virginia
             T.L. Benerage, Monterey, Virginia
             Seybert Benerage, Monterey, Virginia
             descendant of Nicholas Seybert

“History of Border Warfare”
“Annals of Augusta County”, by Waddell
“History of Highland County:

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	This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives 
	by:  Joan Renfrow

	NOTICE:  I have no relationship or further information in 
	regards to this family.
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