This weekend, we celebrate Independence Day. This is one of my favorite holidays because, No. 1, it’s in the summer, and No. 2, there are fireworks, and who doesn’t love those?

The real reason for the holiday is when we declared independence from England with the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Next year will be the 250th anniversary of that momentous event. Like most historians, I am looking forward to that holiday, especially because it’s such a huge moment in our history.

I would imagine that it is similar to how the bicentennial felt 50 years ago. I love to find the cool objects from the bicentennial around at antique shops. Objects like that are antiques all on their own now. The bicentennial ushered in a movement when colonial revival was popular in home construction, furniture and the like. The same was true in 1876 when the centennial of the revolution was commemorated. At that time, a style of furniture called centennial pieces were made to mimic objects made at the time of the revolution. As a person who loves antiques, it takes some knowledge to identify antiques as centennial objects, but I digress.

With the Fourth of July, 2025 already in the books, I often try to think of what life was like here in our area way back in 1776. In that year, the fort at Holliday’s Cove was established right here on Harmon’s Creek in present day Weirton on Cove Road near Overbrook Drive. I wonder if the soldiers stationed here, or any of the settlers here in the area, knew anything about the events that were happening that led up to the American Revolution.

Certainly, if they were recent transplants here, they could have been aware of the events happening out east of the mountains. The area in which we live was divided in a few ways in 1776. The land on the east side of the Ohio River was squarely in Virginia. Land on the other side of the river was Indian territory but was claimed by the colonies, as directed by their charters. Those claims were eventually given up after the Revolution. The land in Virginia was classified as the District of West Agusta until 1776 when Virginia created three counties out of the area, those being Ohio County, Monongahela County and Yohogania County. For a person living in our area in 1776, life was difficult. There was the constant worry about making it out here in the wilderness, whether you would have enough to eat, or if you could survive the winter months from the preparations you made in the summer and fall months. And there was always the threat of conflict from the people who already called this land home, the Native Americans.

When the Revolution ended, the area here was not yet at peace. Fighting continued between the settlers and the Native Americans until 1794 after the battle of Fallen Timbers. Before the battle, atrocities were committed on both sides of the conflict.

What is not as well know, is that after the Revolution, the British often would encourage tribes to fight the Americans on the frontier to cause strife for the new country. This threat continued when the war of 1812 broke out. There was a significant concern on the Ohio frontier that the British would march down from Lake Erie to capture the area. That, thankfully, did not happen due the success of Oliver Hazard Perry at the battle of Lake Erie. Cannon balls and other iron objects were cast here at what we know today as Peter Tarr’s Furnace on Kings Creek.

With these conflicts squarely in the past, our area prospered, moving into a positive way of life that would allow for thousands of immigrants over the centuries to call our part of the world home. This was the American dream realized for so many. Immigrants came by the trainload to our area to work in our industries, mines and farms, to get their slice of the dream themselves. I, like so many, have so much to be thankful for, that my great grandparents decided to make the journey to this country to give me and my family a better life. A life where I don’t know hunger or lack of work, and where I can practice any religion I want without fear. This country is truly the land of possibilities.

Here, on the precipice of our 250th anniversary, I think of all that our nation has been through over the centuries. All the sacrifices of our ancestors and what they hoped this country would be. Little did those early settlers know, setting up their homesteads in the Ohio Country, or in the District of West Agusta 250 years ago, that a vibrant community would grow up here from the roots they put down so long ago. Remember the Fourth of July and all that has gone into the creation of this great nation. Truly, the land of the free and the home of the brave.

(Zuros is the executive director of Historic Fort Steuben)