 Fairly simple in design, Prickett’s Fort was little more than a hundred-foot-square log palisade built around Prickett’s house.Native Americans tended to avoid such strong points, preferring to ambush small work parties.When the frontiersmen believed they were in danger of Native American attack, families gathered at such a fortified area, a procedure called “forting up.” In 1774, there were at least a hundred such palisades, blockhouses, and “stations” in the Monongahela Valley, many within a thirty-mile radius of Prickett’s Fort.