Fort Dobbs was an 18th-century fort in the Yadkin–Pee Dee River Basin region of the Province of North Carolina, near what is now Statesville in Iredell County. Used for frontier defense during and after the French and Indian War, the fort was built to protect the American settlers of the western frontier of North Carolina, and served as a vital outpost for soldiers. Fort Dobbs' primary structure was a blockhouse with log walls, surrounded by a shallow ditch, and by 1759, a palisade. It was intended to provide protection from French-allied Native Americans such as the Shawnee raids into western North Carolina.
The fort's name honored Arthur Dobbs, the Royal Governor of North Carolina from 1755 to 1765, who played a role in designing the fort and authorized its construction. Between 1756 and 1761, the fort was garrisoned by a variable number of soldiers, many of whom were sent to fight in Pennsylvania and the Ohio River Valley during the French and Indian War. On February 27, 1760, the fort was the site of an engagement between Cherokee warriors and Provincial soldiers that ended in a victory for the Provincials.
Fort Dobbs was abandoned in March, 1764, and disappeared from the landscape. Archaeology and historical research led to the discovery of the fort's exact location and probable appearance. The site on which the fort sat is now operated by North Carolina's Division of State Historic Sites and Properties as Fort Dobbs State Historic Site. The reconstruction of the fort was completed on September 21, 2019.
Background
Settlement of the Carolina back-country In 1747, approximately 100 men of suitable age to serve in the colonial militia lived in North Carolina west of present-day Hillsborough. Within three years, North Carolina's frontier population increased, driven by the immigration of Scots-Irish, England, and German settlers traveling from Pennsylvania on the Great Wagon Road. By 1754, six western counties—Orange, Granville, Johnston, Cumberland, Anson, and Rowan—held around 22,000 residents out of the colony's total population of 65,000.
Construction
In 1755, Governor Arthur Dobbs ordered the construction of a fortified log structure for the protection of settlers in Rowan County from French-allied Native American attacks, and as a barracks for the Provincial soldiers. Dobbs stated in a letter on August 24, 1755, to the Board of Trade that the fort was needed "to assist the back settlers and be a retreat to them as it was beyond the well settled Country, only straggling settlements behind them, and if I had placed [Waddell's garrison] beyond the Settlements without a fortification they might be exposed, and be no retreat for the Settlers, and the Indians might pass them and murder the Inhabitants, and retire before they durst go to give them notice". The new frontier settlements required regular protection. Furthermore, Governor Dobbs was concerned for his own investments, as he owned more than of land on the Rocky River, approximately south of the Fourth Creek Meeting House.
The North Carolina Legislature set aside a sum of £1000 for the construction of the fort in October 1755. Provincial soldiers, known by the shortened name "Provincials", were soldiers raised, clothed, and paid by the individual thirteen colonies. The total cost of the fort was only £1,000. By comparison, Fort Stanwix in New York, begun in 1758 in a modern star fort style, cost £60,000 to erect, while the construction of Fort Prince George in South Carolina cost that province's House of Commons £3,000.
Dobbs likely had a role in designing the fort, as he had designed at least one other fort in North Carolina, as well as a number of structures in Ireland. Hugh Waddell, who had close ties to Governor Dobbs and commanded the "Frontier Company" of Provincial soldiers in 1755, oversaw construction of the fort. The land on which the fort was located was a part of a tract owned first by one James Oliphant, then by a Fergus Sloan. Part of the same tract was used for the Fourth Creek Congregation Meeting House (so named because the settlement was on the fourth creek one would pass traveling west on the South Yadkin River from Salisbury) in 1755, which was the principal structure around which the modern city of Statesville was founded. After construction was completed, it was the only government-funded military installation on the colonial frontier between Virginia and South Carolina.
Description and effectiveness By October 1756, Waddell had substantially completed construction on the fort. Francis Brown and future governor Richard Caswell, commissioners appointed by Dobbs to inspect frontier defenses, wrote the following report to the North Carolina General Assembly on December 21, 1756:
The commissioners generally found the defenses of the rest of the North Carolina frontier to be inadequate. In 1756, the North Carolina General Assembly petitioned King George II for assistance, stating that the frontier remained in a relatively defenseless state. The address to the king further noted that after the fall of Fort Oswego to the French and their native allies in that year, the legislators did not believe that Fort Dobbs would provide a substantial defensive advantage. Settlers west of the Yadkin River were subjected to regular attacks so that between 1756 and 1759, even after the construction of Fort Dobbs, the population of settlers in the area declined from approximately 1,500 to 800.
In 1759, Waddell brought additional swivel guns for use Of Fort Dobbs. Oral tradition in Iredell County holds that two brass guns were mounted at Fort Dobbs, but evidence of the exact quantity present at the fort has not been conclusively established.
Use and conflict
Early uses Between 1756 and 1761, Fort Dobbs was used as a base of operations for Provincial soldiers. Dobbs also employed Waddell and the fort to conduct diplomacy with the province's native neighbors. The governor gave specific instructions on July 18, 1756, in a letter sent from New Bern to Waddell and two other men, stating:
In addition to warning nearby natives against attacking settlers in the Carolinas, Dobbs also charged Waddell with attempting to keep peace with the Catawba. In one instance, Dobbs instructed Waddell to turn over a settler who had killed a Catawba hunter in order to placate the hunter's tribesmen, in the event assurances that the settler would be brought to justice under the province's laws did not persuade the Catawba to remain friendly with North Carolina.
In 1756, Dobbs also approved the construction of another fort, this time in lands claimed by the Catawba, as well as both Carolinas, near modern-day Fort Mill, South Carolina. Workmen under Waddell's command began construction in 1756, but in 1757, Catawba leaders, influenced by South Carolina Governor William Lyttelton, informed North Carolina's government that they no longer wished for this second fort to be built, and construction of the second fort was permanently halted.
The fort's garrison fluctuated yearly. Initially, a 50-man company under Captain Waddell manned the fort. The colony raised two fifty-man companies in 1756 for service on the frontier; Waddell's was to build the Catawba Fort, while Captain Andrew Bailey's garrisoned Fort Dobbs. With construction of the Catawba fort halted In mid-1757, Waddell's 50-man company was added to the garrison. 1758 saw all of North Carolina's troops sent to Pennsylvania to participate in the Forbes Campaign. The fort was garrisoned by two 30-man companies at the outbreak of the Anglo-Cherokee War in 1759. By the time of the February, 1760 attack on the fort, only one 30-man company was serving at Fort Dobbs.
Decline and fall of Anglo-Cherokee relations
During the Anglo-Cherokee War of 1759–1761, the fort served as the base for a soldiers tasked with repelling Cherokee raids in the western portion of the province. The Anglo-Cherokee War began in 1759 after the capture of Fort Duquesne by the British and their native allies, including the Cherokee. The Cherokee had felt slighted by General Forbes's inept diplomacy. The Cherokee wished to be treated as allies, while Forbes treated them like enlisted soldiers. Additionally, as many as 40 Cherokee were murdered by Virginia militia in the area around modern-day Roanoke, Virginia.Journal Concerning a march that Capt. Robert Wade took to the New River in search of Indians, Saturday 12th August 1758. Some of the Virginians attempted to sell the massacred Cherokee warriors' scalps to the government of Virginia as the scalps of Shawnee warriors (for which the Virginian Assembly had set a bounty), an act that infuriated the Cherokee. When they returned home, the Lower Settlement Cherokee discovered that settlers encroached well beyond the border established between Cherokee and South Carolina that had been set by the 1747 treaty at Long Cane Creek (west of modern-day Greenwood, South Carolina). This elevated Cherokee concern that vital hunting grounds would be permanently lost.
In addition to the murders in Virginia, settlers in both North and South Carolina murdered Cherokee men and women. In one instance, a North Carolina hunter named Hamilton and his friend encountered two Cherokee hunters on Brushy Mountains (North Carolina). Hamilton invited the Cherokee to camp with him. While they slept, Hamilton and his friend butchered the Cherokee hunters with axes. They then murdered a white settler, then claimed they killed the two responsible Cherokee.Sam Wyly to Governor Lyttleton. January 14, 1759. Lyttleton Papers. Clement Library, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor
All the while, a few pro-French Cherokee leaders and Creek agitators pushed for violent actions against American settlers, despite the opposition of several Cherokee leaders.
War comes to Fourth Creek In order to obtain justice for their brethren murdered in late 1758 and early 1759, Cherokee warriors attacked settlements on the Yadkin and Catawba Rivers against the wishes of Cherokee leaders such as Attakullakulla. In April and May, 1759, as many as 40 men, women and children were killed, and many scalped. Several lived in the Fourth Creek Settlement, within 10 miles of Fort Dobbs. This violence damaged peace talks between Attakullakulla and South Carolina governor William Lyttelton. The violence committed by the Cherokee against American settlers continued, which in turn caused the colonial authorities to seek better relations with the Creek and Catawba nations. The Catawba, who were allied to the provinces of North and South Carolina, were only able to provide minimal assistance to the settlers, as that tribe had been decimated by smallpox in 1759 and early 1760.
All remaining goodwill was lost between Lyttelton's government in Charleston, the North Carolinan government, and the pro-peace Cherokee when Lyttelton ordered the detention of several peace delegations led by headmen Oconostota, Tistoe, and Round O, despite having previously guaranteed them safe passage. Lyttelton had the delegations shackled, put under armed guard, and secured them at Fort Prince George. A peace arrangement was agreed upon in December, 1759, although the Cherokee agreed under duress, and the pro-war faction of the Cherokee did not obey its terms. Several of the signatories for the Cherokee intended to disavow their promises as soon as they were able, in order to seek retribution for the capture of their peace delegations.