On August 17, I visited Old Fort, North Carolina, for a commemorative event at Davidson’s Fort. The Revolutionary War–era reconstructed fort, complete with log stockade and blockhouse, conjured up boyhood memories of the old Daniel Boone TV series and provided a realistic backdrop for local reenactors to demonstrate a Cherokee raid. According to local accounts, the raid began on July 11, 1776, and was led by Chief Old Abraham.
Prior to the raid, this westernmost outpost in North Carolina had a regular force of around 80 militiamen to protect settlers. The closest outpost east of Davidson’s Fort was Fort Dobbs, more than 75 miles away outside what is now Statesville. When the raid occurred on July 11, there were around 120 militiamen, women, and children at the fort.
Background
The American Revolution in North Carolina was fought by Patriot militiamen against various forces organized or encouraged by the British. In the eastern part of the state, Highland Scot Loyalists and others loyal to the Crown took up arms and fought Patriot insurgents. In the western part of the state, however, actions by the British launched a chain of events that that brought the Cherokee into the struggle.
Proclamation Line of 1763
After the British victory in 1763 in the French and Indian War (sometimes known as the Seven Years’ War), King George III made a proclamation declaring land roughly west of the Eastern Continental Divide in the Blue Ridge Mountains as off-limits to English settlers in an effort to gain support from Cherokee chiefs and prevent the expense and unrest that further westward settlement might provoke.
As a result, land speculators who already had agreements with Cherokees and settlers who had complaints about land title problems with the government in the forbidden area were agitated. They believed that the Crown’s edict unfairly established a monopoly on that land — without giving them any voice or representation on the matter.
Increasingly, white settlers ignored the king’s proclamation and continually encroached on Cherokee lands, forcing the Cherokee to cede away their land again and again. In 1775, a meeting between Cherokee chiefs and land speculators at the Sycamore Shoals of the Watauga River in northwestern North Carolina ended with a deal giving away 27,000 square miles of Cherokee land in exchange for a few blankets, knives, and gunpowder. Young Cherokee chiefs disagreed with their elders on the deal and began violently resisting the settlers throughout the mountains.
Attack on Davidson’s Fort
Meanwhile, in the early 1770s, brothers John, Samuel, William, and George Davidson had settled land at the headwaters of the Catawba River in what is now McDowell County and the site of today’s Old Fort. As tensions increased with the Cherokee up and down North Carolina’s mountains, in the mid-1770s, Davidson’s Fort was built. By the summer of 1776, 80 militiamen manned the fort.
British agents went back and forth with Cherokee chiefs, urging them to hold off attacking colonial settlements because they knew it would mean retribution and also because they wanted to keep the Cherokee as allies against Patriot militia. Agents John and Henry Stuart promised the Cherokee arms and ammunition to hunt and trade with the British. Word spread among colonial settlers that the British were churning up the Cherokee to attack their settlements. Then, in summer of 1776, the Cherokee attacked. Chief Dragging Canoe led a force attacking English settlers on the Holston River and other chiefs — including Old Abraham, according to reports — proceeded to do the same further south, killing dozens on the Catawba River. An attack on Davidson’s Fort, called the Battle of the Fork, occurred on July 11, 1776, when several militiamen and 14 Cherokee warriors were killed.
These attacks became fertile propaganda in the Patriot cause against the British and encouraged many previously neutral settlers to side with those fighting against the Crown out of fear for their families’ survival.
Counterattack
Davidson’s Fort is best known as the rallying point for a force of militia that gathered there to counterattack against the Cherokee. Brig. Gen. Griffith Rutherford, a Rowan County militia leader, spoke to the North Carolina Council of Safety on June 5, 1776, asking for troops and ammunition to fight back against the Cherokee. He received both and ultimately a force of 2,400 militia — the second-largest fighting force in the colonies except for Gen. George Washington’s army at that time — assembled at Old Fort and proceeded under Rutherford to attack the Cherokee Nation. They destroyed more than 30 Indian towns before returning home on Oct. 12, 1776.
Significance
Before visiting Davidson’s Fort, I had no idea there was an outpost guarding settlers west of Fort Dobbs. It made sense that it was as far west as it was, being situated at the base of the Blue Ridge before the steep climb up the mountain to the Asheville area.
Settlers continued to pour into the backcountry, seeking freedom and opportunity to live their lives the way they wanted, even with the risk of attack. The British Proclamation Line only added to the tension, as the settlers who approached and built their homes past the line were actively opposing the English Crown.
The Old Fort site and the battles that ensued were another form of rebellion against a British king and government that had lost control of their subjects. This event and the continued war with the Cherokee in the west make up yet one more piece of the Revolutionary picture of North Carolina starting in 1776.
Observation
I had little knowledge that there was actually an old Revolutionary War fort at this site prior to my visit to Old Fort. According to local tradition, the original fort was supposedly built on a pretty little tributary of the Catawba River in Old Fort where historic site buildings, including two wonderfully built log cabins, are today. The reconstructed interpretive replica fort is on property a mile or so away and is operated by the Davidson’s Fort Historic Park nonprofit organization. To imagine that at one time the fort held more than 100 people — much less that it was the gathering site for 2,400 militiamen — is hard to fathom. I encourage anyone interested in the western phase of the Revolution in North Carolina to visit.
