Was Daniel Boone at Fort Dobbs?
“Fort Dobbs Reconstructed” by Robert Alvin Crum copyright 2019. More images below.
By Robert Alvin Crum copyright 23 January 2025
Located in Statesville, North Carolina is a place known as Fort Dobbs State Historic Site. It’s located at 438 Fort Dobbs Road, Statesville, NC 28625. You can learn more about the site and its history by going to www.fortdobbs.org.
The French & Indian War, which began in the North American colonies and was fought between the French and British. It was known as the Seven Years War in Europe, began in 1754, and ended in 1763. As a result of this war, Arthur Dobbs, the Royal Governor of North Carolina ordered the construction of a fort on the colony’s western frontier. Construction began in 1755, was completed in 1756, and was named after the Royal Governor. Its purpose was to serve as a military headquarters which garrisoned approximately fifty North Carolina provincial troops and the supplies necessary to support them. During periods of conflict, settlers could also use it as a safe haven.
Arthur Dobbs became the Royal Governor in 1754 and brought direction and money, when he arrived in the colony of North Carolina. In 1755, Governor Dobbs called for volunteers to march with British General Edward Braddock, and he placed his son Edward Dobbs in charge of the troops to join Braddock. Daniel Boone was among eighty-four men who responded to the call for volunteers. He was a teamster or wagon driver along with many others such as Daniel Morgan, who would go on to fame as a General during the American Revolution, and John Finley, who in 1769 would later pilot Daniel Boone and companions for the first time through the Cumberland Gap.
In 1758, the Anglo-Cherokee War began between the British and the Cherokee. It was then that frequent raids by the Cherokee were launched against the settlers in North Carolina. The only attack at Fort Dobbs was on February 27, 1760, when two provincial soldiers were wounded, one colonial boy was killed, and ten to twelve Cherokee were reported as wounded or killed. The Anglo-Cherokee War ended in the fall of 1761. With the end of the French & Indian War, the North Carolina frontier moved farther west. Therefore, there was no longer a need for Fort Dobbs, so the fort was evacuated by the military, and it slowly deteriorated and passed into history.
Frequently, biographers writing about Daniel Boone have stated that he and his family lived in Fort Dobbs during the French & Indian War. Many of Boone’s biographies contain myths and inaccuracies, and the focus of this article is whether Daniel Boone lived at Fort Dobbs, or, at the very least, was he there?
When I first visited this site years ago, I spotted and photographed the stone D.A.R. marker with the iron Daniel Boone plaque attached to it. It raised the question for me about whether Daniel Boone was here. At that time, the marker was set in an open field in front of an area designated as the location of the original fort. This marker was subsequently moved farther back onto the property, when reconstruction of the fort began. There is an interpretive historical “tablet” by the marker at the current visitor’s center that reads, in part, as follows:
“In 1910, the NSDAR erected a granite monument and later J. Hampton Rich of Mocksville added an iron marker. Rich founded The Boone Trail Highway Association, which placed identical tablets at various sites visited by Daniel Boone. The Fort Dobbs [Hampton Rich] marker is one of only 60 out of the original 358 that are known to exist.”
As I became fascinated by my question about why there was a Daniel Boone iron Hampton Rich marker at Fort Dobbs, I began to dig and research this issue. Fort Dobbs was a military facility used during the French & Indian War and the Anglo Cherokee War. In a separate article, I explored Boone’s service during the French & Indian War and militia service during the Anglo-Cherokee War. This article focuses on his service during the latter, because most biographers indicate that he and his family were at Fort Dobbs during that time.
Generally, colonial governments in the thirteen British colonies were in no position to establish professional armies, so they relied on the ancient British tradition of militia. The colonies enacted laws requiring all able-bodied men from ages 16 to 60 to serve in the local militia, attend training, provide one’s own weapon, ammunition and clothing and be ready when called in the event of an Indian attack or other emergency. The militia was a local institution under the laws of the colony, and the royal governor or general assembly appointed general officers and colonels who commanded larger districts. Each local militia elected their officers. Whenever members of the militia were called, it was usually to serve for only a short time, and they would return home as quickly as possible. This information can be found by reading Maurice Matloff, ed., American Military History, Office of the Chief of Military History, United States Army, Washington, DC, 1969, pp. 28 & 29.
Prior to the American Revolution, militia records in North Carolina are scarce and even non-existent in some areas. However, there is documentation that Daniel Boone served in the Rowan County militia in 1759 (Fort Dobbs was in Rowan County at the time). In the Rowan County, North Carolina Tax Lists 1757 – 1800 by Jo Ann White, the Introduction says that “In the Military Collection of the Treasurer’s and Comptroller’s Papers, ‘Frontier and Indian Scouting,’ at the North Carolina State Archives is a list of Rowan County men who fought to defend the area against Indian attacks. Most of the men served only a few days and were paid a few shillings for their service.” On page 13 of this book, there is an entry that states, “25 April 1759. The Publick of North Carolina to Morgan Bryan to a Scout sent Out in the Alarm of Daniel Hossey and Others being killed ---” Lieutenant Morgan Bryan is named at the top of the list followed by William Bryan. Both men were brothers and the uncles to Rebecca Bryan (Daniel Boone’s wife). Daniel Boone’s name is also on this list as a member of the militia called out that day. Even thought there are no militia records showing a group of men such as those commanded by Bryan stopping at the fort, it’s quite possible, since they would have been ”ranging” throughout Rowan County, would have known about the fort, and could have stopped there.
In The Life of Daniel Boone by Lyman C. Draper, LL.D. and edited by Ted Franklin Belue, one finds on page 152 a sentence which states, “When this brilliant little engagement happened, Colonel Waddell was stationed at Fort Dobbs, where the Bryans and some of the Boones had taken refuge.” Unfortunately, no footnotes nor references indicate a source for this statement.
In his biography on Boone, Robert Morgan mentions Fort Dobbs on pages 58 and 60 that “Boone later told his son that he had served with Waddell at Fort Dobbs.” When I looked at Mr. Morgan’s footnote, it said, “Boone later told his son Nathan, Hammond, ed., 14.” After reading this, I looked at page 14 in My Father, Daniel Boone: The Interviews with Nathan Boone, which states as follows:
“Nathan Boone: I have often heard my father and mother speak of Fort Dobbs but have no recollection as to whether they forted there or not. Frankly, I do not believe that our family was forced to live in a fort after they settled on the Yadkin River, nor can I recall anything further about the French War.”
It’s great to look at Mr. Hammond’s footnote 7. on page 154, which continues by explaining the following:
“7. Fort Dobbs was located twenty miles east [it should say “west”] of the Boone Homestead, between the south fork of the Yadkin River and the Catawba River, near the present town of Statesville, North Carolina. Lyman Draper believed that during the Indian trouble in 1759 the Boone family moved to Virginia or Maryland instead of seeking protection at this fort. See DM 2C169-70.”
Some insight can be found in Ken Kamper’s article “Lyman Draper and the Draper Manuscript Collection,” The Compass, April 2019, Volume 23, Issue 2, The Boone Society, Inc., pp. 24 & 25 (2019). Mr. Kamper begins this article by explaining how Lyman Draper began in the early nineteenth century his collection of stories and documents about the pioneers and America’s westward expansion, and without his research, much that is known about the Boones and Bryans probably would have been lost. Kamper mentions in this article that in 1998 Ted Franklin Belue assembled Draper’s Manuscript into a biography about the life of Daniel Boone. Kamper continues by saying that the Belue edition was good at educating the public about new materials. However, Kamper adds that Draper had put his manuscript on which this biography is based back on the shelf and continued research for a number of years and that Neal Hammond’s edition of the Draper Manuscripts with Nathan Boone’s interview offers contradictions and adds new light to earlier research and documentation.
As I reviewed more materials on this topic, I read the 1976 biography by Lawrence Elliott, The Long Hunter: A New Life of Daniel Boone and was surprised to read on page 37 the following:
“The Boones ‘forted up’ more than once in those dark days. They went to Fort Dobbs, some miles to the west, a substantial enclosure of oak logs garrisoned by Captain Hugh Waddell and a company of forty-six militiamen. Daniel, having seen his wife and babies safely inside, would then march with the rangers to patrol the mountains west of Salisbury in defense of farther settlements. But the refugees had to remain inside, sometimes for weeks at a time, frightened, cramped, irritable, unable to tend crops or even venture beyond sight of the stockade.”
Fascinated by this paragraph, the next paragraph on page 37 continued by saying, “In February 1760, Fort Dobbs itself was attacked by a strong force of Cherokee, and though they were beaten off by the Rangers, Rebecca had had enough. She was pregnant a third time and persuaded Daniel that they had to leave the Yadkin until the Indian wars ended.”
My thought was “Wow! New information!” I looked for a footnote in the back of the book, but I found none. When the author wrote this part of the story, he appears to provide no documentation. Did he write this for pure entertainment? Normally, I’d contact the author to find the source of these “facts,” but he’s no longer among the living.
Documentation shows that when the Cherokee raids increased, by late 1759 Daniel Boone moved his wife Rebecca and two sons by wagon to Culpepper County, Virginia, and they were accompanied by his sister Elizabeth, her husband William Grant, and their family. Once their families were safe in Virginia, Daniel and his brother-in-law, William Grant, returned to North Carolina to serve in the Rowan County Militia to protect their homes and the settlers that chose to remain. They served under Captain Morgan Bryan who was the uncle of Rebecca Bryan Boone.
A new twist to the story about the Boones living in Fort Dobbs was written by bestselling authors Bob Drury and Tom Clavin on page 78 of their book Blood and Treasure: Daniel Boone and the Fight for America’s First Frontier. Even though Boone didn’t bring his family back to North Carolina until just before their second daughter Jemima’s birth in late 1762 at Sugar Tree Creek, the Blood and Treasure book states otherwise. The authors say:
“Susannah Boone, the couple’s first daughter was born November 2, 1760. As soon as mother and child were well enough to travel, the family set back off for North Carolina.... Boone did not immediately occupy the homestead upon reaching the valley, and instead joined his remaining family within the walls of Fort Dobbs. Later in life Boone was often happy to discourse on his familiarity with the nooks, crannies, and musket loopholes of the first stockade in which he had ever ‘forted up.’”
Unfortunately, there is no footnote providing a source for this, because it’s a new myth that is contrary to documented facts.
Most of this article has examined whether the Boones lived in Fort Dobbs, but, as I mentioned in the eighth paragraph above, I’d also like to examine whether Daniel could have been there in 1761 at the close of the Anglo-Cherokee War. During that war in 1761, a military campaign against the Cherokee was launched to attack the Cherokee towns from the south by Colonel James Grant. At the same time, Colonel William Byrd, III’s Virginia troops were to attack the Cherokee towns from the north. Grant’s forces wreaked havoc in western North Carolina, but Byrd was frustrated by delays and a lack of supplies, so he resigned his commission. He was replaced by Lieutenant Colonel Adam Stephen who requested North Carolina recruits from Colonel Waddell at Fort Dobbs, and the North Carolina Governor ordered troops to join the Virginia Regiment serving along the Holston River. The Carolina Troops camped at the recently constructed Fort Robinson located near the Long Island of the Holston, and the Cherokee signed a treaty at the Long Island with Virginia in November 1761. The Cherokee signed the Treaty of Charleston in December 1761 with South Carolina.
I occasionally have discussions with Mr. Jason Melius, who is the Historical Interpreter at Fort Dobbs State Historic Site. He advised that it appears that Daniel Boone was a teamster or waggoneer and met Waddell’s troops at Fort Dobbs before they made their way to Fort Robinson near the Long Island of the Holtson. Additional evidence about Boone’s involvement can be found in Lyman Draper’s interview in 1851 with Nathan and Olive Boone where Olive advised as follows:
“I often heard Colonel Daniel Boone speak of Byrd’s Expedition in 1761. He always criticized Byrd for his slowness and failure, but I can't recall whether Colonel Boone actually said he was on this expedition. But Nathan and I both feel that his father would not have spoken that way about Colonel Byrd, had he not been an eyewitness.”
Draper immediately responded to Olive’s comment by adding:
“Mr. Haywood says that immediately after the peace of 1761, Daniel Boone and others went hunting in the Holston Valley and East Tennessee, which leads me to think that he was on the campaign with Colonel Byrd. Daniel Boone probably served as one of Colonel Waddell's men and, after being discharged from the Army camp on Holston, went hunting on the way home.”
The Friends of Fort Dobbs meticulously completed in 2019 the reconstruction of this fort used during the French & Indian War according to exact specifications from historical documents. I was privileged to watch the slow and lengthy process of reconstruction over a period of three years.
The completion of this three-story structure on the western frontier of the Colony of North Carolina would have been quite a site, since it would have been unlike anything the settlers would have seen in the area at that time. Before the Cherokee raids, it would have been understandable that settlers in the area might make a day or overnight trip to see Fort Dobbs. The Boones and Bryans could have traveled along Sherril’s Path from the Bryan Settlement to see this large structure. In 1851, Lyman Draper interviewed Daniel’s son Nathan Boone who said his parents were aware of Fort Dobbs but never “forted up” there.
Both Lyman Draper and Rev. John Shane interviewed Daniel Bryan who was Daniel Boone’s nephew and Rebecca Bryan’s first cousin. Daniel Bryan was born in 1758 in the Bryan Settlement and lived just a few, short miles from Daniel and Rebecca Boone’s home at Sugar Tree Creek. He advised that some of the Boone’s and Bryan’s fled to Virginia between 1760 and 1762. However, he explained that as a child, he was “forted up” with the Bryan family in North Carolina, and he says that he remembered a few of the details. The Bryans wouldn’t have traveled twenty miles to “fort up” at Fort Dobbs and would have remained on their own lands to protect them.
I also interviewed on several occasions the Site Manager for Fort Dobbs State Historic Site, Mr. Scott Douglas. He mentioned that the fort was never large enough to house the local population wanting to “fort up” during times of trouble with the Cherokee. When they were at the site, officers and North Carolina provincial soldiers would have lived in the fort, but the local population could only congregate inside during an attack. At best, they would have camped outside of the structure, if they were concerned about staying on their own land during Cherokee attacks. I also interviewed the Site Interpreter, Mr. Jason Melius, and he agrees that Boone probably would have stopped by the fort while serving in the militia and, and as mentioned above, could have been there in 1761, when he served as a waggoner that headed to the Long Island of the Holston where a peace treaty was signed between the Cherokee and British.
What’s the conclusion of my examination of materials to research my question “Was Daniel Boone at Fort Dobbs?” All the secondary sources mentioned state without any documentation that Daniel and Rebecca Boone and their family lived in Fort Dobbs at the time of the Anglo-Cherokee War. Primary sources, including the interview with Nathan and Olive Boone, indicate that Daniel and Rebecca Boone were aware of Fort Dobbs, but never “forted up” there. It’s quite possible the entire family could have taken an approximately twenty-mile trip from their settlement along Sherrill’s Path to Fort Dobbs to see this new, magnificent, three-story fort that was built to protect the frontier. There’s documentation that Daniel was in the North Carolina militia at the beginning of the Anglo-Cherokee War, and in 1761, he was involved with Colonel Waddel’s men, when they headed west to Fort Robinson at the Long Island of the Holston. Even though there’s no paper or document that shows the days he might have been at Fort Dobbs, the evidence shows that Daniel Boone was probably at Fort Dobbs more than once during his military service.
SOURCES:
Belue, Ted Franklin, Editor, The Life of Daniel Boone by Lyman C. Draper, Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, 1998.
Clark, Walter, Editor, The State Records of North Carolina, 16 Volumes, Winston, Goldsboro, State of North Carolina, 1895-1907.
Colonial and State Records of North Carolina, Acts of the North Carolina General Assembly, 1753, Chapter VII, p. 383.
Draper, Lyman Copeland, Draper Manuscripts, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin.
Fries, Adelaide Lisetta, Records of the Moravians in North Carolina, 1752-1771, Vols. 1 & 2, Publications of the North Carolina Historical Commission, State Department of Archives and History, Raleigh, North Carolina, Reprinted 1968.
Hammond, Neil O., Editor, My Father Daniel Boone: The Draper Interviews with Nathan Boone, The University of Kentucky Press, Lexington, Kentucky, 1999.
Kamper, Ken, “An Accurate Summary of the Life of Daniel Boone,” Daniel Boone History Research – Newsletter No. 6, December 2021.
King, Duane H., Editor, The Memoirs of Lt. Henry Timberlake: The Story of a Soldier, Adventurer, and Emissary to the Cherokees, 1756-1765, Museum of the Cherokee Indian, Cherokee, NC, 2007.
Linn, Jo White, Abstracts of the Deeds of Rowan County, North Carolina, 1753 – 1785, Books 1 through 10, Salisbury, North Carolina, Privately published, 1983.
Linn, Jo White, Abstracts of the Minutes of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, Rowan County, North Carolina, Volume I – 1753-1762, Volume II – 1763-1774, Volume III – 1775-1789, Salisbury, North Carolina, Privately published, 1977, 1979, 1982.
Linn, Jo White, Rowan County, North Carolina Tax Lists 1757-1800 Annotated Transcriptions, Salisbury, North Carolina, Privately published, 1995.
Maas, John R., The French & Indian War in North Carolina: The Spreading Flames of War, The History Press, Charleston, SC, 2013.
Matloff, Maurice, Editor, American Military History, Office of the Chief of Military History, United States Army, Washington, DC, 1969.
Melius, Jason, “Defining the Variety of Combatants During the French and Indian War,” The Fort Dobbs Gazette, Volume XIX, Issue 4, pages 4 and 5, December 2022.
Melius, J., “Militia Activity on the NC Frontier 1755-1766,” June 2022.
Preston, David L., Braddock’s Defeat: The Battle of Monongahela and the Road to Revolution, Oxford University Press, New York, NY, 2015.
Ramsey, Robert W., Carolina Cradle: Settlement of the Northwest Carolina Frontier 1747-1762, The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1964.
Robinson, Blackwell P., The Five Royal Governors of North Carolina 1729-1775, State Department of Archives and History, Raleigh, NC 1968.
Saunders, William L., Editor, The Colonial Records of North Carolina, 10 Volumes, Printers to the State, Raleigh, North Carolina, 1886-1890.
Spraker, Hazel Atterbury, The Boone Family, The Tuttle Company, Rutland, Vermont, 1922.
Tortora, Daniel J., Carolina in Crisis: Cherokees, Colonists and Slaves in the American Southeast, 1756-1763, The University of North Carolina Press, 2015.
U.S Quaker Meeting Records 1681-1935.
Weiss, Kathryn H., Daniel Bryan, Nephew of Daniel Boone: His Narrative and Other Stories, Self-published by Kathryn H. Weiss, 2008.
Whisker, James Biser, The North Carolina Militia, 1585 – 1783, Heritage House, Columbia, South Carolina, 2022.
www.fortdobbs.org
