During the same year the fort planned by Dobbs was erected upon the site he had chosen—between Third and Fourth creeks; and the commissioners Richard Caswell and Francis Brown, sent out to inspect the fort, made the following picturesque report to the Assembly (December 21, 1756):
That they had likewise viewed the State of Fort Dobbs, and found it to be a good and Substantial Building of the Dimentions following (that is to say) The Oblong Square fifty three feet by forty, the opposite Angles Twenty four feet and Twenty-Two In Height Twenty four and a half feet as by the Plan annexed Appears, The Thickness of the Walls which are made of Oak Logs regularly Diminished from sixteen Inches to Six, it contains three floors and there may be discharged from each floor at one and the same time about one hundred Musketts the same is beautifully scituated in the fork of Fourth Creek a Branch of the Yadkin River. And that they also found under Command of Capt Hugh Waddel Forty six Effective men Officers and Soldiers … the said Officers and Soldiers Appearing well and in good Spirits. [41]
As to the erection of a fort on the Tennessee, promised the Cherokees by South Carolina, difficulties between the governor of that province and of Virginia in regard to matters of policy and the proportionate share of expenses made effective coöperation between the two colonies well-nigh impossible. Glen, as we have seen, had resented Dinwiddie's efforts to win the South Carolina Indians over to Virginia's interest. And Dinwiddie had been very indignant when the force promised him by the Indians to aid General Braddock did not arrive, attributing this defection in part to Glen's negotiations for a meeting with the chieftains and in part to the influence of the South Carolina traders, who kept the Indians away by hiring them to go on long hunts for furs and skins. But there was no such contention between Virginia and North Carolina. Dinwiddie and Dobbs arranged (November 6, 1755) to send a commission from these colonies to treat with the Cherokees and the Catawbas. Virginia sent two commissioners, Colonel William Byrd, third of that name, and Colonel Peter Randolph; while North Carolina sent one, Captain Hugh Waddell. Salisbury, North Carolina, was the place of rendezvous. The treaty with the Catawbas was made at the Catawba Town, presumably the village opposite the mouth of Sugaw Creek, in York County, South Carolina, on February 20-21, 1756; that with the Cherokees on Broad River, North Carolina, March 13-17. As a result of the negotiations and after the receipt of a present of goods, the Catawbas agreed to send forty warriors to aid Virginia within forty days; and the Cherokees, in return for presents and Virginia's promise to contribute her proportion toward the erection of a strong fort, undertook to send four hundred warriors within forty days, "as soon as the said fort shall be built." Virginia and North Carolina thus wisely coöperated to "straighten the path" and "brighten the chain" between the white and the red men, in important treaties which have largely escaped the attention of historians. [42]
On May 25, 1756, a conference was held at Salisbury between King Heygler and warriors of the Catawba nation on the one side and Chief Justice Henley, doubtless attended by Captain Waddell and his frontier company, on the other. King Heygler, following the lead set by the Cherokees, petitioned the Governor of North Carolina to send the Catawbas some ammunition and to "build us a fort for securing our old men, women and children when we turn out to fight the Enemy on their coming." The chief justice assured the King that the Catawbas would receive a necessary supply of ammunition (one hundred pounds of gunpowder and four hundred pounds of lead were later sent them) and promised to urge with the governor their request to have a fort built as soon as possible. Pathos not unmixed with dry humor tinges the eloquent appeal of good old King Heygler, ever the loyal friend of the whites, at this conference:
I desire a stop may be put to the selling of strong Liquors by the White people to my people especially near the Indian nation. If the White people make strong drink, let them sell it to one another, or drink it in their own families. This will avoid a great deal of mischief which otherwise will happen from my people getting drunk and quarrelling with the White people. I have no strong prisons like you to confine them for it. Our only way is to put them under ground and all these (pointing proudly to his Warriors) will be ready to do that to those who shall deserve it. [43]
In response to this request, the sum of four thousand pounds was appropriated by the North Carolina Assembly for the erection of "a Fort on our western frontier to protect and secure the Catawbas" and for the support of two companies of fifty men each to garrison this and another fort building on the sea coast. The commissioners appointed for the purpose recommended (December 21, 1756) a site for the fort "near the Catawba nation"; and on January 20, 1757, Governor Dobbs reported: "We are now building a Fort in the midst of their towns at their own Request." The fort thereupon begun must have stood near the mouth of the South Fork of the Catawba River, as Dobbs says it was in the "midst" of their towns, which are situated a "few miles north and south of 38°" and might properly be included within a circle of thirty miles radius. [44]
During the succeeding months many depredations were committed by the Indians upon the exposed and scattered settlements. Had it not been for the protection afforded by all these forts, by the militia companies under Alexander Osborne of Rowan and Nathaniel Alexander of Anson, and by a special company of patrollers under Green and Moore, the back settlers who had been so outrageously "pilfered" by the Indians would have "retired from the Frontier into the inner settlements." [45]
[CHAPTER V.]
In Defense of Civilization