Imagine the Scene

Preparing to Invade

Walk into the right side yard of the museum (when facing the back), toward Catawba Avenue, until you can see the front yard by the river.

Around you or likely within your view is a palisade—rectangle of vertical log walls—possibly with a square blockhouse in one or more corners. Inside may be one or more buildings “such as a barracks, officers’ quarters, (and) a magazine for storing powder and weapons.” In addition to the creek, a spring now under the museum building supplies water.[1]

The rising tensions with the Cherokees led local part-time militia soldiers under Capt. Samuel Davidson to build the fort to protect local farmers in Spring of 1776, which was completed by May. The location offered access to three Native American trails leading to Salisbury, Virginia, and deeper into the mountains. There was good reason to be concerned: Under a 1767 treaty between the royal governor and the Cherokee, European-Americans are not supposed to be living here.[a] By June a company of militia referred to as “rangers” were stationed here, presumably to scout for warrior bands. Sometime that month Cherokees attacked the fort and drove the rangers out. They retreated to Cathey’s Fort near modern Marion.[2]

Rutherford arrives in August from the direction you are facing with more than 2,000 militia from the county self-defense regiments and volunteers, having camped at Cathey’s Fort on the way. They now make an informal camp all around Davidson’s Fort, roughly a half-mile in each direction. Rutherford may have had them make improvements to the fort. Small militia companies join the army here, along with some natives of the Catawba nation, traditional enemies of the Cherokee.

On Saturday, September 1, Rutherford leaves 300–400 men to protect the region[3] and marches west with around 2,400, including 1,900 soldiers, 80 light cavalry, and 350 pack-horse drivers.[4] The Council of Safety has made sure the forces are well supplied. With them go “nearly 1,400 packhorses, a herd of beef cattle, and a small arsenal that included long rifles, hatchets, and a few small field cannons. Lacking official uniforms, militia members take along their own clothing and many used their own hunting rifles.”[5] The army has six weeks’ worth of supplies.

The men, horses, and cows head toward today’s Asheville bound for a commercial center of the Cherokees at Nĭkwăsĭ´ (modern Franklin), where Rutherford plans to rendezvous with a similar force from South Carolina. They follow the “Suwali-Nunnahi Trail,” from which the name for Swannanoa River and gap is derived. Suwali was the Cherokee word for the Cheraw nation near Charlotte, and the Nunnahi referred to legendary people supposedly living in a mound at Nĭkwăsĭ´.[b]

Return and Results

The army returns here in the first week of October. The exact date is unclear, in part because some units marched ahead, and one appears to have gone straight past to Cathey’s Fort.[c] The combined armies destroyed 52 villages, including 11 by Rutherford’s out of around 40 in North Carolina[6] and modern Tennessee. They followed “a standard tactic—burn every house, cut down or trample the crops, seize or kill livestock, kill any Cherokees that fought back, and move on to the next towns… In some cases, prisoners would be taken and sold as slaves. In other cases, Cherokees were shot and killed, some scalped and, according to one account… a group of women villagers in Burning Town were walled up in a house and burned alive.”[7]

An official report stated Rutherford “‘destroyed the greater part of the Valley Towns, killed twelve & took nine Indians, (and imprisoned) Seven White Men, from whom he got four (enslaved) Negroes, a considerable Quantity of Stock & Deer leather, about 100 (weight) of gunpowder & 2000 of Lead…’”[8] Presumably the white men were Tories and/or accused of supplying the Cherokees with weapons. By far the biggest impact was that the bulk of the Cherokee Nation found itself going into autumn and winter in the North Carolina mountains with no homes, livestock, or stored or growing crops.

Many of the men on the campaign go on to fight in key battles in N.C. at various times throughout the war—some on the side of the British! Others, including a few Moravians, tried to remain neutral during the Revolution.

After the expedition, a company is stationed here at all times during the war, with different men rotating through.

Six years to the month after the Rutherford campaign, continuing Cherokee attacks have driven many area colonists into local forts. Thus unable to farm, lack of food has become a problem. Col. Joseph McDowell of Pleasant Garden leads another campaign from Davidson’s.[d] Few details are known. A veteran says the army followed the Rutherford route, but continued beyond where Rutherford had turned at today’s Murphy. Though “‘meeting with no Indian forces of any strength, we destroyed their towns, cut down their corn fields and with the prisoners we commenced our march home and were dismissed sometime in October 1782.’” Another vet says five Cherokees were killed, and a third recalls burning two towns on the Little Tennessee River.[e]

Reproduction Fort

Visit the Gateway Museum if you wish, which features exhibits about mountain life focused on the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Then for help imagining what the fort looked like, take a short drive to visit the reproduction at the privately owned Davidson Fort Historical Park:

To get there:

1. From the parking lot, drive out Water Street (away from Catawba Avenue).
2. At the end of the block, turn left on Mauney Avenue.
3. Drive one block to South Railroad Street, and curve right to follow it (as it becomes Lackey Town Road).
4. Drive 0.5 miles to the park, on the left at 173 Lackey Town Road.

The fort is only open for special events, but the outside is visible year-round. It is a best guess at how the original looked, based on eyewitness accounts and standard practices of the day.

If you are taking the Cherokee Campaigns Tour, and want to stay closer to the route taken by Rutherford’s army than your mapping app will provide, follow Rutherford Trace Route 1.