Location
Type: Hidden History
County: Cleveland
None
A modern house hidden from sight at the top of the hill nearest the map pointer, on narrow Graham’s Fort Drive, is said to contain the bones of Graham’s Fort. Please note it is surrounded by private property and cannot be seen from the road, which is part of the reason this is “Hidden History.” AmRevNC also could not confirm this is the house described in a 1998 guidebook that said the “fort” was incorporated into the current home.[1]
Seven Years of War
Col. William Graham was born in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia in 1742 and moved to N.C. soon before the war. He was a Tryon County justice of the peace, and signed a petition against British excesses called the Tryon Resolves in 1775, the same year he was elected to North Carolina’s Third Provincial Congress.
As commander of the Patriot militia in Tryon County, he participated in a South Carolina campaign against Loyalists later that year.[2] In his application for a veteran’s pension decades later, Graham said he was “on continual duty” during seven years of war, conducting no personal business. He noted that he was “the oldest Colonel in the frontier parts of North Carolina”—in his mid-30s! His next campaign was against the Cherokees in 1776. Then he became responsible for selecting fort sites for protection against both Cherokees and Loyalists, and assigning militia to them on a rotating basis. Sometimes he took command at Fort McFadden west of modern Rutherfordton. He said he led regular scouting missions, collected reports from spies, and directed “Flying Camps” of soldiers where needed.
Tryon County was split in 1779, so his command was switched to the new Lincoln County. Like many militia, Graham’s units struggled with supplies, he said: “We had no camp equipment. We had no munitions of war (except) by accident. We had no commissary (food supply officer). We, in general, had to find ourselves everything we had.” He was part of a force that arrived at Ramsour’s Mill just after that June 1780 battle against Tories. While monitoring the British in South Carolina, his militia fought in the Patriot victory at Wofford Iron Works in August, but were driven off by the advance of Maj. Patrick Ferguson’s corps into N.C.
