The Treaty of Paris in 1763 brought an end to the French and Indian War and more than a century and a half of French power in the New World.
Prior to the treaty, England and France were building frontier fortresses and pushing into the Ohio Valley. Although Britain had more troops, more resources and better strategic positions, the French had powerful Indian allies.
The French claimed all the territory west of the Allegheny Mountains, from Canada to New Orleans. To consolidate their possessions, they built a series of 60 forts along this line and placed some of them on lands in Pennsylvania, Virginia and the Carolinas.
The English countermeasure was the formation of the Ohio Company in London and Virginia for planting English settlements on the east bank of the Ohio River.
Although most of the great battles of this war were fought in territory outside Rowan County, the consequences were felt here, says the late historian James Brawley.
Anticipating a war with France and her Indian allies, delegates from the northern colonies met at Albany, N.Y., in June and July of 1754 to plan a united defense. The northern colonies included New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut and Maryland.
This was the first attempt at an intercolonial union of the American colonies. It provided for a Grand Council of representatives from the colonies, headed by a president-general to be appointed by the British king.
Both the British government and the colonies rejected the plan, each contending that it gave the other too much power.
The first local incident of French aggression came in June 1753, when three Frenchmen and five northern Indians entered Rowan on a raiding party. Thirteen Catawba Indians met them and two Frenchmen and three of their Indian allies died in the ensuing fight, just two miles from the Rowan courthouse, while court was in session.
Another incident was on Sept. 16, 1753, when an unknown group of Indians massacred 16 colonists and took 10 captives at the house of John Gutrey and James Anshers. They lived on Buffalo Creek north of the Broad River in western North Carolina.
“Nominally, the Indians in, and adjacent to, Rowan were allies of the English and friendly to the colonists,” Brawley says. “The French, however, by propaganda and gifts, were making inroads upon the Indian tribes in the South. This alarmed the settlers of Rowan and everything was done to prevent a shift of allegiance. The
Catawbas, numbering 250 braves, lived in and around Rowan.
“The Cherokees, who could muster an army of 2,000, lived more to the west and were divided into the lower, middle and upper Cherokee towns.”
“The total fighting force of Rowan numbered only 996 men, and the militia of Rowan, Anson and Orange counties contained just 3,000,” Brawley says.
John Clark, the militia officer there, appealed to Matthew Rowan, then governor, for help and promised, if no help came, they would move as others had done. The commanding officer in Rowan, Colonel Smith, was ordered to assist Clark with supplies of powder and lead. The Catawba Indians aided by sending a search party, but the assassins were never found.
The English colonists were handicapped by a lack of cooperation, made clear by their rejection of the 1754 Albany Plan of Union.
North Carolina sent some troops under Col. James Innis to Virginia to cooperate with Gen. Edward Braddock in an attack on Fort Duquesne, located on the present site of Pittsburgh.
The assembly voted to pay to outfit 50 men for duty on the frontier. Gov.Dobbs placed Capt. Hugh Waddell in command of these forces. Waddell was immediately sent with a commission to the west to protect the frontier.
Waddell soon discovered that more had to be done for the back settlers, and Dobbs, after a tour, decided to build a fort. Then he learned of Gen. Edward Braddock’s defeat at Fort Duquesne and left for New Bern, where he convened the assembly to ask for a fort to protect Rowan. This was granted, and Waddell erected a substantial building about two miles west of Statesville. Waddell was given command of Fort Dobbs, with a garrison of 40 officers and men.
This place was chosen as the most central for a retreat for the back settlers, beyond the well-settled county, yet not out of reach. Other forts were constructed at the Moravian settlement of Bethabara, near present Winston-Salem, in the forks of the Yadkin and possibly at Salisbury.
The latter fort is of doubtful origin as only two references can be found to it in the early records of the state, Brawley said. Where it was located cannot be ascertained from the sources examined.
In February 1756,Waddell, Peyton Randolph and William Byrd, both of Virginia, concluded peace with the Cherokees. The English were to build forts for the Cherokees and Catawbas for protection of the women and children, while the warriors would aid the English in an expedition against the French in the North.
In the same month, Maj. Andrew Lewis of Virginia led some 100 Cherokee warriors and 200 Virginia Rangers against the Shawnee Indians, who had deserted to the French.
The year 1757 was the gloomiest of the war for the English. Braddock’s expedition had failed. Oswego fell, and the expedition against Crown Point was unsuccessful. But that year William Pitt became head of the English government and put new life into the war. John Forbes commanded a new expedition against Fort Duquesne. Waddell commanded a battalion and joined Forbes, and one of Waddell’s scouts provided intelligence that led to the fort’s capture.
On the night of Jan. 27, 1760, Fort Dobbs was surrounded by Cherokee warriors, but the attack was repelled after 10 or 12 Indians were killed. Only one settler died, and two were wounded.
To stop the outrages, the British sent a large force under Gen. Hugh Montgomery into South Carolina to invade the Cherokee nation. The expedition got as far as Echoee near present Franklin in the mountains of North Carolina, where the Indians dealt Montgomery a decisive defeat.
The next year, Col. James Grant, with a similar force, drove into the Cherokee country and met the Indians only two miles from the battleground of the preceding year. This time, the Cherokees were defeated and their villages, storehouses and homes burned.
Grant destroyed more than 15 villages and pushed the frontier 70 miles west by this action. Although peace with France was not signed until 1763, Grant’s campaign ended the war for Rowan.
The immediate effect of this war was to drive settlers away and to discourage new immigration, says Brawley.
From 1754 to 1760, Rowan’s population remained static. With peace, however, a new wave of settlers poured into the county from Pennsylvania, Maryland, South Carolina and the Jerseys, which made the county the largest in the province.
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