Fort Watauga
by Dale R Carlson
Title
Fort Watauga
Artist
Dale R Carlson
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
The reconstructed Fort Watauga at Sycamore Shoals State Park in Elizabethton, Tennessee. The original fort was built in 1776 about a mile down the river from its present location at the farm homestean of Mathew Talbot. Talbot operated the first gristmill in the Watauga settlement (1775). This was the first American settlement west of the Appalachian mountains.
In 1775, the Transylvania purchase took place at Sycamore Shoals, which divided the Cherokee Indians from these early settlers in the Watauga valley. When the American revolution begain, peace became fragile on the frontier as the British Amry began providing guns and ammunition to their Cherokee allies. The settlers knew that an attack was now imminent.
The settlers hastily constructed a palisade wall between the closely grouped buildings on Talbot's farm and created Fort Watauga. On the morning of 21 July, 1776 nearly 300 Cherokee warriors attacked Fort Watauga. The attack lasted three hours, but the settlers prevailed and held off the attackers. After other devastating defeats in other parts of this region, the Cherokee warriors fled further south. The last written record mentioning the fort was in 1777.
Uploaded
January 22nd, 2020
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