Upon arriving in the Overhill towns the party was welcomed heartily by the combined chiefs. An agreement was reached to locate the fort on a hillside near the junction of the Tellico and Little Tennessee rivers. The Cherokee even supplied the men with food.
Captain DeMere and DeBrahm the engineer were at odds from the start. DeBrahm had designed a large, European style fort. The fort was to be square with diamond shaped bastions at each corner. He added a large earthen wall surrounded by a dry moat filled with honey locust. DeMere did not think there was any need for such an elaborate edifice.
Work progressed slowly on the fort. The earthworks alone required all of the men to work full time. Questions of command arose and arguments ensued. DeBrahm, taking offense, moved out of the fort and moved in with a Cherokee woman. He then informed the provincial troops that they would be free to go home soon as the fort was nearly finished. In fact the fort was far from finished, and he did not have the authority to release the men.
The week before Christmas DeBrahm wrote out his instructions for completing the fort, and left for Charleston. Captain DeMere took it upon himself to complete the fort in a more traditional frontier style. He used much of the earthworks to build palisades around the enclosure. Gov. Lyttelton ordered him to complete the fort as per DeBrahm's instructions. Evidently this was never done.
There was one item missing to complete the fort, cannons. This posed a problem as there were no roads over the mountains and the guns were very heavy. A trader named Elliot set out to transport them in from Fort Prince George. He strapped the guns crosswise on the backs of pack horses. This proved costly as the horses would often snag the barrels against trees and fall. When the horses fell it invariably broke their backs. Finally on October 26th twelve guns arrived at the fort.
| Here's the follow-up discussion on this article: | View all related messages |
For a complete listing of article comments, questions, and other discussions related to Jim Buckenmyer's Frontier History topic, please visit the Discussions page.