Andrew Lewis's fort for the Cherokee
The reconstructed Fort Loudoun in Tennessee is not the same one built by Andrew Lewis in 1756. The fort built by Lewis was about 7 miles away near the Cherokee town of Chota. The Fort Loudoun reconstructed in Tennessee was built by South Carolina troops under Captain Raymond Demere. Originally the two groups were to cooperate and build a single Fort, but political problems and time constraints prevented this. The Virginia Fort was never used, but the South Carolina Fort was continually garrisoned from the time it was constructed until the Cherokee War. That Fort surrendered Aug. 8, 1760.
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Major Andrew Lewis's fort is about 7 miles SE of the reconstructed Fort Loudoun on a bend in the TN River (Tellico Lake). There is a memorial for the village there.
The Google car takes a look at this spot: https://goo.gl/maps/jmrDPBKYnFQ2
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Here's more about Chota, a capital of a loosely confederated towns of this Cherokee land:
First Research in 2017, updated 9/3/2024, not finished yet.
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Lt. Henry Timberlake of the VA Regiment in 1762 Map states there was a fort built by Virginians in 1756 and soon after destroyed by the Indians.
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A letter of 20 Aug 1756 by Lt Gov Dinwiddie to Colonel George Washington speaks of Major Andrew Lewis' fort --- a fort that was originally requested by the Cherokee to establish an English trading presence and to ward off the French. Chota is a sort of capital of the confederated Cherokee lands) is where Major Andrew Lewis built his fort.
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Founders online footnote 1.
Andrew Lewis arrived on 28 June [1756] at the Cherokee town of Chota (Chottee) with his party of sixty men to build a wooden fort nearby on the Little Tennessee River (see Dinwiddie to GW, 23 April 1756, n.6).
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Source of footnote
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Founders footnote 6.
Dinwiddie sent during the winter two members of the colonial council, Peter Randolph and William Byrd III, to the Cherokee to secure their aid in fighting the French and the Indian allies of the French. See Dinwiddie to Randolph and Byrd, 23 Dec. 1755, in Brock, Dinwiddie Papers, 2:303–5.
When the two commissioners reported (in a letter dated 17 Mar. 1756) that “the Cherokees & Catawbas . . . are ready to assist us with their Warriors if they can have a Fort built for their Women & Children” (Dinwiddie to Arthur Dobbs, 13 April 1756, ViHi: Dinwiddie Papers), Dinwiddie turned over the commissioners’ letter and the other related papers to the House of Burgesses.
Two days later, on 14 April, the House resolved that a fort should be built in the Cherokee country. Dinwiddie and the burgesses subsequently agreed that the home government and the colonial government should share the cost and that Maj. Andrew Lewis of the Virginia Regiment should supervise the building of the fort.
On 24 April Dinwiddie sent Lewis detailed instructions for enlisting sixty men and for the fort’s construction.
He also enclosed a message to the Cherokee about the fort, dated 23 April 1756.
For the building of the fort and Lewis’s return to Virginia, see Dinwiddie to GW, 20 Aug. 1756, n.1, and GW to Adam Stephen, 6 Sept. 1756, n.4.
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