Fort Loudoun was a British fort located in what is now Monroe County, Tennessee. Constructed from 1756 until 1757 to help garner Cherokee support for the British at the outset of the French and Indian War, the fort was one of the first significant British outposts west of the Appalachian Mountains. The fort was designed by John William Gerard de Brahm, while its construction was supervised by Captain Raymond Demeré; the fort's garrison was commanded by Demeré's brother, Paul Demeré. It was named for the Earl of Loudoun, the commander of British forces in North America at the time.

Relations between the garrison of Fort Loudoun and the local Cherokee inhabitants were initially cordial but soured in 1758 with hostilities between Cherokee fighters and Anglo-American settlers on the frontier in Virginia and South Carolina. After 16 Cherokee chiefs who were being held hostage at Fort Prince George were killed by the garrison on February 16, the Cherokee laid siege to Fort Loudoun in March 1760. The fort's garrison held out for several months, but diminishing supplies forced its surrender in August 1760. Hostile Cherokees attacked the fort's garrison at camp during its return to South Carolina, killing more than two dozen and taking most of the survivors prisoner. Many of them were ransomed. The Province of South Carolina considered trade with the Cherokee crucial but had struggled to regulate it because of the remoteness of most Cherokee towns, which were primarily in river valleys within the Appalachian Mountains of North and South Carolina, as well as the Province of Georgia. As British traders had frequently exploited the Cherokee, many of the Cherokee leaders had developed anti-British sentiments. The British believed that a fort and garrison would enable them to regulate the trade.

Support for the fort increased considerably in 1743, with the appointment of James Glen as South Carolina's governor. Glen believed such a fort could also be a stepping stone to expand British control into the interior of the North American continent, where France had some colonies along the Mississippi and Ohio tributaries in Illinois Country, and south in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast. arrived at Fort Loudoun in late 1758. Suspicious, the British soldiers disarmed Attakullakulla and other warriors, none of whom had been involved, and briefly detained them. Although Virginia Lieutenant Governor Francis Fauquier managed to placate Attakullakulla, some Cherokee warriors, still bitter over this treatment, raided Virginia's frontier settlements while returning to the Tennessee Valley. Seeing their position as untenable, the Cherokee negotiated a peace treaty with Grant, which was signed on September 23, 1761. Henry Timberlake and Thomas Sumter, soldiers in Byrd's expedition, visited the Overhill towns in 1761–62 as part of a peace mission. In his Memoirs, Timberlake noted that Fort Loudoun was in ruins.

Settlers may have used salvaged stones from Fort Loudoun to construct the Tellico Blockhouse in the 1790s, an outpost located across the river from the fort. Louis Phillipe, the future King of France, visited the blockhouse while in exile in the United States in 1797 and noted that Fort Loudoun was mostly rubble and brush. He suggested the site of the fort had been poorly selected. The Colonial Dames of America placed a marker at the site of the fort in 1917. In a 1925 article, "Fort Loudoun on the Little Tennessee," historian Philip Hamer suggests the fort's earthworks were still discernible. TVA eventually agreed to fund the raising of land and reconstruction of the fort on the site, above the water level. Because the flooding would submerge known historic and prehistoric sites, including several Cherokee towns, the agency funded a survey and extensive archaeological excavations in the valley.

The most extensive excavations were conducted from May 1975 through August 1976 and were led by Carl Kuttruff of the Tennessee Division of Archaeology. Fort Loudoun is now situated on an island created by Tellico Lake at the junction of the Little Tennessee and Tellico rivers. State Route 360 (Unicoi Turnpike) passes across the island, connecting the state park to Vonore to the north and the rural areas of Monroe County and the Cherokee National Forest to the south. The park's visitor center, which stands adjacent to the fort, contains a small museum with a model of the fort and several artifacts from the various excavations. Several miles of hiking trails meander through the woods around the fort, as well as in the McGhee-Carson Unit across the lake to the south.

The Cherokee scholar Sequoyah was born at Tuskegee, just south of the fort, circa 1770. The Sequoyah Birthplace Museum, which is operated by the federally recognized Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, stands just west of the fort, on the other side of Highway 360. The museum includes a burial mound containing over 200 burials excavated during the Tellico Archaeological Project. This had investigated several Cherokee town sites in anticipation of the flooding of the valley by Tellico Dam. Monuments to the Overhill towns of Tanasi and Chota, the "mother town" of the mid to late 18th century, are located along Bacon Ferry Road, just off Highway 360 about south of Fort Loudoun.

The site of the Tellico Blockhouse is located across the Little Tennessee River to the east of Fort Loudoun. The blockhouse and its associated structures were uncovered by researchers during the Tellico Archaeological Project and are now marked by wooden posts and stones. Several artifacts excavated from the blockhouse site are on display at the Fort Loudoun visitor center.

Legacy

Loudon County, Tennessee, and its county seat, Loudon, are both named for the fort (Loudon County borders Monroe County to the north). The Tennessee Valley Authority's Fort Loudoun Dam, which stands to the north in Lenoir City, and its associated lake are also named for the fort. Other entities named for the fort include Fort Loudoun Electric Cooperative, a local electricity distributor; Fort Loudoun Medical Center in Lenoir City, and Fort Loudoun Middle School in Loudon.

See also

  • Fort Blount
  • Fort Southwest Point
  • Fort Watauga
  • List of National Historic Landmarks in Tennessee
  • National Register of Historic Places listings in Monroe County, Tennessee

References

  • Fort Loudoun State Park – official site
  • Fort Loudoun Association
  • "Mud & Blood"
  • Tennessee State Library photographs