Preserving the Past

Preserving the Past. . , When the blockhouse ceased to exist, the site of Fort Dobbs was transformed into farmland. Soil from a century of plowing gradually filled in the fort's outer ditch and most of its cellar. However, knowledge and of interest in the old fort persisted., In 1847, a group of local citizens dug to the bottom of the collapsed well shaft, searching for cannons that had supposedly been discarded there. They discovered no guns, but the attempt marked the first excavation at the fort site. It would be 1967 before archaeologists conducted the first scientific dig there., At the turn of the twentieth century, local women formed a chapter of the National Society Daughter of the American Revolution, named it for Fort Dobbs, and, realizing the site's significance, purchased nine acres in 1909. It is due to their efforts that the site is preserved today., In 1910, the NSDAR erected a granite monument and later J. Hampton Rich of Mocksville added an iron marker. Rich founded The Boone Trail Highway Association, which placed identical tablets at various sites visited by Daniel Boone. The Fort Dobbs marker is one of only 60 out of the original 358 that are known to exist., In 1941, the Fort Dobbs Chapter transported several area nineteenth-century log structures to the site. These combined buildings form the structure you see here today. The refurbished house served as a meeting space for nearly thirty years, until the chapter gave the site to the State of North Carolina. Fort Dobbs State Historic Site formally opened to the public in 1976., < Sidebar: > , The meeting was held in the Daughter's own chapter house on the land which they own at the site of Fort Dobbs, north of Statesville. The log cabin erected this spring will be used as a center of chapter activity and the organization hopes in future years to have a building there which will be a restoration of the fort., - Mrs. Karl Sherrill, Regent, The Fort Dobbs Chapter, NSDAR, Tuesday,June 17, 1941