A Colonial Fortification

A Colonial Fortification. Fort Thicketty. , (Preface) , The Regulators , The Regulators, like those who fought at Fort Thicketty, were angered by the colonial government's lenient approach to law and order on the frontier, so they took on crime and injustice themselves. In 1771, North Carolina Regulators refused to pay taxes for such poor representation, prompting Royal Governor Tryon to call in the militia. North Wind Picture Archives / Alamy Stock Photo, Fort Thicketty was designed as a blockhouse, a one-room fortification with loopholes in the walls that allowed defenders to fire in all directions. In colonial times, it likely featured a protective stockade, or a barrier of wooden planks or stakes, which enabled the structure to withstand enemy attacks. This defensive work was initially named Fort Anderson after Captain David Anderson, whose father owned a 300-acre farm on the land. The fort was later renamed "Thicketty" for the dense vegetation surrounding the area and a nearby creek of the same name., Members of the local community probably assisted in constructing the blockhouse by reinforcing an existing building, such as a house or barn. In that era it was standard practice to repurpose such structures as fortifications, and doing so was certainly faster than building them anew while also fending off an imminent attack., In addition to serving as a refuge for settlers sheltering from Cherokee raids, the fort played a role in the Regulator Movement of the 1760s. The Regulators were vigilantes who banded together in response to a wave of crime and lack of government support that followed the Cherokee War (1759-1761). Lacking local courts and frustrated by the colony's judicial system, Regulators took the law into their own hands. Here, 80 Regulators successfully fought off more than 300 outlaws. A decade later, the fort remained in good repair and was considered by the occupying Loyalists to be impregnable to arrows,as well as to musket and rifle fire., Blockhouse Defensive Work , South Carolina plantation fort example from 1670-1775. Richard C. Meehan Jr.