Fort Watauga Fort Watauga , more properly Fort Caswell , was an American Revolutionary War fort that once stood at the Sycamore Shoals of the Watauga River in what is now Elizabethton , Tennessee . The fort was originally built in 1775 – 1776 by the area ' s frontier government , the Watauga Association , to help defend Watauga settlers from Native American ( primarily Cherokee ) attacks , which were in part instigated by the British . Fort Watauga was originally named Fort Caswell after North Carolina Governor Richard Caswell . In the 1970s , as part of the nation ' s bicentennial celebrations , the state of Tennessee authorized a reconstruction of Fort Watauga . Archaeologists conducted excavations in the Sycamore Shoals area and uncovered several trenches believed to have been part of the fort ' s walls . The fort was then rebuilt based on information gained about the fort ' s design from the excavation , descriptions of the fort in historical sources , and the general design of typical Appalachian frontier forts . The reconstructed fort is now part of Sycamore Shoals State Historic Park . History . Watauga settlement . In the late 1760s , Euro - American settlers began arriving in the Holston , Watauga , and Nolichucky river valleys in southwest Virginia and what is now northeast Tennessee . Along the Watauga , settlers were drawn to a place known as the Watauga Old Fields , an ancient Native American gathering place that pre - dated the Cherokee . The Old Fields consisted of flat , cleared land located along the Watauga ' s Sycamore Shoals , a relatively low stretch of the river where pioneers and travelers could cross with ease . These early settlers inevitably came into conflict with the Cherokee and other Native American tribes in the region who claimed these lands as hunting grounds . The Royal Proclamation of 1763 and several subsequent treaties placed the boundary of British - controlled lands at the South Fork of the Holston River , and in the early 1770s settlers outside this boundary ( including the Watauga settlers ) were ordered to leave . The Watauga settlers leased their lands from the Cherokee in 1772 and purchased the lands in 1775 , but these agreements still violated the 1763 Proclamation . Furthermore , a faction of the Cherokee led by the young chief Dragging Canoe vehemently opposed the sale of tribal lands , and threatened bloodshed against the settlers . In 1774 and 1775 , both British Superintendent of Indian Affairs John Stuart and North Carolina governor Josiah Martin issued repeated calls for settlers south of the Holston to leave Cherokee lands . July 1776 Cherokee invasion . The outbreak of the American Revolutionary War in 1775 further agitated the tense situation on the Appalachian frontier . The Watauga and Nolichucky settlers generally supported separation from Britain , and formed a , and founded the " Washington District . " In January 1776 , Dragging Canoe and the British forged an alliance , and in April of that year the British supplied the Cherokee with a large cache of weapons in hopes they would wreak havoc on the colonial frontier . Now well - armed , the Cherokee sent a message to the Watauga settlers , giving them 20 days to leave Cherokee lands or face attack . The Watauga settlers , meanwhile , had been anticipating a Cherokee invasion . Arms and ammunition were purchased through the Fincastle County , Virginia Committee of Safety , food and medicine were gathered , and various forts were constructed or strengthened , among them Fort Caswell ( now called Fort Watauga ) . In early July , Cherokee Beloved Woman Nancy Ward tipped off the Cherokee invasion plans to trader Isaac Thomas , and Thomas proceeded to deliver the news to John Sevier , who was at the Nolichucky settlement ( near modern Limestone ) overseeing the construction of Fort Lee . The news alarmed the settlers , and most of them fled to Fort Caswell , forcing Sevier to flee likewise and abandon Fort Lee ' s completion . The Cherokee invasion began in mid - July , 1776 . When the invaders reached the Nolichucky , a contingent led by a chief known as " The Raven " split off toward Carter ' s Valley ( near modern Kingsport ) , where he chased away the settlers and burned their cabins and farms . Two contingents led by Dragging Canoe and Old Abraham of Chilhowee proceeded up the Nolichucky where they burned the abandoned Fort Lee . This force then split up , with Dragging Canoe marching north to attack the Holston settlements and Old Abraham marching east to attack Fort Watauga . As Dragging Canoe approached Eaton ' s Station ( in the vicinity of Long Island of the Holston ) , the fort ' s garrison , led by Captain John Thompson , feared the Cherokees would bypass the fort and destroy their farms , and thus marched out to engage them at Island Flats . 13 Cherokee were killed and dozens ( including Dragging Canoe ) were wounded , and the Cherokee force retreated . The siege of Fort Caswell . With the Cherokee approaching , some 150 to 200 settlers crowded into Fort Caswell . The fort ' s garrison consisted of roughly 75 men under the command of John Carter ( the Committee of Safety commissioner ) , with James Robertson and John Sevier as subordinates . Old Abraham of Chilhowee ' s contingent of Cherokee warriors arrived at Fort Caswell in the early morning hours of July 21 . The sudden appearance of the invaders surprised several women out milking cows , forcing them to rush to get back inside the fort . One of them , Catherine " Bonnie Kate " Sherrill , the future wife of John Sevier , was unable to get back inside before the gate was locked and had to be pulled over the palisades by Sevier . The initial Cherokee attack lasted about three hours , with both sides exchanging gunfire . During the attack , several Cherokees managed to get close enough to the fort to attempt to set it on fire , but were forced back after Ann Robertson Johnson ( sister of James Robertson ) threw scalding hot water at them . Unable to take the fort , the Cherokee halted the assault and settled in for a lengthy siege . In the ensuing days , a teenager named Tom Moore was captured outside the fort and taken to Tuskegee , where he was burned at the stake . Another captive , Lydia Russell Bean , wife of early settler William Bean , was about to meet the same fate when Nancy Ward intervened and used her authority as a Beloved Woman to spare her . After approximately two weeks , the Cherokee lifted the siege and retreated . The arrival of the Virginia militia under William Christian later that year largely ended the threat to the fort . The fort in later years . In September 1780 , the Overmountain Men — the frontier militia that helped defeat an army of British loyalist s at the Battle of Kings Mountain — mustered at Sycamore Shoals on the grounds around Fort Watauga . After this event , the fort largely vanished from historical records , but it still occasionally appeared in land deeds as late as 1819 . In 1909 , the Daughters of the American Revolution placed a monument near the site of the fort . In the mid - 1970s , the state of Tennessee reconstructed the fort in anticipation of the nation ' s 1976 bicentennial celebrations . The state funded archaeological excavations and historical research to determine the fort ' s design and location . The Watauga Historical Association , formed in the late 1950s , was instrumental in the creation of Sycamore Shoals State Historic Park . Location and design . 19th - century historian J . G . M . Ramsey provided the most often - cited description of Fort Watauga ' s location in his " Annals of Tennessee " , published in 1852 . Ramsey , who visited Elizabethton and observed what he believed were the fort ' s remains , placed the fort ' s location at approximately northeast of the mouth of Gap Creek , along what is now West G Street ( the site is marked by the 1909 D . A . R . monument ) . A contemporary of Ramsey , Lyman Draper , placed the fort ' s location at roughly downstream from the mouth of the Doe River ( about 2 miles northeast of Ramsey ' s location ) . The 1974 excavations uncovered trench - like formations west of the D . A . R . marker that state archaeologist Carl Kuttruff believed to be the remains of Fort Watauga . The current reconstructed fort is about northeast of Ramsey ' s location and about a mile west of Draper ' s . Little is known of Fort Watauga ' s original design . Ramsey described the fort as situated on a knoll , and Draper wrote that the fort was surrounded by an open glade within easy firing distance of the north bank of the Watauga River . The 1974 excavations revealed that the fort had an irregular shape , and that it probably consisted of a group of cabins connected by a stockade . The shape of the reconstructed fort was based largely on the formations uncovered in these excavations , and its design was based on contemporary Appalachian frontier forts , which typically consisted of log structures ( some with overhanging second stories ) and a stockade of sharpened poles surrounding a courtyard .