temporary abode was filled with panic stricken refugees. So
persistent were the depredations of the Indians and so alarmed
were the scattered Rowan settlers by the news of the murders and
the destruction of Vaul's Fort in Virginia (June 25, 1756) that
at a conference on July 5th the Moravians "decided to protect our
houses with palisades, and make them safe before the enemy should
in vade our tract or attack us, for if the people were all going
to retreat we would be the last left on the frontier and the
first point of attack." By July 23d, they had constructed a
strong defense for their settlement, afterward called the "Dutch
Fort" by the Indians. The principal structure was a stockade,
triangular in plan, some three hundred feet on a side, enclosing
the principal buildings of the settlement; and the gateway was
guarded by an observation tower. The other defense was a stockade
embracing eight houses at the mill some distance away, around
which a small settlement had sprung up.

During the same year the fort planned by Dobbs was erected upon
the site he had chosen--between Third and Fourth creeks; and the
commissioners Richard Caswell and Francis Brown, sent out to
inspect the fort, made the following picturesque report to the
Assembly (December 21, 1756):

"That they had likewise viewed the State of Fort Dobbs, and found
it to be a good and Substantial Building of the Dimentions
following (that is to say) The Oblong Square fifty three feet by
forty, the opposite Angles Twenty four feet and Twenty-Two In
Height Twenty four and a half feet as by the Plan annexed
Appears, The Thickness of the Walls which are made of Oak Logs
regularly Diminished from sixteen Inches to Six, it contains