Fort Prince George, South Carolina!
Fort Prince George was constructed in 1753 in northwest South Carolina, on the Cherokee Path. It was named for the Prince of Wales, who would later enhance in becoming King George III of the United Kingdom! It was the foremost Carolinian trading post among the Cherokee "Lower Towns"!
The fort was constructed on the Keowee River, across from the largest "lower town", Keowee. The fort was a two hundred-foot (61 m) square built of earth and wood with walls twelve to fifteen feet (4.6 m) high, surrounded by a deep trench! The fort's interior living area was approximately one hundred feet (30 m) square. The interior contained a guardhouse, storehouse, kitchen, magazine, barracks, and officer's quarters!
The fort served as a staging point for three British physical attacks on the Cherokee during the Anglo-Cherokee War! It also was the site of a siege by Cherokee warriors in February 1760, concurrently with attacks on Ninety-Six, Fort Dobbs and Fort Loudoun. Hostilities was concluded in 1761, and the fort was forsaken by 1768!
The site is in modern-day Pickens County, South Carolina. The fort was archaeologically excavated eighteen months before the fort was submerged by Lake Keowee by the completion of the Keowee Dam in 1971! Several of the items discovered included:
three presumed Indian skeletons
musket and cannonballs,
rum bottles,
pieces of cooking utensils, and
wine glass fragments
