The large public frontier forts, such as we have described, did not house all of the backwoodsmen. There were some who, either because of great distance or other reasons, erected their own private defenses; or, in many cases, several isolated families united in such a structure. Often these were but single blockhouses, with a few outlying cabins. It was difficult to induce some of the more venturesome folk to enter the forts unless Indians were actually in the settlement; they took great risks in order to care for their crops and stock until the last moment; and, soon tiring of the monotony of life within the fort cabins, would often leave the refuge before the danger was really over. "Such families," reports Doddridge, "gave no small amount of trouble by creating frequent necessities of sending runners to warn them of their danger, and sometimes parties of our men to protect them during their removal."
For the first few years Fort Dobbs was but little used. There was, however, much uneasiness. The year 1757 had, all along the line, been disastrous to English arms in the North, and the Cherokees became increasingly insolent. The next year they committed several deadly assaults in the Valley of Virginia, but themselves suffered greatly in return. The French, at last driven from Fort Duquesne (Pittsburg), had retreated down the Ohio River to Fort Massac, in southern Illinois, and sent their emissaries far and near to stir up the Indians west of the mountains. The following April (1759) the Yadkin and Catawba Valleys were raided by the Cherokees, with the usual results of ruined crops, burned farm-buildings, and murdered households; not a few of the borderers being carried off as prisoners into the Indian country, there generally to suffer either slavery or slow death from the most horrid forms of torture. The Catawbas, meanwhile, remained faithful to their white friends.
Until this outbreak the Carolinas had prospered greatly. Hundreds of settlers had poured in from the more exposed northern valleys, and the western uplands were now rapidly being dotted over with clearings and log cabins. The Indian forays at once created a general panic throughout this region, heretofore considered safe. Most of the Yadkin families, together with English fur-traders who hurried in from the woods, huddled within the walls either of Fort Dobbs or of small neighborhood forts hastily constructed; but many others, in their fright, fled with all their possessions to settlements on or near the Atlantic coast.