On June 29, 1838, William Stringfield Brittain arrived at Camp Dudley in Franklin after driving four teams (whether horses, mules, or oxen was not stated) of Cherokee baggage from Fort Lindsay to Camp Dudley. Dr. Brett Riggs discovered the pay voucher for Brittain in 2013 in the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Brittain wanted reimbursement for the four days he spent hauling Cherokee “baggage and subsistence” from Fort Lindsay, located at modern-day Almond, in Swain County.
The voucher does not state how many Cherokees accompanied him or whether they rode in the wagons or walked along the rough wagon road. Brittain lived at the modern site of the Macon County Airport. That area was called Watauga Plains in 1820.
Long before Brittain’s wagons arrived at Camp Dudley, a well-known camping ground on the north side of Franklin had already been designated by an Act of the North Carolina General Assembly as a public “Camp Ground.” This campground was well-known to the founders, surveyors, and builders of the future town.
In 1831, a board of trustees petitioned the state for 20 acres and the Act passed on Jan. 7, 1833. The campground trustees were Amos Curtis, John Dobson, George Huges, John A. Bell, William Brittain, Robert Huggins, and Jesse R. Siler. The designation of “camp grounds” or “camp springs” was widespread in the Southeast and are reminiscent of modern fairgrounds. Circuit-riding clergy made regular visits and spent weeks officiating nightly tent and brush arbor services, preaching the word of God. The Camp Ground was incorporated in 1881 as “The Franklin Camp Ground.”
Camp Dudley is believed to have been located at or near the site of the State Prison, which began operations in 1934.
The federal government established a series of Cherokee removal forts across the Southeast. Each headquarters had either a proper fort or at least a guarded camp with barracks or tents, a military headquarters, and storehouses for munitions and supplies. Stockades for prisoners were usually located downhill and a short distance from the headquarters. A fort was always located on a “commanding height,” if possible, with a stockade for prisoners downhill nearby and clean drinking water supplied by a spring. The military tradition at Franklin would have been no different.
Some researchers believe that Camp Dudley was located near the warehouse or store of Jesse R. Siler. An army map of 1837 locates a military camp somewhere in the vicinity of Iotla and Market Streets. There is a spring-fed stream flowing though the hollow from a “commanding height.” This location could have been utilized if more Cherokees were to come through Franklin on the way to the known removal sites of Camp Scott at Aquone, N.C., and on to Fort Butler at Murphy, N.C.
Around 2013, an old journal in the archives of the Macon County Museum in Franklin was discovered by former museum director Steve Rice, who brought it to the attention of researcher Carolyn Nohria. The journal contains several pages of records detailing soldiers at Camp Dudley and the supplies they purchased from a warehouse or store. The first entry is dated March 29, 1838. On May 24, the ledger switches to Fort Montgomery, which was located at Robbinsville, N.C.
The Camp Dudley ledger lists the accounts and names of men who received clothing, knives, shoes, and dozens of other items. These men were from every Western North Carolina community from the Cherokee area to the Georgia state line. Cash was not easy to obtain and military pay was attractive to local settlers even if they personally did not support sending their Cherokee neighbors to the West.
Oddly, Col. Nimrod Jarrett and Jesse R. Siler, both connected to the militia, do not appear named in the Camp Dudley ledger. In 1832, Jarrett and Siler purchased Love Survey Tract 33, totaling about 153 acres, from Joshua Roberts and divided it into two parts. Jesse Siler’s tract of 65 acres encompassed modern Harrison Avenue to the intersection of Windy Gap Road and overlooked the old Camp Ground. Nimrod Jarrett’s tract joined the public commons of Franklin on Iota Street and appears to include a military site shown on an 1838 Army map.
In 1838, two roads left Franklin and proceeded north toward Bryson City. The primary road, as shown in an 1829 survey, followed modern Riverview Street along the Little Tennessee River (Lake Emory). Both roads appear on the 1838 Army map. The second road left Franklin along modern Harrison Avenue/State Highway 28. It intersected the main road at the modern Village Trader location. An 1850 record identifies that road as “the road leading to the Camp Ground.”
In September 1933, Macon County residents protested the sale of the Franklin Camp Ground, by then a 100-acre tract, to the state for a prison camp. On Sept. 6, 1934, according to The Franklin Press, the state convict camp neared completion. On Sept. 20, 1934, the same newspaper reported that the Macon Prison Camp was open and 100 “white” convicts were transferred here from Mocksville, N.C. The camp was located just north of Franklin near the south intersection of Windy Gap Road and modern Highway 28. The article describes the prison camp as occupying a 100-acre tract known as “the Old Camp Ground” property.
Though early maps show “the Old Camp Ground” as its likeliest location, more research and records are needed to solve the mystery of the location of Camp Dudley. Primary documentation such as land records, early deeds and survey records, personal letters, and military documents showing muster grounds of the Removal and Civil War Eras – all could fill in the missing pieces of this historical puzzle. Anyone with any documents regarding this ongoing research is encouraged to contact me at [email protected].