Moores Creek was important not only in battle but also to the naval stores economy. Surrounded by pine forests that produced tar and turpentine but with few passable roads to carry heavy barrels to market, colonists relied on an intricate network of tidal creeks and rivers to reach the port of Wilmington and beyond. Moores Creek and its connecting waterways functioned as the interstate highways of the 18th century and helped make the Carolina coast the world capital of shipbuilding products. The dark, tannin-stained waters of Moores Creek lie only a few hundred yards downslope from this site. In 1776, Janet Schaw of Scotland, visiting her brother's Cape Fear plantation, wrote that the river carried down lumber, tar, and pitch as each tide rose high enough to bear any weight, with transport done on rafts. Flatbottom barges later proved ideal for moving heavy casks of tar and turpentine through these shallow waterways.