After war between the colonial possessions of England and France erupted in 1754, North Carolina, poorly defended, sought muskets for militia companies and provincial troops and ordered coastal fortifications against French and later Spanish naval threats. Responding to attacks on settlers in the Virginia backcountry and rumors of "French Indians" within the colony, Governor Arthur Dobbs sent a company of provincial soldiers to the western frontier under Capt. Hugh Waddell and helped choose the site for a fortified barracks after weeks of scouting. Construction began by the end of 1755 and was completed the following spring. In December 1756, Francis Brown and Richard Caswell reported that the fort was a substantial oak-log building with three floors, able to discharge about one hundred muskets from each floor at the same time, and beautifully situated at the fork of Fourth Creek, a branch of the Yadkin River. After the war ended in 1763, North Carolina's frontier moved more than 70 miles west to the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains and beyond, the fort closed the following spring, was abandoned, quickly deteriorated, and by the early 1800s nothing remained but a collapsed well and eroding cellar.