Governor Arthur Dobbs
Arthur Dobbs, the uncle with whom Fortunatus stayed with after coming to America.
Born: April 2, 1689 in County Antrim OR... *Afraid for their lives, Richard sent his pregnant wife across the Irish Sea to the coastal Scottish village of Girvan in Ayrshire where her son, Arthur, was born “on Tuesday morning being ye 2 of April 1689.”2 Died: March 28, 1765 in Brunswick Town, NC - Buried in the St. Philips Church Cemetery Parents: Richard Dobbs, Sr. & Mary Dobbs Spouse: Justine Davis Married: 1762 |
In 1754, 65-year-old Arthur Dobbs came to eastern North Carolina from picturesque Carrickfergus in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. At the age at which most men retire, he left his waterfront castle, much of his family, and a peripatetic international career behind to move to a land where he would experience mosquito, extreme heat and humidity, alligators, and many two-legged obstacles. He spent much of his geriatric time and energy on the cause of immigration and the surnames of his friends and those dangling on his own expansive family tree provide important clues to the time and inclination of many of the Lower Cape Fear families’ embarkment from the old country to the new. Perhaps a gnawing professional boredom drove Arthur Dobbs to emigrate. Maybe it was a desire to anesthetize the pain he felt in mourning the death of his wife of 27 years. It is hard to think that he was not also lured by the opportunity to govern and people a province in which he already owned approximately 1,300,000 acres of land.
Arthur Dobbs, the son of Richard Dobbs and Mary Stewart Dobbs, was born 2 April 1689. Both the Dobbs and Stewart families moved from Scotland to Northern Ireland or Ulster in the 1500′s. John Dobbs, Arthur’s great-great grandfather, had arrived in Carrickfergus in 1596 as an army officer and ended up marrying an heiress named Margaret Dalway. He settled comfortably into life in their newly built castle on the Dalway estate and served as Mayor of Carrickfergus and High Sheriff of County Antrim.
Subsequent members of Arthur Dobbs’ line continued to hold public office and develop land north of Carrickfergus. They were staunch members of the Church of Ireland, the established Anglican body. Arthur’s father, Richard Dobbs, Jr. was a second son due to inherit little of his father’s considerable estate until his older brother, John, became a Quaker and was immediately disinherited and driven from the castle. Richard married Mary Stewart, a cousin who shared with him an ancestral line which travelled by way of Alexander the Wolf of Badenoch straight back to King Robert Bruce of Scotland. Richard became part of what was now a family tradition and served as mayor of Carrickfergus. The young couple quickly settled into a comfortable lifestyle and became known for their elegant taste and extensive collection of books. A frequent guest in their commodious library was Jonathan Swift, the author of Gulliver’s Travels, who referred in his writings to Richard as “Squire Dobbs.” Swift was a young parish minister at the time and his church consisted almost entirely of members of the Dobbs family. Swift would later become the Dean of St. Patrick’s in Dublin.1
In March of 1689 just as Mary Stewart Dobbs was counting down the weeks until their first child was due to be born, Ireland became a warring ground for the two English kings, James II, a Catholic, and William of Orange, a Protestant. It was not the first or last tragic war in Ireland waged in the name of religious interpretation but fought for the cause of power. Richard Dobbs, Jr. was appointed Captain of the County Antrim Association, a Protestant organization loyal to William and determined to overthrow newly established Catholic rule in Belfast and Carrickfergus. Afraid for their lives, Richard sent his pregnant wife across the Irish Sea to the coastal Scottish village of Girvan in Ayrshire where her son, Arthur, was born “on Tuesday morning being ye 2 of April 1689.”2
Back in Ireland, the new father was leading an unsuccessful but bold attack against Catholic forces under the command of Col. Thomas Maxwell. A few months later 10,000 Williamite troops landed at Belfast and enabled the Protestants to defeat James II’s army in Belfast and Carrickfergus. On 14 June 1590, William of Orange visited Carrickfergus where he was officially welcomed and lauded in a speech given by Richard Dobbs, Sr., Arthur’s grandfather.
Mary and little Arthur returned to Ireland after peace was restored. Richard and Mary Dobbs had several more children: Jane, Elizabeth, and Richard. Richard was the only one to survive childhood. He grew up to be a renowned cleric and professor at Trinity College in Dublin. Jonathan Swift, who spent many hour studying in the Dobbs’ personal library in Carrickfergus, said that Richard Dobbs was one of the three most worthy minsters in Ireland. An extensive collection of Dobbs’ writings is housed in the Trinity College Library.
Arthur Dobbs’ mother died when he was still a boy and his father then married Margaret Clugston of Belfast. With Margaret, Richard Dobbs had three daughters: Margaret who married George Spaight, Mary who married Andrew Boyd of Ballymoney, and Ann-Helena who became Mrs. William Kerr.
When Arthur Dobbs was twenty-two years old, he purchased a cornetcy in the Dragoons and had just been sent to Scotland when word came that his father had died. Arthur inherited the entire estate and returned home to manage it and help look after his half-sisters. Arthur married Anne Osburn Norbury 12 May 1790. He had just been named Deputy Governor of Carrickfergus by his patron, Lord Conway when Anne gave birth to their first child: Conway Richard. Arthur Dobbs was also carrying out his duties as High Sheriff of County Antrim, Mayor of Carrickfergus and a member of the Irish Parliament. But his duties as a busy public servant did not satisfy the restless nature of his mind and intense curiosity led him to study astronomy, meteorology, commerce, exploration, religion and botany.3
In the late 1720′s, Arthur Dobbs began to write copiously. He recorded his thoughts and remarkably detailed observations in numerous wordy papers with titles like “Essay upon the Grand Plan of Providence and Dissertations Annexed Thereto,” “A Short Essay to Shew the Expediency, if not political Necessity of an Incorporating Union betwixt Britain and Ireland,” and “An Account of an Eclipse of the Moon at Castle Dobbs near Carrickfergus in Ireland, 2nd February 1728/29.” Many of Dobbs’ writings housed at the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland in Belfast are also available on microfilm in the Southern Historical Collection of Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina. They reflect an author just as fascinated with the everyday activities of a honeybee as he was with the details of international trade.
Arthur Dobbs brought this painting of Castle Dobbs with him when he moved to North Carolina.
From 1730 until 1752, Arthur Dobbs world expanded as his interest in and writings concerning Irish trade won him new influential friends. He was named Engineer-in-Chief and Surveyor-General of Ireland. He supervised the building of a new Parliament House and many public Georgian style buildings. He won the ear of members of the English Parliament and Prime Minister Robert Walpole as he argued for increased trade with North America and warned against French Expansionism. When he criticized the Hudson Bay Company endeavor and promoted the idea of a second expedition to discover a North-West Passage to India and China, the British government backed him. Though no passage was ever discovered, important information was gathered for cartographers and a portion of headland was named Cape Dobbs.
In 1745, Arthur Dobbs began purchasing large parcels of land in North Carolina including half of Mecklenburg and Cabarrus counties. An old friend, Matthew Rowan from County Antrim, had become Surveyor-General of the Colony and Dobbs’ trust in him as agent led to a massive accumulation of property bought sight-unseen. The Mecklenburg properties were desolate in those days, but today they bustle, because a settlement called Charlotte was founded there in 1768. Today, it is the 18-th largest city in the United States.
Anthony Finley drew this map of North Carolina in 1824. (Courtesy of the University of Alabama)
Arthur Dobbs got little encouragement to visit his properties from friend, William Faris, in Wilmington.“I heard you had thought of seeing this country this year yourself, but I fear this settlement is yet too much in its infancy to give you much satisfaction and the accomodations in many parts so bad…The fall is the best time, October particularly and your arrival just to that time is precarious in so long a voyage. Your lands on the Black River would be very fit for shucor. A number of the settlers meet with disappointment and are unhappy. Most here are farmers, either Irish or German. The Germans are frugal and industrious and not so ready to complain.”
In 1747, just as Dobbs began working on brave new policies aimed at settling Ulster-Scots throughout North Carolina, his beloved wife Anne died unexpectedly. He was deeply affected by her death and accomplished little for the next three years.
By 1750, Arthur Dobbs had returned to his writing desk and penned “Concerning Bees and Their Methods of Gathering Wax and Honey” for the Royal Society. In that same year, he joined John Hanbury to form the Ohio Company of Virginia, an organization dedicated to promoting British influence in the colonies. By April 1751, Dobbs was chartering ships for the transporting of skilled Irishmen to America. In 1752, when North Carolina Governor Gabriel Johnston died, the British crown looked to Arthur Dobbs as a natural successor. He spent the Christmas season in Bath, England and sat there for William Hoare to paint the only known portrait of him. It depicts the well-dressed, wigged gentleman holding a map of North Carolina in one hand and a compass in the other. The original hangs today in Castle Dobbs, Carrickfergus but a copy of the portrait is owned by the National Society of the Colonial Dames in the State of North Carolina and is on permenant display in the library of the Burgwin-Wright House in Wilmington. The house that John Burgwin built is an appropriate showplace for the painting because through Arthur Dobbs’ patronage John Burgwin served as Treasurer of the Province, Clerk of the New Hanover County Superior Court, and private secretary to the Governor.
True to his portrait, he did accept the Governorship of North Carolina. He spent the early months of 1754 in Ireland modifying and approving plans for a new castle, putting his personal affairs in order, and placing his estate in the hands of his son Conway Dobbs. He also arranged immediate passage for a surveyor, several neighbors, and the Reverend Alexander Stewart, a cousin recruited to be minister to the Dobbs family. Then in June, he embarked with his son Edward Brice Dobbs, nephew Richard Spaight, several cannons, a thousand muskets, and a printer on a very rough twelve week crossing to Hampton, Virginia.4
On 12 December 1754 Dobbs spoke in New Bern at his first North Carolina Assembly meeting. His opening recommendation may have startled assemblymen expecting to hear first of matters of commerce and the growing French and Indian problem.
“The first and greatest principle and the foundation of all social happiness is the knowledge of true religion, and the practice of true morality and virtue, to know, love and adore the Divine Being as we ought and to obey the precepts he has revealed to us, so I think it is my duty in the first place to recommend to you the providing of a proper fund to support a sufficient number of learned pious clergymen to reside in the Province.”5
The remainder of his address aptly prefaced the eleven years he would spend as Royal Governor of North Carolina. He recommended ardent loyalty to the King and benevolence and education for native Americans. He requested provisions for promoting trade and industry, passionately denounced the French or “invaders,” and proposed measures by which the province might better defend itself. His audience, a group with a growing reputation for sharp, fruitless argument, received him warmly and expressed their hopes that the benevolent gentleman of the world would bring unity to the discordant governing body.
There was no fixed seat for the Assembly. Their moving from place to place annoyed Governor Dobbs and being in New Bern made him, literally, feel ill. After traveling many times throughout North Carolina, he finally found a spot that interested him. In 1758, he purchased a modest 55 acre plantation in the southeast corner of the state, Brunswick County, for five shillings and one peppercorn and moved with his array of servants into Russellborough which he soon renamed Castle Dobbs.
The Governor busied himself with providing a quota of troops from the Province to fight in the French and Indian War, supervising the building of forts and defensive outposts, starting a silk industry, encouraged the cultivation of hemp and flaxseed, setting up a postal service, encouraging printing, and seeking to modify Navigation Acts so that America could trade more freely with Ireland, Spain, and Portugal.
None of these serious responsibilities could keep Governor Dobbs from his lifelong study of nature. He could be seen in Brunswick following bees to chart their flight, recording the weather, and frequently getting down on his hands and knees to peer at vegetation he had never seen in Ulster. On 2 April 1758, his seventieth birthday, he wrote to English naturalist Peter Collinson of a new hyperactive plant he found on his land.
Venus Fly Trap. (Photograph by Sam Bissette. Courtesy of New Hanover County Public Library)
“…I have taken a little plantation at the sound on the sea coast. We have a kind of a Catch Fly Sensitive which closes upon anything that touches it. It grows in the Latitude 34 but not in 35. I will try to save the seed here. Your most humble servant, Arthur Dobbs.” Edward Dobbs hand-delivered his father’s letter to Collinson during the summer of 1759 thus informing the European world for the first time of the Venus Flytrap.
Peter Collinson wrote to the famous Philadelphia naturalist John Bartram of the plant with the “iron spring fox trap,” as Dobbs had termed it. John Bartram’s son, William, came to Wilmington to live for a while and when he returned, he took a Venus Flytrap to his father who made sketches of it. Collinson wrote many letters to Wilmington requesting a live plant but it was nine years before a live Brunswick County Venus Flytrap arrived in London. John Ellis, an eminent London naturalist and another friend of Dobbs’, had drawings made of the plant for The St. James’s Chronicle. It was also Ellis who came up with the scientific name for what had quickly become known in London as the Tippitywichit: Dionaea Muscipula.
In 1762, at the age of 73, Governor Dobbs remarried. That one “I do” would eclipse a multitude of truly remarkable events in his long life. He had been a widower for fifteen years so the time lapse was not improprietous. His bride was the granddaughter of Governor James Moore of South Carolina and the niece of “King” Roger Moore of neighboring Orton Plantation, so it seemed an appropriate match. It was just the fact that she was only fifteen years old that stirred up enough conversation to last over two centuries. Even the dry pages of the Colonial Records contain an irreverent letter about the man of “baneful influence who grew stupidly enamored with Miss Davis, a lovely lady of sprightly fifteen.” The Governor stole her away from the young, dashing Parker Quince.6
Despite the 58 year age discrepancy, it appears that it was a tender, loving marriage. He referred to her as “my dear Jessy” and she called him “my ever dear Mr. Dobbs.” She nursed him back to health after he suffered a stroke and consoled him as he grieved for his nephew, Richard Spaight. She was packing their belongings for a voyage back to Ireland when an attending physician informed Governor Dobbs that “he had better prepare himself for a much longer voyage.” Two days later, on 28 March 1765, Arthur Dobbs died in Justina’s arms. He was buried on the grounds of St. Phillip’s, the Anglican church Dobbs sought to complete.
This is artist Art Newton's image of St. Phillip's Church in its prime. Today, the walls still stand. (Hill-Taylor Collection)
Justina wrote to Conway Dobbs in Carrickfergus: “The melancholy Subject that gives occasion for my writing to you effects me so much that I hardly know what I write. Alas I have loste my ever Dear Mr. Dobbs which makes me almost inconsolable, he went to the Fort with Lord Adam Gordon on a Party of Pleasure and Caught a violent cold and after a few days illness departed this life the 28th of last March he died in his senses the violence of his disorder made him delirious at Times but when his reason beamed out his serenity of minde resigned himself up to his Heavenly Father with that nobleness of soul which few can equal. I have lost one of the best and tenderest of husbands and you a kind and most affectionate father. I console you on so great a loss….I once flattered myself with the pleasing expectation of seeing you in company with my dear Mr. Dobbs, but the Divine power of Events otherwise determined it.”
Justina then signed the letter to her stepson who was nineteen years older than she, “yr affectionate Mother, Justina Dobbs.”7
Justina Davis Dobbs married in later years Abner Nash and thus became the only woman known to have married two North Carolina governors. Combining pillow talk with husbands and family talk centering on her position as granddaughter of a South Carolina governor, it is probable that Justina Davis Dobbs Nash knew more about Carolina politics than any woman of her era.
The legacy left to North Carolina by Arthur Dobbs is as hard to define as the man himself. It is difficult to quantify connections, encouragement, and economic goodwill. Balance sheets do not exist to document the difference Dobbs made to several local family fortunes. No one will ever actually count how many times the name “Wilmington” appears in historical archives scattered all over the British Isles because of Dobbs’ work as a self-appointed transatlantic chamber of commerce. Most of all, because so few records were kept and many that were have been lost, we can never number the people living today in the Lower Cape Fear area whose ancestors came to North Carolina because Dobbs asked, prodded, or enticed them to move. In his multifaceted role, Royal Governor Arthur Dobbs was to the area what a truly great teacher is to a student: transforming but immeasurable.
POSTSCRIPT
During the summer of 1993 my husband, Fred, and I made a trip to Northern Ireland. I wanted to see Carrickfergus and other points in County Antrim where many of my ancestors are buried and from which at least one emigrated at the bidding of Arthur Dobbs.
Since Carrickfergus is a small town, we made plans to stay a few miles away in Belfast at a hotel which did not match the names of any we knew to be frequent bombing targets. We found when we arrived that there is no safe haven in Belfast and the hotel we chose had just recently been renamed to increase bookings since by its old name it had been a target for violence on several occasions. The grounds of the hotel were fenced and along the top of the fence ran spiral coils of barbed wire. The only way in was through a steel gate that could only be opened by a uniformed guard. There were seldom more than three or four people in the hotel restaurant and the lobby was as quiet as a mausoleum.
On every block of downtown Belfast we saw the same barbed wire treatment. In addition, many of the buildings had corrugated steel in front of each window. There were very few people on the streets. As we entered a bus station, we saw city workers sweeping up glass and carting away debris. I asked a policeman what had happened. “Bomb,” was all he said.
There were literally thousands of British soldiers in Belfast Each wore camouflage fatigues and held an index finger on the trigger of an uzi gun. I asked our driver if it would alright for me to snap a photograph of one of the soldiers. He replied, “The best that can happen is that they will stop us and interrogate you. The worst is that some of them are a little jittery and they just might shoot you.” I waited until we were some distance away and took one picture.
Uzis, shot by my camera, through the windshield.
Our bus stopped in the middle of town and a policewoman got on with a baton in her hand. It was some sort of bomb-detecting device and she went down the aisle of the bus pointing it back and forth until she was satisfied that the vehicle was safe. We were transported to a train station where we boarded a rickety car for Carrickfergus. Young boys threw rocks at the windows of the train as we left the outskirts of Belfast.
By contrast, Carrickfergus felt warm. The town, with its 800-year old fortress, is the subject of the beautiful song, “Carrickfergus.” The lyrics speak of missing the town while living an ocean away. I had a feeling this was one place I would miss after I returned to North Carolina.
An ebullient eleven year old boy with blond hair and a gold earring volunteered to walk us from the train station to the Dobbins Inn. It was there that we met Charles McConnell, a retired gentleman who is the leading local historian or antiquarian as they call it. Even though it was August, the weather was cold and the coffee we drank as we got acquainted tasted good. At first it was a little difficult to understand his Irish accent and I was distracted by the typically Irish way in which he often ended a sentence by raising his voice a half octave or so on the last syllable. But soon my ears adjusted and I began to understand what he was saying and love the way it was said. The Dobbins Inn, a charming pudgy white hotel, was really a small sixteenth-century castle with thirty-inch walls and turrets still intact.
We began a walking tour along the sidewalks made of large stone blocks. The dates of things were staggeringly old. The city gate which two cars could barely squeeze through at the same time was erected in 1100. We wandered up the street and watched an excavation where an archaeologist gently placed a lady’s pin he had just unearthed in my hand. It was approximately 450 years old and still had mud on it.
I was happy when we finally got to St. Nicholas Church in the center of town for it was the church where my family, the Stewarts, had worshipped ten generations ago. It was also the church home of many Dobbs family members. It is a Norman stone structure that dates from the thirteenth century and is unique in that it has a clock face on its wide steeple, somewhat like an arm wearing a watch. The church contains both the earliest stained glass window in Ireland and the most famous. The oldest is a large window depicting the baptism of Christ. The most famous and frequently photographed one is a window dedicated to St. Nicholas. The first two panels depict St. Nicholas, Bishop of Myra as the patron saint of sailors and the benefactor of the poor. The third, approved by an indulgent vestry, pictures him as Santa Claus in his reindeer drawn sleigh.
St. Nicholas Church, Carrickfergus.
Mr. McConnell explained that part of the flooring of the church had recently been removed for repairs. They had always known that several clergymen had been buried under the chancel. During the excavation, they not only found the crypts, but also discovered a small plaque on one that read: “You may as well walk over me now. You did when I was alive.”
Other more serious marble memorials adorned the walls of the church. One read, “Arthur Frederick Dobbs of Castle Dobbs – 1876-1955.” Another next to it was dedicated to my great-times-six grandfather whose son was the Reverend Alexander Stewart who came to North Carolina to be minister to the Dobbs household.
It was a moving experience to be in St. Nicholas Church and to be lost in thought about ancient ancestors and a sense of place. Soon though our guide’s melodic voice brought me back to the present reality but not before it passed through my mind that if Arthur Dobbs had not enticed my ancestor to North Carolina, I might also speak with an Irish lilt.
The next day Mr. McConnell carried us to a small area of Carrickfergus known as Boneybefore to see the Andrew Jackson Centre. President Jackson’s parents lived in Boneybefore prior to their immigration to Charleston. Almost before we had a chance to speak, the jocular docent gently chided the American practice of referring to Scottish lowlanders who moved to Northern Ireland as Scotch Irish. “Ulster Scot is the proper term,” he said. The center consists of a one story house similar to what many of the 20,000 of those Ulster Scots who emigrated to America in the 1760′s would have left behind. It was very stark and cold and damp and living there would have made it easier to face a dangerous sea voyage and life on a frontier.
Our final stop of the day was Castle Dobbs. My husband and I had arranged to meet Sir Richard and Lady Dobbs before we left Wilmington. Mr. McConnell and his wife, Betty, volunteered to transport us to the castle which is just a few miles outside of Carrickfergus. They added much to the gathering.
The castle Arthur Dobbs helped design but never saw is as large as many government buildings in Washington, D. C. It sits on a hill overlooking the Irish Sea. Typical of the area, there is no shrubbery around the house at all. The front facade alone contains 42 windows, most of them large. The central portion is a three-story structure with six bedrooms on the top floor. In addition, there are two tremendous two-story L-shaped wings. Sir Richard and Lady Dobbs met us at the front door and ushered us to a drawing room upstairs where displayed on the northern wall was the original portrait of Governor Arthur Dobbs. The Smithsonian Institute has made offers to purchase it, but judging by the Dobbs’ just pride in the picture, it would seem that it will be hanging on the castle wall for a very long time. There were many other family portraits around the room. There was also a full size pipe organ.
Sir Richard was educated in England and speaks with an aristocratic British accent. His bright eyes and gentle laughter belie the fact that he is the Queen’s representative in a war zone. Like most of the Dobbs men who have occupied the castle, he is a lawyer by profession. Lady Dobbs is a charming woman who gardens seriously in a horticultural showplace on the castle grounds. They have three grown children, the eldest of whom is named Conway.
The Dobbs walked us through the garden and around the grounds. Sir Richard showed us the shell of the old castle built by one of the Dalways in the year 900. Ivy climbs up its walls and roses bloom around its foundation. He also pointed out the site of the castle that Governor Dobbs ordered demolished so that his new castle would have a better view of the water.
It really is quite a view. The grass in Ireland is very green. It’s the bright green of a construction paper shamrock. It’s a green so bright that when you fly into the country, it seems it was meant as a rustic navigational aid. Dobbs Castle has an enormous sloping yard of ancient oaks and green grass – grass that ends only when it reaches the ice blue Irish Sea.
We sadly said our goodbyes and headed back for our last night in Belfast. We were anxious to get there before dark. After riding in a car, train, and bus, we walked the final block to the hotel. About half way there, we heard machine gun fire close by. Late that night, I watched the local television news. There had been an “incident” and soldiers had shot warning rounds into the air. That same day there had also been an IRA related murder. But the scariest news item of all was that a large bomb had been detonated near our hotel while we were at Castle Dobbs. “It was successfully detonated…” The hush of it seemed quite loud. I went to sleep with the covers pulled over my head.
COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED to text and photos. Susan Taylor Block, 1993.
Arthur Dobbs, the son of Richard Dobbs and Mary Stewart Dobbs, was born 2 April 1689. Both the Dobbs and Stewart families moved from Scotland to Northern Ireland or Ulster in the 1500′s. John Dobbs, Arthur’s great-great grandfather, had arrived in Carrickfergus in 1596 as an army officer and ended up marrying an heiress named Margaret Dalway. He settled comfortably into life in their newly built castle on the Dalway estate and served as Mayor of Carrickfergus and High Sheriff of County Antrim.
Subsequent members of Arthur Dobbs’ line continued to hold public office and develop land north of Carrickfergus. They were staunch members of the Church of Ireland, the established Anglican body. Arthur’s father, Richard Dobbs, Jr. was a second son due to inherit little of his father’s considerable estate until his older brother, John, became a Quaker and was immediately disinherited and driven from the castle. Richard married Mary Stewart, a cousin who shared with him an ancestral line which travelled by way of Alexander the Wolf of Badenoch straight back to King Robert Bruce of Scotland. Richard became part of what was now a family tradition and served as mayor of Carrickfergus. The young couple quickly settled into a comfortable lifestyle and became known for their elegant taste and extensive collection of books. A frequent guest in their commodious library was Jonathan Swift, the author of Gulliver’s Travels, who referred in his writings to Richard as “Squire Dobbs.” Swift was a young parish minister at the time and his church consisted almost entirely of members of the Dobbs family. Swift would later become the Dean of St. Patrick’s in Dublin.1
In March of 1689 just as Mary Stewart Dobbs was counting down the weeks until their first child was due to be born, Ireland became a warring ground for the two English kings, James II, a Catholic, and William of Orange, a Protestant. It was not the first or last tragic war in Ireland waged in the name of religious interpretation but fought for the cause of power. Richard Dobbs, Jr. was appointed Captain of the County Antrim Association, a Protestant organization loyal to William and determined to overthrow newly established Catholic rule in Belfast and Carrickfergus. Afraid for their lives, Richard sent his pregnant wife across the Irish Sea to the coastal Scottish village of Girvan in Ayrshire where her son, Arthur, was born “on Tuesday morning being ye 2 of April 1689.”2
Back in Ireland, the new father was leading an unsuccessful but bold attack against Catholic forces under the command of Col. Thomas Maxwell. A few months later 10,000 Williamite troops landed at Belfast and enabled the Protestants to defeat James II’s army in Belfast and Carrickfergus. On 14 June 1590, William of Orange visited Carrickfergus where he was officially welcomed and lauded in a speech given by Richard Dobbs, Sr., Arthur’s grandfather.
Mary and little Arthur returned to Ireland after peace was restored. Richard and Mary Dobbs had several more children: Jane, Elizabeth, and Richard. Richard was the only one to survive childhood. He grew up to be a renowned cleric and professor at Trinity College in Dublin. Jonathan Swift, who spent many hour studying in the Dobbs’ personal library in Carrickfergus, said that Richard Dobbs was one of the three most worthy minsters in Ireland. An extensive collection of Dobbs’ writings is housed in the Trinity College Library.
Arthur Dobbs’ mother died when he was still a boy and his father then married Margaret Clugston of Belfast. With Margaret, Richard Dobbs had three daughters: Margaret who married George Spaight, Mary who married Andrew Boyd of Ballymoney, and Ann-Helena who became Mrs. William Kerr.
When Arthur Dobbs was twenty-two years old, he purchased a cornetcy in the Dragoons and had just been sent to Scotland when word came that his father had died. Arthur inherited the entire estate and returned home to manage it and help look after his half-sisters. Arthur married Anne Osburn Norbury 12 May 1790. He had just been named Deputy Governor of Carrickfergus by his patron, Lord Conway when Anne gave birth to their first child: Conway Richard. Arthur Dobbs was also carrying out his duties as High Sheriff of County Antrim, Mayor of Carrickfergus and a member of the Irish Parliament. But his duties as a busy public servant did not satisfy the restless nature of his mind and intense curiosity led him to study astronomy, meteorology, commerce, exploration, religion and botany.3
In the late 1720′s, Arthur Dobbs began to write copiously. He recorded his thoughts and remarkably detailed observations in numerous wordy papers with titles like “Essay upon the Grand Plan of Providence and Dissertations Annexed Thereto,” “A Short Essay to Shew the Expediency, if not political Necessity of an Incorporating Union betwixt Britain and Ireland,” and “An Account of an Eclipse of the Moon at Castle Dobbs near Carrickfergus in Ireland, 2nd February 1728/29.” Many of Dobbs’ writings housed at the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland in Belfast are also available on microfilm in the Southern Historical Collection of Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina. They reflect an author just as fascinated with the everyday activities of a honeybee as he was with the details of international trade.
Arthur Dobbs brought this painting of Castle Dobbs with him when he moved to North Carolina.
From 1730 until 1752, Arthur Dobbs world expanded as his interest in and writings concerning Irish trade won him new influential friends. He was named Engineer-in-Chief and Surveyor-General of Ireland. He supervised the building of a new Parliament House and many public Georgian style buildings. He won the ear of members of the English Parliament and Prime Minister Robert Walpole as he argued for increased trade with North America and warned against French Expansionism. When he criticized the Hudson Bay Company endeavor and promoted the idea of a second expedition to discover a North-West Passage to India and China, the British government backed him. Though no passage was ever discovered, important information was gathered for cartographers and a portion of headland was named Cape Dobbs.
In 1745, Arthur Dobbs began purchasing large parcels of land in North Carolina including half of Mecklenburg and Cabarrus counties. An old friend, Matthew Rowan from County Antrim, had become Surveyor-General of the Colony and Dobbs’ trust in him as agent led to a massive accumulation of property bought sight-unseen. The Mecklenburg properties were desolate in those days, but today they bustle, because a settlement called Charlotte was founded there in 1768. Today, it is the 18-th largest city in the United States.
Anthony Finley drew this map of North Carolina in 1824. (Courtesy of the University of Alabama)
Arthur Dobbs got little encouragement to visit his properties from friend, William Faris, in Wilmington.“I heard you had thought of seeing this country this year yourself, but I fear this settlement is yet too much in its infancy to give you much satisfaction and the accomodations in many parts so bad…The fall is the best time, October particularly and your arrival just to that time is precarious in so long a voyage. Your lands on the Black River would be very fit for shucor. A number of the settlers meet with disappointment and are unhappy. Most here are farmers, either Irish or German. The Germans are frugal and industrious and not so ready to complain.”
In 1747, just as Dobbs began working on brave new policies aimed at settling Ulster-Scots throughout North Carolina, his beloved wife Anne died unexpectedly. He was deeply affected by her death and accomplished little for the next three years.
By 1750, Arthur Dobbs had returned to his writing desk and penned “Concerning Bees and Their Methods of Gathering Wax and Honey” for the Royal Society. In that same year, he joined John Hanbury to form the Ohio Company of Virginia, an organization dedicated to promoting British influence in the colonies. By April 1751, Dobbs was chartering ships for the transporting of skilled Irishmen to America. In 1752, when North Carolina Governor Gabriel Johnston died, the British crown looked to Arthur Dobbs as a natural successor. He spent the Christmas season in Bath, England and sat there for William Hoare to paint the only known portrait of him. It depicts the well-dressed, wigged gentleman holding a map of North Carolina in one hand and a compass in the other. The original hangs today in Castle Dobbs, Carrickfergus but a copy of the portrait is owned by the National Society of the Colonial Dames in the State of North Carolina and is on permenant display in the library of the Burgwin-Wright House in Wilmington. The house that John Burgwin built is an appropriate showplace for the painting because through Arthur Dobbs’ patronage John Burgwin served as Treasurer of the Province, Clerk of the New Hanover County Superior Court, and private secretary to the Governor.
True to his portrait, he did accept the Governorship of North Carolina. He spent the early months of 1754 in Ireland modifying and approving plans for a new castle, putting his personal affairs in order, and placing his estate in the hands of his son Conway Dobbs. He also arranged immediate passage for a surveyor, several neighbors, and the Reverend Alexander Stewart, a cousin recruited to be minister to the Dobbs family. Then in June, he embarked with his son Edward Brice Dobbs, nephew Richard Spaight, several cannons, a thousand muskets, and a printer on a very rough twelve week crossing to Hampton, Virginia.4
On 12 December 1754 Dobbs spoke in New Bern at his first North Carolina Assembly meeting. His opening recommendation may have startled assemblymen expecting to hear first of matters of commerce and the growing French and Indian problem.
“The first and greatest principle and the foundation of all social happiness is the knowledge of true religion, and the practice of true morality and virtue, to know, love and adore the Divine Being as we ought and to obey the precepts he has revealed to us, so I think it is my duty in the first place to recommend to you the providing of a proper fund to support a sufficient number of learned pious clergymen to reside in the Province.”5
The remainder of his address aptly prefaced the eleven years he would spend as Royal Governor of North Carolina. He recommended ardent loyalty to the King and benevolence and education for native Americans. He requested provisions for promoting trade and industry, passionately denounced the French or “invaders,” and proposed measures by which the province might better defend itself. His audience, a group with a growing reputation for sharp, fruitless argument, received him warmly and expressed their hopes that the benevolent gentleman of the world would bring unity to the discordant governing body.
There was no fixed seat for the Assembly. Their moving from place to place annoyed Governor Dobbs and being in New Bern made him, literally, feel ill. After traveling many times throughout North Carolina, he finally found a spot that interested him. In 1758, he purchased a modest 55 acre plantation in the southeast corner of the state, Brunswick County, for five shillings and one peppercorn and moved with his array of servants into Russellborough which he soon renamed Castle Dobbs.
The Governor busied himself with providing a quota of troops from the Province to fight in the French and Indian War, supervising the building of forts and defensive outposts, starting a silk industry, encouraged the cultivation of hemp and flaxseed, setting up a postal service, encouraging printing, and seeking to modify Navigation Acts so that America could trade more freely with Ireland, Spain, and Portugal.
None of these serious responsibilities could keep Governor Dobbs from his lifelong study of nature. He could be seen in Brunswick following bees to chart their flight, recording the weather, and frequently getting down on his hands and knees to peer at vegetation he had never seen in Ulster. On 2 April 1758, his seventieth birthday, he wrote to English naturalist Peter Collinson of a new hyperactive plant he found on his land.
Venus Fly Trap. (Photograph by Sam Bissette. Courtesy of New Hanover County Public Library)
“…I have taken a little plantation at the sound on the sea coast. We have a kind of a Catch Fly Sensitive which closes upon anything that touches it. It grows in the Latitude 34 but not in 35. I will try to save the seed here. Your most humble servant, Arthur Dobbs.” Edward Dobbs hand-delivered his father’s letter to Collinson during the summer of 1759 thus informing the European world for the first time of the Venus Flytrap.
Peter Collinson wrote to the famous Philadelphia naturalist John Bartram of the plant with the “iron spring fox trap,” as Dobbs had termed it. John Bartram’s son, William, came to Wilmington to live for a while and when he returned, he took a Venus Flytrap to his father who made sketches of it. Collinson wrote many letters to Wilmington requesting a live plant but it was nine years before a live Brunswick County Venus Flytrap arrived in London. John Ellis, an eminent London naturalist and another friend of Dobbs’, had drawings made of the plant for The St. James’s Chronicle. It was also Ellis who came up with the scientific name for what had quickly become known in London as the Tippitywichit: Dionaea Muscipula.
In 1762, at the age of 73, Governor Dobbs remarried. That one “I do” would eclipse a multitude of truly remarkable events in his long life. He had been a widower for fifteen years so the time lapse was not improprietous. His bride was the granddaughter of Governor James Moore of South Carolina and the niece of “King” Roger Moore of neighboring Orton Plantation, so it seemed an appropriate match. It was just the fact that she was only fifteen years old that stirred up enough conversation to last over two centuries. Even the dry pages of the Colonial Records contain an irreverent letter about the man of “baneful influence who grew stupidly enamored with Miss Davis, a lovely lady of sprightly fifteen.” The Governor stole her away from the young, dashing Parker Quince.6
Despite the 58 year age discrepancy, it appears that it was a tender, loving marriage. He referred to her as “my dear Jessy” and she called him “my ever dear Mr. Dobbs.” She nursed him back to health after he suffered a stroke and consoled him as he grieved for his nephew, Richard Spaight. She was packing their belongings for a voyage back to Ireland when an attending physician informed Governor Dobbs that “he had better prepare himself for a much longer voyage.” Two days later, on 28 March 1765, Arthur Dobbs died in Justina’s arms. He was buried on the grounds of St. Phillip’s, the Anglican church Dobbs sought to complete.
This is artist Art Newton's image of St. Phillip's Church in its prime. Today, the walls still stand. (Hill-Taylor Collection)
Justina wrote to Conway Dobbs in Carrickfergus: “The melancholy Subject that gives occasion for my writing to you effects me so much that I hardly know what I write. Alas I have loste my ever Dear Mr. Dobbs which makes me almost inconsolable, he went to the Fort with Lord Adam Gordon on a Party of Pleasure and Caught a violent cold and after a few days illness departed this life the 28th of last March he died in his senses the violence of his disorder made him delirious at Times but when his reason beamed out his serenity of minde resigned himself up to his Heavenly Father with that nobleness of soul which few can equal. I have lost one of the best and tenderest of husbands and you a kind and most affectionate father. I console you on so great a loss….I once flattered myself with the pleasing expectation of seeing you in company with my dear Mr. Dobbs, but the Divine power of Events otherwise determined it.”
Justina then signed the letter to her stepson who was nineteen years older than she, “yr affectionate Mother, Justina Dobbs.”7
Justina Davis Dobbs married in later years Abner Nash and thus became the only woman known to have married two North Carolina governors. Combining pillow talk with husbands and family talk centering on her position as granddaughter of a South Carolina governor, it is probable that Justina Davis Dobbs Nash knew more about Carolina politics than any woman of her era.
The legacy left to North Carolina by Arthur Dobbs is as hard to define as the man himself. It is difficult to quantify connections, encouragement, and economic goodwill. Balance sheets do not exist to document the difference Dobbs made to several local family fortunes. No one will ever actually count how many times the name “Wilmington” appears in historical archives scattered all over the British Isles because of Dobbs’ work as a self-appointed transatlantic chamber of commerce. Most of all, because so few records were kept and many that were have been lost, we can never number the people living today in the Lower Cape Fear area whose ancestors came to North Carolina because Dobbs asked, prodded, or enticed them to move. In his multifaceted role, Royal Governor Arthur Dobbs was to the area what a truly great teacher is to a student: transforming but immeasurable.
POSTSCRIPT
During the summer of 1993 my husband, Fred, and I made a trip to Northern Ireland. I wanted to see Carrickfergus and other points in County Antrim where many of my ancestors are buried and from which at least one emigrated at the bidding of Arthur Dobbs.
Since Carrickfergus is a small town, we made plans to stay a few miles away in Belfast at a hotel which did not match the names of any we knew to be frequent bombing targets. We found when we arrived that there is no safe haven in Belfast and the hotel we chose had just recently been renamed to increase bookings since by its old name it had been a target for violence on several occasions. The grounds of the hotel were fenced and along the top of the fence ran spiral coils of barbed wire. The only way in was through a steel gate that could only be opened by a uniformed guard. There were seldom more than three or four people in the hotel restaurant and the lobby was as quiet as a mausoleum.
On every block of downtown Belfast we saw the same barbed wire treatment. In addition, many of the buildings had corrugated steel in front of each window. There were very few people on the streets. As we entered a bus station, we saw city workers sweeping up glass and carting away debris. I asked a policeman what had happened. “Bomb,” was all he said.
There were literally thousands of British soldiers in Belfast Each wore camouflage fatigues and held an index finger on the trigger of an uzi gun. I asked our driver if it would alright for me to snap a photograph of one of the soldiers. He replied, “The best that can happen is that they will stop us and interrogate you. The worst is that some of them are a little jittery and they just might shoot you.” I waited until we were some distance away and took one picture.
Uzis, shot by my camera, through the windshield.
Our bus stopped in the middle of town and a policewoman got on with a baton in her hand. It was some sort of bomb-detecting device and she went down the aisle of the bus pointing it back and forth until she was satisfied that the vehicle was safe. We were transported to a train station where we boarded a rickety car for Carrickfergus. Young boys threw rocks at the windows of the train as we left the outskirts of Belfast.
By contrast, Carrickfergus felt warm. The town, with its 800-year old fortress, is the subject of the beautiful song, “Carrickfergus.” The lyrics speak of missing the town while living an ocean away. I had a feeling this was one place I would miss after I returned to North Carolina.
An ebullient eleven year old boy with blond hair and a gold earring volunteered to walk us from the train station to the Dobbins Inn. It was there that we met Charles McConnell, a retired gentleman who is the leading local historian or antiquarian as they call it. Even though it was August, the weather was cold and the coffee we drank as we got acquainted tasted good. At first it was a little difficult to understand his Irish accent and I was distracted by the typically Irish way in which he often ended a sentence by raising his voice a half octave or so on the last syllable. But soon my ears adjusted and I began to understand what he was saying and love the way it was said. The Dobbins Inn, a charming pudgy white hotel, was really a small sixteenth-century castle with thirty-inch walls and turrets still intact.
We began a walking tour along the sidewalks made of large stone blocks. The dates of things were staggeringly old. The city gate which two cars could barely squeeze through at the same time was erected in 1100. We wandered up the street and watched an excavation where an archaeologist gently placed a lady’s pin he had just unearthed in my hand. It was approximately 450 years old and still had mud on it.
I was happy when we finally got to St. Nicholas Church in the center of town for it was the church where my family, the Stewarts, had worshipped ten generations ago. It was also the church home of many Dobbs family members. It is a Norman stone structure that dates from the thirteenth century and is unique in that it has a clock face on its wide steeple, somewhat like an arm wearing a watch. The church contains both the earliest stained glass window in Ireland and the most famous. The oldest is a large window depicting the baptism of Christ. The most famous and frequently photographed one is a window dedicated to St. Nicholas. The first two panels depict St. Nicholas, Bishop of Myra as the patron saint of sailors and the benefactor of the poor. The third, approved by an indulgent vestry, pictures him as Santa Claus in his reindeer drawn sleigh.
St. Nicholas Church, Carrickfergus.
Mr. McConnell explained that part of the flooring of the church had recently been removed for repairs. They had always known that several clergymen had been buried under the chancel. During the excavation, they not only found the crypts, but also discovered a small plaque on one that read: “You may as well walk over me now. You did when I was alive.”
Other more serious marble memorials adorned the walls of the church. One read, “Arthur Frederick Dobbs of Castle Dobbs – 1876-1955.” Another next to it was dedicated to my great-times-six grandfather whose son was the Reverend Alexander Stewart who came to North Carolina to be minister to the Dobbs household.
It was a moving experience to be in St. Nicholas Church and to be lost in thought about ancient ancestors and a sense of place. Soon though our guide’s melodic voice brought me back to the present reality but not before it passed through my mind that if Arthur Dobbs had not enticed my ancestor to North Carolina, I might also speak with an Irish lilt.
The next day Mr. McConnell carried us to a small area of Carrickfergus known as Boneybefore to see the Andrew Jackson Centre. President Jackson’s parents lived in Boneybefore prior to their immigration to Charleston. Almost before we had a chance to speak, the jocular docent gently chided the American practice of referring to Scottish lowlanders who moved to Northern Ireland as Scotch Irish. “Ulster Scot is the proper term,” he said. The center consists of a one story house similar to what many of the 20,000 of those Ulster Scots who emigrated to America in the 1760′s would have left behind. It was very stark and cold and damp and living there would have made it easier to face a dangerous sea voyage and life on a frontier.
Our final stop of the day was Castle Dobbs. My husband and I had arranged to meet Sir Richard and Lady Dobbs before we left Wilmington. Mr. McConnell and his wife, Betty, volunteered to transport us to the castle which is just a few miles outside of Carrickfergus. They added much to the gathering.
The castle Arthur Dobbs helped design but never saw is as large as many government buildings in Washington, D. C. It sits on a hill overlooking the Irish Sea. Typical of the area, there is no shrubbery around the house at all. The front facade alone contains 42 windows, most of them large. The central portion is a three-story structure with six bedrooms on the top floor. In addition, there are two tremendous two-story L-shaped wings. Sir Richard and Lady Dobbs met us at the front door and ushered us to a drawing room upstairs where displayed on the northern wall was the original portrait of Governor Arthur Dobbs. The Smithsonian Institute has made offers to purchase it, but judging by the Dobbs’ just pride in the picture, it would seem that it will be hanging on the castle wall for a very long time. There were many other family portraits around the room. There was also a full size pipe organ.
Sir Richard was educated in England and speaks with an aristocratic British accent. His bright eyes and gentle laughter belie the fact that he is the Queen’s representative in a war zone. Like most of the Dobbs men who have occupied the castle, he is a lawyer by profession. Lady Dobbs is a charming woman who gardens seriously in a horticultural showplace on the castle grounds. They have three grown children, the eldest of whom is named Conway.
The Dobbs walked us through the garden and around the grounds. Sir Richard showed us the shell of the old castle built by one of the Dalways in the year 900. Ivy climbs up its walls and roses bloom around its foundation. He also pointed out the site of the castle that Governor Dobbs ordered demolished so that his new castle would have a better view of the water.
It really is quite a view. The grass in Ireland is very green. It’s the bright green of a construction paper shamrock. It’s a green so bright that when you fly into the country, it seems it was meant as a rustic navigational aid. Dobbs Castle has an enormous sloping yard of ancient oaks and green grass – grass that ends only when it reaches the ice blue Irish Sea.
We sadly said our goodbyes and headed back for our last night in Belfast. We were anxious to get there before dark. After riding in a car, train, and bus, we walked the final block to the hotel. About half way there, we heard machine gun fire close by. Late that night, I watched the local television news. There had been an “incident” and soldiers had shot warning rounds into the air. That same day there had also been an IRA related murder. But the scariest news item of all was that a large bomb had been detonated near our hotel while we were at Castle Dobbs. “It was successfully detonated…” The hush of it seemed quite loud. I went to sleep with the covers pulled over my head.
COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED to text and photos. Susan Taylor Block, 1993.
Fort Dobbs, NC
Fort Dobbs was an 18th-century fort in the Yadkin–Pee Dee River Basin region of the Province of North Carolina, near what is now Statesville in Iredell County. Used for frontier defense during and after the French and Indian War, the fort was built to protect the British settlers of the western portion of what was then Rowan County, and served as a vital outpost for soldiers, traders, and colonial officials. Fort Dobbs' primary structure was a blockhouse with log walls, surrounded by a palisade and moat. It was intended to provide protection against Cherokee, Catawba, Shawnee, Delaware and French raids into North Carolina.
The fort's name honored Arthur Dobbs, the colonial Governor of North Carolina from 1754 to 1765, who played a role in designing the fort and authorized its construction. When in use, it was the only fort on the frontier between South Carolina and Virginia. Between 1756 and 1760, the blockhouse was garrisoned by a variable number of soldiers, many of whom were sent to fight in Pennsylvania and the Ohio River Valley during the French and Indian War. On February 27, 1760, the fort was the site of an engagement between Cherokee warriors and provincial soldiers that ended in a victory for the provincials. After this battle and other attacks by Cherokee warriors on British forts and settlements in the Anglo-Cherokee War, the southern British colonies launched a devastating counterattack against the Cherokee in 1760.
Fort Dobbs was abandoned after 1766, and disappeared from the landscape. Archaeological work in the 20th century and historical research in 2005 and 2006 led to the discovery of the fort's exact location and probable appearance. The site on which the fort sat is now operated by North Carolina's Division of State Historic Sites and Properties as Fort Dobbs State Historic Site, and supporters of the site have developed plans for the fort's reconstruction
NORTH CAROLINA IN THE FRENCH & INDIAN WAR
England and France had been enemies for centuries before either claimed parts of the New World. In North America, the conflict involved settlers, soldiers and native peoples. The climax was the French and Indian War.
As a result of France's growing attempt in early 1754 to connect her extensive dominions in North America by uniting Canada with Louisiana, she took possession claimed by England to be within the Province of Virginia and began a line of military posts from the Great Lakes to the Ohio Valley. North Carolina was the first colony to respond to Virginia Governor Dinwiddie's call for military assistance; voting to support troops outside of its own borders in behalf of a common cause and defense.
North Carolina's Colonel James Innes (1700-1759) was commissioned commanding officer of all provincial forces in the first Ohio expedition by Governor Dinwiddie in 1754. Under Innes, North Carolina's provincial regiment consisted of approximately 450 men, including Lieutenant Hugh Waddell.
Disbanded in the fall of 1754, North Carolina provincials returned to service under Major Edward Brice Dobbs in 1755, during Braddock's march, and later during the New York Expedition in 1756. North Carolina continued to send troops throughout the war to the aid of the other colonies and participated in 1758 in Forbes Expedition. In 1759, long standing tensions between the English and their Cherokee allies erupted into open warfare following the killing of dozens of Cherokee warriors by Virginians. Under the command of now-Colonel Hugh Waddell, North Carolina provincials were tasked with defending their own frontier and aided Virginia in 1761, when the Cherokees were finally defeated.
Fort Dobbs was an 18th-century fort in the Yadkin–Pee Dee River Basin region of the Province of North Carolina, near what is now Statesville in Iredell County. Used for frontier defense during and after the French and Indian War, the fort was built to protect the British settlers of the western portion of what was then Rowan County, and served as a vital outpost for soldiers, traders, and colonial officials. Fort Dobbs' primary structure was a blockhouse with log walls, surrounded by a palisade and moat. It was intended to provide protection against Cherokee, Catawba, Shawnee, Delaware and French raids into North Carolina.
The fort's name honored Arthur Dobbs, the colonial Governor of North Carolina from 1754 to 1765, who played a role in designing the fort and authorized its construction. When in use, it was the only fort on the frontier between South Carolina and Virginia. Between 1756 and 1760, the blockhouse was garrisoned by a variable number of soldiers, many of whom were sent to fight in Pennsylvania and the Ohio River Valley during the French and Indian War. On February 27, 1760, the fort was the site of an engagement between Cherokee warriors and provincial soldiers that ended in a victory for the provincials. After this battle and other attacks by Cherokee warriors on British forts and settlements in the Anglo-Cherokee War, the southern British colonies launched a devastating counterattack against the Cherokee in 1760.
Fort Dobbs was abandoned after 1766, and disappeared from the landscape. Archaeological work in the 20th century and historical research in 2005 and 2006 led to the discovery of the fort's exact location and probable appearance. The site on which the fort sat is now operated by North Carolina's Division of State Historic Sites and Properties as Fort Dobbs State Historic Site, and supporters of the site have developed plans for the fort's reconstruction
NORTH CAROLINA IN THE FRENCH & INDIAN WAR
England and France had been enemies for centuries before either claimed parts of the New World. In North America, the conflict involved settlers, soldiers and native peoples. The climax was the French and Indian War.
As a result of France's growing attempt in early 1754 to connect her extensive dominions in North America by uniting Canada with Louisiana, she took possession claimed by England to be within the Province of Virginia and began a line of military posts from the Great Lakes to the Ohio Valley. North Carolina was the first colony to respond to Virginia Governor Dinwiddie's call for military assistance; voting to support troops outside of its own borders in behalf of a common cause and defense.
North Carolina's Colonel James Innes (1700-1759) was commissioned commanding officer of all provincial forces in the first Ohio expedition by Governor Dinwiddie in 1754. Under Innes, North Carolina's provincial regiment consisted of approximately 450 men, including Lieutenant Hugh Waddell.
Disbanded in the fall of 1754, North Carolina provincials returned to service under Major Edward Brice Dobbs in 1755, during Braddock's march, and later during the New York Expedition in 1756. North Carolina continued to send troops throughout the war to the aid of the other colonies and participated in 1758 in Forbes Expedition. In 1759, long standing tensions between the English and their Cherokee allies erupted into open warfare following the killing of dozens of Cherokee warriors by Virginians. Under the command of now-Colonel Hugh Waddell, North Carolina provincials were tasked with defending their own frontier and aided Virginia in 1761, when the Cherokees were finally defeated.
Dobbs County is a former county located in the state of North Carolina. It was formed in 1758 from Johnston County, though the legislative act that created it did not become effective until April 10, 1759. It was named for Arthur Dobbs, Governor of North Carolina from 1754 to 1765.
In 1779 the western part of Dobbs County became Wayne County, and the county seat was moved from its original location on Walnut Creek to the town of Kingston, which was renamed Kinston in 1784. In 1791 Dobbs County was divided into Glasgow County (later renamed Greene County) and Lenoir County, and ceased to exist.
On 12 December 1754 Dobbs spoke in New Bern at his first North Carolina Assembly meeting. His opening recommendation may have startled assemblymen expecting to hear first of matters of commerce and the growing French and Indian problem.
“The first and greatest principle and the foundation of all social happiness is the knowledge of true religion, and the practice of true morality and virtue, to know, love and adore the Divine Being as we ought and to obey the precepts he has revealed to us, so I think it is my duty in the first place to recommend to you the providing of a proper fund to support a sufficient number of learned pious clergymen to reside in the Province.”5
In 1779 the western part of Dobbs County became Wayne County, and the county seat was moved from its original location on Walnut Creek to the town of Kingston, which was renamed Kinston in 1784. In 1791 Dobbs County was divided into Glasgow County (later renamed Greene County) and Lenoir County, and ceased to exist.
On 12 December 1754 Dobbs spoke in New Bern at his first North Carolina Assembly meeting. His opening recommendation may have startled assemblymen expecting to hear first of matters of commerce and the growing French and Indian problem.
“The first and greatest principle and the foundation of all social happiness is the knowledge of true religion, and the practice of true morality and virtue, to know, love and adore the Divine Being as we ought and to obey the precepts he has revealed to us, so I think it is my duty in the first place to recommend to you the providing of a proper fund to support a sufficient number of learned pious clergymen to reside in the Province.”5
Castle Dobbs is near Kilroot and Carrickfergus. Still in the ownership of the same family, it is acknowledged as being one of the most important buildings in County Antrim. An 18th century mansion in the manner of Sir Edward Lovett Pearce, it was built in 1730 by Arthur Dobbs, Surveyor-General of Ireland; Gov. of North Carolina; agriculturalist; and organizer of expeditions to discover the North-West Passage from Hudson's Bay to the Pacific. While a member of the Irish Parliament, he purchased half interest in 400,000 acres of North Carolina in 1745.
Arthur Dobbs of Castle Dobbs, Kilroot, is seen in this portrait as holding a map of North Carolina. He was appointed 'Royal' Governor of North Carolina in 1753, one year after he finished rebuilding Castle Dobbs at home in Kilroot.
His American adventure came to an end in 1795 at another 'Castle Dobbs', his new home at Cape Fear, Brunswick, North Carolina. He died just as he was preparing to return home to Carrickfergus at the age of 75.
He had been the most prominent organiser of Scotch-Irish migration to pre-revolutionary America after he purchased a part interest in 400,000 acres of land in North Carolina in 1745 from the McCulloch estate there. Then, along with McCulloch, Arthur Dobbs was granted another 60,000 acres in New Hanover County.
The first tenants that Dobbs brought over from Ireland sailed in 1751. He described them in a letter as, "my tenants and their neighbours and friends", for they were from Kilroot, Ballycarry and Carrickfergus - and many more were to follow. In 1766 yet another batch of Scotch-Irish settlers from the shadow of Castle Dobbs set sail from Belfast. This contingent bound for North and South Carolina from east Antrim included Andrew and Elizabeth Jackson from Bellahill (Dalway's Bawn). They were the parents of Andrew Jackson, 7th President of the United States. These Jacksons had moved from their family farm beside Dalway's Bawn to Boneybefore near Carrickfergus in preparation for their departure. So, both these 'ancestral homesteads' of 'Old Hickory' will be re-visited at a later date.
Arthur Dobbs, before taking up his office in North Carolina, had been High Sheriff for County Antrim, a member of the Irish Parliament for Carrickfergus, and Surveyor-General of Ireland. His "Essay on the trade and improvement of Ireland" demonstrated his reputation as an economist, but from 1730 he took an increasing interest in colonial affairs, as well as engaging himself in the attempt to discover the North-West passage. In 1752 Arthur Dobbs finished building his fine Palladian mansion of Castle Dobbs just yards away from the ruins of the old castle built by his great-grandfather (and only a few hundred yards south of Dalway's Bawn).
But by 1747 he had completed his land purchases in North Carolina, and wrote to Mathew Rowan, the Surveyor-General of North Carolina, to ask his advice about,
"which type of artificers or servants I should take with me as most wanted there, such as carpenters, smiths, masons and coopers - and what number would be proper at first or could be accommodated with provisions and necessaries to form a settlement ... upon what terms I should agree with each family, the number of acres, term rent or produce, that I may know how to conduct myself in any bargains I may make."
The landscaped garden or demesne of Castle Dobbs was laid out by Arthur Dobbs in the early 1700s, and its wooded glen along the Kilroot River was known to the young explorers from Boneybefore as 'Dobbs's Plantin'. It was our Sherwood Forest when we were being Robin Hood, and our woods of Tennessee when we were being Davy Crockett (or Daniel Boone). The townland is 'Dobbsland', which is 'East of Eden' and separated from the old County of Carrickfergus by the Copeland Water.
A short walk up the Tongue Loanen and the road turns sharply to the right towards Dalway's Bawn, in the next townland north called 'Bellahill'. At this turn is where James Esler junior lived. His father, James Esler senior, was in a small house just across the townland boundary, in Bellahill. The Eslers and the Jacksons of Bellahill bring the connection right back to Dalway's Bawn and the old cattle trail from Ballynure.
Set in a secluded walled and wooded demesne, Castle Dobbs is an amazing survival, untouched by the orange glow of spreading suburbia and still owned by the family from whom its name is derived. The present High Sheriff of County Antrim is Nigel Dobbs. His ancestor Richard Dobbs became High Sheriff of County Antrim in 1664. Its ethereal postal address is 74 Tongue Loanen.
The estate was established in the 16th century when a young John Dobbs accompanied Sir Henry Dockwra to Carrickfergus in 1596. Dobbs subsequently became Dockwra's deputy as Treasurer of Ulster. John Dobbs was the grandson of Sir Richard Dobbs, Lord Mayor of London in 1551 and a founder of Christ's Hospital London. A title would never appear in the Dobbs lineage again.
Seven years later John Dobbs married Margaret Dalway, the only child of John Dalway, a landowner granted estates in Kilroot and Ballynure in 1601 by James I. Dobbs presented the newlyweds with a freehold lease of a portion of his lands in Kilroot. The couple proceeded to build the first Castle Dobbs. It was recorded in 1610:
"One John Dobb buylte a fayre castle within two myle of Knockfargus called Dobbes Castle about w'ch he entends to buylde a bawne of stone... This Castle is buylte upon parte of Ensigne Dallawayes lande."
Dalway had come to Ireland in the 1570s as an officer in the Earl of Essex's army. In 1606 he built a bawn (a stone enclosure for cows) on his newly acquired land. The bawn consisted of four 10m high towers with a 13m long curtain wall between each one. He built his house in the middle of the bawn.
Over the entrance to the bawn is a gallows for unwelcome visitors. The towers had three floors fitted for firing cannons. Three of the towers remain. Originally the bawn would have held 200 cows. Dalway was Mayor of Carrickfergus in 1592 and 1600. The last of the Dalways, Marriott Dalway, left with his family for Australia in 1884.
Back to the Dobbs family. John and Margaret had two sons with the great names of Foulk and Hercules. Dalway naturally nominated his grandson as heir since he was the elder son. But a family row was to erupt over the Dalway estate.
On the death of his first wife, Dalway married Jane Norton who couldn't stand the sight of her step daughter-in-law. Norton persuaded her new husband to make a will in favour of his nephew instead. All hell broke loose in 1618 when Dalway died. John and Margaret began a protracted legal battle to claim the estate for Foulk's sake.
At the first hearing the court ruled in favour of the Dobbs family but the elected heir challenged this ruling. Not one to give up easily, John Dobbs set off with his son to London to petition the king. He succeeded in obtaining His Majesty's Grant to the lands of the late John Dalway.
However their triumphal return was not to be. Both Dobbs senior and junior drowned when their ship was wrecked off the Cheshire coastline in 1622. Hercules continued the legal confrontation with all his strength. The law suit was finally settled with a compromise when referees appointed by the Lord Chancellor ruled that Hercules be awarded lands at Castle Dobbs and Ballynure as well as rights to tenement in Carrickfergus. The remainder of the estate was awarded to Dalway's nephew. The ruling must have made for awkward neighbourly relations - Dalway's Bawn is a stone's throw from the entrance to the Castle Dobbs lands.
Hercules married Magdalene West of Ballydugan in 1633. They had one son, Richard, born in 1634. Hercules died the same year, aged 21. At just three months old, Richard Dobbs inherited Castle Dobbs along with land at Ballynure.
Richard was reared by his mother's family in County Down around Downpatrick and Saul. Aged 21 he married Dorothy Williams, daughter of Bryan Williams of Clints Hall in Yorkshire. After his marriage, Dobbs returned to Castle Dobbs. In 1683 he wrote,
"My house, which is a plantation and improvement of my own time (tho' descended from my great Grandfather)... is called Castle-Dobs from a small castle here, built by my Grandfather." Richard set to work improving the castle and gardens. The ruins of this castle lie beside the current house. Dalway's Bawn is still intact although the house it once surrounded has disappeared into the mists of time.
On settling at Castle Dobbs he soon became involved in civil affairs. In 1671 Dobbs was elected Mayor of Carrickfergus, an honour bestowed on him on four later occasions. Carrickfergus was one of the four most important towns of late 17th century Ireland. Perks of the job included the requirement that tenants would "furnish the Mayor with a number of fat hens at Christmas or a specified sum in lieu". Dobbs described improvements to his town:
"The way out of the north street was first paved; the walls that bring the water through the churchyard were built, and the town pump was set up by benevolence. The Sword and Standard in the church was refurbished, and money was ordered for recasting the bell."
Also in 1683, Dobbs began his record A Brief Description of County Antrim. It has become an invaluable source for local historians. The original manuscript is in the Northern Ireland Public Records Office and a copy is held in the library of Trinity College Dublin. As well as descriptions of the built and natural environment, he recounts tales of folklore and social activities such as hunting with the Earls of Antrim at Glenarm Castle.
Richard and Dorothy Dobbs had two sons and three daughters. The eldest son John was educated at Eton College because his father had aspirations for him to join the church. However the young John went to a Quaker meeting in Carrickfergus and joined that sect. He returned to England to study medicine and eventually settled in County Cork where he worked as a doctor. His father was not impressed and it was another case of altering a will. John was bequeathed a measly 10 per annum while his younger brother Richard inherited the family estate.
Richard junior enlisted in the Duke of Schomberg's army to fight in the Williamite Wars. So these were the progenitors of the illustrious Dobbs family. A distinguished line of politicians, statesmen, churchmen, barristers and soldiers was to follow.
The present Castle Dobbs was built by Arthur Dobbs, Surveyor of the Irish Works and later Governor of North Carolina. The travel writer Richard Pococke recorded in 1752, "Mr Dobbs is now building on a very fine spot on rising ground." The surrounding oak trees predate the house. Arthur's descendent, Captain Dobbs, writing in the 20th century notes,
"The old castle probably fell into disrepair - or as family legend has it: was sacked by pirates, and the present house has been added to, since it was built. The writer can remember that when alterations were made to the upper part of the present castle the inner walls proved to be made with turf."
As successor to the acclaimed architect Sir Edward Lovett Pearce, Arthur Dobbs acquired a distinguished library for his role as Surveyor of the Irish Works. He is known to have owned James Gibbs' A Book of Architecture, dated 1728. Plate 64 was for a 'Draught done for a Gentleman in Essex'. Probably never built, this plate illustrates a sturdy Palladian country house like a smaller version of Ditchley. The plate is missing from Dobbs' copy.
Sir Charles Brett believed Castle Dobbs to be loosely based on Gibbs' design and it seems a reasonable presumption. There are some major deviations, though. Castle Dobbs has a raised, not sunken, basement, lending it an elevated and more impressive front than the original design. In place of Gibb's columned colonnades are courtyard quadrants with paired oeil-de-boeufs. I would go even further than Charlie Brett and suggest that Arthur Dobbs himself directed the final design with lots of help from Pearce. A meeting of three great minds?
Arthur Dobbs was a multifaceted gentleman - an agriculturalist and organiser of expeditions to discover the North West Passage from Hudson's Bay to the Pacific. While a member of the Irish Parliament, he purchased 400,000 acres of land in North Carolina from the McCulloch family in 1745. Dobbs was later granted another 60,000 acres in New Hanover County. His 5,000 acres at Castle Dobbs was positively small fry in comparison.
In 1795 Dobbs died while he was preparing to return from his new home at Cape Fear, North Carolina (also called Castle Dobbs). Another facet of his life had been organising Scotch-Irish immigration to America. The first tenants Dobbs brought over from Ireland sailed in 1751.
He set sail with "my tenants and their neighbours and friends" from Ballycarry, Kilroot and Carrickfergus. In 1766 Dobbs organised the emigration of another batch of Scotch-Irish. The contingent bound for North and South Carolina included Andrew and Elizabeth Jackson. They had moved from their family farm beside Dalway's Bawn to Boneybefore near Carrickfergus in preparation for their departure. Their son Andrew Jackson would become 7th President of the United States.
Anyway back to Castle Dobbs. The house as built comprises a seven bay two storey double-pile main block over a substantial basement with five bay two storey projecting wings without basements. The two storeys of the wings are the same height as the basement and piano nobile together. Two quadrants link the three distinct parts of the building to create an impressive entrance front which embraces the visitor like the wings of a vast eagle ready to engulf its prey. The windowless elevations of projections the same height as the main block project to the rear of both wings.
The piano nobile is accessed by a 19th century double staircase of reddish stone with carved balustrades and piers. The whole arrangement is supported by two Greek Ionic columns flanked by plain pilasters which form a portico to the basement entrance below. A sense of arrival is guaranteed by this triumph in stone.
The basement entrance contains a double leaf timber panelled entrance door surmounted by a cornice on consoled brackets. Upstairs, the piano nobile has a pair of timber glazed entrance doors and a window on either side set in a slight three bay projection. The seven first floor windows all have a plain surround and key block.
Walls are ruled-and-lined render with - deep breath - chamfered vermiculated rusticated stepped quoins and plain raised quoins to the top floor and south elevation. A modillioned eaves cornice to the wings continues as a string course to the central block. Windows are timber sliding sashes, with exposed boxes to the entrance front, and masonry cills.
Now the wings. The west wing is detailed like the main block with vermiculated rusticated quoins and plain banded rustication to the basement. Its elevation overlooking the forecourt has five 12 pane windows at first floor with moulded lugged architraves. A central timber panelled door with plain raised stepped quoins with two plainly detailed nine pane windows to each side on the ground floor. The west elevation comprises seven bays slightly irregularly placed. A recessed section at the corner of this wing and the south elevation has stairs leading to the piano nobile with a door surmounted by a jaunty leaded corner canopy. Access to the basement is through a timber panelled door below the stairs. The gable end of the west wing is blank.
The east wing is faced with ruled and lined render similar to the west wing. A five bay elevation overlooks the forecourt. This five bay elevation is like an inverted view of the west wing with larger 16 pane sliding sash windows on the raised basement and smaller eight pane sliding sash windows above. The rear elevation is also similar to that of the west wing.
The south facing garden elevation has a more two dimensional quality with no projections. Instead, 13 bays stretch below a centrally placed plain pediment over the middle three bays. Plain solid parapets surmount the elevations and bracketed cornices finish the wings. Four ruled-and-lined rendered chimneys with square terracotta pots rising from the natural slate roof complete the picture.
And so for a century Castle Dobbs remained pretty much an executed variation of Gibbs' plate. Castle Dobbs was exquisitely restored in the late 20th century and now glistens. It is the antithesis of the crumbling Irish country houses beloved by coffee table book publishers. Incidentally Castle Dobbs is one of the few country houses of the British Isles never to have been published in Country Life. But in the early 19th century, it wasn't quite so pristine. In 1839 James Boyle said,
"The house is a spacious old fashioned mansion, the entrance front presenting in its central building and two projecting wings a somewhat Elizabethan appearance. It is three storeys high and presents a plain roughcast and whitened front - plantations, grounds and house are in a very neglected state."
The building appears with an additional extension to the west elevation on the first edition OS map of 1832. Valuations show the extension to have been farm buildings which were pulled down between 1857 and 1859.
It is likely that contemporaneous with this demolition was the restoration and remodelling of Castle Dobbs. On the south elevation, Italianate architectural dressing creeps like ivy across the two lower storeys. Meanwhile the top floor and its plain pediment look down in severity at the interloping detail. The fully vermiculated rusticated basement treatment dates from this time. Surely this hints at the author being Sir Charles Lanyon, king of rustication (think Crumlin Road Gaol which he rusticated to within an inch of its existence). Similar rusticated details were applied to the west wing but not to the east wing of the entrance front.
The windows of the piano nobile on the south front were embellished with entablatures on console brackets. The thick glazing bars of the multi paned Georgian windows were replaced with idiosyncratic fenestration comprising two vertical panes in the upper sash and a single pane in the lower sash. That's as far as the remodelling went, for whatever reason now lost in the sands of time.
A neoclassical rendered three bay gatelodge on the quiet Tongue Loanen marks the entrance to this piece of paradise. Built in 1875, unlike the house, its architect is known - S P Close. It has been restored. The same architect's gatelodge on the busy Carrickfergus to Kilroot road is also three bay but is faced with uncoursed squared quarry-faced basalt with limestone dressings and quoins. Tudor label mouldings to the windows, a door set between classical columns in antis and a polychromatic chimney on the hipped roof give it an eclectic appearance. It lies vacant and its avenue overgrown. Two earlier 19th century gatelodges have disappeared.
The house is approached by a gravel lane past a lake with a cascade and over a bridge. The demesne contains fine mature trees grouped in shelter belts, parkland, woodland and avenues. Informal glen side walks have been augmented with recent planting. The walled garden to the west of the house was redesigned in 1989 to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Arthur Dobbs' birth. Dobbs was a plantsman and noted for providing the first written reference to the Venus fly-trap (Dionaea muscipula) while Governor of North Carolina. The potting sheds are back in use along with a remaining glasshouse.
A series of two storey outbuildings forms a courtyard to the east of the house. Walls are random rubble with brick dressings and eaves course; roofs are pitched and slated; windows are timber casements and doors are timber sheeted. Together, the house grounds and associated buildings form an estate of great beauty and integrity.
His American adventure came to an end in 1795 at another 'Castle Dobbs', his new home at Cape Fear, Brunswick, North Carolina. He died just as he was preparing to return home to Carrickfergus at the age of 75.
He had been the most prominent organiser of Scotch-Irish migration to pre-revolutionary America after he purchased a part interest in 400,000 acres of land in North Carolina in 1745 from the McCulloch estate there. Then, along with McCulloch, Arthur Dobbs was granted another 60,000 acres in New Hanover County.
The first tenants that Dobbs brought over from Ireland sailed in 1751. He described them in a letter as, "my tenants and their neighbours and friends", for they were from Kilroot, Ballycarry and Carrickfergus - and many more were to follow. In 1766 yet another batch of Scotch-Irish settlers from the shadow of Castle Dobbs set sail from Belfast. This contingent bound for North and South Carolina from east Antrim included Andrew and Elizabeth Jackson from Bellahill (Dalway's Bawn). They were the parents of Andrew Jackson, 7th President of the United States. These Jacksons had moved from their family farm beside Dalway's Bawn to Boneybefore near Carrickfergus in preparation for their departure. So, both these 'ancestral homesteads' of 'Old Hickory' will be re-visited at a later date.
Arthur Dobbs, before taking up his office in North Carolina, had been High Sheriff for County Antrim, a member of the Irish Parliament for Carrickfergus, and Surveyor-General of Ireland. His "Essay on the trade and improvement of Ireland" demonstrated his reputation as an economist, but from 1730 he took an increasing interest in colonial affairs, as well as engaging himself in the attempt to discover the North-West passage. In 1752 Arthur Dobbs finished building his fine Palladian mansion of Castle Dobbs just yards away from the ruins of the old castle built by his great-grandfather (and only a few hundred yards south of Dalway's Bawn).
But by 1747 he had completed his land purchases in North Carolina, and wrote to Mathew Rowan, the Surveyor-General of North Carolina, to ask his advice about,
"which type of artificers or servants I should take with me as most wanted there, such as carpenters, smiths, masons and coopers - and what number would be proper at first or could be accommodated with provisions and necessaries to form a settlement ... upon what terms I should agree with each family, the number of acres, term rent or produce, that I may know how to conduct myself in any bargains I may make."
The landscaped garden or demesne of Castle Dobbs was laid out by Arthur Dobbs in the early 1700s, and its wooded glen along the Kilroot River was known to the young explorers from Boneybefore as 'Dobbs's Plantin'. It was our Sherwood Forest when we were being Robin Hood, and our woods of Tennessee when we were being Davy Crockett (or Daniel Boone). The townland is 'Dobbsland', which is 'East of Eden' and separated from the old County of Carrickfergus by the Copeland Water.
A short walk up the Tongue Loanen and the road turns sharply to the right towards Dalway's Bawn, in the next townland north called 'Bellahill'. At this turn is where James Esler junior lived. His father, James Esler senior, was in a small house just across the townland boundary, in Bellahill. The Eslers and the Jacksons of Bellahill bring the connection right back to Dalway's Bawn and the old cattle trail from Ballynure.
Set in a secluded walled and wooded demesne, Castle Dobbs is an amazing survival, untouched by the orange glow of spreading suburbia and still owned by the family from whom its name is derived. The present High Sheriff of County Antrim is Nigel Dobbs. His ancestor Richard Dobbs became High Sheriff of County Antrim in 1664. Its ethereal postal address is 74 Tongue Loanen.
The estate was established in the 16th century when a young John Dobbs accompanied Sir Henry Dockwra to Carrickfergus in 1596. Dobbs subsequently became Dockwra's deputy as Treasurer of Ulster. John Dobbs was the grandson of Sir Richard Dobbs, Lord Mayor of London in 1551 and a founder of Christ's Hospital London. A title would never appear in the Dobbs lineage again.
Seven years later John Dobbs married Margaret Dalway, the only child of John Dalway, a landowner granted estates in Kilroot and Ballynure in 1601 by James I. Dobbs presented the newlyweds with a freehold lease of a portion of his lands in Kilroot. The couple proceeded to build the first Castle Dobbs. It was recorded in 1610:
"One John Dobb buylte a fayre castle within two myle of Knockfargus called Dobbes Castle about w'ch he entends to buylde a bawne of stone... This Castle is buylte upon parte of Ensigne Dallawayes lande."
Dalway had come to Ireland in the 1570s as an officer in the Earl of Essex's army. In 1606 he built a bawn (a stone enclosure for cows) on his newly acquired land. The bawn consisted of four 10m high towers with a 13m long curtain wall between each one. He built his house in the middle of the bawn.
Over the entrance to the bawn is a gallows for unwelcome visitors. The towers had three floors fitted for firing cannons. Three of the towers remain. Originally the bawn would have held 200 cows. Dalway was Mayor of Carrickfergus in 1592 and 1600. The last of the Dalways, Marriott Dalway, left with his family for Australia in 1884.
Back to the Dobbs family. John and Margaret had two sons with the great names of Foulk and Hercules. Dalway naturally nominated his grandson as heir since he was the elder son. But a family row was to erupt over the Dalway estate.
On the death of his first wife, Dalway married Jane Norton who couldn't stand the sight of her step daughter-in-law. Norton persuaded her new husband to make a will in favour of his nephew instead. All hell broke loose in 1618 when Dalway died. John and Margaret began a protracted legal battle to claim the estate for Foulk's sake.
At the first hearing the court ruled in favour of the Dobbs family but the elected heir challenged this ruling. Not one to give up easily, John Dobbs set off with his son to London to petition the king. He succeeded in obtaining His Majesty's Grant to the lands of the late John Dalway.
However their triumphal return was not to be. Both Dobbs senior and junior drowned when their ship was wrecked off the Cheshire coastline in 1622. Hercules continued the legal confrontation with all his strength. The law suit was finally settled with a compromise when referees appointed by the Lord Chancellor ruled that Hercules be awarded lands at Castle Dobbs and Ballynure as well as rights to tenement in Carrickfergus. The remainder of the estate was awarded to Dalway's nephew. The ruling must have made for awkward neighbourly relations - Dalway's Bawn is a stone's throw from the entrance to the Castle Dobbs lands.
Hercules married Magdalene West of Ballydugan in 1633. They had one son, Richard, born in 1634. Hercules died the same year, aged 21. At just three months old, Richard Dobbs inherited Castle Dobbs along with land at Ballynure.
Richard was reared by his mother's family in County Down around Downpatrick and Saul. Aged 21 he married Dorothy Williams, daughter of Bryan Williams of Clints Hall in Yorkshire. After his marriage, Dobbs returned to Castle Dobbs. In 1683 he wrote,
"My house, which is a plantation and improvement of my own time (tho' descended from my great Grandfather)... is called Castle-Dobs from a small castle here, built by my Grandfather." Richard set to work improving the castle and gardens. The ruins of this castle lie beside the current house. Dalway's Bawn is still intact although the house it once surrounded has disappeared into the mists of time.
On settling at Castle Dobbs he soon became involved in civil affairs. In 1671 Dobbs was elected Mayor of Carrickfergus, an honour bestowed on him on four later occasions. Carrickfergus was one of the four most important towns of late 17th century Ireland. Perks of the job included the requirement that tenants would "furnish the Mayor with a number of fat hens at Christmas or a specified sum in lieu". Dobbs described improvements to his town:
"The way out of the north street was first paved; the walls that bring the water through the churchyard were built, and the town pump was set up by benevolence. The Sword and Standard in the church was refurbished, and money was ordered for recasting the bell."
Also in 1683, Dobbs began his record A Brief Description of County Antrim. It has become an invaluable source for local historians. The original manuscript is in the Northern Ireland Public Records Office and a copy is held in the library of Trinity College Dublin. As well as descriptions of the built and natural environment, he recounts tales of folklore and social activities such as hunting with the Earls of Antrim at Glenarm Castle.
Richard and Dorothy Dobbs had two sons and three daughters. The eldest son John was educated at Eton College because his father had aspirations for him to join the church. However the young John went to a Quaker meeting in Carrickfergus and joined that sect. He returned to England to study medicine and eventually settled in County Cork where he worked as a doctor. His father was not impressed and it was another case of altering a will. John was bequeathed a measly 10 per annum while his younger brother Richard inherited the family estate.
Richard junior enlisted in the Duke of Schomberg's army to fight in the Williamite Wars. So these were the progenitors of the illustrious Dobbs family. A distinguished line of politicians, statesmen, churchmen, barristers and soldiers was to follow.
The present Castle Dobbs was built by Arthur Dobbs, Surveyor of the Irish Works and later Governor of North Carolina. The travel writer Richard Pococke recorded in 1752, "Mr Dobbs is now building on a very fine spot on rising ground." The surrounding oak trees predate the house. Arthur's descendent, Captain Dobbs, writing in the 20th century notes,
"The old castle probably fell into disrepair - or as family legend has it: was sacked by pirates, and the present house has been added to, since it was built. The writer can remember that when alterations were made to the upper part of the present castle the inner walls proved to be made with turf."
As successor to the acclaimed architect Sir Edward Lovett Pearce, Arthur Dobbs acquired a distinguished library for his role as Surveyor of the Irish Works. He is known to have owned James Gibbs' A Book of Architecture, dated 1728. Plate 64 was for a 'Draught done for a Gentleman in Essex'. Probably never built, this plate illustrates a sturdy Palladian country house like a smaller version of Ditchley. The plate is missing from Dobbs' copy.
Sir Charles Brett believed Castle Dobbs to be loosely based on Gibbs' design and it seems a reasonable presumption. There are some major deviations, though. Castle Dobbs has a raised, not sunken, basement, lending it an elevated and more impressive front than the original design. In place of Gibb's columned colonnades are courtyard quadrants with paired oeil-de-boeufs. I would go even further than Charlie Brett and suggest that Arthur Dobbs himself directed the final design with lots of help from Pearce. A meeting of three great minds?
Arthur Dobbs was a multifaceted gentleman - an agriculturalist and organiser of expeditions to discover the North West Passage from Hudson's Bay to the Pacific. While a member of the Irish Parliament, he purchased 400,000 acres of land in North Carolina from the McCulloch family in 1745. Dobbs was later granted another 60,000 acres in New Hanover County. His 5,000 acres at Castle Dobbs was positively small fry in comparison.
In 1795 Dobbs died while he was preparing to return from his new home at Cape Fear, North Carolina (also called Castle Dobbs). Another facet of his life had been organising Scotch-Irish immigration to America. The first tenants Dobbs brought over from Ireland sailed in 1751.
He set sail with "my tenants and their neighbours and friends" from Ballycarry, Kilroot and Carrickfergus. In 1766 Dobbs organised the emigration of another batch of Scotch-Irish. The contingent bound for North and South Carolina included Andrew and Elizabeth Jackson. They had moved from their family farm beside Dalway's Bawn to Boneybefore near Carrickfergus in preparation for their departure. Their son Andrew Jackson would become 7th President of the United States.
Anyway back to Castle Dobbs. The house as built comprises a seven bay two storey double-pile main block over a substantial basement with five bay two storey projecting wings without basements. The two storeys of the wings are the same height as the basement and piano nobile together. Two quadrants link the three distinct parts of the building to create an impressive entrance front which embraces the visitor like the wings of a vast eagle ready to engulf its prey. The windowless elevations of projections the same height as the main block project to the rear of both wings.
The piano nobile is accessed by a 19th century double staircase of reddish stone with carved balustrades and piers. The whole arrangement is supported by two Greek Ionic columns flanked by plain pilasters which form a portico to the basement entrance below. A sense of arrival is guaranteed by this triumph in stone.
The basement entrance contains a double leaf timber panelled entrance door surmounted by a cornice on consoled brackets. Upstairs, the piano nobile has a pair of timber glazed entrance doors and a window on either side set in a slight three bay projection. The seven first floor windows all have a plain surround and key block.
Walls are ruled-and-lined render with - deep breath - chamfered vermiculated rusticated stepped quoins and plain raised quoins to the top floor and south elevation. A modillioned eaves cornice to the wings continues as a string course to the central block. Windows are timber sliding sashes, with exposed boxes to the entrance front, and masonry cills.
Now the wings. The west wing is detailed like the main block with vermiculated rusticated quoins and plain banded rustication to the basement. Its elevation overlooking the forecourt has five 12 pane windows at first floor with moulded lugged architraves. A central timber panelled door with plain raised stepped quoins with two plainly detailed nine pane windows to each side on the ground floor. The west elevation comprises seven bays slightly irregularly placed. A recessed section at the corner of this wing and the south elevation has stairs leading to the piano nobile with a door surmounted by a jaunty leaded corner canopy. Access to the basement is through a timber panelled door below the stairs. The gable end of the west wing is blank.
The east wing is faced with ruled and lined render similar to the west wing. A five bay elevation overlooks the forecourt. This five bay elevation is like an inverted view of the west wing with larger 16 pane sliding sash windows on the raised basement and smaller eight pane sliding sash windows above. The rear elevation is also similar to that of the west wing.
The south facing garden elevation has a more two dimensional quality with no projections. Instead, 13 bays stretch below a centrally placed plain pediment over the middle three bays. Plain solid parapets surmount the elevations and bracketed cornices finish the wings. Four ruled-and-lined rendered chimneys with square terracotta pots rising from the natural slate roof complete the picture.
And so for a century Castle Dobbs remained pretty much an executed variation of Gibbs' plate. Castle Dobbs was exquisitely restored in the late 20th century and now glistens. It is the antithesis of the crumbling Irish country houses beloved by coffee table book publishers. Incidentally Castle Dobbs is one of the few country houses of the British Isles never to have been published in Country Life. But in the early 19th century, it wasn't quite so pristine. In 1839 James Boyle said,
"The house is a spacious old fashioned mansion, the entrance front presenting in its central building and two projecting wings a somewhat Elizabethan appearance. It is three storeys high and presents a plain roughcast and whitened front - plantations, grounds and house are in a very neglected state."
The building appears with an additional extension to the west elevation on the first edition OS map of 1832. Valuations show the extension to have been farm buildings which were pulled down between 1857 and 1859.
It is likely that contemporaneous with this demolition was the restoration and remodelling of Castle Dobbs. On the south elevation, Italianate architectural dressing creeps like ivy across the two lower storeys. Meanwhile the top floor and its plain pediment look down in severity at the interloping detail. The fully vermiculated rusticated basement treatment dates from this time. Surely this hints at the author being Sir Charles Lanyon, king of rustication (think Crumlin Road Gaol which he rusticated to within an inch of its existence). Similar rusticated details were applied to the west wing but not to the east wing of the entrance front.
The windows of the piano nobile on the south front were embellished with entablatures on console brackets. The thick glazing bars of the multi paned Georgian windows were replaced with idiosyncratic fenestration comprising two vertical panes in the upper sash and a single pane in the lower sash. That's as far as the remodelling went, for whatever reason now lost in the sands of time.
A neoclassical rendered three bay gatelodge on the quiet Tongue Loanen marks the entrance to this piece of paradise. Built in 1875, unlike the house, its architect is known - S P Close. It has been restored. The same architect's gatelodge on the busy Carrickfergus to Kilroot road is also three bay but is faced with uncoursed squared quarry-faced basalt with limestone dressings and quoins. Tudor label mouldings to the windows, a door set between classical columns in antis and a polychromatic chimney on the hipped roof give it an eclectic appearance. It lies vacant and its avenue overgrown. Two earlier 19th century gatelodges have disappeared.
The house is approached by a gravel lane past a lake with a cascade and over a bridge. The demesne contains fine mature trees grouped in shelter belts, parkland, woodland and avenues. Informal glen side walks have been augmented with recent planting. The walled garden to the west of the house was redesigned in 1989 to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Arthur Dobbs' birth. Dobbs was a plantsman and noted for providing the first written reference to the Venus fly-trap (Dionaea muscipula) while Governor of North Carolina. The potting sheds are back in use along with a remaining glasshouse.
A series of two storey outbuildings forms a courtyard to the east of the house. Walls are random rubble with brick dressings and eaves course; roofs are pitched and slated; windows are timber casements and doors are timber sheeted. Together, the house grounds and associated buildings form an estate of great beauty and integrity.
Set in a secluded walled and wooded demesne, Castle Dobbs is an amazing survival, untouched by the orange glow of spreading suburbia and still owned by the family from whom its name is derived. The present High Sheriff of County Antrim is Nigel Dobbs. His ancestor Richard Dobbs became High Sheriff of County Antrim in 1664. Its ethereal postal address is 74 Tongue Loanen.
The estate was established in the 16th century when a young John Dobbs accompanied Sir Henry Dockwra to Carrickfergus in 1596. Dobbs subsequently became Dockwra's deputy as Treasurer of Ulster. John Dobbs was the grandson of Sir Richard Dobbs, Lord Mayor of London in 1551 and a founder of Christ's Hospital London. A title would never appear in the Dobbs lineage again.
Seven years later John Dobbs married Margaret Dalway, the only child of John Dalway, a landowner granted estates in Kilroot and Ballynure in 1601 by James I. Dobbs presented the newlyweds with a freehold lease of a portion of his lands in Kilroot. The couple proceeded to build the first Castle Dobbs. It was recorded in 1610:
"One John Dobb buylte a fayre castle within two myle of Knockfargus called Dobbes Castle about w'ch he entends to buylde a bawne of stone... This Castle is buylte upon parte of Ensigne Dallawayes lande."
Dalway had come to Ireland in the 1570s as an officer in the Earl of Essex's army. In 1606 he built a bawn (a stone enclosure for cows) on his newly acquired land. The bawn consisted of four 10m high towers with a 13m long curtain wall between each one. He built his house in the middle of the bawn.
Over the entrance to the bawn is a gallows for unwelcome visitors. The towers had three floors fitted for firing cannons. Three of the towers remain. Originally the bawn would have held 200 cows. Dalway was Mayor of Carrickfergus in 1592 and 1600. The last of the Dalways, Marriott Dalway, left with his family for Australia in 1884.
Back to the Dobbs family. John and Margaret had two sons with the great names of Foulk and Hercules. Dalway naturally nominated his grandson as heir since he was the elder son. But a family row was to erupt over the Dalway estate.
On the death of his first wife, Dalway married Jane Norton who couldn't stand the sight of her step daughter-in-law. Norton persuaded her new husband to make a will in favour of his nephew instead. All hell broke loose in 1618 when Dalway died. John and Margaret began a protracted legal battle to claim the estate for Foulk's sake.
At the first hearing the court ruled in favour of the Dobbs family but the elected heir challenged this ruling. Not one to give up easily, John Dobbs set off with his son to London to petition the king. He succeeded in obtaining His Majesty's Grant to the lands of the late John Dalway.
However their triumphal return was not to be. Both Dobbs senior and junior drowned when their ship was wrecked off the Cheshire coastline in 1622. Hercules continued the legal confrontation with all his strength. The law suit was finally settled with a compromise when referees appointed by the Lord Chancellor ruled that Hercules be awarded lands at Castle Dobbs and Ballynure as well as rights to tenement in Carrickfergus. The remainder of the estate was awarded to Dalway's nephew. The ruling must have made for awkward neighbourly relations - Dalway's Bawn is a stone's throw from the entrance to the Castle Dobbs lands.
Hercules married Magdalene West of Ballydugan in 1633. They had one son, Richard, born in 1634. Hercules died the same year, aged 21. At just three months old, Richard Dobbs inherited Castle Dobbs along with land at Ballynure.
Richard was reared by his mother's family in County Down around Downpatrick and Saul. Aged 21 he married Dorothy Williams, daughter of Bryan Williams of Clints Hall in Yorkshire. After his marriage, Dobbs returned to Castle Dobbs. In 1683 he wrote,
"My house, which is a plantation and improvement of my own time (tho' descended from my great Grandfather)... is called Castle-Dobs from a small castle here, built by my Grandfather." Richard set to work improving the castle and gardens. The ruins of this castle lie beside the current house. Dalway's Bawn is still intact although the house it once surrounded has disappeared into the mists of time.
On settling at Castle Dobbs he soon became involved in civil affairs. In 1671 Dobbs was elected Mayor of Carrickfergus, an honour bestowed on him on four later occasions. Carrickfergus was one of the four most important towns of late 17th century Ireland. Perks of the job included the requirement that tenants would "furnish the Mayor with a number of fat hens at Christmas or a specified sum in lieu". Dobbs described improvements to his town:
"The way out of the north street was first paved; the walls that bring the water through the churchyard were built, and the town pump was set up by benevolence. The Sword and Standard in the church was refurbished, and money was ordered for recasting the bell."
Also in 1683, Dobbs began his record A Brief Description of County Antrim. It has become an invaluable source for local historians. The original manuscript is in the Northern Ireland Public Records Office and a copy is held in the library of Trinity College Dublin. As well as descriptions of the built and natural environment, he recounts tales of folklore and social activities such as hunting with the Earls of Antrim at Glenarm Castle.
Richard and Dorothy Dobbs had two sons and three daughters. The eldest son John was educated at Eton College because his father had aspirations for him to join the church. However the young John went to a Quaker meeting in Carrickfergus and joined that sect. He returned to England to study medicine and eventually settled in County Cork where he worked as a doctor. His father was not impressed and it was another case of altering a will. John was bequeathed a measly 10 per annum while his younger brother Richard inherited the family estate.
Richard junior enlisted in the Duke of Schomberg's army to fight in the Williamite Wars. So these were the progenitors of the illustrious Dobbs family. A distinguished line of politicians, statesmen, churchmen, barristers and soldiers was to follow.
The present Castle Dobbs was built by Arthur Dobbs, Surveyor of the Irish Works and later Governor of North Carolina. The travel writer Richard Pococke recorded in 1752, "Mr Dobbs is now building on a very fine spot on rising ground." The surrounding oak trees predate the house. Arthur's descendent, Captain Dobbs, writing in the 20th century notes,
"The old castle probably fell into disrepair - or as family legend has it: was sacked by pirates, and the present house has been added to, since it was built. The writer can remember that when alterations were made to the upper part of the present castle the inner walls proved to be made with turf."
As successor to the acclaimed architect Sir Edward Lovett Pearce, Arthur Dobbs acquired a distinguished library for his role as Surveyor of the Irish Works. He is known to have owned James Gibbs' A Book of Architecture, dated 1728. Plate 64 was for a 'Draught done for a Gentleman in Essex'. Probably never built, this plate illustrates a sturdy Palladian country house like a smaller version of Ditchley. The plate is missing from Dobbs' copy.
Sir Charles Brett believed Castle Dobbs to be loosely based on Gibbs' design and it seems a reasonable presumption. There are some major deviations, though. Castle Dobbs has a raised, not sunken, basement, lending it an elevated and more impressive front than the original design. In place of Gibb's columned colonnades are courtyard quadrants with paired oeil-de-boeufs. I would go even further than Charlie Brett and suggest that Arthur Dobbs himself directed the final design with lots of help from Pearce. A meeting of three great minds?
Arthur Dobbs was a multifaceted gentleman - an agriculturalist and organiser of expeditions to discover the North West Passage from Hudson's Bay to the Pacific. While a member of the Irish Parliament, he purchased 400,000 acres of land in North Carolina from the McCulloch family in 1745. Dobbs was later granted another 60,000 acres in New Hanover County. His 5,000 acres at Castle Dobbs was positively small fry in comparison.
In 1795 Dobbs died while he was preparing to return from his new home at Cape Fear, North Carolina (also called Castle Dobbs). Another facet of his life had been organising Scotch-Irish immigration to America. The first tenants Dobbs brought over from Ireland sailed in 1751.
He set sail with "my tenants and their neighbours and friends" from Ballycarry, Kilroot and Carrickfergus. In 1766 Dobbs organised the emigration of another batch of Scotch-Irish. The contingent bound for North and South Carolina included Andrew and Elizabeth Jackson. They had moved from their family farm beside Dalway's Bawn to Boneybefore near Carrickfergus in preparation for their departure. Their son Andrew Jackson would become 7th President of the United States.
The estate was established in the 16th century when a young John Dobbs accompanied Sir Henry Dockwra to Carrickfergus in 1596. Dobbs subsequently became Dockwra's deputy as Treasurer of Ulster. John Dobbs was the grandson of Sir Richard Dobbs, Lord Mayor of London in 1551 and a founder of Christ's Hospital London. A title would never appear in the Dobbs lineage again.
Seven years later John Dobbs married Margaret Dalway, the only child of John Dalway, a landowner granted estates in Kilroot and Ballynure in 1601 by James I. Dobbs presented the newlyweds with a freehold lease of a portion of his lands in Kilroot. The couple proceeded to build the first Castle Dobbs. It was recorded in 1610:
"One John Dobb buylte a fayre castle within two myle of Knockfargus called Dobbes Castle about w'ch he entends to buylde a bawne of stone... This Castle is buylte upon parte of Ensigne Dallawayes lande."
Dalway had come to Ireland in the 1570s as an officer in the Earl of Essex's army. In 1606 he built a bawn (a stone enclosure for cows) on his newly acquired land. The bawn consisted of four 10m high towers with a 13m long curtain wall between each one. He built his house in the middle of the bawn.
Over the entrance to the bawn is a gallows for unwelcome visitors. The towers had three floors fitted for firing cannons. Three of the towers remain. Originally the bawn would have held 200 cows. Dalway was Mayor of Carrickfergus in 1592 and 1600. The last of the Dalways, Marriott Dalway, left with his family for Australia in 1884.
Back to the Dobbs family. John and Margaret had two sons with the great names of Foulk and Hercules. Dalway naturally nominated his grandson as heir since he was the elder son. But a family row was to erupt over the Dalway estate.
On the death of his first wife, Dalway married Jane Norton who couldn't stand the sight of her step daughter-in-law. Norton persuaded her new husband to make a will in favour of his nephew instead. All hell broke loose in 1618 when Dalway died. John and Margaret began a protracted legal battle to claim the estate for Foulk's sake.
At the first hearing the court ruled in favour of the Dobbs family but the elected heir challenged this ruling. Not one to give up easily, John Dobbs set off with his son to London to petition the king. He succeeded in obtaining His Majesty's Grant to the lands of the late John Dalway.
However their triumphal return was not to be. Both Dobbs senior and junior drowned when their ship was wrecked off the Cheshire coastline in 1622. Hercules continued the legal confrontation with all his strength. The law suit was finally settled with a compromise when referees appointed by the Lord Chancellor ruled that Hercules be awarded lands at Castle Dobbs and Ballynure as well as rights to tenement in Carrickfergus. The remainder of the estate was awarded to Dalway's nephew. The ruling must have made for awkward neighbourly relations - Dalway's Bawn is a stone's throw from the entrance to the Castle Dobbs lands.
Hercules married Magdalene West of Ballydugan in 1633. They had one son, Richard, born in 1634. Hercules died the same year, aged 21. At just three months old, Richard Dobbs inherited Castle Dobbs along with land at Ballynure.
Richard was reared by his mother's family in County Down around Downpatrick and Saul. Aged 21 he married Dorothy Williams, daughter of Bryan Williams of Clints Hall in Yorkshire. After his marriage, Dobbs returned to Castle Dobbs. In 1683 he wrote,
"My house, which is a plantation and improvement of my own time (tho' descended from my great Grandfather)... is called Castle-Dobs from a small castle here, built by my Grandfather." Richard set to work improving the castle and gardens. The ruins of this castle lie beside the current house. Dalway's Bawn is still intact although the house it once surrounded has disappeared into the mists of time.
On settling at Castle Dobbs he soon became involved in civil affairs. In 1671 Dobbs was elected Mayor of Carrickfergus, an honour bestowed on him on four later occasions. Carrickfergus was one of the four most important towns of late 17th century Ireland. Perks of the job included the requirement that tenants would "furnish the Mayor with a number of fat hens at Christmas or a specified sum in lieu". Dobbs described improvements to his town:
"The way out of the north street was first paved; the walls that bring the water through the churchyard were built, and the town pump was set up by benevolence. The Sword and Standard in the church was refurbished, and money was ordered for recasting the bell."
Also in 1683, Dobbs began his record A Brief Description of County Antrim. It has become an invaluable source for local historians. The original manuscript is in the Northern Ireland Public Records Office and a copy is held in the library of Trinity College Dublin. As well as descriptions of the built and natural environment, he recounts tales of folklore and social activities such as hunting with the Earls of Antrim at Glenarm Castle.
Richard and Dorothy Dobbs had two sons and three daughters. The eldest son John was educated at Eton College because his father had aspirations for him to join the church. However the young John went to a Quaker meeting in Carrickfergus and joined that sect. He returned to England to study medicine and eventually settled in County Cork where he worked as a doctor. His father was not impressed and it was another case of altering a will. John was bequeathed a measly 10 per annum while his younger brother Richard inherited the family estate.
Richard junior enlisted in the Duke of Schomberg's army to fight in the Williamite Wars. So these were the progenitors of the illustrious Dobbs family. A distinguished line of politicians, statesmen, churchmen, barristers and soldiers was to follow.
The present Castle Dobbs was built by Arthur Dobbs, Surveyor of the Irish Works and later Governor of North Carolina. The travel writer Richard Pococke recorded in 1752, "Mr Dobbs is now building on a very fine spot on rising ground." The surrounding oak trees predate the house. Arthur's descendent, Captain Dobbs, writing in the 20th century notes,
"The old castle probably fell into disrepair - or as family legend has it: was sacked by pirates, and the present house has been added to, since it was built. The writer can remember that when alterations were made to the upper part of the present castle the inner walls proved to be made with turf."
As successor to the acclaimed architect Sir Edward Lovett Pearce, Arthur Dobbs acquired a distinguished library for his role as Surveyor of the Irish Works. He is known to have owned James Gibbs' A Book of Architecture, dated 1728. Plate 64 was for a 'Draught done for a Gentleman in Essex'. Probably never built, this plate illustrates a sturdy Palladian country house like a smaller version of Ditchley. The plate is missing from Dobbs' copy.
Sir Charles Brett believed Castle Dobbs to be loosely based on Gibbs' design and it seems a reasonable presumption. There are some major deviations, though. Castle Dobbs has a raised, not sunken, basement, lending it an elevated and more impressive front than the original design. In place of Gibb's columned colonnades are courtyard quadrants with paired oeil-de-boeufs. I would go even further than Charlie Brett and suggest that Arthur Dobbs himself directed the final design with lots of help from Pearce. A meeting of three great minds?
Arthur Dobbs was a multifaceted gentleman - an agriculturalist and organiser of expeditions to discover the North West Passage from Hudson's Bay to the Pacific. While a member of the Irish Parliament, he purchased 400,000 acres of land in North Carolina from the McCulloch family in 1745. Dobbs was later granted another 60,000 acres in New Hanover County. His 5,000 acres at Castle Dobbs was positively small fry in comparison.
In 1795 Dobbs died while he was preparing to return from his new home at Cape Fear, North Carolina (also called Castle Dobbs). Another facet of his life had been organising Scotch-Irish immigration to America. The first tenants Dobbs brought over from Ireland sailed in 1751.
He set sail with "my tenants and their neighbours and friends" from Ballycarry, Kilroot and Carrickfergus. In 1766 Dobbs organised the emigration of another batch of Scotch-Irish. The contingent bound for North and South Carolina included Andrew and Elizabeth Jackson. They had moved from their family farm beside Dalway's Bawn to Boneybefore near Carrickfergus in preparation for their departure. Their son Andrew Jackson would become 7th President of the United States.
Below this line is stuff to read and/or confirm:
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http://www.thepeerage.com/p38281.htm#i382803 (Richard Dobbs) fighting for the king
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http://www.thepeerage.com/p38281.htm#i382803 (Richard Dobbs) fighting for the king
www.irishgenealogy.ie – This is a government run site with a database of church records relating to many locations in Counties Kerry, Dublin, Carlow and Cork. Further records will also be added to this site.www.askaboutireland.ie – This website is operated by the Library Council of Ireland and comprises a database of the Griffith’s Valuation, a mid 19th century property valuation survey which includes images of the original and accompanying maps.www.sources.nli.ie - This is a National Library website with a database of Irish Manuscripts held in various repositories and articles in Irish periodicals. www.familysearch.org - This website is run by the Latter Day Saints Church and it contains a database of the Irish civil records index of births, deaths and marriages.www.rootsireland.ie - This website is run on behalf of the county genealogy centres, providing access to a free index of over 17 million church, civil, land, census and gravestone records for the majority of Irish counties. There is a fee to view the full details of any recor
Review:
William Barr and Glyndwr Williams (editors), Voyages in Search of a Northwest Passage 1741-1747. Volume II: The Voyage of William Moor and Francis Smith 1746-1747 by Michael Payne
Alberta Community Development, Edmonton
Manitoba History, Number 32, Autumn 1996
This article was published originally in Manitoba History by the Manitoba Historical Society on the above date. We make it available here as a free, public service.
Please direct all inquiries to [email protected].
William Barr and Glyndwr Williams (editors). Voyages in Search of a Northwest Passage 1741-1747. Volume II: The Voyage of William Moor and Francis Smith 1746-1747. London: The Hakluyt Society, 1995. Second series No. 181. Pp. xvi + 393. ISBN 0-904180-41-7.
This volume continues the story of Arthur Dobbs and his attempts both to find a Northwest Passage and to have the Hudson’s Bay Company’s trade monopoly revoked. On the surface these issues may seem quite unrelated, but in Dobbs’ mind they were intimately connected. Although he never visited Hudson Bay himself, Dobbs was convinced by his reading of explorers’ accounts of tides and whales and ice that there had to be a connection between Hudson Bay and another ocean to the west. Dobbs reasoned that if this connection were found, it would be of vast commercial value. The Hudson’s Bay Company, however, showed little or no interest in discovering this hypothetical Northwest Passage. Other merchants might finance exploration, however, if they had some expectation of trade. The conclusion Dobbs reached was that the Northwest Passage would not be found unless the Hudson’s Bay Company’s trade monopoly was revoked.
Volume I of Voyages in Search of the Northwest Passage 1741-1747, published in 1994, covers the beginnings of Dobb’s campaign against the Hudson’s Bay Company and details the voyage undertaken by Captain Middleton in 1741-42. Middleton’s voyage probably should have put the notion of a Northwest Passage through Hudson Bay to rest, but he did not fully explore Wager Bay and Dobbs and his supporters leapt on this omission. As long as it was possible that Wager was not a bay but a strait, Dobbs’ theory had life. Dobbs and his associates, who included some members of Middleton’s crew who undoubtedly knew better, vilified Middleton and his conduct of the expedition. Middleton replied in kind, and the debate quickly degenerated into a long and polemical exchange of pamphlets. Volume I ably summarizes these initial exchanges, while Volume II carries the story through to the aftermath of William Moor and Francis Smith’s explorations of 1746-47.
A depiction of York Factory in the 18th century around the time that William Moor and Francis Smith wintered near the post at Ten Shilling Creek.
Source: Hudson’s Bay Company Archives
Dobbs won the pamphlet war, and he had influential political support for his plans for exploration and trade. He convinced the British House of Commons in 1745 to offer 20,000 pounds sterling as a reward for the discovery of a Northwest Passage, and then convinced a group of investors to finance an expedition in return for a chance at a share of the reward. By 1746 enough money had been raised to purchase two ships, the California and the Dobbs Galley, to hire crews, and to outfit the expedition for two seasons of exploration. In theory the ships were to return home within the year, unless they found the passage, but this was probably never intended. Serious exploration required wintering on the Bay, and an early start the following summer to have any hope of mapping the complex coastline north of Churchill. This was certainly known to the expedition leaders, both of whom had experience sailing on Hudson Bay. William Moor, Captain Middleton’s cousin and a member of Middleton’s expedition, commanded the Dobbs Galley, and Francis Smith, a former HBC sloop captain with experience sailing north from Churchill, commanded the California.
Moor and Smith reached Hudson Bay only at the beginning of August, and after some desultory exploration around Marble Island they sailed for York Factory. By August 25 they were at York Factory, where the two crews settled in for the winter, though not without some conflict with James Isham, the officer in charge of York Factory and a reluctant host. Eventually the ships were brought into a relatively safe harbour at Ten Shilling Creek, across the river from York, and the crews built a large house, called Montague House, and several log tents for their winter accommodation. The winter of 1746-47 was both early and difficult. As was the case whenever explorers overwintered at bayside posts in any number, fresh provisions soon ran short and scurvy appeared. By spring Moor and Smith’s crews were unhealthy and disgruntled, and Moor, Smith and their officers were feuding as well. As a result the explorations of 1747 were not marked by much cooperation or coordination between the two ships or their captains and crews. For the most part these explorations lacked either drama or consequence. Wager Bay was explored and shown to be a bay not a strait, but the exploration was really no more conclusive than Middleton’s voyage. After Moor and Smith returned to Britain, Dobbs and his supporters continued to argue that a passage could possibly exist through Chesterfield Inlet or Repulse Bay, though apparently few others remained convinced. Dobbs attempts to overturn the Hudson’s Bay Company’s charter also came to naught, and after a Parliamentary inquiry in 1749 the issue was effectively dropped. Indeed the story ends less with a bang than a drawn out whimper.
This is not the editors’ fault, however. As in the case of Volume I, they have skillfully stitched together a coherent narrative from the two printed accounts of the voyage, a manuscript journal, portions of James Isham’s Observations, and a variety of archival documents. As editors, Barr and Williams are quite unobtrusive, limiting themselves to brief introductions to each of the book’s three sections, and two short appendices discussing the rival accounts of the voyage and the intriguing history of the Fonte letter. This celebrated hoax influenced exploration up to George Vancouver, and Dobbs deserves much of the credit for popularizing its highly creative geographic misinformation. The editors are also very judicious in their presentation of material which is often highly polemical and equally self-serving.
In the end, Barr and Williams suggest the significance of these voyages and all of Dobbs’ machinations was bringing “Hudson Bay and its trade into clearer focus.” Middleton and Moor “added to the sum of geographical knowledge”, while the published narratives of the latter’s voyage “contained much new information, perhaps not all of it reliable, on the Bay region and its inhabitants” (318). These conclusions are fair, but I’m sure Arthur Dobbs would be disappointed with such a Prufrockian epitaph.
William Barr and Glyndwr Williams (editors), Voyages in Search of a Northwest Passage 1741-1747. Volume II: The Voyage of William Moor and Francis Smith 1746-1747 by Michael Payne
Alberta Community Development, Edmonton
Manitoba History, Number 32, Autumn 1996
This article was published originally in Manitoba History by the Manitoba Historical Society on the above date. We make it available here as a free, public service.
Please direct all inquiries to [email protected].
William Barr and Glyndwr Williams (editors). Voyages in Search of a Northwest Passage 1741-1747. Volume II: The Voyage of William Moor and Francis Smith 1746-1747. London: The Hakluyt Society, 1995. Second series No. 181. Pp. xvi + 393. ISBN 0-904180-41-7.
This volume continues the story of Arthur Dobbs and his attempts both to find a Northwest Passage and to have the Hudson’s Bay Company’s trade monopoly revoked. On the surface these issues may seem quite unrelated, but in Dobbs’ mind they were intimately connected. Although he never visited Hudson Bay himself, Dobbs was convinced by his reading of explorers’ accounts of tides and whales and ice that there had to be a connection between Hudson Bay and another ocean to the west. Dobbs reasoned that if this connection were found, it would be of vast commercial value. The Hudson’s Bay Company, however, showed little or no interest in discovering this hypothetical Northwest Passage. Other merchants might finance exploration, however, if they had some expectation of trade. The conclusion Dobbs reached was that the Northwest Passage would not be found unless the Hudson’s Bay Company’s trade monopoly was revoked.
Volume I of Voyages in Search of the Northwest Passage 1741-1747, published in 1994, covers the beginnings of Dobb’s campaign against the Hudson’s Bay Company and details the voyage undertaken by Captain Middleton in 1741-42. Middleton’s voyage probably should have put the notion of a Northwest Passage through Hudson Bay to rest, but he did not fully explore Wager Bay and Dobbs and his supporters leapt on this omission. As long as it was possible that Wager was not a bay but a strait, Dobbs’ theory had life. Dobbs and his associates, who included some members of Middleton’s crew who undoubtedly knew better, vilified Middleton and his conduct of the expedition. Middleton replied in kind, and the debate quickly degenerated into a long and polemical exchange of pamphlets. Volume I ably summarizes these initial exchanges, while Volume II carries the story through to the aftermath of William Moor and Francis Smith’s explorations of 1746-47.
A depiction of York Factory in the 18th century around the time that William Moor and Francis Smith wintered near the post at Ten Shilling Creek.
Source: Hudson’s Bay Company Archives
Dobbs won the pamphlet war, and he had influential political support for his plans for exploration and trade. He convinced the British House of Commons in 1745 to offer 20,000 pounds sterling as a reward for the discovery of a Northwest Passage, and then convinced a group of investors to finance an expedition in return for a chance at a share of the reward. By 1746 enough money had been raised to purchase two ships, the California and the Dobbs Galley, to hire crews, and to outfit the expedition for two seasons of exploration. In theory the ships were to return home within the year, unless they found the passage, but this was probably never intended. Serious exploration required wintering on the Bay, and an early start the following summer to have any hope of mapping the complex coastline north of Churchill. This was certainly known to the expedition leaders, both of whom had experience sailing on Hudson Bay. William Moor, Captain Middleton’s cousin and a member of Middleton’s expedition, commanded the Dobbs Galley, and Francis Smith, a former HBC sloop captain with experience sailing north from Churchill, commanded the California.
Moor and Smith reached Hudson Bay only at the beginning of August, and after some desultory exploration around Marble Island they sailed for York Factory. By August 25 they were at York Factory, where the two crews settled in for the winter, though not without some conflict with James Isham, the officer in charge of York Factory and a reluctant host. Eventually the ships were brought into a relatively safe harbour at Ten Shilling Creek, across the river from York, and the crews built a large house, called Montague House, and several log tents for their winter accommodation. The winter of 1746-47 was both early and difficult. As was the case whenever explorers overwintered at bayside posts in any number, fresh provisions soon ran short and scurvy appeared. By spring Moor and Smith’s crews were unhealthy and disgruntled, and Moor, Smith and their officers were feuding as well. As a result the explorations of 1747 were not marked by much cooperation or coordination between the two ships or their captains and crews. For the most part these explorations lacked either drama or consequence. Wager Bay was explored and shown to be a bay not a strait, but the exploration was really no more conclusive than Middleton’s voyage. After Moor and Smith returned to Britain, Dobbs and his supporters continued to argue that a passage could possibly exist through Chesterfield Inlet or Repulse Bay, though apparently few others remained convinced. Dobbs attempts to overturn the Hudson’s Bay Company’s charter also came to naught, and after a Parliamentary inquiry in 1749 the issue was effectively dropped. Indeed the story ends less with a bang than a drawn out whimper.
This is not the editors’ fault, however. As in the case of Volume I, they have skillfully stitched together a coherent narrative from the two printed accounts of the voyage, a manuscript journal, portions of James Isham’s Observations, and a variety of archival documents. As editors, Barr and Williams are quite unobtrusive, limiting themselves to brief introductions to each of the book’s three sections, and two short appendices discussing the rival accounts of the voyage and the intriguing history of the Fonte letter. This celebrated hoax influenced exploration up to George Vancouver, and Dobbs deserves much of the credit for popularizing its highly creative geographic misinformation. The editors are also very judicious in their presentation of material which is often highly polemical and equally self-serving.
In the end, Barr and Williams suggest the significance of these voyages and all of Dobbs’ machinations was bringing “Hudson Bay and its trade into clearer focus.” Middleton and Moor “added to the sum of geographical knowledge”, while the published narratives of the latter’s voyage “contained much new information, perhaps not all of it reliable, on the Bay region and its inhabitants” (318). These conclusions are fair, but I’m sure Arthur Dobbs would be disappointed with such a Prufrockian epitaph.