Brothers Raymond and Paul Demere served as the commanders of Fort Loudoun during the entirety of its history.
Raymond was born in France to a Protestant family in 1702. Around 1720, Raymond and younger brother Paul emigrated to England and purchased commissions in the British army. He then emigrated to Georgia with James Oglethorpe’s 42nd Regiment of Foot and served as an envoy to the Spanish in Florida during the War of Jenkin’s Ear. After the war, he stayed on St. Simon’s Island and served as a captain in the South Carolina Independent Company of Foot. He owned Harrington Plantation and a large tract of land stretching to the Florida border.
In 1754, Raymond oversaw the construction of Fort Prince George; two years later, he oversaw the construction of Fort Loudoun and got into several squabbles with the fort’s engineer William de Brahm, about the location of the fort, eventually siding with the preferred Cherokee location. Raymond served as commander of Fort Loudoun until sometime in 1757, when his brother Paul assumed the role. Raymond retired from the army in 1761, and lived on St. Simons Island until his death in 1766.1
Less is definitively known about Paul’s younger years; even his birth date is uncertain. He followed in his brother’s footsteps in joining the British military and likewise emigrated at some point to the Southern colonies. He took control of Fort Loudoun after Raymond left, serving as the commander from 1757 until its besiegement and surrender in August 1760. Cherokee leaders appeared to have favored his older brother, often complaining that Paul was not as receptive to their concerns as Raymond had been. Paul reported that Cherokees were “continually at the Fort” and even said he was daily “tormented” by their presence seeking trade, weapons repair, and social gatherings.2 Paul did attend cultural ceremonies like the Green Corn Ceremony in Cherokee towns, however, recognizing that his role demanded diplomacy.
When Fort Loudoun was besieged by Oconostota and Ostenaco in summer 1760, Paul Demere had to reduce rations several times until the garrison was eating their horses and whatever random scraps of food they could find. On August 9, the fort surrendered. The next day, Paul was among the fort’s residents killed by Cherokee warriors, with some observers claiming he was “scalped while still alive and forced to dance while being beaten with sticks for his tormentor’s amusement” before his legs and arms were chopped off and he finally died.3 The rest of the fort’s population was captured, and most were held as prisoners for the next year.
- Patrick M. Demere, “Raymond Demere Jr.” Coastal Georgia Genealogy. http://www.glynngen.com/military/amrev/glynn/demererayjr.htm (Accessed April 6, 2024). ↩︎
- John Chevillette to William Henry Lyttelton, 19 May 1757, William Henry Lyttelton Papers (Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor), correspondence box 5; Paul Demere to William Henry Lyttelton, 11 October 1757, William Henry Lyttelton Papers (Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor), correspondence box 6. ↩︎
- 27 September-4 October 1760, South Carolina Gazette. ↩︎