North Carolina Baptist Assembly

The North Carolina Baptist Assembly is a Christian retreat owned and operated by the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, the state's largest denomination. The grounds of the retreat, on the eastern end of Oak Island, is the former site of Fort Caswell, a military base that was occupied by various branches of the U.S. armed forces for most of the period between 1836 and 1945. Most people still call the Baptist Assembly Fort Caswell.

Fort Caswell

The original fort, named after former governor Richard Caswell and completed in 1836 at a cost of $473,402, was fortified with both brick walls and large earthworks in a pentagonal design. Fortified with over 61 gun emplacements, it guarded the mouth of the Cape Fear River, and was a key in the defense of Wilmington an important port 20 miles upriver and, at the time, the state's largest city. When the issue of secession was debated in 1861, it was seized twice by a group called the "Cape Fear Minutemen", who were subsequently ordered by Governor John Willis Ellis to return it to the keeper of the fort, the only man stationed there by the U.S. Army at the time.