USA > North Carolina > Watauga County > A history of Watauga County, North Carolina. With sketches of prominent families > Part 4
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Patrick Coffey, in Caldwell County. Hannah Boone, another sister of Jesse's, married Smith Coffey, the grandfather of the present Smith Coffey, of Kelsey post office. According to the family history of the Bryan family in the possession of Col. W. L. Bryan, of Boone, it was Morgan Bryan, and not Joseph, as all histories have it, who was the father of Rebecca Bryan, the wife of Daniel Boone. Bishop Spangenberg mentions the fact that Morgan Bryant had taken up land near the Mulberry Fields in 1752. (Col. Rec. Vol. V, p. 13.) According to the same family history, Morgan Bryan was the ancestor of Hon. W. J. Bryan, of Nebraska. Jesse, Anna and Hannah Boone were the children of Israel, a brother of Daniel Boone, not his own children. The same is true of Jonathan Boone, who sold to John Hardin, the grandfather of the present John and Joseph Hardin, of Boone, 245 acres on the 15th of September, 1821, for $600.00, the land being on what was then called Lynch's and Mill Creeks on the north side of New River, and adjoining the lands of Jesse Councill, and running to Shearer's Knob, near the town of Boone. (Ashe County deed book S, p. 509.)
Jesse and Jonathan Boone .- These were members of Three Forks Baptist Church, which speaks well for these relatives of the great Daniel, for he was a religious man himself, his simple creed being: "For my part I am as ignorant as a Child all the Relegan I have to love and feer god believe in Jesus Christ Do all the good to my neighbors and my Self that I can and Do as Little harm as I can help and trust on God's mercy for the rest and I believe god never made a man of my principel to be Lost . " What was the creed of Jesse and Jonathan does not appear beyond that implied by their membership of this church. But that each overstepped the rules of that organiza- tion is apparent, the minutes revealing the following facts: That in March, 1818, there was a report that Jonathan Boone was drinking too much, but that at the next meeting he came for- ward and made excuses and was forgiven. However, in May, 1819, there was another report against him for drinking and get- ting drunk and not attending at church meetings, the result of which was: "We consider him no more a member with us at
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A History of Watauga County
this time." Before that, however, Jesse and his wife, "Saly," joined this church by letter, as did also his negro girl, Dina, and his brother, Jonathan. In November, 1815, Jonathan was chosen an elder, and in February, 1816, he was ordained by Reuben Coffey and Elijah Chambers. Jesse seems to have kept out of trouble for a long time, but in February, 1820, there was a report that he had requested Brother Jeremiah Green to re- move a land-mark-laid over-not proved. But, in "Aprile, 1820, a grievance" took place between Jesse Boone, of this church, and Brother Jesse Coffey, of the Globe church, and James Gilbert and Elisha Chambers, from the Globe church, and Anthony Reese and Robert Shearer, from this church, were ap- pointed to meet at Ben Green's on the second Saturday next ensuing "to set on the business." In June following this com- mittee reported that Jesse Boone had given Brother Jesse Coffey "some cause to be hurt with him." In September, 1820, Jesse Boone and Jonathan Wilson said "the church was not in order," and withdrew therefrom. This did not increase Jesse's popu- larity with the members, and he was excluded by a committee consisting of John Holtsclaw, Abijah Fairchild, Valentine Reese and Jacob Baker; but, in October, 1821, the terms were fixed upon which he might return, these terms being that he should make acknowledgment for having withdrawn and saying that the church was out of order. At this meeting the church also took up the charges of Brother Wilson and Brother Boone against Brother Shearer, who acknowledged all that had any "wate" (weight) in them; but the church found that Brother Boone was at fault because he said he could "not see his range, and we put him under suspense till he can give satisfaction." Jesse Boone having been excluded "from amonks us," his loyal wife began to absent herself from the meetings, and, accord- ingly, in January, 1823, she was sent for to come to meetings ; but as she refused from time to time to do so, "Sister Poly Green," the messenger sent to secure her attendance, reported that Sister Boone had said that the church would have to "cut her off" for the reason that when she (Sister Boone) had joined the church there were many members in it with whom "she
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could not fellowship," but that as her husband had joined, she had followed him into the fold. She was excommunicated as a "disorderly member and declared to the world our unfellowship to her." In November following a letter of dismission was given "old Sister Boone," who may have been Jesse's mother, as it was probably not his wife, who wrote from McMinn County, Tennessee, asking for a letter of dismission. But this the church decided to withhold till it got "satisfaction," meanwhile writing "a friendly letter to her." This concludes the residence of the Boones in that part of Ashe which is now Watauga.
Marking the Trail .- On the 23d day of October, 1913, the tablet which had been placed at Boone village as one of the markers on the trail of Daniel Boone through these mountains was unveiled. This is one of six similar markers of iron-bolted- to-stone boulders erected in Watauga County in October, 1913, by the Daughters of the American Revolution. The most east- ern of these markers was placed at what is now called Cook's Gap, six miles east of the town of Boone; the next is at Three Forks Baptist Church, three miles from Boone; the third is in front of the court house at Boone; the fourth is in Hodges' Gap, two miles west of Boone; the fifth is at Grave Yard or Straddle Gap, four miles west of Boone, and the sixth and last is at Zionville, near the Tennessee line. The Edward Buncombe Chapter, D. A. R., of Asheville, was in charge of the unveiling of the marker at Boone. The exercises consisted of reading of the ritual of the D. A. R. society by the State Regent, Mrs. W. N. Reynolds, and responses by the audience, introductory re- marks by Col. Edward F. Lovill, prayer by Rev. J. M. Downum, and addresses by John P. Arthur, Prof. B. B. Dougherty and E. S. Coffey, Esq., and songs by a choir, led by Prof. I. G. Greer. The county court house was filled. The veil was withdrawn from the marker, at the conclusion of these exercises, by the following little girls: Misses Margaret Beaufort Miller, a niece of Mrs. Lindsay Patterson; Margaret Linney, Alice Councill, Lucy Moretz and Nellie Coffey, all having Revolutionary ances- tors. Short addresses were made in the open air to the people who had gathered around the marker by Mrs. W. N. Reynolds,
DANIEL BOONE CABIN MONUMENT
Erected by Colonel W. L. Bryan, October, 1912.
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State Regent; Mrs. Lindsay Patterson, chairman of the Com- mittee on Boone's Trail, and Mrs. Theodore S. Morrison, Regent of the Edward Buncombe Chapter.
Boone's Cabin Monument .- In October, 1912, just one year previous to the unveiling of the markers along the Boone trail through Watauga, a monument of stone and concrete, far more imposing and substantial than any erected by the Daughters of the American Revolution, had been built on the identical spot on which once stood the log cabin in which Daniel Boone and his companions used to sleep when on their hunting trips through this section. This cabin has long since disappeared, but the stones of the chimney remained in their original bed or founda- tion till 1911, and were well known by all in the vicinity as hav- ing been a part of the old Boone cabin or hunting camp. It was open to all who cared to use it in the old days before the country was settled. Whether Boone actually built it is imma- terial. He used it, as did all hunters and herders who found themselves in this locality near nightfall. Just south of it stands the Boys' Dormitory of the Appalachian Training School, a State-supported institution for the education of teachers. In this cabin Benjamin Howard and his herders used to keep their salt and cooking utensils when they visited this section to look after Howard's cattle, which he ranged in the upper valley of the New River. What is now the village or town of Boone stands near by, while over this picturesque little community looms Howard's Knob, 4,451 feet above the level of the sea. Tradition has identified this spot with both Boone and Howard as fully as tradition can identify any fact or place. The mountain was named for Howard and the cabin site for Boone. When Wa- tauga was formed, the legislature called the county-seat Boone because of the location of Boone's cabin within a few hundred feet of its court house. It is, therefore, as certain as anything can be that this is the identical site of Boone's old hunting cabin or camp.1
Thanks to Its Builder .- In 1911 Col. William Lewis Bryan began work on this monument, alone and unaided by anyone.
1 While excavating for the foundation of the monument a pair of rusted bullet-molds was found.
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He was determined to mark the spot and to have Boone's trail through this county marked also before he died, for he was then well on past his seventieth birthday. The monument was completed in the fall of 1912, but there was no unveiling and no ceremony attending the consummation of Colonel Bryan's dream. When its erection was assured, several people contributed to its cost. When the trail was marked at Boone court house in Octo- ber, 1913, E. S. Coffey, Esq., a distinguished member of the Boone bar, presented a resolution of thanks to Colonel Bryan for his services in having this spot so appropriately and perma- nently marked. The resolution was adopted by a rising vote of the large audience which packed the court house to the dome. The monument contains the following inscriptions, chiseled in white marble tablets let in on the western and eastern faces : On the west front: "Daniel Boone, Pioneer and Hunter ; Born Feb. II, 1735; Died Sep. 26, 1820." On the eastern face is the following: "W. L. Bryan, son of Battle and Rebecca Miller Bryan; Born Nov. 19, 1837; Built Daniel Boone Monument, Oct. 1912. Cost $203.37." Thwaite gives these dates as fol- lows (p. 6): Born November 2, 1734; died September 21, 1820 (p. 338).
Information About the Trail .- This same gentleman, Colonel Bryan, supplied the information which led to the location of the trail through Watauga County. He is a direct lineal descendant of a brother of Rebecca Bryan, the wife of Daniel Boone, and has all his life preserved all the traditions he has heard concern- ing Boone, his wife, his trail and hunting experiences in this section. He originated and inspired the idea of marking the trail through this county, and it is not too much to say that if the Daughters of the American Revolution had not marked it, he would have done it himself. He did, in fact, help place every marker in the county. But, after all the statements of the people living along the trail had been taken down and deposited with the North Carolina Historical Commission, there was never any doubt that these patriotic ladies would see to it that the trail was suitably marked. They took those statements and placed them with Mrs. Lindsey Patterson, as chairman of the Daniel Boone
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Trail Committee, and she, as in duty bound, collected all the other evidence available from all sources, and finally agreed to place the markers exactly where Colonel Bryan had recom- mended that they should be placed. It is not too much to say that but for Mrs. Patterson the trail would not have been marked till it was too late to locate it with any degree of certainty, and posterity will give both Colonel Bryan and Mrs. Patterson their full measure of gratitude for their patriotic work.
The Cumberland Gap Pedestal .- To Mrs. Patterson is also due much of the credit of interesting the chapters of her order to mark the trail in Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky, till today the entire trail is permanently marked by the Daughters of the American Revolution of those several States. The whole work was crowned on the 30th of June, 1915, by unveiling at Cumber- land Gap a substantial stone and concrete pedestal, bearing on its four faces tablets of the Daughters of the American Revo- lution of these several States. The North Carolina tablet was unveiled by Miss Elizabeth Cowles Finley, of Wilkesborough, N. C., a direct lineal descendant of John Finley ; little Margaret Beaufort Miller, Wm. Hamilton Patterson, of Winston-Salem; Elinor Morrison Williamson, of Asheville; Elizabeth Sharp, of New York City, and Elizabeth Shelton, all with Revolutionary ancestors.
Boone's Trail in Other States .- The Tennessee part of the trail traverses the four eastern counties, Johnson, Carter, Wash- ington and Sullivan . The first marker on Tennessee soil is at Trade, one mile from Zionville, N. C .; the second is at Shoun's, nine miles due north, through a wild and picturesque gorge along Roan Creek. The third is at Butler, southwest four- teen miles from Shoun's and at the junction of Roan Creek and Watauga River; the fourth is about nineteen miles due north at Elizabethton; the fifth, at Watauga, Carter County; the sixth is placed at Austin Springs, Washington County; the eighth is at Old Fort, south end of Long Island, Sullivan County ; the ninth is at Kingsport, opposite the center of Long Island, where Boone gathered his men while the treaty of Sycamore Shoals was being negotiated, two miles from the Virginia line.
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The Virginia markers are at Gate City, the county seat of Scott County, one mile from Moccasin Gap; the second marker in Virginia is at Clinchport; the third is at the Natural Tunnel; the fourth is at Duffield; the fifth is at Fort Scott; the sixth is at Jonesville, the county seat of Lee County; the seventh is at Boone Path postoffice. A marker has been placed at two graves between Ewing and Wheeler's Station in Lee County, as prob- ably the place where James Boone, son of Daniel, was massacred by Indians. The eighth tablet was erected to mark the site of Fort Blackmore, where a colonial fort stood in Scott County, and where the Boone party rested in October, 1773, until March, 1775. Mrs. Robert Gray was in charge of marking the trail in Virginia, while Miss Mary Temple had charge of that in Ten- nessee. The first marker in Kentucky is at Indian Rock, a few miles from Cumberland Gap; the second is at the ford of the Cumberland River at Pineville; the third is at Flat Lick, in Knox County; the fourth is on the farm of C. V. Wilson, near Jarvis's Store; the fifth is on the Knox and Laurel County line, near Tuttle; the sixth is at Fairston; the seventh is a boulder with Boone's name on it, three miles and a half from East Bern- stadt. This stone was placed in a churchyard and the marker placed on the stone. The eighth marker is in Rockcastle County near Livingston; the next is at Boone's Hollow, near Bruch Creek, then Roundstone Station and lastly Boone Gap. In Madison County, Berea is the first marker; then Estell Station, the site of Fort Estell, and the place where Boone's party was attacked by Indians and Captain Twitty killed. The last marker is at Boonesboro, there being fourteen markers in Kentucky, all placed under the direction of the State Chairman, Miss Erna Watson.
A National Spot and a National Hero .- Upon this pedestal in Cumberland Gap the Congress of these United States should soon erect a bronze statue of Daniel Boone, clad in hunting shirt, fringed leggings, moccasins, shot pouch, powder horn, hunting knife, tomahawk, etc., with the figure leaning slightly forward while peering from underneath the left hand toward the west, the right hand grasping the barrel of his long flint-lock Kentucky
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A History of Watauga County
rifle, whose butt should be resting on the ground. The figure should have a coon-skin cap; for, although Thwaites says that Boone scorned the coon-skin cap of his time, it was none the less typical of the head-gear of all the pioneers of the time. Such a statue would identify this historic spot with this historic character and fix forever the costume, accoutrements and arms of the pion- eers of America. It is the most significant and suggestive place in America; for, while Plymouth Rock was the landing place of the Puritans, Jamestown of the Cavaliers, Philadelphia of the Quakers and Charleston of the Huguenots, it was through Cum- berland Gap that both Roundhead and Huguenot, Puritan and Cavalier passed with the sober Quaker on their way to the Golden West. Boone was their greatest and most typical leader and exemplar. He was colonel and private, physician and nurse, leader and follower, hunter and hunted, as occasion demanded, but he was never a self-seeker or a swindler. His fame is now monumental, for he had no land to sell, no private fortune to make, and his record is one of unsullied patriotism. He was simply a plain man, but a MAN all through. He was neither northerner nor southerner, easterner nor westerner, but all com- bined, and the men, women and children who followed the glow- ing footsteps of this backwoods lictor were the ancestors of those who people these United States today and make it the most enlightened, the most progressive and the most democratic nation in the world. That there should be no national monument to this man and on this spot seems incredible. The women and the States immediately concerned have done enough. They have marked every trail leading to this historic gateway. Let the nation act and place there a monument which shall be worthy of the place, the man, and the colossal events which they typify.
History Itself Had Lost the Trail .- For years it had been supposed that Boone's trail from Holman's Ford to Cumberland Gap, especially that part which led through the North Carolina mountains, had been lost beyond recovery. It was known in a vague way that the county-seat of Watauga County, North Caro- lina, had been named in honor of this pioneer, but the impression prevailed that the little town had no other claims to its name
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than the empty compliment implied. Bruce (p. 53) records the fact that, after setting out from Holman's Ford, Boone and his companions were "compelled to turn from the beaten road and follow winding, scarcely discernable Indian paths along the ridges and through the valleys of the North Carolina mountains. And history itself soon loses sight of them." All that Boone himself told his biographer, the grandiloquent John Filson, was that "after a long and fatiguing journey through a mountainous wilderness, in a westward direction," they came to the Red River in Kentucky. (Id. p. 54.) Bruce adds, what all historians agree upon, that "their route lay across the Blue Ridge and Stone and Iron Mountains, and through the valleys of the Hol- ston and the Clinch into Powell's Valley, where they discovered Finley's promised trail through Cumberland Gap, and, following it, came at last into Kentucky." And this writer tells us some- thing else that is not generally known, which is that each man of Boone's party on that first trip of 1769 rode a horse and led another, which was loaded down with supplies, camp equipment, ammunition, salt, etc. (p. 52). From which it is plain that they never touched the Watauga River or its waters, thus eliminating the Beaver Dams route completely.
Boone Was a Hunter, Not a Farmer .- Boone came to Hol- man's Ford about 1761. Bruce says he brought his wife back from Virginia at the conclusion of the Cherokee campaign-to use his exact words, "as soon as peace had been made sure"- which could not have been till after the tri-State campaign against the Cherokees of 1761 (p. 43). Now, Holman's Ford is scarcely thirty miles from Cook's Gap on the Blue Ridge, and we are told that Boone's Cherokee campaign "had reawakened all his latent passion for adventure, and, although he brought his family back to the Yadkin as soon as peace had been made sure, he found it impossible to resume the humdrum life of a stay-at-home farmer. More than ever he relied on the products of the chase to supply him with a livelihood, and, since game had become scarce in the Yadkin Valley, he of necessity, as well as choice, embarked on long and perilous hunting trips" (p. 46), sometimes taking with him his oldest son, James, then a boy of eight, though more fre-
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quently he journeyed in absolute solitude, pressing restlessly forward on the trail of the retreating beasts of prey. Always, he noted, this led him towards the west, and ere long there re- curred to his mind the glowing tales he had heard from the trader Finley in the sad days of Braddock's campaign. It must be to Kentucky, the hunter's paradise, that the wild animals were fleeing. He had vowed to visit Kentucky. Now, if ever, while the Indians were at peace with the whites, was the time to fulfil that vow. But he soon discovered that it was no easy matter to reach Kentucky. In the autumn of 1767 he made his first start, accompanied by a friend named Hill, and, it is thought, by his brother, Squire Boone, named after their brave old father who had died two years before. The route followed was from the Yadkin to the valleys of the Holston and Clinch, and thence to the head waters of the west fork of the Big Sandy. Boone's plan was to strike the Ohio and follow it to the falls of which Finley had told him. But they had only touched the edge of eastern Kentucky when they were snow-bound and compelled to go into camp for the winter. Attempting to renew their journey in the spring, they found the country so impenetrable that they returned to the Yadkin. (Pp. 47, 48.)
Probability of the Re-location of the Trail .- From the fore- going, taken from Boone's latest biographer, it seems most prob- able that local tradition is correct, to the effect that Boone hunted all through the mountains of what is now Watauga County dur- ing several years preceding 1769, and knew the country thor- oughly. In Foote's Notes we learn that what is now Watauga, with Alleghany County and that part of the territory still known as Ashe, was settled as early as 1755. Wheeler (p. 27, Vol. II) adopts this statement as true. Cook's Gap and Deep Gap were nearly due west from Holman's Ford. If Boone really followed "a westward direction" from Holman's Ford, he must have passed through one of these gaps, and, as Cook's Gap was the nearer, he probably went through that. If he followed the Hol- ston and the Clinch into Powell's Valley, he must have followed the route marked by the Daughters of the American Revolution Society through Watauga County to Shoun's Cross Roads, and
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thence via Mountain City and down the Laurel fork of the Holston River. If the country was already settled when he passed through in May, 1769, the people who lived near his trail must have remembered it and told their children where it lay. There is great unanimity among their descendants that it fol- lowed the route chosen, except that some contend that it went through the Beaver Dams and across the Stair Gap? to Roan Creek in Tennessee. It may have done so, but the route over the mountains between Zionville, N. C., and Trade, Tenn., was much easier, as a buffalo trail led across it, and it was far more direct and practicable than that across Ward's Gap and the Stair Gap. When he got to Shoun's Cross Roads, he probably followed Laurel Creek, just as the little narrow gauge railroad does, over the divide to the Laurel fork of the Holston. He knew this route, having followed it twice before, once in 1761 to the Wolf Hills, and again in 1767 to the west fork of the Big Sandy. But he did not go by Butler, Tenn., wherever else he may have gone, unless he deliberately went many miles out of his westward way.
The Boone Tree Inscription .- The inscription on what is called the Boone Tree, nine miles north of Jonesboro, Tenn., and near Boone Creek, grows more and more apocryphal with time. It never had any sponsor, at best, except the statement of Chancellor John Allison's letter in Roosevelt's "Winning of the West." The picture of it in Thwaites' "Daniel Boone," opposite page 56, shows that the letters were then legible, which could not have been the case if they had been put there in 1760. Bruce, in a foot-note on page 46, says that such a tree stood there until recently, but he gives facts which show it could not have been put there by Boone, for he shows, on page 39, that in April, 1759, the Cherokees forced an entrance into the fertile Yadkin and Catawba valleys, destroyed crops, burned cabins, murdered settlers, and dragged their wives and children into a cruel cap- tivity.3 So sudden and severe was the blow that the stricken people had no opportunity to rally for an organized resistance,
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