USA > North Carolina > Watauga County > A history of Watauga County, North Carolina. With sketches of prominent families > Part 6
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12 It seems strange to have a North Carolinian write in such terms of the Regulators, whom we have been taught to revere as heroes and patriots.
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general belief that Henderson at least cared little for the ruin that he must have known would follow the failure of his title to the lands which he was trying to sell to the untaught pioneers.13 For he speaks of them in his journal as "a set of scoundrels who scarcely believed in God or feared the devil." Certain it is that when all hope of profit disappeared, so did also Henderson and his associates, leaving Daniel Boone, with his helpless family, in the wilderness with a worthless title to two thousand acres of land, which had been his sole compensation for risking his life and cutting out the Wilderness Road for Henderson and his followers to travel over. And the claim upon which so much stress is laid, that Henderson shared "with Washington the vision of Western expansion," is made ridiculous when the Watauga Settlement of 1769 is remembered and it is recalled that Harrods- burg, only thirty miles southwest from Boonesboro, had been settled in 1774; also, that two weeks before Boone's arrival at Boonesborough (April 1, 1775) this same Harrodsburg, after having been abandoned in 1774, had been re-occupied by as hardy pioneers as any who came with Boone, and that about the same time two other settlements nearby were made at Boiling Springs and Logan's Station. Roosevelt says that with the failure of his title in both Virginia and North Carolina, "Henderson, after the collapse of his colony, drifts out of history." (Winning of the West, Vol. II, p. 64.) To some people of simple minds it might almost seem that it would have been better that Richard Hender- son should be allowed to remain out of history, unless, indeed, it can be shown that he restored to poor, deluded Daniel Boone the 2,000 acres he had been duped into accepting as his share of the enterprise, for both Virginia and North Carolina together donated outright to Henderson and company 400,000 acres of land, out of which it does seem that Boone should have been made whole. Daniel Boone, penniless, remained in the wilder- ness and was the real leader of the great western expansion.
13 A largely signed memorial was sent to the Virginia Convention in 1776 by these settlers, from which it appears that the price of the land had been advanced from twenty to fifty shillings a hundred acres, all of which was to be paid down; that 70,000 acres at the Falls of the Ohio (Louisville) had been reserved to the proprietors and their friends. It implored His Majesty, the King, to vindicate his title from the Six Nations; and asked to be taken under the protection of Virginia.
CHAPTER V. During the Revolution.
Backwoods Tories .- Roosevelt (Vol. II, p. 70) says: "The backwoodsmen, the men of the up-country, were, as a whole, ardent adherents of the patriotic or American side. Yet there were among them many loyalists or Tories, and these Tories in- cluded in their ranks much the greatest portion of the vicious and disorderly elements. This was the direct reverse of what ob- tained along portions of the seaboard, where large numbers of the peaceable and well-to-do people stood loyally by the king. In the up-country, however, the Presbyterian Irish, with their fellows of Calvinistic stock and faith, formed the back-bone of the moral and order-loving element, and the Presbyterian Irish were almost to a man staunch and furious upholders of the Con- tinental Congress The Tories were obnoxious under two heads (pp. 72, 73); they were allies of a tyrant who lived beyond the sea, and they were the friends of anarchy at home. They were felt by the frontiersmen to be criminals rather than ordinary foes. They included in their ranks the mass of men who had been guilty of the two worst frontier crimes-horse- stealing and murder and the courts sometimes executed summary justice on Tory, desperado and stock-thief, holding each as having forfeited his life."
Samuel Bright, Loyalist .- We should not be surprised, there- fore, to learn that there is a tradition still preserved at Ingalls and Altamont post offices, in what is now Avery County, but which formerly was a part of Watauga, that Samuel Bright, along whose "trace," according to Draper (p. 177), Sevier's men passed on their way to King's Mountain, September 27-28, 1780, was a Tory of the Tories, and while he might have claimed the Crab Orchard,1 a mile below the confluence of the Roaring Creek
1 Owing to the several counties in which this land has been it is impossible to get record evidence of Bright's ownership, if he ever held title. Local tradition claims that the Crab Orchard was embraced in both the Cathcart and Waight-
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with the North Toe River, his home was two miles northeast of Alta Pass, where the C. C. & O. R. R. crosses the Blue Ridge, and stood near what is now a tram-road for lumber hauling. Joe Lovin now lives one-fourth of a mile southwest from the old Bright chimney mounds, which are still distinguishable. Indeed, Robert Lee Wiseman, a direct descendant of William Wiseman, the first settler of that locality, has the original grant and knows the location of the old Bright place not only from tradition, but from having surveyed the lands originally granted to Samuel Bright. One of these grants is numbered 172 and calls for 360 acres in Burke County. The grant is dated March 5, 1780, though the land was processioned June 28, 1774, by Will Daven- port, who owned "the noted spring on the Davenport place, since Tate's, and now known as the Childs place," spoken of by Dr. Draper (p. 178). The grant is registered in book No. 3 of Burke County, and was signed by J. C. Caswell, Governor, and counter- signed by "In Franck, Pri. Sec." The land was surveyed by C. W. Beekman, county surveyor of Burke, August 10, 1778, while the chain carriers were Thomas White, afterwards Major White, of McDowell's regiment, and James Taylor White. The land granted lies on both sides of Toe River, and a part of it is now owned by W. H. Ollis as part of his home tract, and the balance by J. L. Wiseman. The seal attached is of chalk or plaster of Paris and bees wax, one-quarter of an inch thick and three inches in diameter. On one side is a female figure with staff and liberty cap in one hand and an open scroll in the other. The obverse face contains a female figure, a cow and a tree, while beneath these figures are "Independence MDCCLXXVI." This seal is not impressed upon the paper, but is detached from it, being connected with it by a double tape ribbon. Around the border is what appears to be E Pluribus Unum and Sua Si Bona, though a defacement of the wax renders some of the letters un- certain. Tradition is here borne out by the State and Colonial Records in Volume XXII (p. 506), which records that Samuel
still Avery grants, and that the representatives of these two claimants com- promised the matter by Avery paying John Brown, Cathcart's representative, 1212 cts. per acre for the tract, and taking possession. John Ollis, father of W. H. Ollis, helped to clear it "back in the Forties."
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Bright, after having witnessed the trial and conviction at Salis- bury before Judge Samuel Spencer, March 6, 1777, of one William Anderson, of having stolen from one Jowe, and the branding of the said Anderson on the ball of the thumb of his left hand with the letter T, signifying thief, was brought before the same stern judge to answer the charge of having committed sundry misdemeanors against the State by encouraging the ene- mies of said State. But Samuel evidently knew on which side his bread was buttered, and took the benefit of the governor's proclamation, promising amnesty to all who would come in and take the oath of loyalty to the patriot cause, and got off scott- free.
Thirty-Nine Lashes on the Bare Back .- Now William Wise- man, who had been born in London, England, on St. James Street, Clarkville or Clarkwell Park, February 2, 1741, and ap- prenticed to a joiner, fearing service in the British army, stowed himself away on a merchant vessel in 1761, and, after lying con- cealed three days and nights, revealed himself to the captain, and upon arrival at a port in Connecticut was sold to pay his passage money ; was bid in by a master joiner, who gave him his liberty and a box of tools upon proof that Wiseman could make as good a chest as he could himself. "What those old fellows were after," said an old citizen in speaking of Wiseman, "was free- dom;" and as there was much religious persecution in the north- ern colonies about that time, William Wiseman took his tools aboard a sailing vessel and finally settled at the place at which W. H. Ollis now lives. Here he married a Davenport, sister, no doubt, to the Davenport of Davenport Place spoken of by Dr. Draper. He was the very first settler in that locality, and became a justice of the peace. To him was brought one day the wife of Samuel Bright, charged with having stolen a bolt of cloth from a traveling peddler. She was convicted by him, and as the ped- dler insisted that he should pass sentence upon her, he did so, and as there was no sheriff to inflict it, he enforced it himself- "thirty-nine lashes, well laid on."
Patriots Feared the Indians .- Now, the Cherokees had ceded the lands on the Watauga and its waters to the Watauga settlers,
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but Roosevelt tells us (Vol. II, p. 74) that they "still continued jealous of them," and that the Cherokees "promptly took up the tomahawk at the bidding of the British" (p. 75). As Bright and Wiseman lived south of the ridge which divided the Toe from the Watauga, their homes were within Indian territory at this time. Therefore, Magistrate Wiseman had been afraid to lay the lash on Mrs. Bright's bare back during the absence of her husband, who was on a hunting expedition at that time, lest upon his return he should incite the Indians to burn his cabin and scalp him in the bargain. But he was worse afraid of the peddler, who threatened to report him to the great judge, Samuel Spencer, at Salisbury, if he did not carry out the sentence he had himself imposed. He was, therefore, much perturbed till Bright and a family named Grant left the country, passing over the Bright Trace and by the Bright Spring on the Bald place of the Yellow into Tennessee. Aunt Jemima English, who was born Wiseman, daughter of the original William, justice of the peace, etc., May 6, 1804, but lived to a green old age, not only preserved these traditions, which she had at first had from her father, but she believed that the Grant family which left with the Brights were the family from whom Gen. U. S. Grant, of the U. S. army, sprang.
Bright's Spring and the Shelving Rock .- We must not forget that "the gap between the Yellow Mountain on the north and the Roan Mountain on the south" (Draper, p. 177) was once a part of Watauga County (see chapter X on Boundary Lines). It was here that two of Sevier's men, James Crawford and Samuel Chambers, deserted and went ahead to tell Ferguson of Sevier's approach. It was here also, according to local tradition in the mouth of everyone in May, 1915, that one of Sevier's men froze to death and was buried in the edge of the bald of the Yellow. Draper, however, says nothing of such an occurrence, though he does say (p. 177) that the "sides and top of the mountain were covered with snow, shoe-mouth deep, and on the summit there were about one hundred acres of beautiful table-land, in which a spring issued [Bright's], ran through it and over into the Watauga." This latter fact, not generally known, coupled with the still more important fact that all of Watauga County on the
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waters of Watauga River was once a part of Washington County-formerly Washington District-of the famous and im- mortal Old Watauga Settlement of Sevier, Robertson and Tipton, may well "stir a fever in the blood of age and make the infant's sinews strong as steel." For Col. Henry H. Farthing, of Tim- bered Ridge of the Beaver Dams, and Col. Joseph C. Shull, of Shull's Mills, have each a grant from the State to lands in their neighborhood, described as being in Washington County, North Carolina. Shull's grant is numbered 841 to Charles Asher for 300 acres in the county of Washington on both sides of Watauga River, and dated IIth July, 1788. It is signed by Samuel Johnston, Governor, and countersigned by Jas. Glascow, Secre- tary of State. On it is a certificate from the county register, Samuel Greer, dated May 28, 1819, that it is a true copy from the records. The Farthing grant is to John Carter for 300 acres in the county of Washington, beginning on two white oaks standing near the path that leads across Stone Mountain to Cove Creek and on the west side of the Beaver Dam Creek. It is dated November 17, 1790, and is numbered 947, and recorded in the office of the Secretary's office, page 234. For, when the Watauga settlers set up house-keeping on their own hook, they had named the territory they had acquired from the Indians by lease and purchase Washington District, and in 1777, before they tried to secede, calling the new State Franklin, North Carolina converted Washington District into Washington County. (Laws 1777, ch. 126.) Dr. Draper continues: "Thence from Talbot's Mill to its head, where they bore somewhat to the left, crossing Little Doe River, reaching the noted 'Resting Place,' at the Shelving Rock, about a mile beyond the Crab Orchard, where, after a march of about twenty miles that day, they took up their camp for the night. Big Doe River, a bold and limpid mountain stream, flowing hard by, afforded the campers, their horses and beef cattle abundance of pure and refreshing water. Here a man of the name of Miller resided who shod several of the horses of the party."
Even Homer and Dr. Draper Sometimes Nod .- Notwith- standing all the pains Dr. Draper took to get the facts for his excellent "Kings Mountain and Its Heroes," his failure to visit
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the actual scenes along the route of the King's Mountain men is responsible for the error in the statement that the Big Doe River, flowing hard by, afforded the campers, etc., abundance of pure and refreshing water." The nearest point from the Shelv- ing Rock to the Big Doe River is at least one mile and a half where that stream flows through the Crab Orchard, and the route to it is over a rather high ridge and by a rough trail. But the Little Doe, with enough pure and refreshing water for all the men and stock then in what is now Tennessee, flows within one hundred yards of the Shelving Rock, on which there has been placed a bronze tablet about two feet square with the following inscription :
First Night's Encampment of KING'S MOUNTAIN MEN SEPTEMBER 26, 1780.
They Trusted in God and Kept Their Powder Dry.
Placed by John Sevier Chapter, D. A. R., 1910.
A Busy Forge .- But he was right in stating that a man of the name of Miller resided at the Shelving Rock and shod their horses, for Squire W. H. Ollis, of Ingalls, N. C., furnished this identical information to the Historical Society of New Jersey in 1872, saying that "Absalom Miller told me that his father lived at Shelving Rock in September, 1780, and shod the horses of some of the King's Mountain men while they camped under the Shelving Rock." As most of Sevier's men were practical black- smiths, we may well imagine that Johnson's forge was a busy place early on the morning of September 27, 1780, and well up into that day, and that, while some were shoeing the horses,
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others were busy at bellows and anvil, hammering out horse- shoes and nails, thus leaving none of the available tools idle for a moment. For the way up what is now called Hampton's Creek to the gap of the Yellow was even steeper in those days than it is now, with rocks galore to wrench the shoes from the best shod horses. Dr. Draper tells us that on this day the men, weary of driving the herd of cattle with which they had started, killed such as were necessary for a temporary supply of meat and abandoned the rest, thus considerably delaying the march of the day, "following the well-known Bright's Trace, through a gap between the Yellow Mountain on the north and the Roan Moun- tain on the south. The ascent was not very difficult along a com- mon foot-path." But, for three miles at least, it was very steep and rocky, as the same old Trace, now used as a "near cut," still bears witness most eloquently. Arrived at the gap, now grown up with trees, they had a parade on the Yellow and fired off their short Deckard rifles "for fun." This was but a short day's march-seven miles-making twenty-seven miles from Sycamore Shoals in two days. Here, at a conference of the officers, Colonel Campbell was appointed to the chief command. (Note on page 178.) On the 28th they descended Roaring Creek by Bright's Trace, then following the bank of the stream very much as does the rude and rough wagon road of today, to its mouth in North Toe River, one mile from the North Carolina Crab Orchard, or Avery's Quarter, as it is now known. Here, at the mouth of Roaring Creek, lives Tilmon McCurry, who thinks that the Samuel Chambers who had deserted the night before, finally settled in Buncombe County, North Carolina, but what became of James Crawford seems not to be known. Only a short dis- tance from the mouth of Roaring Creek is that of Powder Mill Creek, a short distance up which latter stream Dorry and Loddy Oaks made enough powder in the dim and distant past with which to buy a negro man, and, no doubt, obtained the bounty referred to in Wheeler's History of North Carolina (Vol. II, p. 52). From the mouth of Roaring Creek, however, Bright's Trace is now no longer followed, the Cranberry and Spruce Pine Road having usurped its usefulness, but it can be traced still as
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it takes its almost straight course to the crossing of Toe River, almost a mile above Spruce Pine, at which place a small monu- ment marks Sevier's route.
They Did Not Camp on the Yellow .- Bright's Spring in North Carolina is a mile north of the gap between the Yellow and the Roan. It is in a field that in 1780 contained a bald place of about 100 acres, though the Humps, lying near, have since been cleared and the bald place is now much larger than it was then. There is also another spring on the Tennessee side, near the gap, called also Bright's Spring. It is true the ground is said to have been covered with snow when they camped there, but that I,040 men 2 and horses could have supplied themselves with water . on the top of that mountain would have been an impossibility. Dr. Draper says in unmistakable language that they "passed on a couple of miles, descending the eastern slope of the mountains into Elk Hollow-a slight depression between the Yellow and Roan Mountains, rather than a gap-and here at a fine spring flowing into Roaring Creek they took up their camp for the night" (p. 178). Yet, the general impression is that these men camped on the Yellow Mountain that night!
Oliver Cromwell's Descendant .- Dr. Draper records the fact that Col. Benjamin Cleveland claimed direct descent from Oliver Cromwell, from a liaison with Elizabeth Cleveland, "a beauty of the time of Charles the First" (pp. 425, 426), but this story is doubted by the eminent historian. Cleveland was mistaken in acting as though cruelty was Cromwell's chief virtue.
Cleveland's Capture at Old Fields .- Dr. Draper says that this doughty warrior was captured at this place, which he is said to have owned, on the 22d day of April, 1781, while on a visit to his tenant, Jesse Duncan, at the lower end of the Old Fields- probably the very spot at which the late Nathan Waugh lived and died. Captain William Riddle was the leader of the gang which captured him, they having stolen his horses from Duncan's barn the night before and led them up south fork of New River
2 The force which started from Sycamore Shoals consisted of : Colonel Camp- bell's men, 200; Colonel Shelby's, 240 men; Lieutenant-Colonel Sevier's, 240 men ; McDowell's party, who had retreated from Cowen's Ford, 160 men ; (Draper, p. 149); Arthur Campbell, with 200 men (Id. p. 175), making in all 1,040 men.
Photo. by Vannoy.
THE OLD PERKINS PLACE. Where Cleveland was captured.
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into a laurel thicket just above the house then occupied by Joseph and Timothy Perkins, about one mile distant. There were six or eight men with Riddle, and when they reached Benjamin Cut- birth's home the day before, four miles above Duncan's home, and failed to get any information from him, they abused him shamefully and left him under guard. Cleveland ran into the ambush prepared for him and was captured and taken into the Perkins house, which stood on the site of the house in which Nathan Waugh's son, Charles, now resides. The illustration shows the present house and apple tree in its front under which it is said Cleveland was sitting when captured. Into this house of the Perkinses, Zachariah Wells followed Cleveland and at- tempted to shoot him, but that brave(?) man seized Abigail Walters, who was present, and kept her between him and his would-be assassin (p. 440). Cleveland was then taken up New River to the mouth of Elk Creek, and thence to "what has since been known as Riddle's Knob." (See illustration.) This is some fourteen miles from Old Fields and in Watauga County. Here they camped for the night (p. 441). But they had been followed by young Daniel Cutbirth and a youth named Walters,3 Jesse Duncan, John Shirley, William Calloway, Samuel McQueen and Benjamin Greer, while Joseph Calloway mounted a horse and hastened to notify Captain Robert Cleveland, Ben's brother, on Lewis' Fork of the Yadkin. Five of these in advance of Robert's party fired on Riddle's gang at the Wolf's Den early the next morning, and Cleveland dropped behind the log on which he had been sitting slowly writing passes for the Tories, fearing that when he should finish doing so he would be killed. Only Wells was wounded, the rest escaping, including Riddle's wife. As it was thought that Wells would die from his wound, he was left on the ground to meet his fate alone. But he survived. About 1857 Micajah Tugman found a curious knife in the Wolf's Den, supposed to have been Riddle's.
Greer's Hint .- This "hint" is thus accounted for by Dr. Draper in a note at foot of page 442: "Greer was one of
" These boys had planned to rescue Cleveland, but they thought better of it when Riddle's force came in sight.
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Cleveland's heroes. One of his fellow soldiers stole his tobacco from him, when he threatened he would whip him for it as soon as he should put his eyes on him. Cleveland expostulated with Greer, telling him his men ought to fight the enemy and not each other. 'I'll give him a hint of it, anyway,' said Greer, and when he met the tobacco pilferer he knocked him down. Greer's hint was long a by-word in all that region .- Col. W. W. Lenoir." It is claimed that Greer killed Colonel Ferguson at King's Moun- tain. If so, Greer's hints were rather rough.
Greer Gets Another Kind of Hint .- Just twenty years after the memorable capture and rescue of Cleveland by Greer, to wit: on the first Saturday of April, 1801, the Three Forks Baptist Church, of which he was a member, gave Cleveland's "hero" a "hint" to appear at the next meeting of that organization and answer to the charge-not of having looked upon the wine cup when it was red-but of having partaken of the apple juice after it had been distilled. Brother and Sister Wilcoxen were cited to appear as witnesses against him. But Ben did not take the hint, neither did he continue his membership with that church!
The Wolf's Den Tradition .- There is still a tradition in the neighborhood of the Wolf's Den that Ben Greer killed or wounded Riddle at that place soon after Cleveland's rescue, one version saying that Riddle was only wounded and then taken to Wilkes and hanged. Indeed, the place in the gap between Pine Orchard and Huckleberry Knob, through which the wagon road from Todd to Riddle's Fork of Meat Camp Creek now runs, is still pointed out as that at which Greer and his men camped in the cold and wind, without fire or tent, till they saw the camp- fire on Riddle's Knob flame up, after which they crept up to that lonely spot and either killed or wounded the redoubtable Tory. But Dr. Draper has an altogether different story to tell about Riddle's capture and execution.
Cleveland Hangs Riddle .- Dr. Draper says (p. 444) that soon after Cleveland's rescue Riddle and his men made a night raid into the Yadkin Valley, where, on King's Creek, they cap- tured two of Cleveland's soldiers, David and John Witherspoon, and "spirited them away into the mountain region on the Wa-
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