Western North Carolina; a history, 1730-1913, Part 8

Author: Arthur, John Preston
Publication date: 1973
Publisher: Spartanburg, S.C., Reprint Co
Number of Pages: 744

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BENJAMIN CUTBIRTH. This name was pronounced Cut- baird according to the recollection of Cyrus Grubb, a prom- inent citizen of Watauga, and Benjamin Cuthbirth's name appears on the records of Ashe county as having conveyed 100 acres of land on the South Fork of New river to Andrew Ferguson in 1800. This is the same "Scotch-Irishman" who had married Elizabeth Wilcoxen, a neice of Daniel Boone, at the close of the French and Indian war, and when he was about twenty-three years old. In 1767 he and John Stuart, John Baker and John Ward, crossed the mountains and went to the Mississippi river, where they spent a year or two, go- ing even to New Orleans. ‘

HOLMAN'S FORD. About this time Daniel Boone moved sixty-five miles west from the Yadkin settlement near Dutch-

DANIEL BOONE

man's creek, "choosing his final home on the upper Yadkin, just above the mouth of Beaver creek. " Col. James M. Is- bell's grantfather, Martin, told him that Daniel Boone used to live six miles below James M. Isbell's present home near the bank of the Yadkin river, on a little creek now known as Beaver creek, one mile from where it flows into the Yadkin river, near Holman's ford. The Boone house was in a little swamp and canebrake surrounding the point of a ridge, with but one approach-that by the ridge. The swamp was in the shape of a horse shoe, with the point of the ridge pro- jecting into it. The foundations of the chimney are still there, and the cabin itself has not been gone more than 52 years. Alfred Foster who owned the land showed Col. Isbell the cabin, which was still there during his boyhood, and he remembered how it looked. His grandmother, the wife of Benjamin Howard, knew Boone well as he often stayed with her father, Benjamin Howard, at the mouth of Elk creek, now Elkville. 6

BOONE'S TRIP TO KENTUCKY. There is no evidence except the inscription on the leaning beech at Boone's creek, nine miles north of Jonesboro, Tenn., that Boone was at that spot in 1760. Thwaite's life of Boone, compiled from the Draper manuscript in the Wisconsin State library, says that in the spring of 1759, Boone and two of his sons went to Culpepper county, Virginia, where he was employed in hauling tobacco to Fredericksburg, and that he was again a member of Hugh Waddell's regiment of 500 North Carolinians, when, in 1761, they fought and defeated the Cherokees at Long Island on the Holston. He cites the inscription but gives no other facts. 7 As 1769 is generally considered the date of his first trip across the mountains, it becomes important to state that Thwaite (p. 69) says that, in 1767, Boone's brother-in-law, John Stewart, and Benjamin Cutbirth, who had married Boone's niece, and several others, went west as far as the Mississippi, crossing the mountains and returning before 1769; and that Boone himself, and William Hall, his friend, and, possibly, Squire Boone, Daniel's brother, in the fall of 1767, still desiring to get to Kentucky-of which he had been told by John Finley, whom he had met in the Braddock expe- dition-crossed the mountains into the valleys of the Hol-

W. N. C .-- 6

HISTORY OF WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA

ston, and the Clinch, and reached the headwaters of the west fork of the Big Sandy, returning to Holman's Ford in the spring of 1768.

COLONEL JAMES M. ISBELL. According to the statement made by this gentleman, in May, 1909, Benjamin Howard, his grandfather, owned land near the village of Boone, and used to range his stock in the mountains surrounding that picturesque village. He built a cabin of logs in front of what is now the Boys' Dormitory of the Appalachian Training School for the accommodation of himself and his herders whenever he or they should come from his home on the head waters of the Yadkin, at Elkville. Among the herders was an African slave named Burrell. When Col. Isbell was a boy, say, about 1845, Burrell was still alive, but was said to have been over one hundred years of age. He told Col. Isbell that he had piloted Daniel Boone across the Blue Ridge to the Howard cabin the first trip Boone ever took across the moun- tains.

BOONE'S TRAIL. 8 They went up the ridge between Elk creek and Stony Fork creek, following a well-known Indian trail, passed through what is now called Cook's gap, and on by Three Forks church to what is now Boone. There is some claim that Boone passed through Deep gap; but that is six miles further north than Cook's gap, and that much out of a direct course. If Boone wanted to go to Kentucky he knew his general course was northwest; and having reached the town of Boone or Howard's cabin, his most direct route would have been through Hodge's gap, down Brushy Fork creek two miles, and then crossing the Grave Yard gap to Dog Skin creek; then along the base of Rich mountain, crossing what was then Sharp's creek (now Silverstone) to the gap between what is now Zionville in North Carolina and Trade in Tennessee. He would then have been at the head of Roan's creek, down which he is known to have passed as far as what is now known as Shoun's Cross Roads. There, on a farm once owned by a Wagner and now by Wiley Jenkins, he camped. His course from there in a northwesterly direction would have led him across the Iron and Holston mountains to the Holston river and Powell's Valley. There is also a tradition that he followed the Brushy Fork creek from Hodge's gap to Cove creek; thence down Cove creek to Rock House

DANIEL BOONE

branch at Dr. Jordan B. Phillips'-also a descendant of Ben- jamin Howard-across Ward gap to the Beaver Dams; then across Baker's gap to Roan's creek; thence down it to its mouth in the Watauga at what is now Butler, Tenn. Also, that when he got to the mouth of the Brushy fork he crossed over to the Beaver Dams through what has for many years been called George's gap; and thence over Baker's gap. º If he took either of these routes he preferred to cross two high mountains and to follow an almost due southwest course to following a well-worn and well-known Indian trail which was almost level and that led directly in the direction he wished to go. A road now leaves the wagon road nearly opposite the Brushy Fork Baptist church, about three miles from Boone, and crosses a ridge over to Dog Skin creek, and thence over the Grave Yard gap to Silverstone, Zionville, and Trade, thus cutting off the angle made by following Brushy Fork to its mouth. 10 Tradition says the Indian trail also crossed Dog Skin and the Grave Yard gap. Yet, while this seems to be the most feasible and natural trail, the venerable Levi Morphew, now well up in ninety, thinks Boone had a camp on Boone's branch of Hog Elk, two miles east of the Winding Stairs trail, by which he probably crossed the Blue Ridge, which would have taken him four miles northeast of Cook's gap, and Col. Bryan states that there is a tradition that Boone passed through Deep gap, crossed the Bald mountain and Long Hope creek, through the Ambrose gap and so into Tennessee. No doubt all these routes were followed by Boone during his hunting trips through these mountains prior to his first great treck into Kentucky; but on that important occasion it is more than probable that, as his horses were heavily laden with camp equipage, salt, ammunition and supplies, he fol- lowed the easiest, most direct, and most feasible route, and that was via Cook's gap, Three Forks, Hodges' gap, across Dog Skin, over the Grave Yard gap, to Zionville and Trade and thence to what is now known as Shoun's Cross Roads.

BOONE'S CABIN MONUMENT. The chimney stones of the cabin in which it is said that Boone camped while hunting in New river valley are still visible at the site of that cabin where it is said Boone was found one snowy night seated by a roar- ing fire when the young couple who had occupied it the night before and had allowed their fire to go entirely out, returned

HISTORY OF WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA

from a trip to the Yadkin for a "live chunk" with which to rekindle it; but which they had dropped in the snow when almost at Boone's cabin, thus putting it out, and leaving them as badly off as when they had set out that morning. Boone had struck fire from his flint and steel rifle and caught the spark in tow, from which he had kindled his blaze. Upon this site, that public-spirited citizen, the venerable and well-informed Col. W. L. Bryan, now in his 76th year, has erected an impos- ing stone and concrete monument, whose base is seven by seven feet, with a shaft 26 feet in height. On the side facing the road is the following inscription, chiseled in white marble: "Daniel Boone, Pioneer and Hunter; Born Feb. 11, 1735; Died Sep. 26, 1820." On the opposite side of the monument on a similar stone is the following: "W. L. Bryan, Son of Battle and Rebecca Miller Bryan; Born Nov. 19, 1837; Built Daniel Boone Monument, Oct. 1912. Cost $203.27."

BOONE'S WATAUGA RELATIVES. William Coffey married Anna Boone, a sister of Jesse Boone and a neice of Daniel Boone. She had another brother called Israel Boone. Jesse Boone undoubtedly lived in a cabin which used to stand in a field four miles from Shull's mills and two miles from Kelsey post office, where he had cleared a field. The chimney foun- dation is still shown as his. On the 8th of July, 1823, Jesse Boone conveyed to William and Alexander Elrod for $600 350 acres of land on Flannery's fork of New River and on Roaring branch, about two miles southeast of Boone village; adjoining land then being owned by John Agers, Jesse Council and Russell Sams, and now owned in part by J. W. Farthing. This deed was registered in Book M, page 391, of Ashe county records, July 2, 1841. When Jesse Boone's sister, Anna Cof- fey, was nearly one hundred years old she talked with Mr. J. W. Farthing while he was building a house for her grand- son Patrick Coffey, on Mulberry creek, Caldwell county, in 1871. Mr. Mack Cook of Lenoir is a direct descendant of Daniel Boone's brother, Israel, Boone and has a rifle and pow- der horn that used to belong to him. Arthur B. Boone of Jacksonville, Fla., claims direct descent from Daniel Boone, and his son Robbie E. Boone, has a razor said to have been the property of Daniel Boone. There are many others who are related to the Boone family. Col. W. L. Bryan thinks that Thwaites is mistaken in stating that Rebecca Boone was the

DANIEL BOONE

daughter of Joseph Bryan, as her father's name was Morgan, from whom he himself and William Jennings Bryan are di- rectly descended. 11 Smith Coffey was born in 1832 in Cald- well county, and says that Jesse was a brother of Daniel Boone, and had three daughters; Anna, who married William Coffey; Hannah, who married Smith Coffey, and Celie, who married Buck Craig. The Smith Coffey who married Han- nah Boone was the present Smith Coffey's grandfather. Smith Coffey's father moved to Cherokee in 1838 and set- tled on Hiwassee river four miles above Murphy, after which he moved to Peach Tree creek where he died a year later, his family returning to Caldwell. In 1858 Smith returned to Cherokee and lived on a place adjoining the farm of George Hayes on Valley river, and had a fight with that gentleman concerning a sow just before the Civil War. Nevertheless he joined Hayes' company, when the war began, which became Company A in the Second N. C. Cavalry. After the battle before New Bern, Hayes resigned and returned to Cherokee, and William B. Tidwell of Tusquitte, now Clay county, was elected captain from the ranks, and retained that place till the close of the war.

THE HENDERSON PURCHASE. Although the purchase of In- dian lands by white men had been prohibited by royal proc- lamation 12 as early as October 7, 1763, and although much of the territory was in the actual possession of the Indians, Richard Henderson and eight other private citizens deter- mined to buy a large tract of land in Kentucky and the north- ern part of Middle Tennessee. To anticipate somewhat, it may be here stated that this intention was carried out but afterwards repudiated by both Virginia, which claimed the Kentucky portion, and North Carolina, which claimed the Tennessee tract, and Henderson and his associates were par- tially compensated by grants of much smaller bodies of land; 13 nevertheless, at the treaty of Hopewell, S. C., on the Keowee river, fifteen miles above its junction with the Tuga- loo, on the 18th of December, 1785, Benjamin Hawkins, An- drew Pickens, Joseph Martin and Lachlan Campbell, com- missioners representing the United States, had the face to deny the claim of the Indians to this identical territory- contending that they had already sold it to Henderson and associates. 14

HISTORY OF WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA

BOONE'S SPLIT-BULLET. About 1890 John K. Perry and another were felling trees in Ward's gap on Beaver Dams, Watauga county, when Perry's companion cut a bullet in two while trimming a young poplar. He remarked that it might have been fired there by Daniel Boone, as it was on his old trail. Perry said that whether Boone fired it or not it should be a Boone bullet thereafter. So, he filed two cor- ners off a shingle nail and pressing the point of the nail thus filed on to the clean surface of the split bullet made the first part of a B. Then he finished the second part by pressing the nail below the first impression, and found he had a per- fect B. Filing a larger nail in the same way he made the impression of a D, which completed Boone's initials. This was shown around the neighborhood for a number of years, and most people contended that the bullet really had been fired from Boone's rifle. But in June, 1909, Mr. Perry dis- closed the joke rather than have the deception get into se- rious history.

DANIEL BOONE, THE PATH FINDER. From Chief Justice Walter Clark's "The Colony of Transylvania," (N. C. Booklet, Vol. iii, No. 9) we learn that Boone was a wagoner under Hugh Waddell in Braddock's campaign of 1755, when Boone was 21 years old; and that "in the following years he made the acquaintance of Col. Richard Henderson, who, struck with Boone's intelligence, and the opportunity for fortune offered by the new lands south of the Ohio, since known as Kentucky, organized a company, and employed Boone in 1763 to spy out the country 15 . . . Years passed before it took final shape. Boone is known to have made one of his visits to Kentucky in 1769, and was probably there earlier. 1 6 In 1773 he again attempted to enter Kentucky, carrying his family, but was driven back with the loss of six men killed by the Indians, among them his eldest son at Wallen's gap." But in 1768 Henderson had been appointed a judge, which position he held till 1773 and which probably delayed his land scheme; but in 1774 Nathaniel Hart, one of Hender- son's partners, journeyed to the Otari towns to open negoti- ations with the Cherokees for the grant of suitable territory for a colony of whites. On March 17, 1775, the Overhill Cherokees assembled at the Sycamore Shoals of the Watauga, pursuant to an order of their chief, Oconostata, where a treaty

DANIEL BOONE

was made and signed by him and two other chiefs, Savanoo- koo and Little Carpenter (Atta Culla Culla), by which, in consideration of £12,000 in goods, the Cherokees granted the lands between the Kentucky and Cumberland rivers, em- bracing one-half of what is now Kentucky and a part of Ten- nessee. But Dragging Canoe, a chief, had opposed a treaty for four days, and never consented to it. The share of one brave was only one shirt. But, the Cherokees had no title to convey, as this land was a battle-ground where the hostile tribes met and fought out their differences. Besides, this con- veyance of the land by Indians was unlawful under both the British and colonial laws. Henderson called this grant Tran- sylvania.

As soon as Henderson thought this treaty would be signed he started Boone ahead on March 10, 1775, with 30 men, to clear a trail from the Holston to Kentucky-the first regular path opened in the wilderness.

THE BOONE FAMILY. Many people of the mountains claim descent or collateral relationship with Daniel Boone. His father was Squire Boone, who was born in Devonshire, England and came to Pennsylvania, between 1712 and 1714, when he was about 21 years old. He maried Sarah Morgan July 23, 1720. Their children were Sarah, Israel, Samuel, Jonathan, Elizabeth, Mary, Daniel, George, Edward, Squire and Hannah, all born at Otey, Penn. Daniel was the sixth child and was born November 2, 1734. Edward was killed by Indians when 36 years old, and Squire died at the age of 76. Daniel married Rebecca Bryan, daughter of Joseph, in the spring of 1756. Daniel's children were James, Israel, Susannah, Jemima, Lavinia, Rebecca, Daniel Morgan, John B. and Nathan. The four daughters married. The two eldest sons were killed by Indians, and the three younger emigrated to Missouri. 17 None of Daniel's children was named Jesse, but there was a Jesse Boone who lived just west of the Blue Ridge, about four miles east of Shull's Mills and one mile west of Kelsey postoffice in Watauga county, N. C. This was on what has been called "Boone's Fork" of Watauga river.

THE CALLOWAYS. Among the Kentucky pioneers was Col. Richard Calloway 18. Two of his daughters, Betsy and Fanny, were captured with Jemima, Boone's second daugh-

HISTORY OF WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA

ter, in a boat at Boonesborough, Ky., on the 17th of July, 1776. They were recovered unharmed soon afterwards; 19 and in the following August Betsy was married to Samuel , Henderson, one of the rescuing party. 2º Jemima Boone afterwards married Flanders Calloway, a son of Colonel Cal- loway. 21 It was this Colonel Calloway who accused Boone of having voluntarily surrendered 26 of his men at the Salt Licks; that when a prisoner at Detroit he had engaged with Gov. Hamilton to surrender Boonesborough, and that he had attempted to weaken the garrison at Boonesborough before its attack by the Indians by withdrawing men and officers, etc .; ?? but Boone was not only honorably acquitted, but promoted from a captaincy to that of major. Related to this Colonel Calloway was Elijah Calloway, son of Thomas Cal- loway of Virginia, who "did much for the good of society and was a soldier at Norfolk, Va., in the War of 1812." ?? John Calloway represented Ashe county in the House in 1800, and in the Senate in 1807, 1808, 1809; and Elijah Calloway was in the House from 1813 to 1817, and in the Senate in 1818 and 1818, and 1819. One of these men is said to have walked to Raleigh, supporting himself on the way by shooting game, and in this way saved enough to build a brick house with glass windows, the first in Ashe, near what is now Obid. He was turned out of the Bear creek Baptist church because he had thus proven himself to be a rich man; and the Bible said no rich man could enter the kingdom of heaven. The church in which he was tried was of logs, but the accused sat defiantly during the trial in a splint-bottomed chair, which he gave to Mrs. Sarah Miller of that locality. This may have been Thomas Calloway, whose grave is at Obid, marked with a long, slender stone which had marked one of the camping places of Daniel Boone. 24

AN IMPORTANT HISTORICAL CONTRIBUTION. Dr. Archi- bald Henderson, a descendant of Richard Henderson, pub- lished in the Charlotte (Sunday) Observer, between the 16th of March and the 1st of June, 1913, a series of articles entit- led "Life and Times of Richard Henderson," in which much absolutely new matter is introduced, and numerous mistakes have been corrected in what has hitherto been accepted as history. It is especially valuable regarding the Regulators' agitation and the part therein borne by Richard Henderson.

DANIEL BOONE

Dr. Henderson is a member of the faculty of the University of North Carolina, of the State Library and Historical Associa- tion, and of the American Historical Association, and in the forthcoming volume, soon to appear, he will put the result of years of study and research into permanent form. He may be relied on to give adequate authority for every state- ment of importance concerning his remarkable kinsman and the times in which he lived.

HENDERSON'S SHARE IN BOONE'S EXPLORATIONS. Roose- velt, Ramsey and other historians have related the bare fact that Boone went on his first trip into Kentucky in 1764 at the instance of Richard Henderson; but in these papers the details of the association of the two men are set forth. Cer- tainly as early as 1763, Boone and Henderson, then a lawyer, met, and discussed the territory lying to the west of the moun- tains. Henderson was seated as a Superior Court judge at Salisbury, March 5, 1868, and ceased to represent Boone as attorney in litigation then pending before the Superior Court of Rowan county; but in March, 1769, when the distinguished Waightstill Avery, then fresh from his birthplace, Norwich, Conn., and from Princeton College, where he had graduated in 1766, made his first appearance before the bar of that county, we are told that he might have seen also "the skilled scout and hunter, garbed in hunting shirt, fringed leggings and moccasins, the then little known Daniel Boone," who attended that term of court in defence of a lawsuit, and must have (as shown by the sequel) conferred with Judge Hen- derson at this time about his contemplated trip into Tennessee and Kentucky in the interest of himself, John Williams and Thomas Hart, Henderson's first associates in the coloniza- tion enterprize he contemplated even at that early date, and while holding a commission as judge of the colony. 25

THE SIX NATIONS' CLAIMS TO "CHEROKEE." Before Rich- ard Henderson's appointment as judge by Governor Tryon in 1768, he and Hart and Williams had engaged Boone to spy out the western lands for them as early as 1764, though the proclamation of George IV, in 1763, forbidding the East- ern Colonists to settle on lands west of the Blue Ridge, may have retarded their plans for "securing title to vast tracts of western lands, and no move was made by Henderson to that end until after the treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768, by

HISTORY OF WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA

which Great Britain had acquired by purchase from the Six Nations their unwarranted claim to all the territory east and southeast of the Ohio and north of the Tennessee rivers, which territory had always been claimed by the Cherokees, and that country was then known as "Cherokee. " 2 6

TITLE OF THE CHEROKEES. "The ownership of all the Kentucky region, with the exception of the extreme north- eastern section, remained vested absolutely in the tribe of Cherokee Indians. Their title to the territory had been acknowledged by Great Britain through her Southern agent of Indian Affairs, John Stuart, at the Treaty of Lochaber in 1770." 27

KING GEORGE'S PROCLAMATION MADE TO BE BROKEN? Dr. Henderson insists that the King's proclamation forbid- ding the acquisition of Indian lands by the settlers was uni- versally disregarded by the settlers of the east. And while he points out that Richard Henderson obtained an "opinion, handed down by the Lord Chancellor and the Attorney Gen- eral," which "cleared away the legal difficulties" in the way of securing "an indisputable title from the Indian owners and . to surmount the far more serious obstacle of Royal edict against the purchase of lands from the Indians by pri- vate individuals, he would doutbless have been justified in his purchase by the popular sentiment of the day in view of the universal disregard of the Royal Proclamation of 1763." Dr. Henderson points out that "George Washington expressed the secret belief of the period when he hazarded the judgment that the Royal Proclamation of 1763 was a mere temporary expedient to quiet the Indians, and was not intended as a permanent bar to Western Civilization. . . . George Wash- ington, acquiring vast tracts of western land by secret pur- chase, indirectly stimulated the powerful army that was carrying the broadax westward. . . . It is no reflection upon the fame of George Washington to point out that, of the two, the service to the nation of Richard Henderson in promoting western civilization was vastly more generous in its nature and far-reaching in its results than the more selfish and pru- dent aims of Washington. " 28

HENDERSON'S TITLE. "The valid ownership of the terri- tory being [now] actually vested in the Cherokees, Hender- son foresaw that the lands could be acquired only by lease

DANIEL BOONE

or by purchase from that tribe, and he forthwith set about acquiring an accurate knowledge of the territory in question. To get this information the services of Daniel Boone were secured, and the latter must have "conferred with Judge Henderson at Salisbury where he was presiding over the Superior Court, and plans were soon outlined for Boone's journey and expedition. At this time Boone was very poor and his desire to pay off his indebtedness to Henderson [law- yer's fees] made him all the more ready to undertake the exhaus- tive tour of exploration in company with Finley and others"; but "at the time of Boone's return to North Carolina Judge Henderson was embroiled in the exciting issues of the Regu- lation. His plan to inaugurate his great western venture was thus temporarily frustrated; but the dissolution of the Superior Court (under the judiciary act of 1767) took place in 1773," and left Richard Henderson free to act as he saw fit. 2 9

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Western North Carolina; a history, 1730-1913, Part 8

Author: Arthur, John Preston Publication date: 1973 Publisher: Spartanburg, S.C., Reprint Co Number of Pages: 744

Author: Arthur, John Preston
Publication date: 1973
Publisher: Spartanburg, S.C., Reprint Co
Number of Pages: 744