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REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02497 9970
Early History of Middle Tennessee
BY EDWARD ALBRIGHT
Copyright, 1908, by Edward Albright
BRANDON PRINTING COMPANY NASHVILLE, TENN. 1909
Preface
The history of Tennessee, and especially that of our own section of the State, was long sadly neglected, and it is now with the greatest difficulty that many of the isolated facts of tradi- tion may be woven into a continuous thread of history.
The failure of preceding generations to gather and record, first-handed, many of the stirring events of early times in the Cumberland Valley from those who participated in them, has increased the task of the historical writer of to-day. Only one other attempt has been made to write a history of Middle Tennessee and that was by Col. A. W. Putnam, of Nashville, in 1859. From this work I have gathered much valuable infor- mation as well as from Carr's Early Times, the histories of the State written by Judge Haywood, Dr. Ramsey, Mr. Phelan, Prof. McGee, Garrett and Goodpasture, and others. I am also in- debted to Imlay's Historical Works. Roosevelt's Winning of the West, and Washington Irving's account of Spanish travels.
Much of the latter-day traditions extant in both Sumner and Davidson Counties has been collected and harmonized and to the many sources from which this has been gathered I acknowl- edge myself indebted. Especially do I desire to express thanks to Dr. J. H. McNeilly, of Nashville, Dr. R. V. Foster, of Lebanon, and Col. Ruben T. Durrett, of Louisville, for the courtesies and help extended and many favors shown. Without the aid of these and of others who might be mentioned I should have fallen far short of the historical accuracy which I believe to be a charac- teristic of the forthcoming work.
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For my own gratification as well as for that of coming generations, I have gathered the facts presented from every avail- able source, and now give them to the public, trusting that they may both instruct and entertain.
EDWARD ALBRIGHT.
Gallatin, Tenn., Jan. 15, 1909.
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Early History of Middle Tennessee
CHAPTER I.
THE MOUND BUILDERS.
The first inhabitants of Middle Tennessee belonged to a race of people called Mound Builders, because of the mounds or monuments they erected and left behind. No one knows from whence they came, how long they remained, or whither they went. They were quite numerous. This is evident from the fact that around many of the lasting springs, and in various localities along the water courses, early immigrants found acres of graves containing their remains. These burial places gave evidence of having been made long before the advent of the whites, possibly several hundred years previous to the beginning of the 17th century. Though seemingly sound, when exhumed, the bones therein crumbled to powder when exposed to the air. thus attesting their great age.
One of these ancient graveyards covered a part of what is · now Sulphur Spring Bottom in Nashville. Another was located in North Edgefield. A third was clustered about the mouth of Stone's river, above the city, and a fourth, the largest of all, was situated upon the farm of Mr. O. F. Noel, South, ad- joining Glendale Park.
Others were found throughout Sumner County, especially at and around Castalian Springs, formerly Bledsoe's Lick. These places of interment were also numerous along the Harpeth River in Williamson, Cheatham and Dickson Counties. Mounds and stone graves are also to be found in Humphreys and Hardin Counties.
It is related of the "Long Hunters," the first organized band
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of adventurers coming to this region, that to them no trace of human habitation was visible, the primeval state of things then reigning in unrivaled glory. But in dry caves on the side of creeks tributary to the Cumberland, down the course of which they traveled, they found many places where stones were set together, thus covering large quantities of human bones; these were also found far in the caves with which this region yet abounds. The conical shaped mounds left throughout Middle Tennessee by these early builders afford evidence of industry, and also of a measure of skill. They, too, were used as places for burial of the dead, and possibly for religious and military purposes as well. At Castalian Springs there may yet be seen the remnant of one of these mounds, which was formerly sur- rounded by a low wall or embanknient enclosing a small acreage of land. This was opened first by General James Winchester about a hundred years ago, and within were found a quantity of human bones, some broken pottery, a box of red powder, burnt corn cobs, and several cedar posts. The latter had doubtless constituted part of the framework of a chamber formerly ex- isting, but then in decay. At the time of the discovery of Bledsoe's Lick there stood on the top of this mound an oak tree three feet in diameter, thus indicating that it was then at least a century old.
In the same neighborhood have been found from time to time other relics of this pre-historic race. Near the door of a storehouse at Castalian Springs there lay for many years the carved sandstone image of a human form. This was about two feet in length, the arms of which, though partially broken off. seemed to have been raised in supplication. The shape of its head and the expression of its rude features were foreign, being entirely unlike those of the Indians. It was probably an idol once used in some form of heathen worship. It was not taken from
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the mound above described. as has been alleged, but was ploughed up from a neighboring field.
Another elevation of similar character in Sumner County is located on the farm of Mr. Alexander Kizer, and stands near the public road leading from Shackle Island to Hendersonville. This mound measures thirty-five feet across the top. From the south side it is fifty feet in height, having been approached for-
THE KIZER MOUND NEAR HENDERSONVILLE, SUMNER COUNTY
merly from the north to the summit, by a slanting roadway thrown up from the surrounding soil. At a radius of about a hundred yards it is surrounded by the remains of a number of smaller mounds. An excavation conducted by Eastern scien- tists some years ago disclosed the fact that the latter were used
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as receptacles for the dead, in truth the entire space between these and the central mound was covered with graves such as those already described. Popular tradition says that ages ago these ruins constituted the seat of government of a community or tribe of an extinct race; that the ruler or principal chief dwelt on the large elevation, while the lesser ones were used as stations by the officers of his council. A more probable theory is that the entire arrangement was for use in the ceremonial minutiæe incident to the burial of their dead.
Near Nashville, at a point half way between the west bank of the river and the north side of old French Lick Creek, stands an elevation known as the Charleville mound, so called in honor of a French trader who many years before the coming of the settlers had a station on its summit. This, too, was opened in 1821, and found to contain broken pottery, and a piece of oval- shaped metal on one side of which was an indented outline of the head of a woman.
In Williamson County a short distance north of Franklin, are three mounds of about equal size standing in a row from north to south. The remains of others like unto these are to be seen also in Warren, Lincoln and Hickman Counties. Near Manchester in Coffee County under the shadow of the great dividing range of the Cumberland Mountains stands an old moss covered stone fort which is yet in a partial state of preservation. Builded in the long ago it is without even a tradition to disclose its identity. Its architects are now in that happy hunting ground from whose bourn no traveler has yet returned. The Indians met by the pioneers on the arrival of the latter in Middle Ten- nessee could give no information as to the origin of these antiqui- ties, all of which they held in great veneration, but were content to say that they had been here always.
At the discovery of this region, its soil, which was covered by
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thick canc-brakes and forest trees of mammoth size, seemed never to have been broken by cultivation.
We are, therefore, left in ignorance as to the means by which the Mound Builders supplied themselves with food and clothing.
They had undoubtedly attained a degree of civilization, but despite all that has been written upon the subject, a large part of which is mere fiction, there is little to indicate that they were highly civilized, or to a great extent acquainted with the arts of more recent progress. Modern scientists have cast aside many of the mysterious theories with which the existence of the Mound Builders was long enshrouded, and now believe that they were simply the ancestors of the American Indians, the latter through the lapse of many centuries having degenerated into the low state of civilization in which they were found by the early dis- coverers.
CHAPTER II.
FIRST INDIAN SETTLERS.
Following the Mound Builders came the Shawnees, who were the first tribe of Indians to settle in Middle Tennessee. They journeyed from a region surrounding the Great Lakes about 1650 and built their villages along the banks of the Cum- berland. The boundaries of this settlement extended north to what is now the Kentucky line, and as far west as the Tennessee River. Until the time of their coming the country now compris- ing Kentucky and Middle Tennessee had been held as neutral territory by the Indians, and was used as a common hunting ground by the Iroquois on the north, and by the tribes composing the Mobilian race on the south. Chief among the latter were the Creeks, Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws and Seminoles.
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The Shawnees were of the Algonquin race, a part of the powerful Iroquois Confederacy, and are called by historians the "Gypsies of the Forest." There was among them a tradition that their ancestors were of foreign birth, and had come to Amer- ica from over the seas. Until a short time previous to their advent into the region of the Cumberland, they had made yearly sacrifice in thanksgiving for their safe arrival after a long and dangerous voyage. They had been once wealthy and powerful, but following a natural inclination to rove, were now weakened by division into bands, some one of which at various times sub- sequent thereto resided in almost every portion. of the United States. The Indians with whom they came in contact having no written language and no definite rules of pronunciation called them by various names, such as Shawnees, Sewanees. Suwanos. Savannahs, Satanas, and many others of like sound. These names the Shawnees generously gave to the villages, rivers and mountains of the land through which they traveled. While living along the Cumberland they explored the whole of Middle Tennessee and gave their name to Sewanee Mountain, on which is now located the University of the South.
Another tradition, if true, explains their location on the Cumberland. According to this legend a large party of them were moving south in search of new fields of adventure. Arriv. ing at Cumberland Gap in East Tennessee they halted for rest. and in order that they might take council as to a future course After much discussion it was found they could not agree as to the latter, whereupon a part of the band pursued the well known trace through the mountains of East Tennessee south into Georgia and Florida, while the other portion directed its journey toward the west, thus founding the settlement above described.
However, the stay of the Shawnees in the valley of the Cum- berland was comparatively of short duration. Angered by such
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a continued occupancy of the common hunting ground, the Cher- okces, Creeks and Chickasaws, their nearest neighbors, laid plans for their expulsion. After a short but bloody war the Shawnees were driven north and became again a wandering tribe among the Iroquois. By the generosity of the victors they were allowed a return to the hunting ground during the winter season of each year, but were forbidden to remain after dogwood blossoms appeared. The date of this war, probably the first in a region which has since been the scene of many bloody conflicts, is not now definitely fixed. In the year 1788, Piomingo, the Mountain Leader. famous Chickasaw chief, and friend of the whites, came from his village near the present site of Memphis to visit the settlers at Bledsoe's Lick. While there he told the latter that the expulsion of the Shawnees from the Cumberland Valley took place in 1682. He said that the length of his life at the time of this visit had been "a hundre l and six snows," and that he was born the year the war occurred. His father, himself a noted Chickasaw chief. was killed in one of the battles incident to the contest. Piomingo also vouchedsafe the information that before the attacking forces would venture to engage the Shawnees in battle they held themselves a long time in readiness awaiting a signal from the Great Spirit. At length it came in the rumblings of an earthquake which, as Piomingo said. "broke open the mountains and shook the rocks from their places of rest." The settlers associated this tradition with an account given by their ancestors of an earthquake which occurred about the year 1685.
It is quite probable that small, roving bands of these nomads continued to make headquarters near the present location of Nashville for some years after the main force had been driven away. The Shawnees were the last permanent Indian residents of Middle Tennessee, but the latter continued to be held as com- mon property by the neighboring tribes until the white settlers came upon the scene a hundred years later.
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CHAPTER III.
SPANISH ADVENTURERS.
For more than two hundred years after the discovery of America by Columbus in 1492, with perhaps one exception, no European adventurer set foot upon the soil of Middle Tennessee. This possible exception we shall now notice.
By reason of the successful voyage of Columbus, and a few subsequent discoveries by his fellow countrymen, Spain claimed the whole of North America. Following the return of these expeditions there were circulated throughout the Spanish domain the most extravagant stories of the wealth and beauty of this new found land, and numerous parties were formed for its exploration and conquest. In 1512 Ponce De Leon, a Spaniard, crossed the Atlantic at the head of a company and landed on the southern extremity of the continent. . He named the country Florida, because of the abundance of wild flowers growing along its shores and also because the discovery was made on Palm Sunday. For many years thereafter all the country south of the island of Newfoundland was called Florida. The object of this expedition led by Ponce De Leon was the discovery of a fabled fountain of youth, said by the mystics to be located within the interior of the continent. It was confidently believed by the Spaniards that those who were so fortunate as to drink from this source would enjoy perpetual youth. Before they had long pursued their journey, however. they found instead, death from wounds inflicted by poisoned arrows from the bows of hostile Indians. At intervals for twenty-six years thereafter other Span- ish explorers visited America for purposes of spoil and conquest but returned without evidence of success.
Ferdinand De Soto was a renowned Spanish soldier of for- tune who had served with Pizarro in the conquest of Peru. In
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1538. under the patronage of the emperor, Charles V, this vet- eran warrior began the organization of a company for the pur- pose of exploring Florida. His patron, the emperor, had but recently ascended the throne of Spain, which was now the most powerful monarchy in all Europe, uniting as it did under one scepter "the infantry of Spain, the looms of Flanders, and the gold of Peru." Thus with unlimited resources at his command, De Soto soon found himself leading a company of nine hundred and fifty adventurers.
Ramsey says that "the chivalry, rank and wealth of Spain entered into this army," and Irving declares that "never had a more gallant and brilliant body of men offered themselves for the new world." Many of them, though of immense wealth, had made disposition of all, and in reckless disregard of the fu- ture had invested the proceeds in this enterprise, some bringing over their wives and children together with a retinue of servants. On board ship when they sailed from Spain, were three hundred and fifty horses and mules and a herd of swine, the latter the first of their kind yet brought to America. Arriving at Havana, Cuba, during the month of May, 1538, a year was spent in further preparation for the journey into the interior of the continent.
Having added here fifty recruits to their number, they again set sail, landing at Santo Bay on the west coast of Florida, May 27. 1539. From thence a few days later they marched bravely into an unknown region. A majority of these adventurers were yet in the springtime of life, and cared but little for fountains of youth. Instead, they were searching for cities of silver and gold, the glittering battlements of which they fancied now hidden away within the region they were about to invade. If in the days of our youth, over field and fen we have trudged in fruitless search of a pot of gold at the end of a fitful rainbow, we have already an idea of the disappointment which at every turn awaited these
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credulous wanderers. For two years they traveled hither and thither through the Southern States, deluded by savage deceit and beset by savage foc. However, the latter were not altogether the aggressors. De Soto and his officers had been trained in a bad school of warfare, and in turn their treatment of the natives was in many instances both treacherous and cruel in the extreme. On the Savannah River at the present site of Silver Bluff, Georgia. they came upon the village of a beautiful Indian princess, the ruler of a large domain. When informed of their approach she ordered no resistance, but going at once to the camp of the Spaniards, made a peace offering of blankets and shawls and such other supplies as she possessed. Taking from her neck a string of pearls, she gave them to De Soto, at the same time offering to him and his followers the freedom of her realm. They accepted this invitation, and after remaining at the village. for a month, rewarded the kindness of the princess by taking her cap- tive and leading her in chains on foot behind them as they trav- eled through the surrounding provinces. At length she escaped and returned to her subjects, remaining forever thereafter a bitter enemy of the whites. This incident is but an example of many others of like character.
In the early spring of 1541, the army came by some route to the Chickasaw Bluffs, the present site of Memphis, and there De Soto discovered the Mississippi River.
Because of the unfamiliar Indian names used by the historian of this expedition we are now unable to locate. with certainty. all the mountains, rivers and villages by, over and through which they passed en route. That at some period of the journey they visited the Muscle Shoals of the Tennessee River in Northern Alabama is supposed by reason of the location there of two ancient forts or camps, more recently identified as of Spanish con- struction. The names of some of the villages and the numerous
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crossings of streams have led to the belief that they traveled also through a portion of East Tennessee, the line of march being from North Georgia through Polk, McMinn and Monroe Counties to the foot of the Chilhowee mountains; thence west and south- west, crossing the Tennessee River near Chattanooga, and from thence into Middle Tennessee. Canasauga, Talisse, and Se- quachie. all mentioned by the Spanish historian in connection with this part of the journey, are now familiar names in the locality mentioned. They camped for a while at the foot of the mountains which are supposed to be the modern Chilhowee. Around the base of these there flowed a small but rapid river, which properly describes the Little Tennessee. Leaving there "the first day's march westward was through a country covered with fields of maize of luxuriant growth." During the next five days they traversed a "chain of easy mountains covered with oak and mulberry trees, with intervening valleys, rich in pasturage and irrigated by clear and rapid streams." When at the rate of ten miles a day they had journeyed for sixty miles, they came to a village which "stood in a pleasant spot bordered by small streams which took their rise in the adjacent mountains." These streams "soon mingled their waters and thus formed a grand and powerful river," probably the Tennessee. Turning now from a westerly course they resumed their journey along the bank of this stream toward the south. Eighty miles below they discov- ered a village on the opposite shore to which they crossed in many rafts and canoes which they prepared for that purpose. Here their wornout horses were for a season allowed to enjoy rich and abundant pasturage in the neighboring meadows. While in this retreat the Indians showed them how to obtain pearls from oysters or muscles, taken from the river. If the theory ad- vanced be true, the village mentioned was near the present site of Chattanooga, and beneath the shadow of the overhanging cliffs
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of Lookout Mountain, a locality which for ages was the haunt of the Aborigines.
The mountains, the rivers, the distances traveled, and the pearls all tend to establish the route indicated. From this place they crossed the mountains westward. Martin's history of Louis- iana suggests that from thence they passed entirely through Mid- dle Tennessee and into Southern Kentucky, in which event their journey lay through Maury, Rutherford, Davidson and Sumner Counties.
It is not unreasonable to suppose that the natives with whom they conversed during the first of their travels had not failed to lure this band of plumed and armored pilgrims searching for mystic treasures into a region so fruitful of legend. By the glens of the far-famed Hiwassee, under the sheltering coves of the Chilhowees and Lookout, on the ancient forest-covered crest and slopes of the Cumberlands, and into the darkened ravines and beautiful valleys beyond; on every hand might be uncovered se- cret portals to hidden treasures. These once discovered, they would return in triumph to Spain and there with sparkling jewels dazzle the eyes of their less hardy countrymen.
From the top of every mountain range stretching itself athwart their chosen route, their scouts might gaze eagerly for a glimpse of silver-paved and gold-domed cities with which a vivid imagination had vested an unknown land.
After crossing with his band the Mississippi at Memphis and traversing a region afterwards called the "Great American Des- ert," De Soto died in Louisiana a year later in a lonely glade near the mouth of Red River. Wrapping his body in a cloak a few of his officers rowed out at midnight to the middle of the Mississippi and there buried their gallant commander in the waters of the mighty river he had discovered. The hour selected was because of the purpose of the Spaniards to conceal from the
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natives among whom they were encamped the knowledge of De Soto's death. The latter had told the Indians who came every day to his tent that he was from the land of the Great Spirit, and therefore would never die.
The expedition now ended in disaster, having already lost by disease and warfare more than two-thirds of its original number.
CHAPTER IV.
HUNTERS AND TRADERS-DR. WALKER AND PARTY.
From the expulsion of the Shawnees to the coming of the white settlers in 1779 the region now embraced in Middle Tennessee was indeed a hunter's paradise. Through its valleys and over its hills roamed countless herds of buffalo, deer, and elk. Within its forests and canebrakes bears, wolves, panthers, bob-cats, foxes, and other wild animals in great numbers found a home. Besides the food necessary for each they must also have salt. The pro- vision made by nature for this essential was the saline water of the sulphur springs with which the country yet abounds. In times of overflow these springs left on the surrounding ground a slight deposit of salt, and over this the beasts would tramp and lick until often long trenches or furrows were made, sometimes over several acres. Thus were formed the "licks" which played so important a part in determining the location of early forts. Sulphur springs and the accompanying "licks" were especially numerous in Sumner and Davidson Counties. To this fact. to- gether with the close proximity of these counties to the Cumber- land River is largely due their selection as a location by the pioncers. The big sulphur spring in the bottom now within the corporate limits of Nashville, no doubt determined the location of that city.
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