History of Davidson County, Tennessee, with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 4

Author: Clayton, W. W. (W. Woodford)
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia, J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1013

USA > Tennessee > Davidson County > History of Davidson County, Tennessee, with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 4

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

" The Cherokees found white people near the head of the Little Tennessee, who had forts from thence down the Ten- nessee River to the mouth of Chickamauga. They had a fort at Pumpkintown, one at Fox Taylor's reserve, near Hamilton Court-House, and one on Big Chickamauga, about twenty miles above its mouth. The Cherokees waged war against them, and drove them to the mouth of Big Chicka- mauga, where they entered into a treaty by which they agreed to depart the country if the Cherokees would per- mit them to do so in peace; which they did."; This tem- porary settlement-the first attempted by English people in all the Southwest-is confirmed by Brown, a Scotchman, who came among the Cherokees in 1761. He saw on the Hiwassee and Tennessee remains of old forts, about which were boxes, axes, guns, and other metallic utensils.

The great war between the Cherokees and Creeks, which resulted in the settlement of a division-line between them, ended about the year 1710. The farthest extent of the Cherokee settlements was about the town of Seneca, in the Pendleton district of South Carolina. The Cherokees have in their language names for whales and sea-serpents, from which it appears that they migrated from the shores of an ocean in the northern part of America.

Adair says of the Cherokees, " Their national name is derived from Chee-ra,-fire,-which is their reputed lower heaven, and hence they call their magi Cheera-tahge, men possessed of the divine fire. The natives make two divi- sions of their country, which they term Ayrate and Ottare, signifying low and mountainous. The former is on the

t Haywood, vol. i. p. 234.

Digitized by Google

HISTORY OF DAVIDSON COUNTY, TENNESSEE.

head-branches of the beautiful Savannah, and the latter on those of the easternmost river of the great Mississippi."

The same writer says that forty years before the time he wrote (1775) the Cherokees had sixty-four populous towns, and that the old traders estimated their fighting-men at above six thousand. The frequent wars between the Over- hill towns and the northern Indians, and between the mid- dle and lower towns and the Muskogee or Creek Indians, had greatly diminished the number of the warriors, and contracted the extent of their settlements.

The frontier of Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia all suffered from their vigor and their enterprise ; and these pages will hereafter abound with instances of their revenge, their perfidy, and their courage. They were the mountain- eers of aboriginal America, and, like all other mountaineers, adored their country, and held on to and defended it with a heroic devotion, a patriotic constancy, and an unyielding tenacity which cannot be too much admired or eulogized.

The native land of the Cherokee was the most inviting and beautiful section of the United States, lying upon the sources of the Catawba and the Yadkin,-upon Keowee, Tugaloo, Flint, Etowah, and Coosa, on the east and south, and several of the tributaries of the Tennessee on the west and north.

This tribe, inhabiting the country from which the southern confluents of the Tennessee spring, gave their name at first to that noble stream. In the earlier maps the Tennessee is called the Cherokee River. In like manner the name of this tribe also designated the mountains near them. Cur- rahee is only a corruption of Cherokee, and in the maps and treaties where it is thus called it means the mountains of the Cherokees.

Of the martial spirit of this tribe abundant evidence will be hereafter given. In the hazardous enterprises of war they were animated by a restless spirit which goaded them into new exploits and to the acquisition of a fresh stock of martial renown. The white people for some years previous to 1730 interposed their good offices to bring about a pacification between them and the Tuscaroras, with whom they had long waged incessant war. The reply of the Cherokees was, " We cannot live without war. Should we make peace with the Tuscaroras, we must immediately look out for some other with whom we can be engaged in our beloved occupation."

The Chickasaws were another tribe of Indians intimately identified with our local history, though not residing within the limits of Middle Tennessee.

This nation inhabited the country east of the Mississippi and north of the Choctaw boundary ; their villages and settlements were generally south of the thirty-fifth degree of north latitude, but they claimed all the territory within the present States of Tennessee and Kentucky which lies between the Tennessee and Mississippi Rivers, and a con- siderable portion north of the former. These they claimed as hunting-grounds, though they had few or no permanent settlements within them. Tradition assigns to this tribe when they first emigrated to this country a very consider- able population, but when Adair first visited them (1735) the Chickasaw warriors were estimated below five hundred. Though thus inconsiderable in numbers, the Chickasaws

were warlike and valiant. They exercised an unwonted influence over the Natchez, Choctaws, and other tribes.

Whatever claim these several Indian nations may have set up to the country north of the Tennessee, and between that and the Ohio, they had evidently no right to it. It belonged by right of conquest to the Six Nations, or the Iroquois Confederacy.

At a celebrated treaty held at Lancaster the statement made by the delegates in attendance from the Six Nations to Dr. Franklin was, " that all the world knows that we conquered all the nations back of the great mountains; we conquered the nations residing there; and that land, if the Virginians ever get a good right to it, it must be by us." These Indian claims are solemnly appealed to in a diplo- matic memorial addressed by the British ministry to the Duke Mirepoix, on the part of France, June 7, 1755. "It is a certain truth," states the memorial, " that these lands have belonged to the confederacy, and as they have not been given up or made over to the English, belong still to the same Indian nations." The court of Great Britian maintained in this negotiation that the confederates were, by origin or by right of conquest, the lawful proprietors of the river Ohio and the territory in question. In support of this ancient aboriginal title, Butler adds the further tes- timony of Dr. Mitchell's map of North America, made with the documents of the Colonial Office before him. In this map, the same as the one by which the boundaries in the treaty of Paris in 1783 were adjusted, the doctor ob- serves "that the Six Nations have extended their terri- tories ever since the year 1672, when they subdued and were incorporated with the ancient Shawaneese, the native proprietors of these countries." This, he adds, is con- firmed by their own claims and possessions in 1742, which include all the bounds as laid down in the map, and none have even thought fit to dispute them .*

On the 6th of May, 1768, a deputation of the Six Na- tions presented to the superintendent of Indian affairs a formal remonstrance against the continued encroachments of the whites upon their lands. The subject was immedi- ately considered by the royal government, and near the close of summer orders were issued to Sir William John- son, Superintendent of Northern Indian Affairs, instruct- ing him to convene the chiefs, warriors, and sachems of the tribes most interested. Agrecably to these orders Sir Wil- liam Johnson convened the delegates of the Six Nations, and their confederates and dependents, at Fort Stanwix (now Rome, N. Y.), October 24th. Three thousand two hundred Indians, of seventeen different tribes, tributaries to the confederacy, or occupying territories coterminous with theirs, attended. On the 5th of November a treaty of limits and a deed of cession to the King of England were agreed upon and signed, ceding all the lands south of the Ohio River as far as the Tennessee River. An inci- dent which occurred at the treaty affords conclusive evi- dence of the understanding of the Cherokees of the claim which the confederates were about to surrender. Some of the visiting Cherokees on their route to Fort Stanwix had killed game for their support, and on their arrival at

# Franklin's works, as quoted by Butler.

Digitized by Google

PERMANENT SETTLEMENT.

the treaty-ground tendered the skins to the Six Nations, saying. " They are yours, we killed them after passing the big river," the name by which they always designated the Tennessee. By the treaty of Fort Stanwix the Six Na- tions ceded all their right southeast of the Ohio down to the Cherokee River, which they stated to be their just right, and vested the soil and sovereignty thereof in the King of Great Britain. By the treaty of 1783 Great Britain surrendered the sovereignty of these lands to the States within whose limits they were situated.

In 1781, Colonel Crogan, who had lived thirty years among the Indians as deputy superintendent, deposed that the Six Nations claim by right of conquest all the lands on the southeast side of the river Ohio down to the Cherokee River, and on the west side down to the Big Miami, other- wise called Stony River; but that the lands on the west side of the Ohio below Stony River were always supposed to belong to the Western Confederacy. But evidences need not be multiplied. The settlement of the Cherokees on the south side of the Holston and Great Tennessee is an admission of the correctness of the claim of the Iro- quois set up at the treaty of Fort Stanwix.

The Six Nations, who ceded the territory including Da- vidson County to the English in 1768, were the most powerful Indian confederacy on the continent. They occu- pied as the centre of their dominion what they metaphor- ically termed the " Long House,"-that is, the territory of New York, extending from the Hudson River to Lake Erie. The Mohawks kept the eastern door, the Senecas the western ; the southern door, through the Susquehanna to Chesapeake Bay, was guarded by a Cayuga viceroy, stationed at Old Tioga, now Athens, Pennsylvania; in the centre the Onondagas, or Men of the Mountain, kept the sacred council-fires of the confederacy at the capital, where all the great councils of the union were convened and the questions of peace and of war were decided. No people were ever so favorably situated for broad and sweeping con- quests over large areas of country, having access to Lower Canada by the Hudson and Lake Champlain. The same great river carried them southward to Long Island, whence they subdued the tribes along the sound and on the Dela- ware. By the Oswego River northward, and by Lake Erie, they had access to the whole chain of upper lakes, by which they carried their conquest into the heart of Illi- Dois. The great avenue of the Susquehanna on the south enabled them to subdue the Andastes and Delawares of that rich valley, and to carry their victorious arms into Virginia and North Carolina. On the west the great river Ohio and its tributaries opened an avenue for them to the borders of the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Cherokee, and Creek Nations, along which they carried their conquests to the Tennessee River, and held the territory by treaty with the conquered tribes, to whom they dictated terms of submis- son. There is no historic fact better established" than that this great league or confederacy of the Iroquois dominated over all the surrounding tribes, from New England to Ala- bama, and from the Alleghany Mountains to the Missis- sippi. They had great men, great orators, and great states- men among them.

The Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas

probably crossed the St. Lawrence into the rich hunting- grounds of New York about the beginning of the seven- teenth century. On the banks of the beautiful Lake Gan- entaha, the site of the Jesuit mission of 1654, in the environs of what is now Syracuse, N. Y., their confederacy was formed, about 1620.

In 1712, when the Tuscaroras, a people occupying their tributary territory in North Carolina, were conquered by the whites, the Five Nations received them in New York, making a place for them in the bosom of the confederacy, where they were established as the sixth nation. This great confederacy was never in alliance with the French, although the ecclesiastical authorities at Quebec as early as 1641 began to make strenuous efforts to win their friend- ship by sending Fathers Jogues, Le Moyne, Lallamand, and other Jesuit missionaries among them. They became the strong and powerful allies of the English, and under the wise policy of Sir William Johnson, who lived among them on the Mohawk River, they maintained faithfully their allegiance through the French war and down to the strug- gle of the colonies for independence.

By their dictation the rich lands on the Cumberland and in Middle Tennessee were kept from Indian occupa- tion till they ceded them to Great Britain in the treaty of Nov. 5, 1768. For this reason, and on account of the mildness of the climate and the rich pasturage furnished by its varied ranges of plain and mountain, Tennessee, in common with Kentucky, had become an extensive park, of which the finest game in the world held undisputed posses- sion. Into these wild recesses savage daring did not often venture to penetrate. Equidistant from the settled terri- tories of the Southern and Northern tribes, it remained by common consent uninhabited by either, and little explored. The approach of civilization from several directions began to abridge the territories of surrounding Indian nations, and the margin of this great terra incognita was occasionally visited by parties of savages in pursuit of game. Such was the state of things when the hunters and pioneers came to the Cumberland.

CHAPTER IV.

PERMANENT SETTLEMENT.

Preparations for Settlement at French Salt Lick-Robertson and his Party Plant Corn on the Cumberland-First Immigrants to the Present Site of Nashville-The Overland Company-The Expedi- tion by Water down the Tennessee-Col. John Donelson's Journal -Arrival and Settlement at the Bluff-Fort built at Nashborough.

EARLY in the spring of 1779 preparations were making at Watauga to plant a permanent settlement on the Cum- berland. The place selected was the bluff near the French Lick (now Nashville). It was deemed advisable that a company should go in advance and plant corn, so that the maturity of the crop in autumn would supply bread for the immigrants upon their arrival. Those who undertook this preparatory work were Capt. James Robertson, George Freeland, William Neely, Edward Swanson, James Hanly, Mark Robertson, Zachariah Wells, and William Overhall. Mounting their equipments and provisions on pack-horses,

Digitized by Google

HISTORY OF DAVIDSON COUNTY, TENNESSEE.

they filed through Cumberland Gap and turned into the wilderness of Kentucky, to follow the trail which had been before trodden by Boone, Mansker, and other daring hunt- ers. They continued their wanderings and explorations, often following buffalo-paths which led through dense for- ests and cane-brakes from one water course to another, and more distinctly trodden between the salt or sulphur springs, until they arrived at their destination. They were soon joined by another party under the leadership of Kasper Mansker, and all united in planting corn near the Sulphur Spring. After the planting was over, and other prepara- tions made, the company returned to Watauga, except Wells, Swanson, and Overhall, who remained to take care of the crop, and Capt. Robertson, who made a journey to the Illinois to purchase cabin-rights of Gen. George Rogers Clarke. Having effected this object and procured some additional stock which he saw would be valuable in the new settlement, Capt. Robertson returned to Watauga, and was soon ready to conduct his portion of the immigrants to the French Lick. Mansker during the same season led several families to Mansker's and Bledsoe's Licks. There was much excitement in the Watauga and adjoining settle- ments respecting emigration to the Cumberland, and a large number enrolled themselves among the adventurers. It was decided that the women and children, who could not perform the tedious land journey, should be sent to the same destination by water down the Holston and the Ten- nessee, and up the Ohio and the Cumberland to where Nashville now stands. It was a bold and untried experi- ment,-a thousand miles of navigation through an unin- habited wilderness, over dangerous waters, and with a help- less freight, so far as assistance was concerned, in case of attacks from the Indians, who might be lurking at every unsuspected point along their course. No craft except the Indian's canoe had hitherto explored these waters for a considerable portion of their perilous voyage. But stout hearts and wise heads were at the helm. This expedition was under the charge of Col. John Donelson, who had command of the " Adventure," the flag-ship of the squad- ron. For some time before the fleet was in readiness boat- building had been active on the Watauga. In the con- struction of many of the craft to be used in the expedition a single tree-generally a poplar or whitewood-was se- lected, and by means of the axe and adze a canoe or pirogue was fashioned. A few scows or flat-boats were made of sawed plank boarded up at the sides, with 'a roof covering more or less of the length of the boat. The " Adventure" was of sufficient size and so arranged as to accommodate a dozen or twenty families. Like the "arks" used at an early day for descending the Susquehanna from Arkport to Baltimore, these vessels were constructed with reference to going down the river with the current, and were not at all adapted to ascending the streams, a fact which gave our adventurers great toil and delay when they turned their prows up against the current of the Ohio and the Cumber- land.

Before giving an account of this wonderful voyage it will be necessary for us to follow the company of immigrants under Capt. Robertson to their destination at the French Lick. They were quite a numerous party,-amounting to

several hundred,- among whom were many young men with- out families. On their way they were overtaken by a com- pany of immigrants under Mr. John Rains, who had started from New River in October, and were bound to Harrod's Station, in Kentucky. They were persuaded to join Capt. Robertson's party and change their destination to the Salt Lick .* The route over which they passed was a difficult and circuitous one, by the way of Cumberland Gap and the Kentucky trace to Whitley's Station, on Dick's River ; thence to Carpenter's Station, on Green River; thence to Robertson's Fork, on the south side of that stream ; thence down the river to Pittman's Station, crossing and descend- ing that river to Little Barren River, crossing Barren at the Elk Lick, passing the Blue Spring and Dripping Spring to Big Barren River; thence up Drake's Creek to a bitu- minous spring (yet known); thence to the Maple Swamp; thence to Red River, at Kilgore's Station ; thence to Mans- ker's Lick ; and from there to the French Lick, or bluff where Nashville now stands.

These places, with the exception of the first and two last mentioned, are all in Kentucky.

The season was remarkably inclement, so much so that the winter of 1779-80 has been noted throughout the northern and middle latitudes as " the cold winter." The immigrants began to experience the severity of the weather early. They had much difficulty in their route, yet they arrived at the appointed rendezvous in safety, no death having occurred among them and without any attack by the Indians. They reached the Cumberland on Christmas- day, 1779. The ice in the river was sufficiently solid to allow them to cross with their horses and cattle. They crossed over to the bluff about the 1st of January, 1780, and immediately went to work to erect for themselves cabins and shantics.

Here we shall leave the Robertson party for the present, and follow the fortunes of those under Col. Donelson, in their long and eventful voyage by the water-route. We give below the narrative of Col. Donelson, as kept by him- self during the voyage :

" JOURNAL OF A. VOYAGE, intended by God's permission, in the good boat ' Adventure,' from Fort Patrick Henry, on Holston River, to the French Salt Springs, on Cum- berland River, kept by John Donelson.

" December 22, 1779 .- Took our departure from the fort and fell down the river to the mouth of Reedy Creek, where we were stopped by the fall of water, and most ex- cessive hard frost ; and after much delay and many difficul- ties we arrived at the mouth of Cloud's Creek, on Sunday evening, the 20th February, 1780, where we lay by until Sunday, 27th, when we took our departure with sundry other vessels bound for the same voyage, and on the same day struck the Poor Valley Shoal, together with Mr. Boyd and Mr. Rounsifer, on which shoal we lay that afternoon and succeeding night in much distress.

" Monday, February 28th, 1780 .- In the morning, the

. " Rains had examined both sections of the country, and declared he ' felt like the man who wanted a wife, and knew of two beautiful women, either of whom would suit, and he wanted them both.'"_ Putnam, p. 66.

Digitized by Google

PERMANENT SETTLEMENT.

water rising, we got off the shoal, after landing thirty per- sons to lighten our boat. In attempting to land on an island received some damage and lost sundry articles, and came to camp on the south shore, where we joined sundry other vessels also bound down.

" Tuesday, 29th .- Proceeded down the river and camped on the north shore, the afternoon and following day proving niny.

" Wednesday, March 1st .- Proceeded on and camped on the south shore, nothing happening that day remarkable.

" March 2d .- Rain about half the day; passed the mouth of French Broad River, and about twelve o'clock Mr. Henry's boat being driven on the point of an island* by the force of the current was sunk, the whole cargo much damaged, and the crew's lives much endangered, which occasioned the whole fleet to put on shore and go to their assistance ; but with much difficulty bailed her, in order to take in her cargo again. The same afternoon Reuben Harrison went out a hunting and did not return that night, though many guns were fired to fetch him in.

"Friday, 3d .- Early in the morning fired a four-pounder for the lost man, sent out sundry persons to search the woods for him, firing many guns that day and the succeed- ing night ; but all without success, to the great grief of his parents and fellow-travelers.

"Saturday, 4th .- Proceeded on our voyage, leaving old Mr. Harrison, with some other vessels, to make further search for his lost son ; about ten o'clock the same day found him a considerable distance down the river, where Mr. Ben. Belew took him on board his boat. At three o'clock P.M. passed the mouth of Tennessee River, and camped on the south shore about ten miles below the mouth of Tennessee.

" Sunday, 5th .- Cast off and got under way before sun- rise ; twelve o'clock passed the mouth of Clinch ; at twelve o'clock M. came up with the Clinch River Company, whom we joined and camped, the evening proving rainy.

" Monday, 6th .- Got under way before sunrise; the morning proving very foggy, many of the fleet were much bogged; about ten o'clock lay by for them ; when collected, proceeded down. Camped on the north shore, where Capt. Hutching's negro man died, being much frosted in his feet and legs, of which he died.

" Tuesday, 7th .- Got under way very early, the day proving very windy, a S.S.W., and the river being wide occasioned a high sea, insomuch that some of the smaller crafts were in danger ; therefore came to at the uppermost Chiccamauga Town, which was then evacuated, where we lay by that afternoon and camped that night. The wife of Ephraim Peyton was here delivered of a child. Mr. Pey- ton has gone through by land with Capt. Robertson.

" Wednesday, 8th .- Cast off at ten o'clock and proceed down to an Indian village, which was inhabited, on the south side of the river; they insisted on us to 'come ashore,' called us brothers, and showed other signs of friend- ship, insomuch that Mr. John Caffrey and my son, then on board, took a canoe which I had in tow, and were cross- ing over to them, the rest of the fleet having landed on the

opposite shore. After they had gone some distance, a half- breed, who called himself Archy Coody, with several other Indians, jumped into a canoe, met them, and advised them to return to the boat, which they did, together with Coody and several canoes which left the shore and followed directly after him. They appeared to be friendly. After distrib- uting some presents among them, with which they seemed much pleased, we observed a number of Indians on the other side embarking in their canoes, armed and painted with red and black. Coody immediately made signs to his companions, ordering them to quit the boat, which they did, himself and another Indian remaining with us and telling us to move off instantly. We had not gone far before we discovered a number of Indians, armed and painted, proceeding down the river, as it were, to intercept us. Coody, the half-breed, and his companion sailed with us for some time, and, telling us that we had passed all the towns and were out of danger, left us. But we had not gone far until we had come in sight of another town, situ- ated likewise on the south side of the river, nearly opposite a small island. Here they again invited us to come on shore, called us brothers, and observing the boats standing off for the opposite channel, told us that ' their side of the river was better for boats to pass.' And here we must re- gret the unfortunate death of young Mr. Payne, on board Capt. Blackemore's boat, who was mortally wounded by reason of the boat running too near the northern shore op- posite the town, where some of the enemy lay concealed, and the more tragical misfortune of poor Stuart, his family and friends, to the number of twenty-eight persons. This man had embarked with us for the Western country, but his family being diseased with the smallpox, it was agreed upon between him and the company that he should keep at some distance in the rear, for fear of the infection spread- ing, and he was warned each night when the encampment should take place by the sound of a horn. After we had passed the town the Indians, having now collected to a con- siderable number, observing his helpless situation, singled off from the rest of the fleet, intercepted him, and killed and took prisoners the whole crew, to the great grief of the whole company, uncertain how soon they might share the same fate; their cries were distinctly heard by those boats in the rear.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Davidson County, Tennessee, with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 4

Author: Clayton, W. W. (W. Woodford) Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Philadelphia, J.W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1013

Author: Clayton, W. W. (W. Woodford)
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia, J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1013