USA > Tennessee > Davidson County > Nashville > History of Nashville, Tenn. > Part 9
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" In the morning spies went forth to examine the woods, trace the steps of the enemy, and search for the bodies of the whites who had been slain. They soon reported that the Indians had departed beyond Richland Creek. There were evidences that some of the slugs fired from the swivel had reached the knot of Indians, for the bushes were cut and split and rent; and the Indians must at least have been frightened badly, for they left there several articles which otherwise they would have re- tained.
" The incidents of this battle were ever fresh in the mind of Mrs. Gen- eral Robertson, and she rehearsed them to attentive listeners often there- after; for she lived for many years, and her mind was clear and her mem- ory distinct. She said that she stood by the sentry at the gate, as the horsemen passed out and dashed down the hill, through the cedars and bushes. She had a glimpse of the Indians upon whom the whites made the attack, heard the crack of every gun, saw some of the movements of the Indians who were in ambush; and then her heart began to fail for fear that every man who had gone out would be killed, and the station probably fall into the hands of the murderers. She, as did some others at the fort, saw the large party of Indians moving from their lair, and ad- vancing, with the evident intention of cutting off the retreat of the horse- men, and perhaps attempting an entrance into the fort. She and the
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other women had a gun or ax in hand, resolved to die at the gate, rather than admit the enemy there. She saw the horses fleeing, the Indians turning in pursuit, and supposed that every man who had gone out was killed or captured. Presently she discovered some of the whites attempt- ing to escape to the fort, hotly pursued and in utmost peril from the pur- suers and those of the ambushed party who had not joined in the chase for the horses. There was terrible excitement in the fort. She advanced to the nearest position to the retreating party, to fire upon their pursuers. The pack of fifty dogs were raving to join in the melee and hubbub, and, probably at her suggestion, the sentry 'let slip the dogs of war.' They never made such music before; they outyelled the savages; they ran like mad, and fiercely attacked the advancing Indians. She saw how greatly the savages were surprised. They could not pursue the whites, and, fir- ing at the dogs, wasted the loads they needed to shoot at the white peo- ple. Those Indians therefore joined in the hunt for the horses. And she ' patted every dog as he came in the gate, and thanked God that it was no worse.' ' What a deliverance !' said she."
But, after withstanding for fourteen years these incessant attacks of the Chickamaugas-the fiercest tribe of the Cherokees-who lived near Lookout Mountain, on the Tennessee River, General Robertson deter- mined to put an end to them by delivering a crushing blow upon their own towns on the Tennessee. Through Joseph Brown, who had been a captive among these murderous wretches, and had been rescued from them by Sevier, and who was then living near Nashville, Robertson learned the secret why all previous attacks upon the Chickamauga towns by Sevier and others had failed. Brown told him that the Indians, when closely pressed, would take refuge in a huge cavern under Lookout Mountain, and would thus mysteriously disappear and escape destruction. This cave is now called Nick-a-jack.
James Robertson in 1794 was a brigadier-general in the service of the United States, having been commissioned by President Washington in 1790. He knew that General Washington did not wish any attack to be made upon the Indians at that time, fearing that it might disturb the treaty nego- tiations then pending with Spain. But Robertson was convinced that longer forbearance would do no good, and so he determined to strike an effective blow for the defense of his people, and, if his conduct were not approved, then to resign his commission. He therefore called for volun- teers, and also procured the assistance and countenance of some United States troops who were under the command of Major Ore, who had been sent out for the protection of those settlements against the Indians. Rob- ertson was not able to command the expedition himself, on account of
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wounds which he had recently received from the Indians, and he there- fore left the command to Colonel Whitley and Major Ore. Joseph Brown went along to act as guide.
The night before the attack upon the Chickamauga towns, which were on the south bank of the Tennessee River, the forces quietly crossed over the river on rafts, by swimming, and as best they could. Joseph Brown, with twenty picked men, went silently through the woods and placed his force between the town and the mouth of the Nick-a-jack Cave, in which he knew the Indians were in the habit of taking refuge. At daylight the Indians were attacked on all sides, and, their retreat to the cave being cut off by Brown, most of them were speedily shot down by the exasperated whites, who determined in this way for the future to con- quer a peace for themselves and families. The torch was applied to the Indian huts, and their towns were thus totally destroyed. This crush- ing blow upon the Chickamauga towns was so effective that never did the few wretches who escaped death by fleeing to the mountains and down the river in their canoes dare to attack the Cumberland settlements again.
But, being censured by the governor of the Territory and the Secre- tary of War of the United States for this bold, patriotic, and righteous act, General Robertson tendered his resignation as brigadier-general, determined no longer to be hampered by his commission in making de- fense of his people. He ceased, therefore, to be general of the Mero District. But the work was so well done at Nick-a-jack that no more fighting was called for.
Having now seen how permanent peace was established for our infant, but growing, settlement upon the Cumberland, let us recur briefly to other matters connected with the early history of Nashville. It is now known and universally acknowledged that the battle of King's Mountain, fought and won in October, 1780, by the pioneers of South-west Virginia and the Watauga settlement in East Tennessee, at the darkest hour of our revolu- tionary struggle, was the pivotal battle in that war; that it saved the States to the south of Virginia, then overrun and held by the British under Lord Cornwallis, from being abandoned to their fate. In the Congress even Mr. Madison, in despair of being able to reconquer these States, had urged that peace be sought with the mother country, if she would ac- knowledge the independence of Virginia and the States to her north, with the agreement that she might continue to hold those to the south. The battle of King's Mountain changed all this. It gave new hope and determination to our patriot fathers, well-nigh willing to give up in despair; and it opened the way for the crowning victory of Yorktown.
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But, if Watauga and Abingdon saved the Southern Atlantic States to the Confederation, none the less do we claim that Nashville and Boonesboro saved the North-west, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and the Mississippi River to the nation.
It needs but that we should remind you that in 1763 the English Gov- ernment determined to curb the growth of her thirteen Colonies; that, with the long-headed foresight which has ever characterized the English peo- ple, they began to prepare for the revolutionary struggle by limiting the western boundaries of the Atlantic Colonies to the head waters of the streams flowing into the Atlantic; by making such concessions to the Catholic Church in Canada that that Province has ever since remained loyal to the British crown; by creating the two new Territories of Quebec and Florida; and by extending the boundaries of Quebec west to the Mis- sissippi and south to the Ohio.
Having constituted the two new Provinces of Quebec and Florida, and extended and defined their boundaries as above indicated, King George III., in his proclamation of October 7, 1763, declared " it to be his royal will and pleasure as to the territory between them [meaning Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Kentucky] to reserve under his sovereignty, protection, and dominion, for the use of the said Indians, all the lands and territories lying to the westward of the sources of the rivers which fall into the sea from the west and north-west."
Johnstone, in the " Political Cyclopedia," says: "This was clearly the establishment of a western boundary for all the Colonies which had hith- erto had none, and the ground of the establishment was clearly the as- serted right and duty of the king to modify his grants and charters when their results proved to be injurious to the interests of the Empire. This right was always denied by the Colonies, and the resistance to it was one of the most powerful forces which led to the revolution."
If the conquest of that portion of Quebec or Canada lying between the Ohio and the lakes by that great leader, George Rogers Clarke, with his Kentucky hunters, saved the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michi- gan, and Wisconsin to Virginia and the Confederation, no less did Robertson and his hardy followers, by taking possession of Middle Ten- nessee, and by his alliance with the Chickasaw tribe of Indians-owners of West Tennessee and North Mississippi-save all this rich domain from the grasp of England and the Spaniard.
It is manifest without argument that if in 1783, when the treaty of Paris was made and our independence was acknowledged by England. the country west of the Alleghany Mountains to the Mississippi River had not been conquered and held by George Rogers Clarke, and possessed and
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occupied by James Robertson, John Sevier, and their hardy followers, for the Union and for themselves against Great Britain and all the world, the western boundary of the thirteen Colonies would have been fixed at the Alleghany Mountains. Had Great Britain, owning Canada, contin- ued to hold from the lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, from the Alleghany Mountains to the Mississippi River, how cribbed, cabined, and confined would not our Union have been! All honor, therefore, to the hunters of Kentucky and the pioneers of Tennessee and settlers at Nashville for all they achieved for the nation by their bravery and enterprise !
But it may be answered that the people of Kentucky and Tennessee, from 1780 to 1790, were all the time in a restless, unsettled state of mind, constantly threatening to form separate and independent governments for themselves, distinct from the Union, and negotiating with Spain for an al- liance with her and her Louisiana Colony lying south of them, and con- trolling the mouth of the Mississippi River. To a partial extent this is true, but it was all very natural and justifiable as they were then situated and treated by the other parts of the Union.
The settlers of Kentucky and Tennessee knew full well that they had acquired and retained the whole territory west of the Alleghanies for the Union, and that but for them the clause in the treaty of 1783, whereby England ceded the navigation of the Mississippi River (from its head to its mouth) to the United States, would never have been inserted. They also knew full well that, by the modes of transportation then in use, their commerce could never reach the world and a market except down the Mississippi River. But yet they were aware that seven against five States -the seven Eastern and Northern against the five Southern-in the Con- gress of the Confederation had voted, in 1785, to instruct Mr. John Jay, for the consideration of commercial advantages sought to be obtained from Spain by the Atlantic States, to agree to surrender the right to nav- igate the Mississippi for from twenty-five to thirty years. Virginia had agreed to cede all the North-west to the feeble and inefficient Congress, and so had North Carolina done the same thing in regard to Tennessee. What was more natural, therefore, when they found themselves abandoned by the Northern States, than that the West should feel that they must take care of themselves, and make alliances of friendship and commerce with the Spanish authorities? Was not this just what the Eastern States were seeking to do for themselves? and, to achieve their own selfish ends, were they not willing and proposing to sacrifice the vital interests of the West?
Does not this state of affairs sufficiently excuse the conduct of General Wilkinson; explain the endeavor to establish the State of Franklin; ac-
GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF NASHVILLE FROM 1780 TO 1796. 87
count for the correspondence of John Sevier with Gardoqui, the Spanish Minister at New York ? Does it not make us understand why James Rob- ertson should procure the Cumberland settlements to be called the " Mero" District, in honor of Miro, the then governor of the Spanish colony at the mouth of the Mississippi? Nor must we forget that in 1795 that great mili- tary hero and conqueror of the North-west, General George Rogers Clarke, raised a force of some two thousand men, with the avowed object of attack- ing the Spanish authorities at the mouth of the Mississippi, and wresting the country from them, and that Governor Isaac Shelby declined to ar- rest Clarke and interfere with the expedition, even though urged to do so by President Washington. This attitude of Governor Shelby forced the Administration at Washington to send a special commissioner-Colonel James Innes-to assure the governor that the Administration was not sur- rendering the right to the navigation of the Mississippi, but was then en- gaged earnestly in trying to get Spain to settle the question, by treaty, at . Madrid. In fact, shortly afterward the treaty was made, whereby Spain conceded the right to this country to the free navigation to its mouth of the Mississippi, by those living along its banks. And long afterward Governor Shelby did not hesitate to justify his course, by saying in an address to the people of Kentucky, speaking of this period of 1794: " I saw," said the governor, " that the present moment was a favorable one, while the apprehensions of the President were greatly excited, to express to him what I knew to be the general sentiments of the Kentucky people relative to the navigation of the Mississippi and the Spanish Government. Those sentiments had often, to my knowledge, been expressed by way of petition and memorial to the general Government, and to which no assur- ance nor any kind of answer had been received. And I feel an entire confidence that my letter of January 13, 1794, was the sole cause that pro- duced an explanation by the special commissioner-Colonel James Innes -of the measures that had been pursued by our Government toward ob- taining for us the navigation of the Mississippi. And, although I felt some regret that I had for a moment kept the President uneasy, I was truly gratified to find that our right to the navigation of that river had been well asserted by the President in the negotiations carried on at Madrid. And indeed the minds of every Kentuckian then settled down in quietness on a subject that had long caused great solicitude, after the attempt of Jay to cede away the navigation of that river for twenty-five or thirty years."
In view of all this, is it any wonder that the people of Tennessee put the following clause, soon thereafter, in their Bill of Rights, and that it still stands in our Constitution: " That an equal participation in the free navigation of the Mississippi is one of the inherent rights of the citizens
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of this State; it cannot, therefore, be conceded to any prince, potentate, power, person, or persons whatever?" And to add to the discontent felt in the West at that time toward the East was the manifest-yea, expressed -jealousy of the East, in their fear that the West would so grow and strengthen in the near future as to outweigh in population and wealth the Atlantic States. So intense was this feeling at that time that it found ex- pression in the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention of 1787, by such able statesmen as Gouverneur Morris, Rufus King, and Elbridge Gerry. It will be seen, by reference to Madison's debates, that these gentlemen earnestly insisted that the clause admitting new States should provide that never should the West equal the Atlantic States politically. Sought to be treated by the East with this kind of unfairness and jealousy, is it any wonder that the people of Kentucky and Tennessee at that time should not have manifested any such ardent devotion to the Union as they after- ward felt and now feel?
Let us now briefly advert to the growth and development of Nashville from 1780 to 1796, the date of the admission of Tennessee into the Union as a State. The town on the bluff continued to be called Nashborough until the name was changed to Nashville, in 1784, by the Legislature of North Carolina. In this same act commissioners were appointed to lay off two hundred acres in Nashville, near the French Lick, into town lots of one acre each. These town lots were to be sold upon the condition expressed in the deed that the purchaser would, in three years thereafter, build a well-framed log, brick, or stone house upon his lot, “ sixteen feet square at least, and eight feet clear in the pitch." The Robertsons took lots on this condition, and so did the great-grandfather of the writer of this chapter. The original list of purchasers is now held by the Histor- ical Society of Tennessee, in their rooms in the Watkins Institute at Nashville. Four acres were to be set apart as a square, for the erection thereon of public buildings.
The authority and government of the Notables, under the Articles of Agreement, ceased in 1783, when North Carolina agreed to take the set- tlement under her motherly wing, by issuing commissions to Isaac Bled- soe, Samuel Barton, Francis Prince, Isaac Linsay, James Robertson, Thomas Malloy, Anthony Bledsoe, and David Smith, to organize an In- ferior Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions. This body was clothed by this act with legislative, military, and judicial powers. This extraordina- ry tribunal organized and qualified October 6, 1783, and elected Andrew Ewing their clerk. They ordered a court-house to be erected. It was to be eighteen feet square, with benches, bar, and table for the use of the court. A prison, also, was ordered to be built. Both court-house and
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GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF NASHVILLE FROM 1780 TO 1796.
prison were to be made of hewn logs, and the contract for erecting them was given to the lowest bidder.
In 1785 the Legislature of North Carolina provided for the election of a judge, to hold, twice a year, a Court of Law and Equity for Davidson County. This Superior Court was to be held in Nashville on the first Monday in May and the first Monday in November. He was to have a salary of £50.
In 1785 General James Robertson procured the Legislature of North Carolina to charter Davidson Academy, and to endow it with two hun- dred and forty acres of land. This land was to be free of taxation for ninety-nine years. The tract extended from the river to the Chattanooga Depot, and from Broad Street to a line south of Peabody Street. It has all been sold, from time to time, and is now one of the most populous parts of the city of Nashville. In 1806 Davidson Academy ceased to be, and the Legislature of Tennessee chartered Cumberland College. This college in 1825 became Nashville University, and now, in 1890, has con- nected with it the normal college of the South, called, in honor of the great philanthropist, George Peabody, the "Peabody Normal College." But of all this more will be said in the chapter on education.
In 1781 the first male child was born in Nashville. It was a son of James Robertson, and lived to a ripe old age, dying in 1865. He saw his native town increase from a few log huts to a large, beautiful, and ele- gant city of many thousand inhabitants. He was the well-known Dr. Felix Robertson.
The first store or shop for the sale of merchandise was opened in Nash- ville in 1786 by Lardner Clark. This enterprising merchant brought his stock of goods from Philadelphia, packed upon the backs of ten horses. His route out here was through Virginia, East Tennessee, Cumberland Gap, and a part of Kentucky. Clark's store contained a mixed assort- ment of cheap calicoes, unbleached linens, and coarse woolens. He com- bined with his shop tavern-keeping and the sale of liquors. The citizens, before the advent of Clark, had been almost wholly clothed in dressed skins of deer and other animals. There was little or no money in the Cumberland settlement; so Mr. Clark had to take peltry in exchange for his goods, wares, and liquors.
In 1785 the first physician to set up shop in Nashville was Dr. John Sappington. He compounded and vended a most popular pill, called " Sappington's pills." While the ingredients of this nostrum were a mys- tery it was considered a panacea for all the ills that flesh is heir to; but, the secret being discovered, the pills lost all reputation and Dr. Sapping- ton his practice.
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This same year Edward Douglas and Thomas Malloy announced them- selves prepared to assist clients to attain their rights in all the courts of Davidson County.
In 1787 Nashville contained about six framed and hewn log houses and some twenty or thirty log cabins. So thriving a town demanded another tavern, with the sale of liquor attached, and so Clark had a rival. The court now undertook to regulate the business of tippling and grog-selling. It was provided that " one-half a pint of whisky, such as will sink tallow, shall sell for 2s .; a bowl of toddy, made with loaf-sugar and whisky, 3s. 6d .; one quart bowl of punch, with fruit, Ios .; dinner and grog, 4s. 6d." The taxes of 1787 were to be paid one-fourth in corn, one-half in beef, venison, or pork, one-eighth in salt, and one-eighth in money. The prices at which these articles were to be taken for taxes were as follows: Corn, 2s. 8d. per bushel; good, fat bear meat, 4d. per pound; fine buffalo beef, 3d .; good venison, 9d .; dried beef, 6d .; and salt, 2s. 4d. per pound.
The town lots-twenty-six in number-which had been sold in 1787, were taxed each one dollar, yielding a revenue of twenty-six dollars. These lots now doubtless pay many thousand dollars, as a yearly tax, to the city.
In 1788 the vote for members to be sent to the convention called by North Carolina, to pass upon the question of ratification of the new Con- stitution framed at Philadelphia, and adhesion to the new Union, was cast almost unanimously, in Davidson County, for persons who were opposed to adoption and adhesion.
It is a most curious fact that at this time the most popular and aristo- cratic tavern in Nashville was kept by " Black Bob," a negro, who con- tinued to do a flourishing business for many years, and at whose house, it is said, General Jackson was a frequent guest. How times have changed ! and how we have changed with them !
In the autumn of 1788 Andrew Jackson arrived at Nashville. He had been commissioned by the governor of North Carolina as solicitor for the Mero District. He at once entered upon the duties of his arduous and dangerous office, to the great terror of evil-doers and protection of the law-abiding citizens. Mero District extended up and down the Cumber- land River, from east to west some eighty-five miles, and from north to south some, twenty-five miles. The population of Mero had greatly in- creased; it now contained some seven thousand inhabitants, and of these there were from one thousand to twelve hundred able to bear arms. In 1789 North Carolina reconsidered her refusal to join the new Union, and soon thereafter ceded all Tennessee to the United States.
In 1790 this ceded country was made a Territory, under the name of
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" The Territory South of the Ohio River." President Washington com- missioned William Blount as its governor, Andrew Jackson district at- torney for Mero District, John Sevier brigadier-general for East Ten- nessee, and James Robertson brigadier-general for Mero District.
In 1796 the first church-edifice was erected in Nashville. It was built on the square by the Methodists. It continued there until 1807 or 1808.
The capital of the Territory was fixed by Blount at Knoxville, in East Tennessee. By the terms of the law organizing the Territory it was entitled to admission into the Union as a State so soon as it should have sixty thousand inhabitants. By a census taken for ascertaining the fact, it was found to contain more than that number, so in 1796 a convention was called to frame a Constitution for the new State. In this convention Davidson County was represented by James Robertson, Andrew Jack- son, and John McNairy. It is said that Andrew Jackson suggested the name of " Tennessee " for the new State, which was admitted into the Union in June, 1796, constituting the sixteenth State. The Constitution formed by these backwoods statesmen was pronounced by Thomas Jef- ferson to have been the best one framed up to that time. Tennessee lived under it, unaltered, for nearly forty years thereafter. William Blount and William Cocke were elected United States Senators, John Sevier was made governor, and Andrew Jackson was sent to the lower house of Congress, Tennessee being entitled to only one member there.
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