USA > Tennessee > Monroe County > Sweetwater > History of Sweetwater Valley > Part 2
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).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35
"Day unto day uttereth speech and night unto night showeth knowledge." The firmament, the stars have not human language but to the reverent listener they sing together as at creation's dawn, flashing their vibrant message of light through the ether, repeating o'er and o'er the story of their birth to the uttermost confines of space.
There is not a rock, tree or flower that has not a tale of its own to tell. Observe them, read them! What they have to say far surpasses in interest the novel or the yellow journalism of the day; for their story is a true one. The testimony of the rocks, when rightly read. is unmistakable. There is no misprint, no typo- graphical error. You can lie about a rock, but it never lies about itself. It tells you plainly of what it is com- posed and how it was formed, whether by fire, water or air, whether its origin was igneous (volcanic) or sedi- mentary or a combination of the two. The imprint of the shell upon the limestone informs you what animals lived in the deeps at that period. Break it, powder it even, like the shattered rose vase, it will speak to your senses still of what it once held.
The geology of the surface of Sweetwater Valley is not complex. The stratifications dip at no great angle from the horizontal. They have been subjected to but few folds or "faults." They are almost entirely sedi- mentary, formed by water, and are not extremely varied in their character. . In common language (we try not to use chemical and geological terms unless absolutely necessary) it is a limestone region. The formation is neither very hard nor very soft. It is, however, hard
16
HISTORY OF SWEETWATER VALLEY
enough to prevent the streams from wearing away deep channels, as is notably the case with some of the rivers in the State of Kentucky and in some instances in the middle basin of Tennessee, and yet not of sufficient hardness to prevent the gradual weathering of the strata. These thus become part of the soil, enriching it and furnishing food for plant life. For this reason also we have no sharp, conical peaks as in shale regions, but the hills present to the eye a beautifully rounded contour. Nor are the ridges of great altitude above the intervening valleys. Massive and majestic mountain chains, like the Unaka or Blue Ridge, are formed of more durable material, such as the granites, the shales and the sandstones, which are far more slowly deroded by the action of air and water.
Although many thousands of compounds are known to chemists and an almost infinite number possible, they reduce on analysis to a small group of substances which are called "elements," merely meaning by this term, the simplest form to which any compound can be reduced.
There are now (1913) known to chemists eighty ele- ments. Sixteen of these have been discovered in the last forty years. Several of the late discoveries belong to the radium group, with which, however interesting they may be, we have nothing to do.
The elements differ widely in their abundance and in their distribution in nature. In speaking of the geologi- cal formation of Sweetwater Valley we have to deal with a few only of these elements. The metals found in the rocks in our valley with their chemical symbols in brackets are given below :
Aluminum (Al), Carbon (C), Calcium (Ca), Iron (Fe), Magnesium (Mg), Manganese (Mn), Phosphorus (P), Potassium (K), Silicon (Si), Sodium (Na) and Sulphur (S).
Gases: Oxygen (O), Nitrogen (N), Hydrogen (H) and Chlorine (Cl).
Aluminum-The most abundant of all metals. One of the constituents of our red clay and an essential con- stituent of all important rocks except sandstones and limestones. It occurs only in oxidized compounds.
Calcium-Next to aluminum the most abundant metal in Sweetwater Valley. Our limestone is a calcium car-
17
HISTORY OF SWEETWATER VALLEY
bonate. Our marble is a crystallized calcium carbonate.
Carbon-The characteristic element of organic mat- ter; trees, plants, flesh, etc. Diamond is crystallized carbon; anthracite coal also nearly pure carbon.
Iron-Occurs as an oxide in the valley and ridges; also is found in small quantities as a sulphide. Brown iron ore on Black Oak Ridge north of Sweetwater; red fossiliferous ore (hematite) in many places in the valley. Much has been mined and shipped.
Manganese found in nodules; also in combination with the oxide of iron and gives to the latter its bluish cast. Valuable as an alloy in the making of steel.
Magnesium-Best known to our fathers and mothers as common epsom salts, which is magnesium sulphate. This salt is very soluble and is, therefore, found in many mineral waters. The carbonate forms part of magnesian limestone, which is fairly abundant in our valley. It is commonly called dolomite, which is some- times tinted pink or brown, and is unlike the blue lime- stone. Limestone containing a large percentage of mag- nesium is not suitable for being burned into the lime of commerce.
Phosphorus-Important constituent of many plants and also in combination with oxygen and lime forms the greater part of the bones of animals. Found in the limestones in our valley in small quantities. However, there are no great beds of phosporites in our valley as in middle Tennessee. When cereals requiring a large amount of phosphorus are cultivated from year to year on the same land, the phosphorus should be supplied in some shape to the soil. Phosphorus oxidizes with a light. Notice faint light from rotting wood in damp weather.
We have said already that the prevailing metals in the rocks of the valley were Aluminum (Al), Calcium (Ca), Carbon (C), Iron (Fe), Magnesium (Mg), Man- ganese (Mn), Phosphorus (P), Potassium (K), Silicon (Si), Sodium (Na) and Sulphur (S).
We have discussed these in a brief manner above with the exception of the last four. We have yet to speak of the gaseous elements, Oxygen (O), Hydrogen (H) and Chlorine (CI). These are not liquid at ordinary tem-
18
HISTORY OF SWEETWATER VALLEY
perature, but all of the gases may be liquefied by intense cold and pressure.
Potassium-Found mostly in the igneous rocks, though in small quantities in the sedimentary rocks of our valley. It is a constituent of most terrestrial waters. It is found in the ash of woods, especially hickory ash, also a constituent of many plants.
Silicon-Next to oxygen the most abundant of all the elements on the earth, yet in our own valley it is far exceeded in quantity by calcium. It exists in all well, river and spring waters. It is readily taken up by plants and gives to the stem of not a few of them their strength and resisting power. Quartz is a silicon dioxide. It crystallizes hexagonally. Almost every one has seen these semi-transparent crystals, though not plentiful here. They are often colored by various sub- stances. Quartz or sand when fused with sodium or potassium forms the glass of commerce. It is easily manufactured into various forms. The fact that it re- sists all acids, except hydroffuoric, a rare acid, makes it almost a necessity in our daily life. Quartz in some localities forms great boulders and cliffs; found in our valley only in small quantities.
Sodium-Is a constituent of all oceans and closed lakes, usually as a solution of common salt, chloride of sodium, invaluable to humanity as an antiseptic. It exists in small quantities in rain water and the air, de- creasing rapidly in proportion as we recede from the oceans. Very little sodium in any form is found in Sweetwater Valley rocks.
Sulphur-Sulphides and sulphates are not common in our valley. Sulphuret of iron (pyrite) in small particles is found imbedded in our limestone. This is in color a bright yellow of cubical crystallization and is some- times mistaken for gold, therefore occasionally called "fool's gold." This is plentiful in copper regions, being a portion of most copper ores. Sulphate of lime is the gypsum of commerce, very little of which is found here. It is soft and easily ground.
Barium-Little in our valley, though in valleys east and west of us it is abundant; there found in the form of a sulphate, barytes (Ba So 4). Large quantities have been shipped from the different railway shipping points
19
HISTORY OF SWEETWATER VALLEY
in our valley. It is principally valuable in the manu- facture of paints.
We have now discussed briefly the important mineral elements of our valley soil, we will say something of the gaseous elements. They are found surrounding the earth. Not knowing the composition of the atmosphere we would be ignorant of one of the principal sources of plant and animal life. Where there is no atmosphere there can be no life such as we know here. For this reason astronomers believe that the moon is perfectly sterile. Our atmosphere is not a chemical compound but a mechanical mixture.
The principal constituents are three gases given be- low :
Chemical symbol.
Percentage
Percentage
by weight.
by. volume
Oxygen
.0
23.024
20.941
Nitrogen
N
75.539
78.122
Argon
Ar
1.437
.937
100.000
100.000
The last, argon, is an inert gas not found in com- bination with any other element. The reason for giving it is that its one and a half per cent. weight is far greater than any other element in the air with the exception of O. and N. given in table; otherwise it need not be taken into account. The atmosphere, roughly speaking, is four-fifths nitrogen and one-fifth oxygen, mechanically mixed but chemically separate, ready to seize upon any- thing that either comes in contact with for which it has an affinity.
As oxygen is heavier than nitrogen it would naturally be supposed that in the higher altitudes the percen- tage of oxygen would be less, however, numerous chem- ical analyses have shown the contrary to be the case; that the air in mountainous regions is richer in oxygen than those nearer the sea level. In addition to the ele- ments spoken of above the air contains in variable quantities the vapor of water, carbon dioxide, ammonia, sulphur, organic matter and other suspended solids and also innumerable animalculae or microbes. But it is these very constituents, or the absence of them, infinitely minor in weight and volume, that make a region desir-
20
HISTORY OF SWEETWATER VALLEY
able or possible to live in. A miasmatic exudation from a swamp might bring disease and death to numerous near-by people though neither in weight nor volume it composes one ten millionth of the atmosphere in that locality. Local conditions in a great measure deter- mine the proportion of these minor constituents. Wherever animals breathe and fire burns oxygen is with- drawn from the air and locked up in compounds. Wherever plants and trees grow oxygen is given out and carbon absorbed. Near iron furnaces and manufactories where a vast amount of coal is consumed there is a greater proportion of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; near copper refining furnaces more sulphur; near oceans and large bodies of water more aqueous vapor and chlorine. Volcanoes erupt many gases, some of them deadly, sometimes destroying plant and animal life near them. Oxygen is far the most abundant element in nature, constituting one-fifth of the atmos- phere, nearly seven-eighths of the waters, from 45 to 53 per cent. of all important rocks, being almost one- half of terrestrial matter. The "corroding tooth of time" is nothing more nor less than oxygen combining with other elements. In fact, gold, silver and copper are about the only metals of importance found in the free State. That is one reason probably why they were used as coins or standards of value long before chemis- try or even alchemy or processes of extracting metals from oxides and sulphurets were known.
WHERE HUMANITY COULD MORE HAPPILY LIVE.
Many writers have conceded that the ideal places for humanity to live, in especial the white race, would be in the United States, somewhere between 30 and 40 de- grees north latitude ; in a valley whose average elevation was not less than six hundred nor more than two thous- and feet above the sea level; whose surrounding ridges abound in timber and ores; whose elevation above the valley is high enough to afford a convenient water sup- ply but not so high as to make transportation over them difficult ; with a rainfall of not less than fifty inches nor more than eighty during the year, distributed somewhat equally in the seasons; with enough incline in the valley
21
HISTORY OF SWEETWATER VALLEY
to make good drainage, give the streams free course and also furnish water for power and other purposes; with an average temperature of from sixty to seventy degrees Fahrenheit, and where there are not too sudden and extreme variations between seasons as in some parts of the Northwest; a valley where the thermometer rarely rises above 90º Fahrenheit or falls below 10°; these ad- vantages, experience proves, makes a healthful climate and a valley capable of supporting a numerous and pros- perous people. There are more places in East Tennes- see that answer these conditions than any other section of country with which I am acquainted. No one of them is more ideal, in my opinion, than Sweetwater Valley. Different elevations, temperatures, waters and soils may suit different individuals but we are speaking of what would suit the average white man. We recog- nize the fact that there is no great stream running through our valley, there are no coal beds, no immense bodies of ores, and for these reasons small likelihood of there being in the near future any great city in our bor- ders ; however, most of us are not crazy on the subject of increase in population. We fail to see why people can- not get as much out of life in a town of 20,000 inhabi- tants as one of 200,000. We are not obliged to have millionaires in our midst to be happy. Needless to say we have none. If. congestion of wealth and population is necessary to our happiness it is still possible to live in New York or London and China. The Chinese claim that their country is not yet full of people. There is no doubt though that Sweetwater Valley is capable of supporting several times the population it now has and at the same time exporting a large amount of products. Congestion is not likely to occur for years to come. Yet at the same time there should be no fear but that we will not receive our proportion of people seeking new locations. Thousands of people, and ones who will make splendid citizens, too, are on the hunt for such places as our valley affords.
THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS OF OUR VALLEY.
It is generally agreed by archaeologists and the delvers into antiquities that what are termed the mound
22
HISTORY OF SWEETWATER VALLEY
builders are the most ancient inhabitants. They are so called because of their custom of erecting mounds in which to bury their dead. In supposed populous com- munities some of these mounds were very large, being sometimes as much as fifty to seventy-five feet higher than the surrounding territory. There used to be various mounds in Sweetwater Valley, none of them as far as I know were very large. There used to be a mound in the field of Mrs. Love, a short distance north of the old Sweetwater Cemetery, and one in the field on the east side of the railroad, perhaps nearly a quarter of a mile from the one mentioned above. For a long time the soil upon them was very unproductive, and it could be easily seen exactly where they were located. Now they have been so plowed down, fertilized and cul- tivated that to ascertain their exact location is a matter of some difficulty. These mounds, so far as I know, were never dug into and the findings made a matter of record. They are, however, supposed to contain what was found in the mounds in this valley and in the valley of the little Tennessee River that have been examined and their contents preserved and classified. The United States government and various universities and his- torical societies have carried on a series of explorations for a number of years. The results of different ones differ in many points. However, there are other points in which most agree: That the American Indian did not erect these mounds. If any tribe did it, it was the Cherokees. If they did build mounds it was for defense and not for burial purposes. Their burial customs are different.
The skeletons and stone sepulchres show that the mound-builders were rather small people, and hardly so large as the American Indians who inhabited this sec- tion. They belonged to the stone age. There is no evi- dence of their having used any metallic weapons or in- struments. They were sun worshippers, as shown by the position of the stone and slate sepulchres. In this they show their kinship to the Aztecs of Mexico. There are no remains here of temples, roads, aqueducts or prominent residences. It is doubtful if they ever used wood for building. There is no mark of sharp instru- ments in any of the oldest trees.
23
HISTORY OF SWEETWATER VALLEY
According to Thurston's Antiquities in some mounds, however, have been found bottles, spoons and cooking utensils of various characters, mostly earthenware. There are no inscriptions on these which have been de- ciphered, and it is presumed they had no written lan- guage.
Their arrowpoints are similar to those plowed up in the Roman Campagna, which far antedate any period of Roman history.
So far there is no agreement of exactly when they inhabited this country, when they were driven away or destroyed, what was their color, race or nation. From my reading I infer that they were rather a small, war- like people, as shown by the weapons; were more civi- lized than the American Indians, but not so much so as the Aztecs or the Arizona Cliff Dwellers; that they in- habited the bounds of the Hiwassee district in far greater numbers or for a longer period than did the Indian tribes; that the American Indians have no re- liable account even by tradition of what sort of people they were.
When the mound builders disappeared, were de- stroved or were assimilated is a matter of conjecture; probably more than five hundred years ago. For when Ponce de Leon landed in Florida in 1512 the Seminoles, a tribe of Indians, occupied that country and must have done so for many years. Later on in 1540 when De Soto, the discoverer of the Mississippi, started his wonderful invasion he found the Seminoles in Florida, and march- ing northwestward he encountered the Cherokees in what is now North Georgia. He wintered in Nacoochee Valley at the head of the Chattahoocheeiver at the foot of Yonah, a peak of the Blue Ridge. Exactly what route he pursued from there to the Chickasaw Bluffs on the Mississippi River is uncertain. There are traditions of his passing through a part of western North Carolina. In Cherokee county in the Valley River Valley are the remains of old diggings and rude furnaces for the re- duction of ores, known as the De Soto mines. This was certainly not done by the Cherokee Indians, who held possession of that section, as they neither had the energy nor the appliances for such work; nor was it done by the
24
HISTORY OF SWEETWATER VALLEY
English white settlers since their occupation. There is one of two things probable; either part of De Soto's invading army, tiring of the hardships of the campaign, deserted and did this mining, and afterwards were killed or amalgamated with the tribe and lost to history like the colony of Sir Walter Raleigh on Roanoke Island; or that the whole force of that commander crossed the Blue Ridge Mountains at the Yonah Gap at the head of the Hiwassee River in Towns county, Geor- gia, and thence marched down that river to the junction of the Hiwassee and Valley Rivers. Six miles above there is the site of the so-called "De Soto mines." There are not many streams in that section which have, not produced gold in paying quantities, nearly all got by placer mining. De Soto's object was evidently to gain fame and riches by repeating the conquest of Pizarro in Peru and Cortez in Mexico.
How strange this lure and thirst for gold in all people and nations from the earliest "syllable of recorded time" down to the present! Most of the explorations, discoveries, inventions and the greater number of wars and crimes have been attributed to it. "The love of money," we are told, "is the root of all evil." If we can credit historians, man's main effort through the ages has been to get and keep gold, "hard to get and harder to hold." Nothing has ever induced him to part with it save the charms of woman-Anthony flinging the world away for the love of Cleopatra.
When Croesus, the Lydian tyrant, showed Solon, the Athenian, the greatest hoard of gold then in existence, taken, it is said, from the sands of the River Pactolus, and asked him, "Ought I not to be happy?" Solon re- plied: "I call no man happy while living." How true it was in Croesus' case: The barbarian afterward over- came him and made him swallow his own molten gold. "You always wanted gold, now take this." Or as Herodotus gives it he was captured by Cyrus and sub- jected to torture and the greatest indignities.
No great hoard of gold, no matter where placed or how carefully guarded, has ever been safe from the robber, the vandal and the pirate, and those who rob are often robbed in turn. What becomes of all the gold taken from the earth too is a mystery! Millions upon
25
HISTORY OF SWEETWATER VALLEY
millions are buried in the depths of the ocean, as in the Titanic disaster. Great sums are in the teeth of people dead and living, but that has not been the case for long. Dentistry is comparatively a recent art. It must be that misers have hidden away innumerable treasures which have never been discovered. The greatest search for gold in history, undoubtedly on our own continent, taking into consideration the number en- gaged, was the ill-starred expedition of De Soto. 'Twas nothing to him to be the discoverer of the Father of Waters, naught cared he for the mighty forests of the East, the immense, fertile plains of the West; 'twas gold and gold only that he wanted. He and his followers preferred that their bones bleach in the unknown wilder- ness rather than to return to Hispania with their galleons unladen with "barbaric pearls and gold." The Jamestown colonists found "fool's gold," iron pyrites and took it to England. The Carolina colonists spent their first efforts in search for gold. These finally found something far more precious: "Liberty" and home. There was a rush to California for search for the precious metal. It so happens that the products now from that State in one year even, exclusive of gold, are worth more than all the gold ever taken out of it. Alaska's gold is but a drop in the bucket to the iron, coal, the copper and the furs of the animals in her bor- der; but little was said of anything but gold until the other resources were about all gobbled up by a favored few.
In 1896 we had what some called the "silver craze." Wrong, all wrong. It was just the old time greed for gold. It was this struggle: The men who had silver wanted gold for it, and those who had gold were de- termined to keep what they had. Gold won, as it nearly always does one way or another. Every intelligent per- son acknowledges that, except as a medium of exchange, it is far less useful to humanity than iron, tin or copper and it is not near so indestructible as most people imagine. It is easily abraded on account of its softness. There are numerous natural solvents of gold, as shown by its wide distribution by deposition and the finding of it in a great variety of rocks and soils. Some sup- pose aqua regia the only solvent for gold. By no means
26
HISTORY OF SWEETWATER VALLEY
true. Even so mild a solvent as ten per cent. solution of sodium carbonate is capable of dissolving it, though but slowly. But people love gold on earth below, whether wisely or foolishly seems to matter not; and it is the opinion of many writers and speakers that we will love it in heaven above. If not, why is so much stress laid on the golden streets and the golden crowns the elect are to receive, as if it were impossible to attain perfect bliss in the New Jerusalem without the sight of the yellow metal? Exactly what use the disembodied or re-embodied spirits would have for a crown (for whom would they govern there?), or why it should in- crease their happiness to walk on the streets of gold is not explained.
However, we return to the expedition of De Soto. If he came in his march to where Murphy, N. C., is now, two routes to Alabama and Mississippi, which territories he is known to have traversed, were feasible: one down the Hiwassee River and the Tennessee Valley to Ala- bama; the other to strike the little Tennessee by way of some of its tributaries, thence down it to Chilhowee Gap. From there on to Alabama, Mississippi and the Chick- asaw Bluffs the march would not present very great topographical difficulties.
THE CHEROKEES.
From the time of De Soto to 1700 we have no history of the Cherokees. Ramsey's Annals, page 78, says : "Early French explorers aver that the Shawnees, a powerfully and unusually intelligent tribe of Indians (in 1700), occupied the country from the Tennessee River in west Tennessee to the Cumberland Mountains. They were driven out by the Cherokees or Creeks, pos- sibly both, and went north and were incorporated with the Six Nations.
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.