USA > Tennessee > Williamson County > History of Tennessee, from the earliest time to the present; together with an historical and a biographical sketch of Maury, Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson, Bedford and Marshall counties, besides a valuable fund of notes, reminiscences, observations, etc., etc. Vol. 1 > Part 12
USA > Tennessee > Maury County > History of Tennessee, from the earliest time to the present; together with an historical and a biographical sketch of Maury, Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson, Bedford and Marshall counties, besides a valuable fund of notes, reminiscences, observations, etc., etc. Vol. 1 > Part 12
USA > Tennessee > Rutherford County > History of Tennessee, from the earliest time to the present; together with an historical and a biographical sketch of Maury, Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson, Bedford and Marshall counties, besides a valuable fund of notes, reminiscences, observations, etc., etc. Vol. 1 > Part 12
USA > Tennessee > Wilson County > History of Tennessee, from the earliest time to the present; together with an historical and a biographical sketch of Maury, Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson, Bedford and Marshall counties, besides a valuable fund of notes, reminiscences, observations, etc., etc. Vol. 1 > Part 12
USA > Tennessee > Bedford County > History of Tennessee, from the earliest time to the present; together with an historical and a biographical sketch of Maury, Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson, Bedford and Marshall counties, besides a valuable fund of notes, reminiscences, observations, etc., etc. Vol. 1 > Part 12
USA > Tennessee > Marshall County > History of Tennessee, from the earliest time to the present; together with an historical and a biographical sketch of Maury, Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson, Bedford and Marshall counties, besides a valuable fund of notes, reminiscences, observations, etc., etc. Vol. 1 > Part 12
USA > Tennessee > History of Tennessee from the earliest time to the present , together with an historical and a biographical sketch of from twenty-five to thirty counties of east Tennessee, besides a valuable fund of notes, original observations, reminiscences, etc., etc. V. 1 > Part 12
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HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
Tennessee River, to be directed the nearest and best way to the highest point of navigation on the Tugalo River; which said road when opened and established shall continue and re- main a free and public highway, unmolested by us, to the interest and benefit of the said company and their successors, for the full term of twenty years yet to come after the same may be opened and complete; after which time said road with all its advantages shall be surrendered up and reverted in the said Cherokee nation. And the said company shall have leave, and are hereby authorized, to erect their public stands, or houses of entertain- ment, on said road, that is to say: One at cach end and one in the middle, or as nearly so as a good situation will permit, with leave also to cultivate one hundred acres of land on each end of the road and fifty acres at the middle stand, with a privilege of a sufficiency of timber for the use and consumption of said stands. And the said turnpike company do hereby agree to pay the sum of $160 yearly to the Cherokee nation for the aforesaid priv- ilege, to commence after said road is opened and in complete operation. The said com- pany are to have the benefit of one ferry on Tennessee River, and such other ferry or fer- ries as are necessary on said road, and likewise said company shall have the exclusive priv- ilege of trading on said road during the aforesaid term of time.
In testimony of our full consent to all and singular the above named privileges and ad- vantages, we have hereunto set our hands and affixed our seals this eighth day of March, eighteen hundred and thirteen
OU-TA-HE-LEE BIG CABBIN,
O0-SEE-KEE,
THE-LA-GATH-A-HEE,
NETTLE CARRIER,
CHU-LA-00,
Two KILLERS,
JOHN WALKER,
WAU-SA-WAY,
JOHN BOGGS, NA-AU-REE,
THE BARK,
CUR-A-HEE,
THE RAVEN,
SEE-KEE-KEE,
TOO-CHA-LEE,
TE-IS-TIS-KEE,
DICK BROWN,
DICK JUSTICE,
QUO-TI-QUAS-KEE,
CHARLES HICKS.
The foregoing agreement and grant was amicably negotiated and concluded in my presence.
RETURN J. MEIGS, Agent to the Cherokees.
I certify I believe the within to be a correct copy of the original.
WASHINGTON CITY, March 1, 1819
CHARLES HICKS, Agent to the Cherokees.
On the 15th of November, 1819, the Legislature of Tennessee passed an act to dispose of the lands in, the former Cherokee hunting grounds between the rivers Hiwassee and Tennessee, and north of the Little Ten- nessee. The act provided that three commissioners should be appointed to superintend the sale of these lands, that no one person should be al- lowed to purchase for himself more than 640 acres, and 320 acres for each of his children, and that no land should be sold for less than $2 per acre. By this act the Unicoi Turnpike Company was permitted to retain, possess and enjoy all the franchises yielded to them by the Cherokees in the treaty of February 27, 1819, together with the use and occupancy of 250 acres of land convenient to the public house then occupied by Maj. Henry Stephens during the continuance of the grant. A few days pre- vious to the passage of the above act, the Legislature of Tennessee passed an act (October 23, 1819) for the adjudication of the North Carolina land claims and for satisfying the same by an appropriation of the va- cant soil south and west of the congressional reservation line, and ex- tending to the Mississippi River. This territory was divided into seven
per
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HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
districts, numbered from the seventh to the thirteenth inclusive, all of these districts being definitely bounded in the second section of this act.
The "congressional reservation line" was described in an act of Congress, approved April 18, 1806, entitled . an act to authorize the State of Tennessee to issue grants and perfect titles to certain lands therein described, and to settle the claims to the vacant lands within the same." Following is the description of the line: "Beginning at the place where the eastern or main branch of Elk River shall intersect the southern boundary line of the State of Tennessee; from thence running due north until said line shall intersect the northern or main branch of Duck River; thence down the waters of Duck River to the military boundary line as established by the seventh section of an act of the State of North Carolina entitled 'an act for the relief of the officers and sol- diers of the continental line and for other purposes' passed in the year 1783; thence with the military boundary line west to the place where it intersects the Tennessee River; thence down the waters of the river Ten- nessee to the place where the same intersects the northern boundary line of the State of Tennessee."
With reference to the departure of the Cherokee Indians from the State of Tennessee, it is proper to observe that early in this century they were divided into the Lower and Upper Towns; the Lower Towns clinging to the hunter life, and the Upper Towns wishing to assimilate with the whites.' In 1808 delegations from both parties called upon the President of the United States-the former to express a wish to remove to Govern- ment lands west of the Mississippi. On July S, 1817, lands were ceded to the United States in exchange for lands on the Arkansas and White Rivers, and under this arrangement 3,000 moved in 1818. Then followed the treaty of 1819, after which the Cherokees had. left east of the Missis- sippi River about 8,000 square miles of territory, chiefly in the State of Georgia.
The last treaty made with the Chickasaws was under date of October 19, 1818, at which they ceded all their lands north of Mississippi be- tween the Tennessee and Mississippi Rivers, for certain specified annual payments, the Colberts, influential men of the tribe, aware of the value of the lands, securing unusually favorable terms for the Chickasaws. By treaties of 1832 and 1834 they ceded to the United States all their re- maining lands east of the Mississippi River.
It is difficult to obtain accurate statisties with regard to the numbers of the various Indian tribes residing within the limits of Tennessee at any specified period previous to 1860. There was taken no valuable census of the Indian population previous to 1825, and then it was taken
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HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
with reference to the tribes themselves instead of with reference to States. In that year there were estimated to reside in the States of North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee, 53,625 Indians -- Cherokees, Creeks, Chickasaws and Choctaws. Of the Creeks there were about 20,000 residing principally in eastern Alabama. Of the Choctaws there were about 20,000, residing principally in Mississippi. Of the Chickasaws there were about 3,600, residing almost wholly in Mississippi, the rest being Cherokees residing in North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee. At this time the total number of Indians in Tennessee was about 1,000, which remained the Indian population of the State for several years, but the number was gradually reduced until 1860, when it was sixty; in 1870 it was seventy.
CHAPTER IV.
SETTLEMENT OF TENNESSEE-EARLY EXPLORATIONS-FERDINAND DE SOTO- IDENTITY OF CHISCA AND MEMPHIS-WOOD'S TOUR OF DISCOVERY-SETTLE- MENTS AND INTRIGUES OF THE FRENCH-SPOTTSWOOD'S EXPLORATION-CON- FLICTING DESIGNS OF THE FRENCH AND THE ENGLISH-CONSTRUCTION OF FORTS LOUDON AND PATRICK HENRY-SCOTCH AND FRENCH TRADERS- WALKER'S DISCOVERIES-DANIEL BOONE-THE HUNTING EXPEDITIONS -- THE GRADUAL APPEARANCE OF PERMANENT WHITE SETTLERS-RESULTS OF THE TREATY OF 1763-RAPID INCREASE OF PIONEERS-WATAUGA, CARTER'S AND BROWN'S SETTLEMENTS-LAND CESSIONS AND PRE-EMPTION GRANTS-ACTS OF THE WATAUGA ASSOCIATION-THE EXPLORATION OF CUMBERLAND VAL- LEY-DONELSON'S JOURNAL-DESCRIPTION OF A THRILLING VOYAGE-GEN- ERAL OBSERVATIONS.
" THE problem of who were the first inhabitants of the immense, diver- sified and fertile territory now organized into and named the State of Tennessee will doubtless always remain unsolved. The present limits of the State were certainly entered in the western part, and possibly in the eastern part by that daring explorer and intrepid warrior, Fernando De Soto, while on his ill-starred expedition of 1540 and 1541. The opinion as to his presence in East Tennessee rests mainly if not entirely upon inferences drawn from descriptions of localities, rivers and islands, and from the names of Indian tribes and villages contained in the narra- tive of the Portuguese historian who accompanied De Soto in his final and fatal wanderings. According to Mccullough. the extreme northern point of the route followed by De Soto's army was at Chonalla, near the thirty- fifth parallel of latitude, and somewhere among the sources of the Coosa River. And Dr. Ramsey thinks it possible that Chonalla was identical
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HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
. with the modern Cherokee, Chilhowee, as the description by the Portu- guese gentlemen of the country around Chonalla applies to that around Chilhowee. "Canasaqua " is also mentioned in the Portuguese narration, and this name is thought to have been changed into Canasauga, which is the name of one of the tributaries of the Coosa, and it is also the name of a small town in the southeast corner of Polk County. Talise and Sequatchie are also mentioned, which seems to additionally confirm the theory of De Soto's presence in East Tennessee. In 1834 Col. Petti- val visited two forts or camps on the west bank of the Tennessee River, one mile above Brown's Ferry, below the Muscle Shoals, and opposite the mouth of Cedar Creek, which he was certain "belonged to the expedition of Alphonso De Soto." This fact, if established, would be in confirmation of the theory that De Soto crossed the Tennessee River to the northward. and then again to the southward on his march into what are now Ala- bama and Mississippi.
But whatever may be the fact regarding the presence of De Soto's army in East Tennessee, there is no reasonable doubt of its having been in West Tennessee. After leaving Talise, De Soto, in response to an invi- tation from Tuscaluza, visited the residence of that cazique about fifteen leagues distant from Talise, and on the windings of the river. Contin- uing his march he arrived at Mauvilla, October 18, 1540, and here was compelled to fight one of his greatest battles, in which he lost eighty-two of his soldiers and inflicted a loss of 2,500 on the natives. Proving vic- torious he rested his army in the village of Mauvilla until November 18, when he started northward. After five days marching the Spaniards entered the province of Chicaza and approached the village, Cabusto, where another battle was fought with the Indians, and after winning this battle they arrived at Chicaza village December 1S. Here, as at Mau- villa, they were surprised by a well concerted night attack from the Indi- aus, but were again victorious and resumed their march to Chiacilla, where they remained the rest of the winter. April 1, 1541, they marched four leagues and encamped beyond the boundaries of Chicaza. At Ali- bamo they fought their next battle, and then marched northward seven days through an uninhabited wilderness, and at length came in sight of Chisca, seated near a wide river, the largest they had as yet discovered, and which they named the Rio Grande. Juan Coles, one of the followers of De Soto, says the Indians named the river Chucaqua. The Portuguese narrator says that in one place it was named Tomaliseu, in another Tu- pata, in another Mico, and where it enters the sea Ri, probably different names among the different tribes. The Portuguese gentlemen called Chisca by the name of Quizquiz .*
*Ramsey.
7
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HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
Chisca is believed to have occupied the site of the present thriving . city of Memphis. On the morning of its discovery by the Spaniards they rushed into it in a disorderly manner, pillaging the houses and tak- ing numerous persons of both sexes prisoners. Chisca, the chief of the province, though ill, was exceedingly enraged, and was determined to rush forth and exterminate all who had thus dared to enter his province without permission. But he was restrained by his women and attend- ants, and after a proffer of peace by De Soto, became more peaceable, granted the request, and De Soto went into camp. The next morning some of the natives advanced without speaking, turned their faces toward the east, and made a profound genuflection to the sun; then turning to the west they made the same obeisance to the moon, and concluded with a similar but less profound reverence to De Soto. They then said they had come in the name of the cazique, Chisca, and in the name of all his subjects, to bid them welcome, and to offer their friendship and services. They also said they were desirous of seeing what kind of men the stran- gers were, as there was a tradition handed down from their ancestors that a white people would come and conquer their country .*
The Spaniards remained at Chisca twenty days, at the end of which time, having built four piraguas, they were ready to cross the great river. About three hours before day De Soto ordered the piraguas to be launched, and four troopers of tried courage to cross in each. The troop- ers, when near the opposite shore, rushed into the water, and meeting with no resistance easily effected a landing, and were thus masters of the pass. The entire army was over the river two hours before the setting of the sun. The Mississippi River at this place, according to the Portu- guese narrator, was half a league across, was of great depth, very muddy, and was filled with trees and timber, carried along by the rapidity of the current.
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According to Bancroft, De Soto saw the Mississippi River for the first time April 25, 1541, being guided to it by the natives at one of their usual crossing places, probably the lowest Chickasaw Bluff, not far from the thirty-fifth parallel of latitude; Belknap says within the thirty-fourth parallel; Andrew Elliott's journal says it was in thirty-four degrees and ten minutes; "Martin's Louisiana" says a little below the lowest Chickasaw Bluff; "Nuttall's Travels in Arkansas" says at the lowest Chickasaw Bluff. and Mccullough says twenty or thirty miles below the mouth of the Ar- kansas River.
From the time of De Soto's departure from Chisca there appears to. have been no attempt at exploration within the present limits of Tennessee
*Irving.
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HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
.
until the year 1655, when Col. Wood, who lived at the falls of the James River, sent suitable persons out on a tour of discovery to the westward. These parties crossed the Alleghany Mountains, and reached the Ohio and other rivers flowing into the Mississippi. And it is believed possi- ble by writers on this department of literature that Col. Wood's explorers followed the beautiful valley of Virginia, passed through the upper part of East Tennessee and the Cumberland Gap, and thus were the pioneers of that vast flood of immigration which but little more than a century later poured its current of life and activity into Tennessee.
Less than twenty years after this conjectural tour through Tennessee of Col. Wood's adventurers two remarkable, historical personages passed down the Mississippi, and found between the thirty-fifth and thirty-sixth parallels of latitude, on the eastern bank of the great river, densely popu- lated Indian villages. These celebrated personages were Marquette and Joliet, and these discoveries were made in June, 1673. In the map pub- lished in connection with Marquette's Journal, in 1681, highlands corre- sponding to the first, second and third Chickasaw Bluffs are delineated with considerable accuracy, as is also a large island, known as President's Island. Reports of these visits and discoveries circulated in France ex- cited among their countrymen brilliant schemes of colonization along the banks of the Mississippi, and La Salle was commissioned to perfect the exploration of the great river and its immense and productive valley. In furtherance of this object La Salle descended the river to its mouth in 1682, and planted the standard of France near the Gulf of Mexico, claim- ing the territory for that power, and naming it "Louisiana," in honor of his sovereign, Emperor Louis XIV. As he passed down the river he framed a cabin and built a fort on the first Chickasaw Bluff, naming it Prud'homme. Except the four piraguas, or pirogues, built at this point by the Spanish adventurer De Soto, in 1541, this cabin and fort built by the French explorer La Salle, in 1682, was the first handicraft by civilized man within the boundaries of Tennessee.
While at this fort La Salle entered into friendly arrangements with the Chickasaw Indians for the opening of trade, and established a trading post, which he hoped would serve as a rendezvous for traders from the Illinois to posts which might afterward be established below. Since the time of La Salle the largest commercial city of Tennessee has been estab- lished and developed very near, if not precisely upon, the very spot selected by him for his trading post. But this State was not to be settled from the West. It was from Virginia and North Carolina that were to come the hardy sons of toil and courageous pioneers that were to convert the "howling wilderness," which Tennessee had been for centuries, into
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HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
a populous, industrious and prosperous commonwealth. After the death of Bacon immigration set in toward the west, and extended into the beauti- ful valley of Virginia. In 1690 the settlements reached the Blue Ridge, and explorations of the great West were soon afterward undertaken. In 1714, according to Ramsey, Col. Alexander Spottswood, then lieutenant- governor of Virginia, passed, and was the first to pass the Great Blue Hills, and his attendants, on account of having discovered a horse-pass, were called "Knights of the Horse Shoe." It has been said that during this tour Gov. Spottswood passed Cumberland Gap, and conferred this name upon the gap, the mountains and the river, which they have ever since retained, but this is probably an error. During the same year (1714) M. Charleville, a French trader from Crozat's colony, at New Or- leans, came among the Shawanees, then living upon the Cumberland River, and opened trade with them. His store was upon a mound, on the present site of Nashville, west of the Cumberland River, near French Lick Creek. and about seventy yards from each stream. But it is thought M. Charleville could not have remained long, for about this time the Chickasaws and Cherokees made a combined attack upon the Shawanees, and drove them from their numerous villages along the lower Cumber- land.
Evidently it was the design of the French at that time to exclude the English from the valley of the Mississippi and to confine their colonies to narrow limits along the Atlantic coast. In order to accomplish this purpose they endeavored to enlist in their behalf the native Indian tribes. Traders from Carolina having ventured to the countries of the Choctaws and Chickasaws had been driven from their villages through the influence of Bienville, France claiming the entire valley of the Miss- issippi by priority of discovery. According to Adair the eastern bound- aries of the territory at that time claimed by the French extended to the head springs of the Alleghany and Monongahela, of the Kanawha and of the Tennessee. One half mile from the head of the Savannah was "Herbert's Spring," the water from which flows to the Mississippi, and strangers who drank of it would say they had tasted "French waters;" and the application of the name "French Broad " to the river now known by that name is thus explained. Traders and hunters from Caro- lina in passing from the head waters of Broad River, and falling upon those of the stream with which they inosculate west of the mountains, and hearing of the French claim would naturally call the newly discov- ered stream the "French Broad." Not long after this the French built and garrisoned Fort Toulouse, at the confluence of the Coosa and Talla- poosa; Tombeckbee in the Choctaw country: Assumption, on the Chick-
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HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
?
asaw Bluff, and Paducah, at the mouth of the Cumberland, and numerous trading posts along the Tennessee, indicative of their intention to main- tain possession of the country.
To counteract the influence of the French and to frustrate their de- signs the English sent out Sir Alexander Cumming to treat with the Cherokees, who at that time occupied the country in the vicinity of the source of the Savannah River and back therefrom to and beyond the Ap- palachian chain of mountains. Summoning the Lower, Middle Valley and Overhill tribes, Sir Alexander met the chiefs of the Cherokee towns at Nequassa, in April, 1730, informed them by whom he was sent and demanded of them obedience to King George. The chiefs, falling upon their knees, solemnly promised what was demanded, and Sir Alexander. with their unanimous consent, nominated Moytoy, of Telliquo, # com- mander-in-chief of the Cherokee nation. The crown was brought from Tenassee, + their chief town, which together with five eagle feathers and four scalps, taken from the heads of their enemies, they requested Sir Alexander to lay at his sovereign's feet.
As has been seen above it was the policy of France to unite the ex- tremes of her North American possessions by a cordon of forts along the Mississippi River; but the Chickasaws had hitherto formed an obstacle to the accomplishment of this design. This tribe of Indians was con- sidered inimical to the purposes of the French, and hence the French resolved upon their subjugation. A joint invasion was therefore made into their country by Bienville and D'Artuquette, which resulted dis- astrously to the invaders. The French, however, not to be deterred by disaster, toward the last of June, 1739, sent an army of 1,200 white men and double that number of red and black men, who took up their quar- ters in Fort Assumption, on the bluff of Memphis. The recruits from Canada sank under the torridity of the climate. In March, 1740, the small detachment proceeded to the Chickasaw country. They were met by messengers who supplicated for peace, and Bienville gladly accepted the calumet. The fort at Memphis was razed, and the Chickasaws re- mained the undoubted lords of the country.+
Thus did the present territory of Tennessee again rid itself of civil- ization, almost precisely two centuries after De Soto built his piraguas near the site of the razed Fort Assumption, on the banks of the Missis- sippi. But civilization can not be restrained. Settlements were gradu- ally extending from the Atlantic colonies toward Tennessee. In 1740
* Probably the modern Tellico.
t Tenassee was on the west bank of the present Little Tennessee River, a few miles above the mouth of Tellico, and afterward gave its name to Tennessee River and the State.
#Bancroft
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there was a handsome fort at Augusta garrisoned by twelve or fifteen men, besides officers, and the boundary line between Virginia and North Carolina was extended in 1749 by commissioners appointed by their re- spective Legislatures to Holston River, directly opposite Steep Rock. According to Haywood the Holston River was discovered by and settled upon by a man of that name, which event must therefore have occurred previous to 1749. Fort Dobbs was built in 1756, about twenty miles west of Salisbury, in accordance with the terms of a treaty between Col. Waddle and Attakullakulla, the Little Carpenter, in behalf of the Chero- kees. But to this treaty the Indians paid little attention, and hence it became necessary for Gov. Glenn, of South Carolina, to make an alliance with the Indians for the purpose of securing peace and protection to the frontier settlements. This alliance or treaty was made in. 1755, at which a large cession of territory was made to the King of Great Britain, whom Gov. Glenn represented. and soon afterward Gov. Glenn built Fort Prince George upon and near the source of the Savannah River, 300 miles from Charleston, and in the immediate proximity of an Indian town named Keown.
In the spring of 1756 the Earl of Loudon, who had been appointed commander of the King's troops in America and governor of Virginia. sent Andrew Lewis out to build another fort on the southern bank of the Little Tennessee River, above the mouth of Tellico River, nearly opposite the spot upon which Tellico Block-house was afterward erected and about thirty miles from the site of Knoxville. Lewis named the structure Fort Loudon, in honor of the Earl. This fort is remarkable as being the first erected in Tennessee by the English, but authorities differ as to the year in which it was erected-some say in 1756, others in 1757. In 1758 Col. Bird. of Virginia, erected Long Island Fort, on the north bank of the Holston, nearly opposite the upper end of Long Island. At this time the line between Virginia and North Carolina had not been extended beyond Steep Rock Creek, and this fort was thought to be in Virginia, but as the line when extended passed north of the fort, the Virginians have the honor of having erected the second Anglo-American fort within the limits of Tennessee.
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