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 5
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 5
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 5
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 5
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 5
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 5
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 5
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 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70
-
44
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
the vicinity, afford no special evidence of early connection with other continents. 'Among the more ancient works,' says a careful observer, who is not disposed to undervalue the significancy of these silent monu- ments, near which he dwells, and which he has carefully explored, 'there is not a single edifice nor any ruins which prove the existence in former ages of a building composed of imperishable materials. No fragment of a column, nor a brick, nor a single hewn stone large enough to have been incorporated into a wall, has been discovered. The only relics which re- main to inflame curiosity are composed of earth.' Some of the tribes had vessels made of clay; near Natchez an image was found of a substance not harder than clay dried in the sun. These few memorials of other days may indicate revolutions among the barbarous hordes of the Ameri- cans themselves; they cannot solve for the inquirer the problem of their origin."
Thus Bancroft while denying the general proposition that there was in the Mississippi Valley anteriorly to its occupation by Indians. a race of. Mound Builders, as that term is generally understood, yet admits that there may have been a race who may have constructed the smaller mounds, as burial places, and whose general physical characteristics bore a strik- ingly exact resemblance to that of the race of nobles who sleep in the ancient tombs of Peru. But other authorities, notably Winchell, the author of "Preadamites," hold, from the evidences which they have accu- mulated, that not only was the entire Mississippi Valley inhabited by an agricultural population of greater or less density, but such population possessed an entirely different physical structure and entirely different habits and civilization than these possessed by the Indian tribes. If the latter were the descendants of the earlier race of Mound Builders suf- ficient time elapsed between them to change the stature, cranial develop- ment and pursuits. It is well established that, while the Indians pro- fessed no knowledge of the construction of the greater number of the mounds, they themselves built them for probably the same purpose as the Mound Builders.
Another celebrated American historian, Hildreth, expresses himself with reference to the inferences to be drawn from the existence of the mounds in the following language: "These memorials consist of embank- ments of earth and stone exhibiting indisputable evidence of design and were sometimes of very great extent. Some of them were located along the brows of hills or upon the precipitous edges of ravines enclosing consid- erable table-land, and were evidently designed as works of defense. Others still more numerous, extensive and elaborate were most probably con- nected with religious ideas. In various places they present curious basso-
:
1
VIEW ON THE EMERY RIVER.
4
45
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
relieros, birds, beasts, reptiles and even men; more generally enclosures of various sorts, perfect circles or squares and parallel lines of great extent, the embankments being from five to thirty feet in height, and the enclosures from one to fifty or even to four hundred acres; other classes of structures connected with or separate from those just mentioned, increasing in number toward the south, conical and pyramidal structures. from a few yards to hundreds in diameter and from ten to ninety feet in height occasionally terraced like the Mexican teocallis. Some of these were for sepulchral purposes, others were doubtless mounds of sacrifice. Connected with these ancient monuments are found remnants of pottery, and weapons and utensils of stone, axes and ornaments of copper; but nothing which indicates a higher civilization than that possessed by the Indians. Yet the extent and number of these earth erections, of which there are but few traces east of the Alleghanies, which region was the most populous when discovered by Europeans, evinces the combined labor of many hands, of a kind of which no trace has ever been found among the aboriginal tribes."
All writers on American antiquities infer from the existence of these antiquities the existence of a race of Mound Builders. Accepting this conclusion as settled there still remain the puzzling problems as to whence they came, how long they remained and when and whither they went. Other authors, besides Judge Haywood, have made strong attempts at a solution from the scanty evidence at hand. His attempt, though exceedingly interesting and ingenious, has not been generally recognized as final. He labors assiduously to show various similarities between the Hindoos and Egyptians, and then to show the similarities between Mexi- cans and Peruvians and the Hindoos and Persians. All of these nations called their rulers the children of the sun. The Mexicans and Hindoos both divided the people into four castes. The state of property was also the same in Persia, Egypt and Peru, one-third set apart as sacred to the God they worshiped, one-third to the sovereign and one-third to the people. The religion of the Mexicans and of the Hindoos was also similar. The Hindoos have a trimurti consisting of Brahma, Vishnu and Siva. From Hindostan this idea or conception of a triune God traveled into Egypt, and thence to the Hebrew nation, Greece and Rome, and if the saine deified trinity be found in America it is legitimate to refer it to the same Hindoo origin, at least until a better be assigned.
The representations of the Mexican god Hialzettipocli very strikingly resemble that of the Hindoo god Krishna. The masque of the Mexican priest is represented in Mexico. He is drawn as sacrificing a human victim, a sacrifice which all worshipers of the sun everywhere make.
3
46
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
The masque represents an elephant's trunk, similar to the head so often seen portrayed in Hindostan. As no elephants exist in America it is reasonable to conclude that the design was brought from Asia. Various coincidences are seized upon to show the possible derivation of the relig- ion of the Mexicans from that of the Hindoos. Among the latter the conch shell is used as a symbolical representation of Vishnu, and also in the worship of that deity. The conch shell is similarly used by the Mex- icans in their worship of the god of the ocean, which they adore equally with the sun. And the little conch shells found in the graves of the ancient inhabitants of the Mississippi Valley indicate similar religious belief and ceremonies. Multitudinous ablutions are alike used by both. The sacred buildings of the Mexicans are similar to the same buildings, and the pyramids of Egypt and India and the temple of Belus. The tower of Babel and the great temple of Mexico were each dedicated to two divinities. The similarity of the construction of the pyramids of Mexico is worthy of notice, those in both countries being square and so built as to almost exactly face the four cardinal points of the compass; those in Egpyt being precisely coincident with the true meridian, and those in Mexico varying only by fifty-two seconds of arc. The cosmical history of the Mexicans is the same as that of the Hindoos, both believ- ing, to illustrate, that the world would be destroyed by a general confla- gration, and mankind having all derived it from the prophecy of Noah .* The vernacular customs of both Hindoos and Mexicans were the same both as to those relative to religion and as to those relating to the com- mon concerns of life. The titles the sun, the brother of the sun, the chil- dren of the sun, were given to the princes of Peru and of Mexico and of the Natchez, and are the same as those anciently given to the princes of Persia, India, Ceylon and China. The Mexican year consisted of 365 days, six hours, and the day began with the rising of the sun, as was like- wise the case with the Persians and Egpytians, as well as the greater part of the nations of Asia. The Egyptians did not know of the year consist- ing of 365 days in the time of Moses nor until 1322 B. C. In the time of Plato, 384 B. C., they discovered that a year consists of 365 days, six hours. The people of America called the constellation now universally known as the Great Bear by a name which signifies the bear, a name first given to this constellation by the Egpytians and some Asiatic people. Such facts as these afford indubitable proof that the astronomy of the Mexicans was not of their own invention, but was learned by them from the countries whence they immigrated. They also were familiar with certain Scriptural traditions; as the fall of man, and the connection of the
*Genesis Ix: 11 to 15.
1
47 ·
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
serpent with that fall: of a great flood overwhelming the earth from which only a single family escaped, and also of a great pyramid erected by the pride of man, and destroyed by the anger of the gods. But they have no tradition of any thing that occurred on the eastern side of the Atlantic Ocean later than the building of the tower of Babel. The Mexicans therefore could not have learned them from the writings of Moses or they would also have known of the history of Abraham and of the Israelites as well as of the facts to which such traditions relate. Hence they must have left the Old World before the writings of Moses came into exist- ence, or they must have lived for a time in some part of Asia, where, on account of the prevailing idolatry, the writings of Moses could not pene- trate, but yet where they had access to the astronomical learning of the Chaldeans after 384 B. C.
At the time of Moses all the civilized nations of Asia worshiped the sun, as the numerous places named Baal with an affix abundantly testify, as Baalath, Baalpeor, etc., and so far were his many and earnest injunc- tions from subduing their disposition to this worship, that even Solomon, who lived 500 years after Moses' time, and who was the wisest of princes, embraced the idolatrous worship of the sun. It is fair to presume that sun-worshipers follow the same customs all over the world. Sun-wor- shipers, wherever they are known to practice this form of idolatry, build high places, enclosing them in open courts, and upon these high places erect houses for their idols, placing the idols within the houses. Upon these high places they burnt incense to Baal, to the sun, to the moon, to the planets and to the hosts of heaven. Upon these high places they made sacrifices of human beings, even of their sons and daughters, to the sun, and made their children pass through the fire to their idols. In Scotland a ceremony used to be celebrated on the 1st of May (O. S.), the inhabitants of a district assembling in the field, digging out a square trench, in which they built a fire and baked a cake, and then cutting the cake into as many pieces as there were persons, and blacking one with charcoal, all were thrown into a bag, out of which each person, blind- folded, drew a piece, the one drawing the black piece was sacrificed to Baal (some say made to leap through the fire three times) to propitiate him for the coming year. This is the same ceremony as was practiced by Manasseh, the sixteenth King of Judah, who made his sons pass through the fire to Moloch. Certain worshipers of the sun kept the festival of Tammuz, at the time of the summer solstice, the same time at which the southern Indians celebrated the green corn dance
The Mexicans had pikes pointed with copper which appeared to have been hardened with an amalgam of tin, and they had among them car-
48
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
penters, masons, weavers and founders. The Peruvians used mattocks of hardened wood and bricks dried in the sun. They had the art of smelt- ing ore, and of refining silver, of which they made domestic utensils. They had also hatchets of copper made as hard as iron, but they did not worship idols. They carried the idols of the people they conquered to their temple of the sun at Cusco. Hence the mounds upon which images have been found in the Mississippi Valley can not be ascribed to the Peruvians. The question remains, can they be ascribed to the Mex- icans or to a similar race ?
All the nations west of the Mississippi when they first became known to Europeans were worshipers of the sun, and were governed by despotic princes-two prominent circumstances in which they differed from the Indians who lived on the Great Lakes and on the east side of the Alle- ghanies. At this time the Natchez tribe of Indians occupied almost the entire eastern part of the Mississippi Valley south of the Ohio River, and a portion of that north of this river, and most of the mounds were the limits of their settlements. They were governed by one man who styled himself the child of the sun, or the sun, and upon his breast was the image of that luminary. His wife was called the wife of the sun, and like him was clothed with absolute authority. When either of these rul- ers died, the guards killed themselves in order to attend them in the other world. They had one temple for the entire nation and when on one occa- sion it caught fire, some mothers threw their children into the flames to stop their progress. Some families were considered noble and enjoyed . - hereditary dignity, while the great body of the people were considered vile. Their great chief, the descendant of the sun, the sole object of their worship, they approached with religious veneration, and honored him as the representative of their deity. In their temples, which were constructed with some magnificence, they kept up a perpetual fire as the purest emblem of their divinity. The Mexicans and the people of Bo- gota were worshipers of the sun and moon, and had temples, altars, priests and sacrifices. The name of the Natchez melted away, and their decline seemed to keep pace with the wasting away of the Mexican em- pire. The Natchez were partially destroyed in a battle with the French, east of the Mississippi, and after their retreat up Red River, west of the Mississippi, they were finally conquered, their women and children re- duced to slavery and distributed among the plantations, and the men themselves sent to serve as slaves in San Domingo.
The Natchez were the most highly polished and civilized of any race of Indians. They had an established religion and a regular priesthood. The usual distinctions created by rank were understood and observed, in
--
49
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
which particulars they differed from the Indians north of the Ohio and east of the Alleghanies. They were seldom engaged in any but defensive wars and did not deem it glorious to destroy the human species. They were just, generous and humane, and attentive to the wants of the needy ; and it is probable they inhabited all the country from the Mississippi eastward to the Alleghanies and northward to the Ohio.
In the light of more recent investigations, although Judge Haywood's line of argument is that necessarily followed by naturalists, and although the facts brought to light by him are yet as valuable as though his theory were impregnable, yet it was necessary for him to assume untenable positions in order to make it appear reasonable that the Natchez were the Mound Builders. In all probability this tribe occupied a territory much smaller than that supposed by him, viz .: the entire eastern half of the Mississippi Valley south of the Ohio River. But even if his supposition in this respect were true, there are many thousands of mounds outside of these limits, in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin. In this latter State the mounds appear to be of a kind peculiar to that location. being so constructed as to show they were designed to be effigies of most of the various kinds of quadrupeds known in the country, as well as fishes. reptiles and birds. Of these perhaps the most .remarkable is the "Big Elephant Mound," a few miles below the mouth of the Wisconsin River, in Wisconsin. From its name its form may be inferred. It is 135 feet in length and otherwise properly proportioned. It scarcely seems prob- able that the people who constructed these mysterious mounds could have represented an elephant or a mastodon without having seen one, and it is perhaps justly inferable that the "Big Elephant Mound" was con- structed in the days of the mastodon. If this be true it is eloquent in its argument for the immense age of the mounds, as geologists are gen- erally agreed that the mastodon lived not much later than the Pliogene era.
Another fact attesting the great age of these most interesting relics is this: The human bones found therein, except those of a later and probably intrusive burial, are not in a condition to admit of removal, as they crumble into dust upon exposure to the air; while human bones are removed entire from British tumuli known to belong to ages older than the Christian era, and frequently from situations much less conducive to preservation than those in the mounds, and in addition the mounds are rarely found upon the most recently formed terraces of the rivers.
The selection of sites for the location of these mounds appears to have been guided by the location of soils capable of cultivation, and by accessibility to navigable streams; the same situations have since fre- quently been selected by pioneers of civilization as the centers of settle-
50
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
ment and trade. While the purpose for which some of these mounds . were erected is sometimes doubtful, as is the case with the "animal mounds" in Wisconsin, a few in Ohio, and some in the valley of the Arkan- sas, yet as to many of them which have been carefully explored there is less doubt, and they are divided according to the uses to which they were probably devoted. All the earthworks found in Tennessee belong to one of the classes below. Mounds are numerous in West Tennessee, on the Cumberland, on both Big and Little Tennessee, on French Broad,on Duck and on the Elk. The earthworks have been classified by an eminent anti- quarian* as follows:
-
Sepulchral.
Templar.
Mounds
EARTHWORKS.
Effigies
Inclosures
Sacrificial. Memorial. Observatory. Animal. Emblematic. Symbolical. Military. Covered. Sacred.
One of these mounds is in the immediate vicinity of Nashville, upon which Monsieur Charleville, the French trader, had his store in 1714, when the Shawanee Indians were driven away by the Cherokees and Chick- asaws. Very large burying grounds lay between this mound and the river; thence westwardly and then to the creek. The great extent of the burying ground, and the vast number of interments therein, induce the belief that a population once resided there many times greater than that now occupying that portion of the State, and suggested the idea that the cemetery was in the vicinity of the mound because the mound was used for religious purposes.
About fourteen miles up the Cumberland above Nashville is a mound twelve to thirteen feet high. Upon excavation ashes were found mixed with lime and substances resembling human bodies after being burned.
On Big Harpeth River, near the mouth of Dog Creek, is a square mound, 47x47 feet and 25 feet high and in a row with it two others from 5 to 10 feet high. At some distance are three others in a row parallel with the first, the space between resembling a public square. All around the bend of the river, except at a place of entrance, is a wall on the mar- gin of the river, the mounds being within the area enclosed by the wall. Within this space is a reservoir of water about fifteen feet square. On the top of the large mnound was found an image eighteen inches long from head to foot composed of soapstone. The trees standing upon the mounds are very old; a poplar tree was five or six feet in diameter.
*Isaac Smucker in "Ohio Statistics."
5
51
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
Higher up the river and within a mile of those just described is another bend in the river. In this bend, on the south side of the river, is a mound of the same size as the larger one described above. Near this mound were found a large number of pine knots. As there were then no pine woods within five or six miles it is supposed that these pine knots are the remains of the old field pines, which grew to full size after cultivation had deserted this region, and falling there decayed. The soil renewed its richness, and the present growth, consisting of oaks, poplars and maples, succeeded that renewal. Allowing 250 years for the growth of the pines, 50 years for the renewal of the soil and 350 years for the present growth, 650 years have passed since the commencement of the growth of the pines. Hence those pines must have begun to grow about the year 1240, which again shows the great age of the mounds.
In Sumner County, in a circular enclosure between Bledsoe's Lick and Bledsoe's Spring branch, is a wall from fifteen to eighteen inches high, with projecting angular elevations of the same height, the wall enclosing about sixteen acres. Within the enclosure is a raised platform from thirteen to fifteen feet above the common surface, about 200 yards from the south wall. This platform is sixty yards wide, is level on the top and joins a mound which is twenty feet square and eighteen feet above the common level. In 1785 a black oak tree three feet through was growing on the top of this mound. About 1815 there was plowed up on top of the mound an image made of sandstone. The breast was that of a female and prominent, and the color was that of a dark infusion of coffee. Near this mound was a cave, which at the time of its discovery contained a great number of human skulls, without the appearance of any other portions of the human skeleton near them.
In Williamson County, northwardly from Franklin, on the north side of Little Harpeth, are walls of dirt running north from the river. In 1821 they were four or five feet high, and from 400 to 500 yards long, the inclosure containing about fifty acres. Within this inclosure are three mounds standing in a row from north to south, all nearly of the same size. Within this inclosure is a large number of graves, some of the bones in which were very large.
In the same county on the south side of Big Harpeth, about three miles from Franklin, is an ancient entrenchment nearly in the form of a semi-circle, containing about twenty acres. Within the inclosure made · by this entrenchment and the bluff are several mounds of different shapes and sizes, from six to ten feet high and from ten to twelve yards wide. Besides these are other mounds nearly round and ten yards in diameter. The largest of the mounds of the first class is sixty-eight feet wide and
52
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
148 feet long and about ten feet high. The trees within the enclosure are as large as those of the surrounding country.
In Hickman County, at the junction of Piney River with Duck River, is an enclosure containing twenty-five or thirty mounds, one of which is about fifteen feet high, round and somewhat raised on top, but yet flat enough to build a house on. At the base it is about thirty or forty yards across. There are numerous mounds in the bottoms of Duck River. and caves containing human bones.
In Lincoln County, near Fayetteville, below the mouth of Norris Creek, are a wall and a ditch proceeding from a point on the river circu- larly till it returns to the river, forming an enclosure of about ten acres. Within this enclosure are mounds six or eight feet high. On the outside of the wall and joined to it are angular projections about 180 feet apart and extending outward about ten feet. On one of these angular pro- jections stood a black oak tree, which, when cut down, exposed 260 annu- lar rings.
In Warren County are numerous mounds fifteen feet high. Eight miles south from McMinnville, on Collins River, is a mound thirty feet high, with a flat top, containing about one and a half acres of ground. On either side of the mound toward the north and south is a ditch about twenty feet wide and four feet deep at present, extending parallel and terminating at each end at a high bluff. On the mounds were large stumps indicating trees of a very great age.
In Roane County is a mound thirty feet high, having a flat top and a regular ascent from bottom to top. The summit contains one-fourth of an acre, and all around the summit there was a stone wall about two feet high. It is on the south side of the Tennessee River. Across the Tennessee facing the mound is a high bluff, upon which three figures are painted with black and red colors from the waist upward. One of the figures is that of a female.
-
On the French Broad River, about one mile above the mouth of the Nollichucky, is a mound thirty feet high, with old trees at the top.
In the third section of the fourth range of the Tenth District of the Chickasaw Purchase are seven mounds, one of them seventeen feet high and about 140 feet across. Seven miles southwest of Hatchie River and about fifty miles east of the Mississippi, in a fertile part of the country, are three mounds enclosed by an intrenchment from ten to thirty feet wide. Two miles south of the south fork of Forked Deer River and about fifty miles east of the Mississippi, is a mound fifty-seven feet high and over 200 feet across. On the south side of Forked Deer River, about forty miles west of the Tennessee, is a mound about 100 rods in diameter
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.