USA > Tennessee > History of Tennessee the making of a state > Part 3
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HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
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chief covering for the family in cold weather is rarely blanket, often the skins of deer and bear and occasionally buffalo, tanned so as to be soft and supple. The mat' tresses are generally of the same material. The fare con- sists of game, which is abundant and delicate. Bread is made of corn, beaten as fine as possible in an improvised mortar, or ground in a hand mill, if one has been bought. When traveling parched corn supplies the place of bread. Frequently bread was not to be had, and instances are still remembered of hunters and settlers who for months went without eating anything but meat.
If corn could be obtained, - and after the first crop, the lack of it was rarely felt again, unless through the inroads of the Indians, or the accidents of nature, - it was made into dough on a "trenehier," and either baked in the ashes and called " ash-cake," or baked before the fire and called "Johnny-cake "- a corruption of "Journey-cake." fron: the ease with which it could be made. The corn itsell could also be made into mush, and where the cow had 1 prospered, mush and milk was the favorite diet, for sup- per, especially. A delicious syrup was frequently gotten from the maple. Butter was supplied by the fat of bear's meat or the gravy of the goose, and there are still living old hunters who declare that the finest Jersey butter of Columbia does not equal in savor the "goose-fat" of the olden days. Coffee was made from parched rye and dri beans ; tea was supplied by the sassafras-tree. Cisterns and wells were unknown. The water supply from moun- tain brooks and valley streams was sufficient for all uses. The location was chosen with reference to the convenience of running water, for the builder always had before his mind the possibility of a siege, when it might be with danger of life or limb that water must be obtained. This very reason, however, soon caused the boring of wells within the palisade or picket fence, with which the settler, in imitation of his forefathers, who lived upon the banks
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THE FOUNDING OF THE HOUSEHOLD.
of the Weser, surrounded his cabin and frequently his garden. This latter, called " truck-patch," was laid off for cultivation as near the cabin as practicable. Generally there was a vacant space behind the cabin, over which a shed was built to ward off the rain and the rays of the sun when the housewife was ironing. The washing was done at the spring except in times of danger, and the clothes were thrown across the fence piekets to dry. The " truck - patch" and the "out- houses " were behind the washing shed. All trees within gunshot of the cabin, large enough to conceal the body of an Indian, were carefully cut down. A shed was built in one corner of the yard for the horses and the pigs, which were allowed to run at large during times of peace, to grow fat upon the mast which was either plentiful or scant or just middling. They were trained to return to the cabin at eventide and seek shelter from wolves and the depredations of the bears. It was even said that hogs became so astute as to appre- ciate when Indians were in the woods, and old settlers were fond of relating how the return in midday of some unusually precocious pet sow was a warning. never disre- garded and never falsified, of the neighborhood of the dreaded "redskins."
After the inner economy of his household had been or- - ganized, the pioneer turned his attention to that task, the most important of all, which has secured his ascendency in the land of his adoption in every part of the globe. The method of clearing when carried on by a small family was a tedious process. It must not be supposed, however, that clearing land meant stripping it of all growth. It meant getting it in such a condition that the necessary requirements of husbandry could be fulfilled. The first step taken was to deaden the large trees, generally in the autumn or winter before the sap had begun to rise. This was done by cutting with the axe a belt or girdle around the tree so as to break through the bark. This caused the
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HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
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tree to wither and decay. Those which were too large to haul away were burned by having small " kindling wood " heaped about them. They burned sometimes for weeks without interruption. Fire was one of the greatest instru- ments for clearing, and frequently, when a long drought had rendered the forests combustible, they were fired to facilitate the clearing of the land upon which they stood. Many statutes. were passed against this practice, and heavy penalties were prescribed for it. In some localities more thickly settled than others, neighbors rendered each other mutual assistance. In this case, the trunks of very large trees were cut down, " chopped " into logs, rolled together, and set on fire. Hence the phrase, " log-rolling" in the vocabulary of our political commonplaces. After the trees were disposed of, the undergrowth was cut down, carried together in heaps, and burnt. The land was im- mediately put under cultivation to destroy the underbrush, which would otherwise come up and redouble the labor of clearing. The crop the first year was poor. though, where the land was fertile, interspersed with "patches of likely growth." The next year the decay of roots had probably progressed far enough to allow the land to be ordinarily well plowed. When this was done, the work of clearing was practically accomplished. Time and an occasional storm and a few strokes of the axe, aided by a little fire, did the rest. The pioneer was now a settler, and had per- fected the organization of the elemental germ of the state.
His nearest neighbor was probably five to ten miles away. In the fall, after his crop had been gathered, they occasionally met on bear and deer and wild turkey hunts. The community of danger and of interest drew them to- gether. As we recall the times in which they lived. we can see them stride across the stage with their long rifles. loose hunting-shirts, moccasined feet, and fur caps, in st:il- wart pursuit of the game which abounds in the forests, cast- ing cautious, but not fearful glances to either side as they
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THE FOUNDING OF THE HOUSEHOLD.
›ve through the overhanging trees. Or perhaps we see canoe glide swiftly down one of the numerous creeks lat empty into the Holston, above whose sides emerge two broad shoulders, which bend backwards and forwards in swift alternation as the boat swirls onward.
But as yet, although we see the type, and although we can live as one of the class, no individual figure has come within the range of our vision. Even the oft-mentioned William Bean is scarcely more than a shadow - umbra hominis. We find his name among the Council of Thir- teen of the Watauga Association (spelt Been), and he appears occasionally during the Indians wars, but this is all. Even the sad fate of his wife throws no light upon him. At times, a presence becomes manifest, but only for a second, and then it is quickly swallowed up in the gloom of the surrounding indistinctness. Daniel Boone appears in the background, and we watch him for a second as he cuts a few misspelled words upon the trunk of a tree com- memorative of a bear just killed, which perhaps had given unusually much to do; or we follow him as he arrives at Bean's cabin near a creek which bears his name, and spends a night with that adventurous pioneer. But straightway he is gone, to subdue the beautiful region which surrounds the fairest town of the commonwealth he founded, and only returns to listen to the eloquent protest of Oconostota, and to help Colonel Henderson juggle the Indians out of all that region which lies between the Ohio, the Tennessee, and the Cumberland, "including all its waters to the Ohio River." There is nothing individually heroic in the spectacle - it is the group which gives breadth and color and intensity.
The reports brought back to the older settlements in Virginia, North Carolina. and South Carolina created an eager desire to enter into a land so beautiful, so fertile, and so easily obtained. Emigrants even came from the banks of the Susquehanna, and from the thriving towns
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HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
of the north, to take possession of a country which mc than fulfilled the promises of the Lord to his chosen pe ple. Hunting and exploring parties, which had first a tracted attention to the new country, continued to pa-3 and repass the gradual growth of cabins in the east, on their way to and from the interior. In June, 1769. a party penetrated beyond the valleys at the foot of the Stone and Bald mountains into the Cumberland regior of Middle Tennessee. A month previous, Daniel Boone and two others, one of whom was killed, had passed through East Tennessee into Kentucky. In June, 1770, Colonel James Knox, at the head of a small party called the " Long Hunters," from the length of their absence. explored the region of country around the junction of the Cumberland and the Ohio, and the lower bend of the Cumberland. From now on, these parties come and go in rapid sequence. Parties of surveyors and their guards, sent out from Virginia to locate warrants and royal grants in Kentucky, made the Watauga settlement a place of rest and refreshment, some of them even remaining per- manently. Disturbances in both North and South Car- olina, resulting from the oppressive measures which fol- lowed resistance to the Stamp Act and other illegal modes of taxation, increased the number of emigrants.
In 1770 James Robertson came from North Carobnia. and in him we find for the first time a figure of Tennessee history standing before us in the life. His is one of the great names and one of the heroic figures in the annals of the State. He returned, after having raised one har- vest, but came back the year following as a permanent settler upon the banks of the Watauga. About the same time a party of new-comers settled in Carter's Valley, in the neighborhood of where Rogersville now is, being the advance guard of the column which was gradually over- running the country from Wolfs Hill near the present site of Abingdon towards the southwest. Two of them
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THE FOUNDING OF THE HOUSEHOLD.
opened a store in the valley. A year later a man named Jacob Brown settled with several families on the Nolli- chucky, and also opened a store to barter ammunition, whiskey, trinkets, and the like with the Indians for land. This was the last formed of the three original settlements from which all future development radiates. Though weak at first, consisting of a few cabins, the accession of inhabitants gradually gave strength, and we find among those whom the treachery of Lord Dunmore had hoped to sacrifice at the battle of Kanawha, in 1774, a company of fifty Tennesseans, commanded by Evan Shelby. The 1 political agitation in North Carolina having assumed for- midable proportions, Governor Tryon attempted to repress the Regulators, as they termed themselves, and at the bat- tle of the Alamance killed over two hundred of them. This caused such an influx of new-comers to the young settlement that it enabled them to put themselves upon a firmer basis. Wherever several cabins were built to- gether in a cluster they were called stations, and in each station was a fort, generally formed by running palisades from one cabin to the other. The earliest forts were the Watauga Fort and Fort Gillespie, for the protection re- spectively of the Watauga and the Nollichucky or Brown settlement, and one in Carter's Valley.
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CHAPTER III.
THE WATAUGA ASSOCIATION FORMED.
THUS far had the settlements progressed, when a troul le arose as regards the State to which they owed allegiance. Those who had settled north of the Holston had preempted their lands under the laws of Virginia. But Colonel Anthony Bledsoe, a surveyor and Indian fighter of the old times, discovered that the extension of the line beyond the Steep Rock, the Virginia and North Carolina boundary line, would leave the Carter's Valley as well as the Nol- lichucky and Watauga settlements in North Carolina. When this became patent, those who had purchased land from Carter and Parker, and others who had originally purchased from the Indians, attempted to remedy the defect in their title by refusing to hold under them, and claiming their lands as original settlers. It was only after many acts of legislation that the confusion of titles was eventually reformed. :
But a still more serious trouble than this was impending over the infant communities. About 1769 Colonel Donel- son had made a treaty with the Indians by which Virginia bought what was called the western frontiers. By this treaty it was supposed that the Watauga region went to that colony. Believing themselves in Virginia, the Wa- tanga people supposed themselves governed by Virginia - laws, and looked to that State or Colony for protection against Indian aggressions and the raids of horse-thieves. There was no desire to acknowledge the sovereignty of a State from whose oppression the majority of them Ind
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THE WATAUGA ASSOCIATION FORMED.
just fled. In addition to this, North Carolina itself took no steps looking to the exercise of any authority over the settlements, many of which had been made in violation of the provisions of the treaty with the Cherokees at Loch- aber in 1770. It had everything to lose, and nothing to gain, by recognizing them as being on North Carolina ter- rirory, which recognition would carry with it the obliga- tion of protecting them against the inroads of the Indians.
The Watauga people. therefore, owing no allegianee to Virginia, and being unable to render any to North Carolina, were for the moment elevated in the annals of America to the dignity of a new and independent colony. That they were worthy cannot be doubted by any one who observes the ease, assurance, and moderate self-restraint with which they began to select from the old storehouse of English law and precedent such material as was necessary for the primitive structure they desired to raise. Regarding themselves as beyond the pale of North Carolina law, and following the precedents of two thousand years, they or- ganized a government which, like all governments formed by the Anglo-Saxon race or those inheriting their tradi- tions, was adapted to the actual needs of those for whom it was framed, without theories, without abstractions, with- out generalizations, without any provision for any future contingency not elearly imminent. An association was formed and articles of association entered into. These indeed have been lost. yet material enough has come down to us, to enable us to reconstruct, with some degree of as- surance, the first scheme of government ever devised for the inhabitants of Tennessee soil. It was simple but efficient.
Having assembled in general convention, like the in- habitants of the old New England towns, a committee of thirteen was elected as a kind of general body for legis- lative purposes. The executive and judicial power was lodged in five commissioners elected by the thirteen from
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HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
their own body. The five commissioners elected one of their number chairman, who was ex officio chairman of the committee of thirteen. A clerk was elected by the coz. mittee. Among the most important legislative functions performed by this body was the establishment of instiu- ments for the recording of deeds and wills. The laws of Virginia were adopted as far as applicable. There was a sheriff and an attorney. The sessions of the court were. held at stated periods. The committee appear to have been conscious of their anomalous position, and carefully refrained from taking any steps that could embroil them with the legislatures of the older colonies. When dealing with people who were non-residents of their district, they took care to avoid any necessity for the exercise of physi- cal force by requiring them to give bond, so as to proceed against their property, instead of their persons, if the con- tingeney arose. The suits of plaintifis refusing to give bond were dismissed. It is not possible to establish the date of the formation of the association, but it was most probably in 1772. The names of the committee-men at the time of the petition to North Carolina were John Carter, Charles Robertson, James Robertson, Zach Isbell, John Sevier, James Smith, Jacob Brown, William Bean, John Jones, George Russell, Jacob Womack, and Robert Lucas. William Tatham was clerk pro tem. The name of the regular clerk is unknown. Felix Walker, subse- quently a member of Congress from North Carolina, Thomas Gomley, William Tatham, and even John Sevier were at various times incumbents of the elerkship.
At first only the two original settlements lived under the articles. In 1775 the Brown or Nollichucky settlement, being composed for the most part of Tories, was com- pelled by the Watauga people and a band of Virginians from Wolfs Hill, who had heard of their lukewarmness towards the Revolutionary cause, to take the oath of " fidelity to the common cause," and from that time! on
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THE WATAUGA ASSOCIATION FORMED.
became identified with those who had framed the articles of association. Until 1776. the date of the petition to North Carolina for annexation, the history of the three settlements generally known in Tennessee history by the collective term of Watauga Association is in the main the history of the increase of population, the building of cabins, and the tilling .of the soil. But few events of im- portance beyond this occurred. and we have only the bold outlines which are dimly visible like the highest peaks of a mountain range on a misty day. 1557446
In 1772 a line was run between Virginia and the Chero- kee hunting-grounds. This followed the 36° 30' line of parallel, and hence left the members of the association on Cherokee soil. Alarmed by finding that the title to the lands they had entered in the belief they were entering Virginia lands were still in the Indians, and not looking to North Carolina to take any decisive steps in their favor as against the latter, the members of the association, through James Robertson and John Boone, obtained a ten years' lease from the aboriginal owners of the land upon which they had settled. An incident which occurred at the making of this lease is worthy of mention as an illus- tration both of the times and the men. After the lease had been made, it was celebrated by gymnastic festivities and faces, in which both the whites and the Indians took part. Late in the evening a crowd of ruffians from Wolfs Hill, Virginia, wantonly slew one of the latter. The Indians immediately withdrew with dark faces and clouded brows, and those who knew the temper of their blood were in no doubt of a prompt retaliation. Antici- pating a general war, and appreciating the dangers to the settlements which would result, involving perhaps their complete destruction, James Robertson made a long jour- ney to the Indian nation, met their chief warriors in council, pacified their anger, and propitiated them by de- nouncing the perpetrators of the outrage as hostile to the
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HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
whites. This mark of condescension had its effect, and the danger was for the time averted.
On the 17th of March, 1772, Colonel Richard Hender- son, Colonel Nathaniel Hart, and Daniel Boone succeeded in getting a general council of the Indians together at Sycamore Shoals on the Watauga, and purchased from them a tract of country already alluded to, between The Kentucky and the Cumberland rivers. This was the cel- ebrated Transylvania purchase. It suggested to the Wa- tauga people the feasibility of perfecting their own pre- carious tenure. In spite of their friendly relations with the Indians, the settlers, who, like true Englishry, as Mr. Freeman calls them, had a strong desire to have the occu- pation of the lands they held sanctioned by acquiring an outstanding adverse title, which they held in no esteem whatsoever so long as it was adverse, were uneasy about the possible results which might follow the termination of their lease. Among the causes of apprehension was the fact that many men of distinction, among them several lawyers, were buying the reversion from the Indians. Two days after the Transylvania treaty, the Watauga people took advantage of the opportunity, and it may be added the treacherous generosity of the Indians, to pur- chase from them the fee of the land which they themselves held as lessees. The Indians made a deed to Charles Robertson, who afterwards made individual deeds to the occupants, who still further perfected their title by patent- ing the same in the Watauga land office, of which James Smith was clerk. Carter and Parker, of the Carter's Valley settlement, whose store had been robbed and destroyed by the Indians, received from them in payment of their losses an increase of territory extending from Cloud Creek to Chimney Top Mountain, paying in addi- tion to the estimated worth of the store and its contents a nominal consideration, which was advanced by Robert Lucas. Jacob Brown increased his purchase by buying
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THE WATAUGA ASSOCIATION FORME").
from them a tract of land beginning at the Chimney Top, and running to Camp Creek, and thence to Brown's line, which was subsequently made the dividing line between the Indians and the settlers. The consideration which he, paid for a body of land equal to one half of Hawkins County of the present day was ten shillings.
· CHAPTER IV.
THE REVOLUTION AND INDIAN WARS.
Ox September 5, 1775, the Continental Congress met in Philadelphia. On the 19th of April, 1776, the battle of Lexington was fought, and immediately the colonists found themselves on the threshold of a war with more dangerous and powerful antagonists than a few hundred Indian braves. On the 10th of May, George Wash- ington was elected commander-in-chief of the American forces, and the war of independence was fairly begun. The part which North Carolina took in the preliminary stages of the Revolutionary war was at once bold and un- compromising. As early as the 25th of August, 1774, a provincial congress assembled at Newbern, in defiance of a proclamation of the royal governor, who bitterly de- nounced their proceedings as derogatory to the authority of the king. They promulgated the doctrine which was then regarded as radical and revolutionary, but which is now one of the rudiments of nineteenth century politics, that no person should be taxed without his consent, and declared illegal and oppressive the taxes on tea and other articles, which the English Parliament had levied. Mem- bers were elected to represent North Carolina in a general congress, to be held in Philadelphia in September. One of the delegates was William Hooper, of Orange County, who was among the first, if not the first. of those who de- clared for total separation of the colonies from England, at a time when only a redress of grievances was generally contemplated. The colonial assembly met at Newbern,
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THE REVOLUTION AND INDIAN WARS.
now called New Berne, and despite the governor's indig- nant remonstrance passed resolutions approving the meas- ures of the Philadelphia Congress. A few days later the flight of Governor Martin left the government in the hands of the people. This is the governor who pronounced the treaties between the Indians and Henderson and the Wa- tauga people violations of the law, and null. On the 20th of May, 1775, the people of Mecklenburgh passed the cel- ebrated Mecklenburgh resolutions, which laid the founda- tice of the Declaration of Independence of the year follow- ing in form, in substance, and almost in phrase.1 Among the names signed to these resolutions was that of Thomas Polk. But while these preparations were being made for the limpending contest in the mother State, the little set- tlements beyond the utmost range of the mountains that fringed her western borders were founding a new common- wealth, and growing steadily in strength and in self-con- fillenee. The area of cleared land grew larger from day to day. The road from Wolfs Hill, and the road which led by Fort Prince George, were crowded by incoming emi- grants. The woods echoed with the sound of human voices. The prattle of children was daily heard in regions which, till then, were familiar with no other sounds than the pattering of a falling acorn, the bark of a squirrel, the hoot of an owl, or the scream of a panther. Each band of new-comers brought a cow, or a horse, or a few pigs, or barnyard fowls as the means of comfort, and as the nucleus of future wealth. The growth of population rivaled the wonders of Cadmus. Despite the ravages of wild beasts, and the deadly diseases which followed the breaking of the surface of new soil, and the assassinations committed by roving bands of Indians, and accidents by field and flood, increasing numbers literally sprang from the. soil. Cabins came up like fungi, and the thirst for land and wandering out which has made the history of
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