USA > Tennessee > Davidson County > Nashville > Nashville Business Directory, 1855-6 > Part 10
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The women assisted them as far as they were able. One of them, Mrs. McEwen, mother of R. H. McEwen, Esq., of Nash- ville, and since the wife of the Senior S. Doak, D.D., displayed great equanimity and heroism. She inquired for the bullet moulds, and was engaged busily, in melting the lead and running bullets for different guns. A bullet from without, passing through the interstice between two logs of the station, struck the wall near her, and rebounding, rolled upon the floor. Snatching
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it up, and melting and moulding it quickly, she carried it to her husband and said : " Here is a ball run out of the Indians' lead ; send it back to them as quickly as possible. It is their own ; let them have it in welcome."
A period of nearly four years was passed, under two political systems of government-North Carolina and Franklin-each having its separate Executive, State Council, Legislature and Judiciary ; each its own county and military organizations, its own partizans and adherents. And amidst all the rivalry, and faction, and malcontent, and conflict, personal and official, which must have arisen from this unexampled condition of things, the annalist has to record but two deaths, almost no bloodshed, and little violation of the right of property. Private rights were held sacred and inviolable.
In the month of April, 1780, Keywood and Milliken, two hun- ters, coming to the fort, stopped on Richland Creek, five or six miles from the Bluff, and as one of them stepped down to the creek to drink, the Indians fired upon and killed Milliken. Key- wood, escaping, brought intelligence of the affair to the fort. Mr. Rains then moved to the Bluff, where he continued four years be- fore he could venture again to settle in the country. The Indians soon after killed Joseph Hay, on the Lick Branch, and a party of them invested Freeland's Station, and finding an old man, Bernard, making an improvement, at what was then called. Den- ton's Lick, killed him, cut off his head, and carried it away. With the old man were two small boys, Joseph and William Dunham, who escaped unhurt, and gave the alarm to the people at Freeland's. A young man, Milliken, between the fort and Denton's Lick, not having heard the alarm, was surprised by the Indians, killed, and his head, also, was cut off and carried away. .The murderers were either Creeks or Cherokees.
Soon afterwards, in July or August, a party of Indians, be- lieved to be Delawares, killed Jonathan Jennings, at the point of the first island above Nashville. Higher up the Cumberland river, on the north side, on the bluff where William Williams, Esq., since lived, Ned Carver was killed : his wife and two child- ren escaped, and came to Nashville. The same party, in a day
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or two after, killed William Neely, at Neely's Lick, and took his daughter prisoner.
At Eaton's Station they also killed James Mayfield, near the place where, previously, Porter had been shot in the daytime by Indians in the cedars, in view of the station. In November or December, they shot Jacob Stump, and attempted to kill the old man, Frederick Stump, but he reached the station in safety, after being pursued by the Indians three miles. At Mansco's Lick, Jesse Balestine and John Shockley were killed. In the winter of the same year, David Goin and Risby Kennedy were killed at the same place, and Mansco's Station was broken up: some of its in- habitants went to Nashville, and others to Kentucky. At Bled- soe's Lick, or on the creek near it, two persons were killed. W. Johnston and Daniel Mungle, hunting together on Barren river, the former was killed, and the latter escaped by flight.
Late in this year, a company of Indians tried to intercept Tho- mas Sharp Spencer, returning to the Bluff with several horses loaded with meat, after a successful hunt. They fired at, but missed him. The horses were captured, and, with their cargo, were taken up the river.
At Station Camp Creek, the same Indians took other horses that had strayed from a camp of white men near at hand, but which had not been discovered by the enemy.
At Asher's Station, two miles and a half from where Gallatin now stands, some white men were sleeping in a cabin : the Indians crept up at break of day, and fired, killing one man, whom they scalped. They also wounded another, Philips, and captured several horses. With these, they went off in the direc- tion of Bledsoe's Lick, when they were unexpectedly met by Alexander Buchanan, James Manifee, William Ellis, Alexander Thompson, and other hunters, returning to the Bluff. Buchanan killed one Indian ; another was wounded, and the whole party dispersed, leaving, in their flight, the horses taken from Spencer and Philips.
In May of this year, Freeland's Station was visited by the In- dians : one man, D. Lariman was killed, and his head cut off. The whites pursued the retreating savages to the neighborhood of
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Duck River, near the place since known as Gordon's Ferry, where they came in hearing of them preparing their camp-fires. The party of white men immediately dismounted, and marched upon the Indian camp, which was found deserted : the enemy escaped. Of the pursuers, who numbered about twenty, the names only of four are known : Alexander Buchanan, John Brock, William Mann, and Capt. James Robertson. This was the first military excursion in that direction and reflects great credit upon the ad- venture and gallantry of those who made it. As it was bloodless the enemy was not deterred from repeating their inroads and ag- gressions upon the feeble settlements on the Cumberland ; and, in a short time after, Isaac Lefevre was killed near the fort on the Bluff, at the spot where Nathan Ewing, Esq., since lived. Solo- mon Philips went out, about the same time, to the place since called Cross's Old Field, and was shot at, and wounded, by the Indians. He survived till he reached the fort, but soon died. Samuel Murray, who was with him in the field, was shot dead. Near the mound south of where the steam-mill since stood, Bart- lett Renfroe was killed, and John Maxwell and John Kendrick were taken prisoners.
In the summer of this year, Philip Catron, riding from Free- land's Station to the Bluff, was fired on by the Indians, at the place since occupied by Ephraim Foster, Esq. He was wounded in the breast, so that he spit blood, but he recovered. About the same time, as Captain John Caffrey and Daniel Williams were rising the bank, in going towards the Bluff, they were fired upon and wounded. They reached the station.
In the fall of this year, the Indians depredated further upon the settlers, by stealing horses from the Bluff. Leiper, with fifteen men, pursued and overtook them on the south side of Harper, near where Ellison formerly lived. They were encamped at night, and the evening was wet. Leiper and his men fired upon them, wounded one, regained their horses and all their baggage, and returned.
Nearly at the same time, Colonel John Donelson had gone up the Cumberland to the Clover Bottom, with two boats, for the purpose of bringing to the Bluff the corn which he and others had
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raised there the preceding summer. They had laden the boats with the corn, and had proceeded a small distance down the river, when the Colonel, recollecting that he had forgotten to gather some cotton which had been planted at the lower end of the field, asked the men in the other boat to put to bank, for the purpose of picking out a part of it. They urged that it was growing late, and that they ought to go on. He waived the exer- cise of his authority, and had scarcely landed his own boat, when his companions in the other were suddenly attacked by a party of Indians, who lay in ambush to intercept the boats on their re- turn, The fire of the Indians was fatal. All were killed except a free negro, and one white man, who swam to shore, and wan- dered many days in the woods before he reached the Bluff. The next morning after the defeat, the people at the Station found the boat floating in the river. It was brought to the shore, and a dead man was in it. In this affair, Abel Gower, Senr., and Abel Gower, Junr., and John Robertson, son of Captain Robertson, were killed. Some others were wounded and taken prisoners. Col. Donelson escaped to Mansco's Station.
The only one of the settlers who died, the first year, a natural death, was Robert Gilkey.
Michael Stoner, this year, discovered Stoners Lick and Stoner's Creek.
The woods abounded in game, and the hunters procured a full supply of meat for the inhabitants by killing bears, buffalo and deer. A party of twenty men went up the Caney Fork as high as Flinn's Creek, and returned in canoes with their meat, during the winter. In their hunting excursion thry killed one hundred and five bears, seventy-five buffalo, and more than eighty deer. This source of supply furnished most of the families at the Bluff with meat. A freshet, in July, had destroyed most of the corn on the lowlands and islands, and many suffered the want of bread. The scarcity of this article, and the multiplied disasters and dangers which every moment threatened the settlements with destruction, at length disheartened some of the inhabitants. A considerable part of them moved to Kentucky and Illinois. The severity of the winter, and the want of horses, put a stop to this
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emigration, and all the remaining inhabitants collected them- selves together into two stations-the Bluff and Freeland's.
Forty or fifty Indians, at the still hour of midnight, January 15, 1781, made an attack on Freeland's Station. Captain James Robertson had, the evening before, returned from the Kentucky settlements. Whilst on his journey through the intervening wil- derness, he had accustomed himself to more vigilance than the residents of the fort felt it necessary, in their fancied security, to exercise. He was the first to hear the noise which the cautious savages made in opening the gate. He arose and alarmed the men in the station. But the Indians had effected an entrance. The cry of Indians brought Major Lucas out of bed: he was shot. The alarm having become general, the Indians retreated through the gate, but fired in the port-holes through the house in which Major Lucas lived. In this house a negro of Captain Robertson was shot. These were the only fatal shots, though not less than · five hundred were fired into that house: it was the only one in which the port-holes were not filled up with mud. The whites numbered only eleven, but they made good use of the advantage they possessed in the other houses in the fort. Captain Robert- son shot an Indian. The whole body of them soon after retreated. The moon shone bright, otherwise the attack would probably have succeeded, as the fort was once in possession of the Indians. They had found means to loosen the chain on the inside which confined the gate, and they were also superior in numbers.
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After this repulse, the Indians received reinforcements from the Cherokee nation. They burnt up every thing before them- immense quantities of corn and other produce, as well as the houses and fences, and the unoccupied stations of the whites. The alarm became general. All who could get to the Bluff or Eaton's Station, did so, but many never saw their comrades in those places. Some were killed sleeping; some were awakened only to be apprised that their last moment was come; some were killed in the noonday, when not suspecting danger; death seemed ready to embrace the whole of the adventurers. In the morning, when Mansco's Lick Station was broken up, two men who had slept a little later than their companions, were shot by two guns,
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pointed through a port-hole by the Indians. These were David Goin and Patrick Quigley. Many of the terrified settlers moved to Kentucky, or went down the river. It is strange that all did not go out of the way of impending danger. Heroism was then an attribute even with the gentler sex. Mrs. Dunham sent a small girl out of the fort, to bring in something she wanted, and the Indians being there, took hold of the child and scalped with- out killing her. The mother, hearing the cries of the child, ad- vanced towards the place where she was, and was shot by the Indians and wounded dangerously. She and the daughter lived many years afterwards.
Late in March of this year, Colonel Samuel Barton, passing near the head of the branch which extends from the stone bridge, was fired upon by Indians in ambush, and wounded in the wrist. He ran, with the blood streaming from the wound, followed by a warrior in close pursuit. They were seen from the fort, and Martin, one of the soldiers in it, ran out to meet and assist his comrade. The pursuing Indian retreated.
On the second day of April, in this year, a desperate attempt was made by the Indians to take the fort and station at the Bluff. A numerous body of Cherokee warriors came there in the night, and lay around in ambush. Next morning three of them came in sight, and fired at the fort on the Bluff and immediately retreated. Nineteen horsemen in the fort at once mounted their horses, and followed them. When they came to the branch, over which the stone bridge has since been built, they discovered Indians in the thickets near it. These arose from their places of concealment, and fired upon the horsemen. The latter dismounted to give them battle, and returned their fire with great alacrity. Another party of the enemy lay concealed in the wild brush and cedars, near the place where Mr. De Mumbrane's house stood in 1821, ready to rush into the fort, in rear of the combatants. The horses ran back to the fort-the horsemen being left on foot. To guard against the expected assault from the Indians against those in the fort, its gates were closed, and preparations made for de- fence. In the meantime, the battle raged from without. Peter Gill, Alexander Buchanan, George Kennedy, Zachariah White,
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and Captain Leiper, were killed on the spot. James Manifee, and Joseph Moonshaw, and others, were wounded before they could reach the fort. At the place where the stone house of Cross was afterwards built, Isaae Lucus had his thigh broken by a ball. His comrades had gotten within the fort, and the Indians rushed upon him to take his scalp. One of them running towards him, and being at a short distance from the supposed victim of his bar- barous revenge, was fired upon and shot through the body by Lucas, who, with his rifle well charged, was lying unable to rise from the ground. The Indian died instantly. The people in the fort, in order to save Lucas, kept up a brisk and warm fire upon those parties of the assailants who attempted to get to him, and finally succeeded in driving them off. Lucas was taken and brought into the fort by his own people.
Amongst those who escaped towards the fort, was Edward Swanson, who was so closely pursued by an Indian warrior as to be overtaken by him. The Indian punched him with the muzzle of his gun, and pulled trigger, when the gun snapped. Swanson laid hold of the muzzle, and wringing the lock to one side, spilled the priming from the pan. The Indian looked into the pan, and finding no powder in it, struck him with the gun barrel, the muzzle foremost ; the stroke not bringing him to the ground, the Indian clubbed his gun, and striking Swanson with it near the lock, knocked him down. At this moment, John Buchanan, Sr., father of the late Major Buchanan, seeing the certain death that impended his comrade, gallantly rushed from the fort to the rescue of Swanson. Coming near enough to fire, he discharged his rifle at the Indian, who, gritting his teeth at receiving its contents, retired to a stump near at hand. Buchanan brought off Swanson, and they both got into the fort without further injury. From the stump to which the wounded warrior retired, was found, after the Indian forces had withdrawn, a trail, made by a body, dragged along the ground, much marked with blood.
When the Indians fired upon the horsemen at the branch, the party of them lying in ambush at De Mumbrune's rose, and marched towards the river, forming a line between the combat- ants and the fort. In the meantime, when the firing between the
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dismounted horsemen and the enemy had commenced, the horses took fright, and ran in full speed on the south side of the Indian line towards the French Lick, passing by the fort on the Bluff. Seeing this, a number of Indians in the line, eager to get posses- sion of the horses, left their ranks and went in pursuit of them. At this instant, the dogs in the fort, seeing the confusion, and hearing the firing, ran towards the branch, and came to that part of the Indian line that remained yet unbroken, and having been trained to hostilities against Indians, made a most furious onset upon them, and disabled them from doing any thing more than defending themselves. Whilst thus engaged, the whites passed near them, through the interval in the Indian line made by those who had gone from it in pusuit of the horses. Had it not been for these fortunate circumstances, the white men could never have succeeded in reaching the fort through the Indian line which had taken post between it and them. Such of the nine- teen as survived, would have had to break through the line, their own guns being empty, whilst those of the Indians were well charged.
This attack was well planned by the Indians, and was carried on with some spirit. At length they retired, leaving upon the field the dead Indian killed by Lucas : another was found buried on the east side of the creek, in a hollow, north of the place since occupied by Mr. Hume. Many of the Indians were seen hopping with lame feet or legs, and otherwise wounded. Their loss could never be ascertained. It must have been considerable. They got nineteen horses, saddles, bridles, and blankets, and could easily remove their dead and wounded.
On the night of the same day in which this affair took place, another party of Indians, who had not come up in time to be pre- sent at the battle, marched to the ground since occupied by Poyzer's and Condon's houses and lots, and fired some time upon the fort. A swivel, charged with small rocks and pieces of pots, was discharged at them. They immediately withdrew.
In the summer of this year, William Hood was killed by a party of Indians on the outside of the fort at Freeland's Station. They did not, at that time, attack the station. Between that
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place and the French Lick, about the same time, they killed old Peter Renfroe, and withdrew. In the fall, Timothy Terril, from North Carolina, was killed.
As Jacob Freeland was hunting on Stoner's Lick Creek, at the place where John Castleman since lived, he was killed by the Indians. There, also, at another time, they killed Joseph Castle- man. Jacob Castleman, soon after going in the woods to hunt, was surprised and killed.
Like atrocities marked the spring of the year 1782. At the French Lick, three persons were fired upon by a party of Indians. John Tucker and Joseph Hendricks were wounded, and being pursued till in sight of the fort, they were rescued and their pur- suers repulsed. The third, David Hood, the Indians shot down, scalped and trampled upon him, and believing him dead, they left him, and gave chase to his wounded comrades. Hood, sup- posing the Indians were gone, wounded and scalped as he was, got up softly, and began to walk towards the fort at the Bluff. To his mortification and surprise, he saw, standing upon the bank of the creek before him, the same Indians who had wounded him, making sport of his misfortunes and mistake. They then fell on him again, and inflicting other apparently mortal wounds, left him. He fell into a brush-heap in the snow, and, next morning, search being made by the whites, he was found by his blood, and being taken home, was placed in an outhouse as a dead man. To the surprise of all, he revived, and after some time recovered, and lived many years.
The first mill erected was near Eaton's Station, on the farm since occupied by Mr. Talbot. It was the property of James Wells, Esq. ; the next, by Colonel George Mansco; the third, by Captain Frederick Stump, on White's Creek; the fourth, by David Ronfifer, on the same creek; and the next by Major J. Buchanan.
After their unsuccessful attempt against the Bluff, in 1781, the Indians continued occasional irruptions and depredations through- out the forming settlements on Cumberland. In that year little corn was raised. The scarcity of grain compelled the settlers to plant more largely, and raise more grain in 1782, and to procure
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subsistence by hunting. In both these pursuits, many became victims to the stratagem and cruelty of their savage enemy.
A settlement had been begun at Kilgore's Station, on the north side of Cumberland, on Red River. At this place Samuel Martin and Isaac Johnston, returning to the Bluff, were fired upon by the Indians. They took Martin prisoner, and carried him into the Creek nation. He remained there nearly a year, and came home elegantly dressed, with two valuable horses and silver spurs. It was said, afterwards, that he had concerted with the Indians the time and place of the attack made by them, and that he was a sharer in the plunder. Isaac Johnston escaped and came home.
Of the other settlers at Kilgore's, were two young men named Mason, Moses Malding, Ambrose Malding, Josiah Hoskins, Jesse Simons, and others. The two young men, Mason, had gone to Clay Lick, and had posted themselves in a secret place to watch for deer. Whilst they were thus situated, seven Indians came to the Lick ; the lads took good aim, fired upon and killed two Indians, and then ran with all speed to the fort, where, being joined by three of the garrison, they returned to the Lick, found and scalped the dead Indians, and returned. That night John and Ephraim Peyton, on their way to Kentucky, called in and remained all night at the fort. During the night all the horses that were there were stolen. In the morning pursuit was made, and the Indians were overtaken in the evening, at a creek, since called Peyton's Creek. They were fired upon. One was killed and the rest of them fled, leaving the stolen horses to the owners. The pursuers returned that night, in the direction of the fort, and encamped, and were progressing next morning on their way. In the mean- time, the Indians, by a circuitous route, had got between them and the station, and when the whites came near enough, fired upon them, killing one of the Masons, and Josiah Hoskins, and taking some spoil. The Indians then retreated. Discouraged by these daring depredations, the people at Kilgore's Station broke up their establishment and joined those at the Bluff.
In this year also, George Aspie was killed, on Drake's Creek, by the Indians, and Thomas Spencer wounded. In the fall William McMurray was killed near Winchester's Mill, on Bled-
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soe's Creek, and General Smith was wounded. Noah Trammel was killed on Goose Creek. Malden's Station, on Red River, was broken up and abandoned.
Such were the difficulties and dangers that accompanied the in- fancy of the Cumberland settlements, that, from necessity, it became a custom of the country for one or two persons to stand as watchmen or sentinels, whilst others labored in the field; and even whilst one went to a spring to drink, another stood on the watch, with his rifle ready to protect him, by shooting a creeping Indian, or one rising from the thickets of canes and brush that covered him from view ; and wherever four or five were assembled together at a spring, or other place, where business required them to be, they held their guns in their hands, and with their backs turned to each other, one faced the north, another the south, another the west-watching, in all directions, for a lurk- ing or creeping enemy. Whilst the people at the Bluff were so much harassed and galled by the Indians that they could not . plant nor cultivate their corn-fields, a proposition was made, in a council of the inhabitants, to break up the settlements and go off. Captain Robertson pertinaciously resisted this proposition. It was then impossible to reach Kentucky ; the Indians were in force upon all the roads and passages which led to it; for the same reason, it was also impossible, and equally impracticable, to remove to the settlements on Holston. No other means of escape remained, but that of going down the river in boats, and making good their retreat to the Illinois. And even to this plan, great obstacles were opposed : for how was the wood to be obtained with which to make the boats? The Indians were every day in the skirts of the Bluff, lying concealed among the shrubs and cedar trees, ready to inflict death upon whoever should attempt to go to the woods. These difficulties were all stated by Captain Robertson. He held out the dangers attendant upon the attempt on the one hand ; the fine country they were on the point of pos- sessing, on the other. To these he added, the probability of new acquisitions of numbers from the older settlements, and the certainty of being able, by careful attention to circumstances, to defend and support themselves till succor could arrive. At
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