USA > Tennessee > Davidson County > Nashville > Nashville Business Directory, 1855-6 > Part 12
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Besides these excursions of Capt. Rains, other companies made similar expeditions in every direction throughout the country.
The Indians occasionally succeeded in penetrating to the more exposed frontier stations, and murdering the inhabitants. In this way Samuel Buchanan was killed. The Indians came upon him, ploughing in the field, and fired upon him. He ran, and was pursued by twelve Indians, taking, in their pursuit, the form of a half-moon. When he came to the bluff of the creek, below the field, he jumped down a steep bank into the creek, where he was overtaken, killed and scalped. But the frontier, generally, was so vigilantly guarded by brave men, experienced in Indian fighting, that little success followed the incursions of the enemy, now more unfrequent, and conducted with timidity and caution.
The settlements had received considerable addition of emi- grants. Agricultural pursuits were rewarded by bountiful crops, and the implacable enmity of the savages was the only interrup- tion to general prosperity. In February, the Indians came to Bledsoe's Station in the night time, and wounded George Hamil- ton, and went off. Near Asher's Station, on the north side of Cumberland, they wounded Jesse Maxey; he fell, and they scalped him and stuck a knife into his body. Contrary to expec- tation, he recovered.
The Indians came to the house of William Montgomery, on Drake's Creek, in daylight, and killed, at the spring, not a hun- dred yards from the house, his three sons. In March, of the same year, a party of Creeks killed Peyton, the son of Col. James Robertson, at his plantation on Richland Creek, and captured a lad, John Johnston, and retained him in captivity several years. Robert Jones was killed, some time afterwards, at Wilson's Sta- . tion, and Benjamin Williams, near the head of Station-Camp
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Creek. Mrs. Neely was killed, and Robert Edmondson wounded, in Neely's Bend, and in October following, Dunham and Astill were killed.
On the 20th July, hostilities were again renewed. Unfortu- nately for the country, the first victim was an individual promi- nent for his private virtues, and for his public services, civil and military, rendered to the people on the frontier from the first settlement of Holston and Cumberland. Col. Anthony Bledsoe, having broken up his own fort, on what was known as the Green- field Grant, had moved into the fort of his brother, Isaac Bledsoe, at Bledsoe's Lick, and occupied one end of his house. About midnight of July 20th, after the families living in the fort had retired to bed, James Clendening announced that the Indians were approaching near the houses. A party of them had formed an ambuscade about forty yards in front of the passage separating the houses of the two brothers, and, with the view of drawing out the inmates, a few of the Indians rode rapidly through a lane near the fort. Col. Anthony Bledsoe, hearing the alarm, imme- diately arose, and, with his servant, Campbell, went boldly into the passage. The night was clear, and the moon shone brightly. The Indians fired ; Campbell was killed, and the colonel received a mortal wound, being shot directly through the body. He died at sunrise next morning.
The fire of the Indians aroused William Hall, who was also at Bledsoe's Lick, and he made immediate preparation to resist a further anticipated attack. With some other gunmen, he went to the port-holes, and there remained till daylight. The Indians, seeing the fort was upon its guard, made no further assault, and withdrew.
The people of Tennessee have reason to venerate the memory of James Robertson, alike for his military and civil services, and the earnest and successful manner in which he conducted his ne- gotiations for peace and commerce. His probity and weight of character, secured to his remonstrances with Indian and Spanish agents respectful attention and consideration. His earnest and truthful manner was rarely disregarded by either.
In May, 1789, Judge McNairy, with several others, on their
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way from Cumberland to what was then called the settlements, en- camped for the night in the wilderness west of Clinch River. Next morning a large company of Indians fell upon them, and killing one white man, named Stanley, a Chickasaw chief called Longhair, and his son. The whites were entirely routed, and escaped only by swimming across the river. They lost all their horses, and the most of their clothing.
In June, the Indians made a bold attack on Robertson's Sta- tion. It was made in the daytime, while the hands were at work in the field. In their escape to the fort, General Robertson was wounded. He gave orders to Colonel Elijah Robertson to send a force immediately against the Indians who had retreated. To Captain Sampson Williams was this service assigned, who, with sixty or seventy men, convened at Gen. Robertson's, marched at once, pursuing the enemy along McCutchin's trace, up West Harper, to the ridge of Duck River. Here they discovered that the Indians out-travelled them. Twenty men were ordered to the front, to leave their horses, and to make forced marches upon the trail. Captain Williams and the twenty men, one of them was Andrew Jackson, pushed forward, and soon came in view of the Indian camp, on the south side of Duck River. They then went up the river a mile and a half, crossed over it in the night, and went down its bank to the place the Indian camp was supposed to be. The cane was so thick that they could not find the camp, and they lay on their arms all night. In the morning, Captain Williams advancing about fifty yards, descried the Indians re- pairing their fires, at the distance of one hundred yards from him. He and his men rushed towards them, fired at sixty yards dist- ance, killed one, wounded five or six, and drove the whole party across the river to the north side. The Indians carried off their wounded and escaped, not taking time even to return the fire. In their flight they left to the victors sixteen guns, nineteen shot- pouches, and all their baggage, consisting of blankets, moccasins and leggins. They were not again overtaken.
Near the mouth af the Sulphur Fork of Red River, the Indians fell upon the families of Isaac and John Titsworth, moving to the country. They, their wives and children, were all killed.
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Such were the accumulated difficulties from savage hostility, undergone by the Cumberland settlements, in the first nine years after the arrival of Robertson at the Bluff. The prophecy of the sagacious Cherokee chief had been already fulfilled to the letter, and still later, received further and stronger realization. Much trouble attended each step in the growth of the gallant commu- nity of which the French Lick was the nucleus. And it may be safely said, that as the co-pioneers and compatriots of Robertson underwent trials, hardships, dangers, invasion, assault, massacre and death from Indian warfare, unsurpassed, in degree and dura- tion in, the history of any people, so they were endured with a fortitude, borne with a perseverance, encountered with a determi- nation, resisted with a courage, and signalized with a valor une- qualled and unrecorded. The Bluff, the stations in its environs, the forts in the adjoining neighborhoods, each hunting excursion, the settlement of each farm around the flourishing metropolis of Tennessee, furnishes its tale of desperate adventure and romantic heroism, upon which this writer dare not here linger. A volume would be insufficient for that desirable and necessary purpose.
Amongst the enactments by the Assembly in 1783, was one laying off the county of Davidson, and appointing for it civil and military officers as in other counties, and establishing a court of pleas and quarter sessions.
Davidson County, like the other three already established west of the Apalachian chain, received its name from an officer of the army of the revolution, General William Davidson, of Mecklen- burg County, North Carolina.
Davidson and Nash were from the same State-bore the same rank in her armies-both fell in engagements that were unsuc- cessful to the American arms, but their names will be gratefully remembered while the metropolitan county, and the metropolis itself, of Tennesee shall continue.
The curious may wish to see the initiative proceedings of the first court held in Davidson County.
" 1783-OCT. 6-COUNTY COURT OF DAVIDSON INSTITUTED.
"Whereas, an act was made at Hillsborough, the April session
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last past, etc., appointing and commissioning the following gen- tlemen, viz :- Anthony Bledsoe, Daniel Smith, James Robertson, Isaac Bledsoe, Samuel Barton, Thomas Molloy, Francis Prince, and Isaac Lindsay, Esqs., members of said Court; Isaac Bledsoe, Samuel Barton, Francis Prince, and Isaac Lindsay, met and were qualified in the following manner :- The next junior to the senior member present, mentioned in the Commission, administered the oaths of office prescribed for the qualification of public officers, to the senior member present, and then he to the others present.
" (Signed,) ISAAC BLEDSOE.
" Test-ANDREW EWING, C. D. C."
Davidson Academy was incorporated and endowod with lands, which were exempted from taxation for ninety-nine years.
A Superior Court of Law and Equity was also established at Nashville, the first session of which was to commence on the first Monday of May, 1786. The act creating this court provided that no person in Davidson County should be subject to any action in the courts east of the Apalachian Mountains, and that no person on that side of the mountain should be subjected to any action in Davidson County. The salary allowed to the judge was fifty pounds for each Court he held, and it was expressly enacted that he should be paid from the treasury of Davidson County, so care- ful were the legislature of the parent state that her western pos- sessions should cost North Carolina nothing.
During this year, 1785, the road, as directed in the act, was opened from Clinch River to Nashville. Emigrants had hereto- fore reached Cumberland by the original route through the wild- erness of Kentucky. Hereafter the route was more direct for not only horsemen, but wagons, and immense numbers of the more wealthy people of the Atlantic sections, sought the Cumberland through the new road, which ran nearly over the same track still pursued as the stage-road by the way of the Crab Orchard and the Flat Rock.
Colonel Robertson gave notice, by a publication in the State Gazette of North Carolina, Nov. 28th, 1788, that "the new road from Campbell's Station to Nashville, was opened on the 25th of
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September, and the guard had attended at that time to escort such persons as were ready to proceed to Nashville; that about sixty families had gone on, amongst whom were the widow and family of the late General Davidson, and John McNairy, Judge of the Superior Court, and that on the first day of October next, the guard would attend at the same place for the same purpose."
On the 2d April, 1790, the United States, in Congress assem- bled, by an act made for that special purpose, accepted the Deed, and what is now Tennessee, ceased to be a part of North Carolina. The separation, though once resisted as unfilial, diso- bedient and revolutionary, was now in accordance with the judg- ment and wishes of all-peaceable, dutiful, affectionate. The Old North State is yet held in grateful remembrance by every emigrant she has sent to Tennessee. And there and elsewhere, to the farthest West, in all their wanderings and migrations, the succeeding generation still cherish, with ancestral pride, the name, and character, and worth of North Carolina, their mother State.
Mero District contained about seven thousand inhabitants ; while the four Southern Indian tribes numbered above twenty thousand warriors alone.
June 26 .- Zeigler's Station, about two miles from Bledsoe's Lick, was attacked by a large party of Creek Indians-first in the afternoon, and then at night. This station was picketed, and was. defended by thirteen men, including the son of Mr. Joseph Wilson, a lad not fully grown. Four were killed, four wounded, who escaped, three escaped unhurt, and eighteen were made prisoners. Of the prisoners, nine were regained by purchase, made by their parents and friends. One Miss Wilson, and four negroes were carried into captivity.
July 15 .- Isaac Pennington and Milligen were killed, and McFarland was wounded, on the Kentucky Road.
July 31 .- At Greenfield's, near Bledsoe's Lick, John Berkley, Jun., was killed and scalped, and John Berkley, Sen., was wounded. He killed the Indian while scalping the son.
Mr. Cochrane lived on the farm afterwards occupied by Doctor M'Gee. His son, returning from Pistol Creek, was met by a
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white man, a stranger, who detained him a minute in conversa- tion ; Indians lying in ambush, fired on him, their bullets passing through his hat and clothes without inflicting a wound. He, with his father's family, escaped down the creek, and alarmed the neighborhood, who began to build a fort. A few days after, Gillespie and two boys went home after some corn. The Indians killed Gillespie and the eldest boy, but the youngest they took prisoner.
"On the 30th September, about midnight, John Buchanan's Station, four miles south of Nashville, (at which sundry. families had collected, aud fifteen gun-men,) was attacked by a party of Creeks and Lower Cherokees, supposed to consist of three or four hundred. Their approach was suspected by the running of cattle, that had taken fright at them, and, upon examination, they were found rapidly advancing within ten yards of the gate ; from this place and distance they received the first fire from the man who discovered them (John McRory). They immediately returned the fire, and continued a very heavy and constant firing upon the station, (block-houses, surrounded with a stockade, ) for an hour, and were repulsed with considerable loss, without injuring man, woman, or child, in the station.
"During the whole time of attack, the Indians were not more distant than ten yards from the block-house, and often in large numbers round the lower walls, attempting to put fire to it. One ascended the roof with a torch, where he was shot, and, falling to the ground, renewed his attempts to fire the bottom logs, and was killed. The Indians fired thirty balls through a port-hole of the over-jutting, which lodged in the roof in the circumference of a hat, and those sticking in the walls, on the outside, were very numerous.
" Upon viewing the ground next morning, it appeared that the fellow who was shot from the roof, was a Cherokee half-breed of the Running Water, known by the whites by the name of Tom Tunbridge's step-son, the son of a French woman by an Indian, and there was much blood, and signs that many dead had been dragged off, and litters having been made, to carry their wounded to their horses, which they had left a mile from the station.
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Near the block-house were found several swords, hatchets, pipes, kettles, and budgets of different Indian articles; one of the swords was a fine Spanish blade, and richly mounted in the Span- ish fashion. In the morning, previous to the attack, Jonathan Gee and - Clayton were sent out as spies, and on the ground, among other articles left by the Indians, were found a handker- chief and a moccasin, known one to belong to Gee, and the other to Clayton, hence it is supposed they were killed.
The repulse of so large a body of warriors by the small party of fifteen gunmen at Buchanan's, is a feat of bravery which has scarcely been surpassed in the annals of border warfare. The number of the assailants, Creeks, Cherokees, and Shawnees, was afterwards ascertained to be above seven hundred, some of them well mounted, and all well armed, and led by distinguished braves of their several tribes. According to the Indian version of the affair, the assault was led by Kiachatalee, a daring half- breed warrior of Running Water Town. When it was found im- practicable to carry the fort by other means, he "attempted to fire the block-house, and was actually blowing it into a flame when he was mortally wounded. He continued, after receiving the mortal wound, to blow the fire, and to cheer his followers to the assault, calling upon them to fight like brave men, and never give up till they had taken the fort."
June 2, 1792 .- " The Indians killed John Thompson in his own corn-field, within five miles of Nashville. On the 14th of June, they killed John Gibson, and wounded McMoon, in Gibson's field, within eight miles of Nashville. They killed Benjamin Kiren- dall in his own house, within two miles of Col. Winchester's, in Sumner County, and plundered his house of every thing the In- dians could use. In June, three travellers from Natchez to Nash- ville, were found dead on the trace near the mouth of Duck River: there were eight in company, and only two came in. On the 3d of July, Thomas Fletcher and two other men were killed on the north side of Cumberland, near the mouth of Red River ; (their heads were entirely skinned ;) and, in the same month, a man was killed within a hundred and fifty yards of Major Wil-
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son's, on the public road, as he was riding up to the house. On the 12th, Thomas White was killed on the Cumberland Mountain and on the Cumberland trace.
"On Monday, the 19th of January, 1792, the Indians killed Robert Sevier and William Sevier, sons of Valentine Sevier, who lived at the mouth of Red River, near the present site of Clarkes- ville. They had gone to the relief of the distressed families on the Cumberland River, who had sent an express for assistance. the officers of Tennessee County could give none. A part of the crew was on shore getting provisions to be carried in boats to the sufferers. The boats were ahead of them when these young men discovered the enemy, whom they mistook for their own party, the Indians having been seen late in the evening at a consider- able distance from that place. Robert Sevier hailed them, who answered they were friends, with which answer being satisfied, he sailed on, and the Indians carelessly began to chop with their hatchets till the young men in the boats got very near them. Robert said to the man who was with him in the boats, 'these are not our friends; steer off.' The Indians then fired upon them. Tho man leaped out of the boat, and left them in it about three rods from the shore. Before the 25th, William was found and buried, but Robert met a party of twelve white men, pursued, but did not overtake, the Indians. On the 16th of the same month, Valentine, a third son of this unfortunate parent, also fell by the hands of the savages. He was in a boat ascending the river, and was fired upon, and killed dead in it: two others were wounded, and one of them, John Rice, died ; both he and Valentine were buried about sixty miles below the mouth of Red River. Until Valentine fell, he and two others kept up so brisk a fire, that they intimidated the Indians and saved the crew. Deprived of all his sons who had come with him to Cumberland in so short a time, the afflicted parent wrote to his brother, General Sevier, to send to him his son John to come and see him, as, said he, in the mor- ing language of suffering innocence, I have no other sons but small ones.
" On the 28th of January, 1792, Oliver Williams and Jason Thompson, at night encamped on the road leading from Bledsoe's
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Station to the ford on Cumberland River, on the north side of the river, where they were fired upon by Indians and both wounded, and their horses and other articles were taken from them. About the beginning of March, 1792, the Indians attacked the house of Mr. Thompson, within seven miles of Nashville, killed and scalped the old man, his wife, his son, and a daughter, and made prison- ers Mrs. Caffrey, her son, a small boy, and Miss Thompson. On the 5th of March, 1792, twenty-five Indians attacked Brown's Station, eight miles from Nashville, and killed four boys. On the 6th, they burnt Dunham's Station; on the 12th, they killed McMurray on his own plantation, at the mouth of Stone's River ; on the 5th of April, they killed Mrs. Radcliff and three children ; on the 8th, they killed Benjamin Williams and party, consisting of eight men, in the heart of the Cumberland settlements: on Station Camp Creek, a boy was wounded in three places ; at the same place, two boys, sons of Robert Desha, were killed in the field in the daytime, near their father's house; and also Kirken- doll, on the 16th of May, 1792, and a man on the 17th.
"On the 24th of May, 1792, General Robertson, and his son, Janathan Robertson, were at or near Robertson's Lick, half a mile from his station, where they were fired upon by a party of Indians. The general was wounded in the arm, and thrown by his horse amongst the Indians. His son was wounded through the hip: but seeing the dangerous situation in which his father was, he dismountod, though so badly wounded, and fired on them as they rushed towards his father. This checked them for a mo- ment, and gave time to the general to get off, and both got safely into the station. On the 25th, a boy was wounded near the gene- ral's, and died of his wounds on the 6th of June. On Sunday, the 13th of May, a man and two girls were fired on by the In- dians within four miles of Nashville; the man and one girl escaped, the other was tomahawked by the Indians. On the 26th of June, 1792, Zigler's Station, within two miles of Bledsoe's Lick, was attacked by a party of Indians, first in the afternoon, and again by night. They killed five persons, burnt one in the station, and wounded four others ; three escaped unhurt.
"On the 31st of August, an attack was made on John Birkley
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and his son, in his peach orchard, near Bledsoe's Lick ; the for- mer was wounded, but bravely returned the fire, and killed an Indian in the act of scalping his son. On the night of the 27th of August, a party of fifteen Creeks put fire to Captain Morgan's house near the same place. The fire was extinguished and the party repulsed by the aid of Captain Lusk's company, stationed for the protection of the frontiers. On the preceding night, the same party opened the stables of James Douglass, and took his horses ; the next day, Samuel Wilson fell in with them, wounded one, put the party to flight, and regained the horses, a gun, and a bloody blanket. Shortly before the 11th of August, 1792, the Indians killed a boy and wounded a man near Bledsoe's Lick.
"On Monday, the 8th of October, William Stuart was killed about six miles from Nashville, on the north side of Cumberland. On the night of the same day, the Indians burnt Stump's distil- lery, on White's Creek, on the north side of Cumberland. On the 9th of October, a party of Indians went to Sycamore Creek, eighteen miles from Nashville, and burnt the house of James Frazier, Mr. Riley, and of Major Coffield, a large quantity of corn, and shot down a number of hogs. They then proceeded to Bushy Creek of Red River, where they burnt the house of Oba- diah Roberts, and took off a number of horses. They were fol- lowed by a party of whites, who killed one of the Indians, and regained the horses.
"On the 7th of December, 1792, a party of cavalry, in service for the protection of the District of Mero, about eight miles from Nashville, was fired upon by about twenty Indians, who put them to flight, killed John Hankins, who was scalped and his body much mangled. The Indians stole horses in this district without intermission, through all the month of December, 1792.
"On the 29th of December, John Haggard was killed and scalped about six miles from Nashville; twelve balls were shot into him. His wife was killed by the Indians in the summer, and he left five children in poverty and wretchedness."
Through James A. Robertson and Anthony Foster, Governor Blount procured the attendance at Nashville of the principal chiefs and warriors of the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes. The
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conference with them began on the 7th, and continued to the 10th of August, 1792. By Gov. Blount and Gen. Pickens, valuable goods were presented to the Indians, as evidences of the friend- ship of the United States. To each of the chiefs, a rifle was also given, and the thanks of the government were tendered to such of them as had assisted Wayne's operations against the northern Indians. It was also promised that a trading post should be es- tablished, for the benefit of the Indians at the mouth of Bear Creek.
A few Cherokees were present during the conference at Nash- ville, and, it was afterwards believed, were secretly trying to dis- cover the strength and situation of the country, with a view to the expedition they were then plotting against Cumberland.
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