USA > Tennessee > Old times; or, Tennessee history, for Tennessee boys and girls > Part 7
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But the Spanish monarchy was, at that the,
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among the most powerful in Europe-strong in men, money, and all the resources of war. On the other hand, the United States were just out of an exhausting war of eight years with Great Britain ; without an army or a navy, and des- titute of the means of raising either. While able and ready to defend themselves at home against foreign invasion, the Government and people of the United States had not the re- sources to equip and maintain an army that could conquer and hold New Orleans against the power of Spain. In these circumstances, it was enough that they did not give up the right to navigate the Mississippi, and only waited for time to strengthen their hands sufficiently for a forcible assertion of their just claims.
If the Spanish idea of preventing the Ameri- can settlements from extending to the Missis- sippi seems ridiculous at this day. it was not so sixty or seventy years ago. Belles having command of the Mississippi River, their mili- tary and trading wess along that stream and in Ibrida save them great influence with the Cherokees, Chickasaws. Choctaws, and Crecks. These last were a powerful and varlike tribe. who ocenpied the extensive region between the Cherokees and the Gulf of Mexico. The Chu-
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154 OLD TIMES; OR,
taws were located in the southern portion of what is now the State of Mississippi. As these two tribes interfered not at all, or very little, with the early settlements in East Tennessee, we have omitted to notice them before.
CHAPTER III.
EARLY EXPLORATIONS IN MIDDLE TENNESSEE.
Ir was in the year 1769-the same in which the Watauga settlement was commenced-that the first party of white hunters visited the region now called Middle Tennessee. The company consisted of twenty men, some of them from North Carolina, others from Western Virginia. As most of them finally settled in the country, and became distinguished for their courage and conduct in defending the young col- ony against the Indians, we will bere give a list of some of their names. They were John Rains, Kasper Mansco, Abraham Bledsoe. John Baker, Joseph Drake, Obadiah Terrill. Uriah Stone, Harry Smith, Ned Cowan, Robert Crockett.
This party came to Middle Tennessee by first taking a north-west course into the southern part of Kentucky, crossing the Cumberland Mountains at a place since known as Cumber- land Gap, near the present State line between
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Kentucky and Tennessee. By then turning to the south-west, they reached Middle Tennessee in that part now occupied by Sumner and the adjoining counties. Here they dispersed, after having appointed a place where they were all to meet, and to which they were to bring the proceeds of their hunting and trapping. The only one of the company who did not return to the camp was Robert Crockett, whose body was found on the great war-path of the Cherokees, which led to the Pawnee country. He had evidently been killed by some of the former tribe, and was the first white man murdered by Indians in Middle Tennessee.
This party came to the country in the sum- mer, and returned home next spring, thus spending nine months without bread, an I prob- ably with a very scanty supply of salt. The account which they gave of the country, among their friends and neighbors in the Atlantic States, was such as to start another similar expedition the next year-1777. Cat nel James Knox may be regarded as the leader in this adventure, and he, with some others of the company, followed the course of the Cumber- land River to its mouth. In that day, these men were known as the "Long Hunters," from
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the extent of country which they traversed. They carried back with them a more extensive and accurate knowledge of Middle Tennessee than had been obtained by any previous ex- plorers.
For several years after this, Middle Tonnes- see-or as it was then called, the Cumberland country-continued to be vish I byadventurous hunters. Some Frenchmen, before the year 1779, had come up the Cumberland from the Ohio, and established a trading post at the "Bluff," as the place where the capital of Ten- nessee now stands was then called. In 1778, several men, amongst them Spencer and Holli- dav. came from Kentucky, built some cabins. and planted a sinall field of corn near Eldice's Lick. Holliday being about to return to Kon- tucky, Spencer determined to remain by him- self. As Holliday had lost his knife, Spencer broke his own blade in two, and at parting, gave his companion half of it, with which to skin. anil out his vonison on the journey.
This Spencer made bis home, during bis soli- tary abode in the country, in a large holow tree, near Bledsoe's Lick. He was a very large man, and, from the following sury, would appear to have had a foot at least in proportion
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to his body. There was another hunter staying not far from him, but neither of them knew that there was any other white man but himself in that whole region. Upon some of his ram- bles, Spencer happened to pass not far from the hunter's camp, and left the tracks of his huge feet in the soft, deep soil. Upon seeing them a few days after, the man concluded that there must be giants thereabouts, and, in great alarm, made tracks of his own toward the nearest white settlement.
The first permanent white settlement in Mid- die Tennessee was made by a colony from Wa- tauga, in 1779. This party was under the guidance of Captain James Robertson, the same man that had already done so much for the promotion of the Watauga settlement. He was accompanied by George Freeland, William Necly, Edward Swanson, James Hanly. Mark Robertson, Zachariah White, and James Over- - hall. They built cabins. and planted some corn, on the ground which the city of Nashville now covers. During the summer they were joined by several other parties of' emigrants. When they had done working their corn. most of them returned for their families, leaving a few men to keep the buffaloes out of the hebi.
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The site of the present city of Nashville passed, in those early times, under several dif- forent names. It was sometimes called "The Bluff," and sometimes "French Lick," or "French Salt Springs." The last two names were given to it on account of a loll spring that sends up salt-sulphur water in the northern part of the city. This spring was first visited by French traders, and was much resorted to by buffaloes and other wild animals to Tick the suity earth around it. Bledsoe's Lick, Mansce's Lick, and many others, took their names in the same way. In the neighborhood of these licks was the best place to find plenty of large game. And throughout the country generally, every settler who did not live near a natural lick, made an artificial one by scooping out a hollow in a log, and therein depositing a little salt, to 'entice the deer. From a "blind" near these "Hek-logs" a deer could be shot almost at any time.
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CHAPTER IV.
FROM EAST TENNESSEE TO THE FRENCH LICK BY WATER.
Ix the same year that James Robertson and his companions planted corn at The Bluff, a considerable party left East Tennessee, intend- ing to reach the same place by water. Of this party were several women, among them the wife of Captain Robertson, and Mrs. Peyton. whose husband had gone by land with Robertson. The trip was gotten up by Colonel John Don- aldson, and managed chiefly under his direction. The flect-consisting of several boats, canoes, and other river craft-started on the 22d of December, 1779. from Fort Patrick Henry, on the upper Holston. The voyage was cont- menced in the midst of a rubarkably cold winter, and, on account of the ice in the river, and various accidents, the party did not get further than the mouth of Clinch by the ist of March.
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Colonel Donaldson kept a journal of this expedition, which you may find printed in Ramsey's Annals of Tennessee. It is too long to be copied here, and we must content our- selves with noticing only a few of the most interesting incidents of this hardy and perilous aflventure. And while we do so, let our readers turn to their maps and mark the situation of the places mentioned, otherwise they will have but a confused notion of what we are relating. Geography is one of the eyes of history, and you must always look at a map. if you would understand clearly the situation of places spoken of in books.
In this progress down the Holston, you will sce that the emigrants passed first the mouth of French Broad, then those of Little River and Little Tennessee, all on the left hand. Then comes in Clinch River on the right, aud Itwassee on the left. The next is the mouth of Chickamauga, on the left side, just beker which are the dar perous Narrows, described in the Erst Book. After leaving Chickamauga, where they saw no Indians, the kindmest bout, containing Mr. Stewart, his family, and others, to the miunber of twory-eight persons, was nt. theked by the savages, and every one on board 0
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was either killed or made prisoner. Mr. Stew- art's family had the small-pos, and, to prevent the rest of the party from catching the disease, they stayed so far behind that their friends in the other boats could give. them no assistance in their terrible calamity.
The remaining boats kept as near the middle of the stream as they could. to be as far as pos- sible from the Indians, who frequently fired upon them from the high banks on each side. Right in the most dangerous part of The Nar- rows, the boat of Mr. Jennings stuck fast on a rock, just under water, and where the current was so rapid that the other boats could not stop to help get it off. The Indians soon discovered their situation, and began to fire at the persons in the boat. The only chance now was to throw out every thing in the boat, and so lighten it, that it might be shoved from the rock. Mr. Jennings used his rifle as well as he could, while Mrs. Jennings, Mrs. Peyton, and a negro woman, in the midst of a constant shower of bullets from the Indians on the bank, succeeded at length in getting the boat so lightened as to fuat off the rock.
Upon this occasion Colonel Donaldson re- lates the only instance of cowardice which we
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meet with in all the history of the frontiers. Two young men, one of them the son of Mr. Jennings, and a negro, left their companions in the midst of the danger, and betook themselves to flight. It is not known what became of them. The three women had their clothes pierced by a score of bullets, but nobody was wounded ; though an infant of Mrs. Peyton, twenty-fra hours old, was somehow killed in the confusion. With the loss of all they had, but the boat and their lives, ta about two days they overtook the other boats, and, with frontier generosity. wore admitted to share the provisions and clothes of their fellow-travelers.
After leaving the dangerous neighborhowl of the Chickamaugas, the navigation was tole- rably smooth and safe to the " Muscle hosts. ' in the present State of Alabama. At the In ad of these shoals Elk River empties into the Ten- nesse, ou the right hand. The passage over the shoals was rough and difficult. but the beats all got through without any serious duma .. After leaving the shoals, they were once or twice fired at by Indians ou the shore, but at too great a distance to do much harm. The channel of the river becoming wide and the water deep, they arrived without father difi-
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164 OLD TIMES; OR,
culty at the mouth of the Tennessee, and landed on the spot where is now the town of Paducah, in Kentucky. This was on the 15th of March, nearly three months from their embarkation on the Holston.
At this point some of the boats parted com- pany with Colonel Donaldson, and went down the Ohio, bound for Illinois and Natchez. The remainder had a toilsome task, in rowing against the rapid current of the Ohio to the mouth of the Cumberland, which they reached on the 24th of March. The river appeared smaller than they expected to find it, and when they determined to ascend it, it was with some doubt whether it was the Cumberland or some other stream. On the 31st, however, all their doubts were agreeably removed. by meeting with Colonel Richard Henderson, who was then employed in running the line between North Carolina and Virginia.
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Having left Colonel Henderson, who gave them fill information of the route they were to pursue, the party. now in good spirits, though worn down by the fatigues of a long and ardu- ous voyage, continued to ascend the river. They were now at liberty to refresh themselves by landing occasionally, and shooting buffalo
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and other game, without any danger from lurk- ing Indians. Proceeding in this way, they arrived at The Bluff on the 24th of April, when Mrs. Robertsson and Mrs. Peyton were safely delivered to their expecting and anxious husbands, and the whole party welcomed to such hospitality as frontier cabins could afford.
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CHAPTER V.
FARTHER ACCOUNT OF THE COLONY AT THE BLUFF.
Ir was stated in the last chapter, that the winter of 1779-80 was excessively cold. Cum- berland River was frozen over for a good while, so that people crossed it on foot as easily as they now do on the wire bridge at Nashville. The few cattle and hogs belonging to the Bluff settlement mo-tly died from the severity of the weather and the want of suitable food. Even the wild animals-the deer, buffalo, and bear- amidst the deep snows and hard freezes of that winter, became so wretchedly poor that they were scarcely fit to be caten. To add to the distress of the population, a good part of the little crop of corn, raised in the preceding sum- mer, was carried.off by a freshet.
The party that came by water, as related in the preceding chapter, did not all remain at The Bluff, but built their cabins at several
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points, not very distant. Colonel Donaldson himself settled near the mouth of stone's Rive, a few miles above The Bluff, at the place now known as "Clover Bottom." It should have been mentioned before that Mr. Renfroe and some others stopped on their way, at Red River, near the present town of Clarksville. Ju re- spect to provisions, these separate settlements fared neither better nor worse than the main one at the Lick. In their privations, they might all console themselves with thinking that, if bread was scarce, the meat was leunt enough to be eaten without any.
But if the severity of the season kad caused the new and feeble colony to suffer in one par- ticular, it had doubtless been Umrescinl m another. It probably kept the Luntips wird war parties of the Cherokees at home, a. d saved the settlers from an attack before th : had time to erect stations tor defense. The Cumberland settlement was nearer to the Cher- okres, at least to the very hosthe tt. .. the Chickamangas, than the colonies in East Tennessee. The settlers were also more ex- posed to the Chickasaws, if that nation should prove undiendir; and the northora tribos, had the advantage of coming to The Blatt by water.
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To the daring men who had planted them- selves ou the banks of the Cumberland, it was evident enough that their only earthly depend- ence for safety and life was upon themselves. Their nearest white neighbors were in Ken- tucky, and in a condition too much like their own, to be able to render assistance, in case of need. They were separated by a rough wilder- ness of three hundred miles from the older col- onies of Watauga and Nolichucky. North Carolina and Virginia were struggling through the darkest period of the Revolutionary War, and could spare neither a man nor a musket for the defense of a distant frontier.
It was stated in the former Bouk of this his- tory, that when the first white men settled in Tennessee, there were no Indians living there, except some Cherokees in the south -eastern part. When Robertson's colony took up their abode on the Cumberland, there was no sign to be seen showing that the country had ever been cultivated or even cleared. Icis taur thes for some distance around the French Lick. there were no bushes, and scarcely any trees growing : but this was no doubt because the growth had been kept down by the browsing and wramping of the buffaloes and other large animals that
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resorted, in immense numbers, to the lick. There was no appearance, in all Middle Tin- nessee, of such clearings as the Indians were accustomed to have around their towns or per- manent dwelling-places.
Yet there was proof on all hands that the country had once been inhabited-by whom. wr how long before. the Indians could not tell. Near to all the finest springs, and in other places, generally on the rivers and creeks, there were, and are yet to be seen, large numbers of graves, containing human bones. When the first of the present race of white men were buried in Tennessee, it is probable there war. more graves here than would serve for all the white persons that have lived and died hore since; and yet nobody, now living in the wer! I, has any more knowledge of the people who made and who filled these graves than if they had never existed.
But, besides the graves, there are off er .. ... to prove that Tennessee, and indeed ah is Mississippi Valley, was onec occupied by ? re. of men that has disappeared from the food the earth. There are stone walls, now while. ground, that the Indians had not -kat enmet !: to build. These walls, as well as the grave.
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170 OLD TIMES; OR,
have trees of the greatest age growing above them, and, for any thing that we know, many generations of such trees may have flourished and rotted on the same spet. In numberless places in Tennessee, the plow-boy, every year, throws up bones that may have belonged to men who died before Pompey the Great-it may be, before the Deluge.
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CHAPTER VI.
INDIAN HOSTILITIES.
Ir was not long that the young community at The Bloff, and the still fecbler stations around it, were permitted by the Indians to improve their new homes in peace and security. Instigated by the British officers and agents, and impelled by their own love of war and plunder, all the tribes, north and south. com- bined, in the spring of 1780, to attack the frontiers of Pennsylvania. Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Tie most advanced, and therefore the most exposed. of all this long border, was the colony at The Bluff. It could be easily approached fr .. north, south, east, and west, without the - vadlers being required to pass through or near any other settlement of white men.
The spring weather, which relieve I, in some degree, the sufferings indico ! by the precedei _ hard winter, brought the Loliaus at the same
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time with the rattle-snakes. Small parties from various tribes were lurking continually in the neighborhood, watching every opportunity to commit robbery and murder. If the women went out to milk the cows, they were frequently shot down in sight of the station. The men could not bring in a stick of wood for fuel, but at the great risk of their lives. Every hunter that ventured to kill a deer or a turkey, ex- pected to fight his way back into the fort, if he was so fortunate as to return at all. If some were employed in clearing and fencing a patch for corn, as many more had to keep watch, rifle in hand, against the creeping savage.
The barbarous murders. committed almost every day, do not furnish very entertaining subjects for our young readers; but we shall fail to give any thing like a true history of the times, unless we mention some of them. Two men. named Keywood and Milliken, were at- taken on Richland Creek, and the latter killed. J. A.ph Hay was killed on the Lick Branch, ausl oll Me. Bernard, at Denton's Lick, had his head eut off and carried away. Another man, named Milliken, was killed and his head cut off. in the same neighbo hood. In July, Jona. theo Jennings was killed at an island just above
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The Bluff. Higher up the river, the Indians killed Ned Carver and Isaac Neely, and made a prisoner of Neely's daughter. A little later, they shot James Mayfield, near Eaton's Station, on the north side of the Cumberland. Shortly after, at the same place. they killed Jacch Stump, and pursued Frederick Stump into the station.
In the fall of this year. four men-Balestinc. Shockley, Goin, and Kennedy-were killed at Manseo's Lick; and Manseo's Station ws: abandoned. Some of those who had stayed in it, went to the station at The Bluff, and others to the Kentucky settlements. After this, as Spencer was returning from a hant. with several horses loaded with ment. he was fred at by the Indians, but not hurt. However, to save His own life, he was compelled to leave his hory ; in their hands. The same band stole mivr horses at Station Camp Creek, and then at- tacked Asher's Station, where they killed on l sculped two men, and got some mate tea ... On their route they were met and attacked by Alexander Buebanan and other hunters, cre ar two of the Indians were killed, and all the horses recovered.
The little settlement on Ral River was rat
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174 OLD TIMES: OR,
more fortunate than the others. The attack on this place was made by Choctaws and Chicka- saws. First and last they killed between fifteen and twenty persons in this settlement, and car- ried off all the horses and other property they could find. The few who survived the slaugh- ter left Red River, and sought protection at The Bluff. In the course of the same year, Freeland's Station, south of The Bluff, was assaulted, and one man killed. Buchanan, Robertson, and others, pursued these Indians to Duck River, without being able to overtake them. About the same time, Philip Catron, riding from Freeland's Station to The Bluff, was shot and badly wounded, but made his way to the fort and recovered.
In the fall of the year. a party of Cherokees stolo some horses from The Bluff. About fifteen men pursued them, and found them camped on the south side of Harpeth. They attacked the camp at night, drove off the Indians, and retook the horses. Colonel Donaldson, having taken two boats and a party of men to bring down the corn he had made at Clover Bottom, was returning with the boars loaded. The Colonel having lett his boat for a short time, those on the water were fired upon, and all
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killed or wounded, except one white man and a free negro, who swam to land, and made thei. way to The Bluff. One of the killed was John Robertson, ion of Captain James Robertson. One, of the boats floated down the stream, and was found the next day, passing by The Bluff with a dead man in it. The wounded men were made prisoners by the Indians, but Colonel Donaldson escaped to Mansco's Station.
In the course of the summer. the buffalo, bear, and deer became fat again, and, in defi- ance of the Indians, there was no want of meat among the settlers at The Bluff. Twenty men went to hunt on Caney Fork, and brought down their mieat in canoes. During the hunt they killed one hundred and five bears, seventy-five burillo, and eighty deer. But bread was still wanting, and some of the settlers became dis- couraged by the privations and calamities to which they were daily exposed, without any prospect of speedy relief. A good many of them went off to Kongecky and IMin : the se that remained, moved in from the outer station. to Freeland's and The Dienst. In this way the little Cumberland colony passed the hard Real 1750.
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CHAPTER VII.
INDIAN HOSTILITIES CONTINUED.
THE year 1751 brought with it no cessation or abatement of the Indian war upon the white settlements in Middle Tennessee. In the dead of winter, a party of Cherokees made an at- tempt in the night to get possession of the block-house at Freeland's Station. They found racans silently to loosen the chain that held the gate, and were inside the stockade before any alarm was given. Captain Robertson, who was staying there all night, was th , first to dis- cover the danger, and the other inmates of the station were soon aroused. In the fight which ensued, Majer Lucas and a negro belonging to It battre were killed; and war of the savages fell by the rifle of Cantain Robertson, The . Indians, finding that they dil not catch the people in the station off their gu usi, soon left the premises and vanished in the surrounding canc. The settlers having before this all gone into
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Freeland's Station and The Bluff, the Indians now employed themselves in burning the de- serted cabins, and the fences around the little coru-fields, and in destroying whatever valuable things they could not take off with them. At the same time they lost no opportunity to kill and scalp every man, woman, and child they could safely atrack. A Mis. Dunham having sent her little daughter out of the fort for some- thing, the zuvages seized and scalped the child, but did not kill her. The mother hearing her cries, rushed out to save her, and was severely wounded by a rifle-ball. Both mother and daughter got back into the fort, and lived many years after.
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