USA > Tennessee > The Annals of Tennessee to the End of the Eighteenth Century: Comprising Its Settlement, as the. > Part 10
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Of those who ventured farthest into the wilderness with their families, was Capt. William Bean. He came from Pitt; sylvania county, Va., and settled early in 1769 on Boon's Creek, a tributary of Watauga, in advance of Carter and others, who soon after settled upon that .stream. His son, Russell Bean, was the first white child born in what is now Tennes- see. Captain Bean had hunted with Boon, knew his camp, and selected this as the place of his settlement on the ao count of its abundant game. His cabin was not far from Watauga. He was an intrepid man, and will be mentioned hereafter. Bean's Station was afterwards settled by him.
But explorations were not confined to the country since- known as East Tennessee. A glimpse had been obtained by Findley, Boon and Smith, of those portions of Kentucky and Middle Tennessee lying upon the Cumberland river. It had been ascertained, too, that the entire territory between the Ohio and Tennessee was unoccupied by any aboriginal tribe, and that it was the hunting ground and often the bat- tle field of the adjoining Indian nations. Possessed by none of these for residence or cultivation, it presented an inviting field for further exploration and future settlement. It had been represented, also, as a country of boundless fertility and inconceivable beautiful. Men of hardy enterprise and fear- less spirit were at hand to explore and occupy it. The pio-
* Haywood.
Y
95
STATION AT FRENCH LICK.
neers of.civilization in the West, -- the trader, the hunter, the surveyor,-were already on the frontier ready to tempt the dangerous wilds.
After the return of Smith in 1766, from his expedition to the Lower Cumberland, Isaac Lindsay, and four others from South-Carolina, were the next adventurers. They crossed the Alleghanies and the Cumberland at the usual place- hunted upon the Rockcastle and desended Cumberland as low as the mouth of Stone's river. they met Michael Stoner, who, with -- Harrod, had me from Illinois to hunt. These two were from Pittsburg. Previous to this time, in 1764, the Shawnees had removed from the Cumber- land and Greene rivers to the Wabash, and no Indians were then there. At the bluff, where Nashville now stands, some French were settled and had a station. Ten or twelve miles above the mouth of Tennessee, there was then another French station.
The first of May, 1769, Daniel Boon, as narrated by him- solf, "left his peaceable habitation on the Yadkin river, in quest of the country of Kentucky," in company with John Findley, John Stewart, and three others. These hunters must have passed rapidly through Upper East Tennessee, as we learn from the narrative that on the 7th of June they were upon Red River, the northern-most branch of the Kentucky river. In December of that year, John Stewart was killed by Indians, "the first victim, as far as is known, in the heca- tombs of white men, offered by the Indians to the god of bat- tles, in their desperate and ruthless contention for Kentucky."* Of Findley, nothing more is known than that he was the first hunter of Kentucky, and the pilot of Boon to the dark and bloody ground.
On the 2d of June, 1769, a larger company of adventurers was formed, for the purpose of hunting and exploring, in what is now known as Middle Tennessee. As the country was discovered and settled by the enterprise and defended by the valour of these first explorers, we choose to give their names, the places from which they came, and such details of their hazardous journeyings as have been preserved.
· Butler.
96
RAINS EXPLORES CUMBERLAND.
May the time never come, when the self-sacrificing.toil and the daring hardihood of the pioneers of Tennessee will be forgotten or undervalued by their posterity. The company consisted of more than twenty men. Some of them from North-Carolina ; others from the neighbourhood of the Na- tural Bridge, and others from the infant settlement near Inglis' Ferry, in Virginia. The names of some of them follow : John Rains, Kasper Mansco, Abraham Bledsoe, John Baker, Joseph Dra padiah Terrill, Uriah Stone, Henry Smith, Ned Cowan, bert Crockett. The place of rendez- vous was eight miles below Fort Chissel, on New River. They came by the head of Holston, and, crossing the north fork, Clinch and Powell's rivers, and passing through Cum- berland Gap, discovered the southern part of Kentucky, and fixed a station camp at a place since called Price's Meadow, in Wayne county, where they agreed to deposit their game and skins. The hunters here dispersed in different direc- tions ; the whole company still travelling to the south-west. They came to Roaring River and the Cany Fork, at a point far above the mouth and somewhere near the foot of the mountain. Robert Crockett was killed near the head waters of Roaring River, when returning to the camp, provided for two or three days' travelling ; the Indians were there in am- bush, and fired upon and killed him. The Indians were tra- velling to the north, seven or eight in company. Crockett's body was found on the war track, leading from the Cherokee nation towards the Shawnees tribe. All the country through which these hunters passed, was covered with high grass ; no traces of any human settlement could be seen, and the pri- meval state of things reigned in unrivalled glory ; though under dry caves, on the side of creeks, they found many places where stones were set up, that covered large quanti- ties of human bones; these were also found in the caves, with which the country abounds. They continued to hunt eight or nine months, when part of them returned in April, 1770 .*
The return of Findley and Boon to the banks of the Yadkin
* Haywood.
97
COLONEL JAMES KNOX EXPLORES CUMBERLAND.
1770 and of the explorers, whose journal has just been given, to their several homes, produced a remarkable sensation. Their friends and neighbours were enraptured with the glowing descriptions of the delightful country they had discovered, and their imaginations were inflamed with the account of the wonderful products, which were yielded in such bountiful profusion. The sterile hills and rocky uplands of the Atlantic country began to lose their interest, when compared with the fertile vallies beyond the moun- tains .* A spirit of further exploration was thus excited in the settlements on New River, Holston and Clinch, which originated an association of about forty stout hunters, for the purpose of hunting and trapping west of Cumberland mountains. Equipped with their rifles, traps, dogs, blankets, and.dressed in the hunting shirt, leggins and mocassins, they commenced their arduous enterprise, in the real spirit of hazardous adventure, through the rough forest and rugged hills.t The names of these adventurers are now not known. The expedition was led by Colonel James Knox. The leader, and nine others of the company, penetrated to the Lower Cumberland, and, making there an extensive and irregular circuit, adding much to their knowledge of the country, after a long absence, returned home. They are known as the " Long Hunters."
In the meantime, the infant settlement on Watauga was receiving constant additions to its numbers from North-Ca- rolina and Virginia, where the rage of visiting unexplored regions had become irresistible, and an irrepressible anxiety to emigrate succeeded. Other causes, too, were exerting an indirect influence upon the people of both North and South- Carolina. In each of these provinces, civil disturbances existed, the results of which augmented the population and stimulated the growth of the new community germinating across the mountain.
In South-Carolina, previous to 1770, no courts of justice were held beyond the limits of the capital, and, in the inte- rior of that province, the inhabitants took the law into their. own hands and punished offenders in a summary way.
* Monette. t Marshall.
7
98
DISCONTENTS IN NORTH-CAROLINA.
" This mode of proceeding was called Regulation, and its authors Regulators."" Those who opposed them were called Scovilites, after their leader, Scovil, commissioned by the governor to suppress them. Each party was armed and pre- pared for the last extremity.
These tumults, and the bitter animosities they engendered, drove many from South-Carolina to the settlements on Hol- ston and Watauga.
In North-Carolina, disturbances existed also, but produced by other and different causes, and, unlike those just narrated, were, unfortunately, not quieted without bloodshed. The inhabitants of this province. who lived upon Lord Granville's reservation, about two-thirds of the whole, complained that illegal and exorbitant fees were extorted by officers of gov- ernment, that oppressive taxes were exacted by the sheriff's and that the manner of collecting them was arbitrary and tyrannical. The people had long petitioned and remonstrated, but the officers remained unpunished. Another fruitful source of general discontent increased the popular clamour. In 1764 the intentions of the British ministry to quarter troops in America, and to support them at the expense of the colonies, were publicly announced. After debate in the House of Commons, it was unanimously determined that the Parliament of Great Britain had the right to tax the Ameri- cans, but it was not till. March, of the next year, that this right was exercised by the passage of an act for raising a - revenue by a general stamp duty through all the American colonies. This act excited the most serious alarm. It was received as a violation of the British constitution, and as destructive of the first principles of liberty, and combina-, tions against its execution were every where formed. Vir- ginia was the first to assert colonial rights, and to deny the claim of parliamentary taxation. To the bold patriotism and fervid eloquence of Patrick Henry, is due the immortal honour of this early avowal of the inviolability of the repre- sentative principle.
In North-Carolina, the public mind was much disturbed by the report that the stamp act had been passed by Parliament.
· Ramsay.
1.X
99
COLONEL ASHE PREVENTS THE LANDING OF THE STAMPS.
This intelligence reached Wilmington shortly after the meet- ing of the Assembly, and such was the violence exhi- bited by the members of the popular House, that Governor Tryon suddenly prorogued the legislative body .* By the passage of the stamp act, an amalgamation of all · par- ties in the province was brought about. The people of North-Carolina were never before so unanimous. All joined in giving a solemn assurance to the mother country that the colonies would not be forcibly taxed-an assurance that was nobly, though not unanimously, enforced, and which achieved the freedom of America.t Col. Ashe, on the approach of the stamp ship, embodied a company of militia, and held himself ready for battle. The odious freight was never landed, and the fiery impetuosity of the colonel, aided by the enthusiasm of the whole people, arrested the stamp master, conducted him to the market house, where, in the presence of the assembled multitude, he swore a solemn oath never to perform the duties of his office.
The subsequent repeal of the odious stamp act was insuffi- cient to appease the growing discontent, or to repress the insurrectionary tendencies of the people. The extortions of the officers were continued, and the taxes were multiplied. Besides, the office holders were all foreigners, who, not con- tent with having engrossed the stations of authority and hon- our in their adopted country, endeavoured to revel upon the hard earnings of an agricultural and primitive people. The trade, too, of the province was monopolized by foreign mer- chants, " who came in shoals, to get rich and to get conse. quence. The poor man was treated with disdain, because unable to contribute to their emoluments. He was excluded from their society, unless when he was to be reminded of his insignificance, and to be told with brutal freedom of the low rank which he held."; Nothing is more offensive to correct taste, virtuous, sentiment and just discernment, than the up- start consequence and fictitious importance engendered by sudden or unexpected accumulation. This hauteur is the more intolerable and annoying, as it is never accompanied with intellectual or moral worth.
* May 18, 1765. t Jones. # Haywood.
100
RESOLVES OF THE REGULATORS.
Such were the outrages, political and domestic, that dis- quieted the people of North-Carolina. The perpetrators of the former were the men in power, who were appointed by law to redress the wrongs and protect the rights of the people. Those who were injured met and petitioned for re- lief, and made representations of the mal-practices from which they had suffered. Their petitions were rejected and treated with disdain. They held several meetings, assumed the name of Regulators, and resolved "to pay no more taxes, until they were satisfied that the tax was agreeable to law, and should be applied to the purposes therein mentioned ; to pay no officer any higher fees than the law allows, to attend their meeting of conference ; to consult our representatives on the amendment of such Jaws as may be found grevious or unnecessary ; to choose more suitable men for burgesses and vestrymen, than we have heretofore done, and to petition the Assembly, Governor, Council, King and Parliament for re- dress, in such grievances as in the course of the undertaking may occur; and to inform one another, learn, know and en- joy, all the privileges and liberties that are allowed and were settled on us by our worthy ancestors, the founders of our present constitution, in order to preserve it on its ancient foundation, that it may stand firm and unshaken." In the public and documentary proceedings of the Regulators we see nothing to blame and much to admire. "On these prin- ciples, and to this extent of opposition, the whole western counties were agreed. The most sober and sedate in the community were united in resisting the tyranny of unjust and exorbitant taxes, and had been aroused to a degree of violence and opposition, difficult to manage and hard to quell. And the more restless, and turbulent, and unprincipled parts of society, equally aggrieved and more ungovernable, cast themselves in as part of the resisting mass of population, with little to gain, but greater license for their unprincipled passions ; and little to lose, could they escape confinement and personal punish- ment. Unjustifiable acts perpetrated by these, were charged upon the Regulators, and they were held accountable for all the ill that wicked men chose to do, under the name of struggling for liberty ; while it is well known that the leaders
10
BATTLE ON THE ALAMANCE.
of this oppressed party never expressed a desire to be free from law or equitable taxation. The governor's palace, double and treble fees, and taxes without law or reason, drove the sober to resistance and the passionate and unprin- cipled to outrage. But there were cases of injustice most foul and crying, that might palliate, where they could not justify, the violence that followed.
" The Regulators continued their resistance to illegal taxa- tion, two or three years. The better part of the community were averse to the irregularities of those lawless spirits, who, attaching themselves to the cause of liberty, greatly impeded its progress ; and desired to govern themselves and persuade their neighbours by reason, to gain the justice they demanded. But tumult, and violence, and rebellion followed; the Regu- lators prevented the setting of courts, and otherwise ob- structed the execution of the laws. Governor Tryon met them on the 16th May, 1771, on the Alamance. They num- bered between two and three thousand. The governor's troops were something less. The Regulators, being poorly armed, undisciplined and without commanders of skill or experience, were defeated. "It is the unvarying tradition among the people of the country, that they had but little am-' munition, and did not flee until it was all expended. Nine of them, and twenty-seven of the militia, were left dead on the field ; a great number were wounded on both sides in this first battle-in this first blood shed for the enjoyment of liberty. We cannot but admire the principles that led to the result, how much soever we may deplore the excesses that preceded and the bloodshed itself."*
The conduct of the Regulators is viewed in the same light by an American historian, who from his official position at the Court of St. James, has had the opportunity of examining in the British State Paper Office, all the documents pertaining to the "Regulation." He says, speaking of them : "Their complaints were well founded, and were so acknowledged, though their oppressors were only nominally punished. They form the connecting link between resistance to the Stamp Act, and the movement of 1775; and they also played a
* Foote.
102
TREATY OF LOCHABER.
glorious part in taking possession of the Mississippi val- ley, towards which they were carried irresistibly by their love of independence. It is a mistake if any have supposed that the Regulators were cowed down by their defeat at the Alamance. Like the mammoth, they shook the bolt from their brow and crossed the mountains."*
Thus early did a great political wrong-" taxation without representation"-ulcerate the minds of the subjects of the King in all the American colonies. A little later, did regal oppres- sion, in exorbitant and illegal fees of Crown officers and their deputies, produce disaffection and resistance in Western Ca- rolina. The defeat of the Regulators on the Alamance quelled, for a time, the spirit of resistance ; but the disaffection re- mained, and caused the voluntary exile of thousands of indig- nant and independent freemen to the western wilds. Re- mote from the seat of power, and free from the oppressions of regal officers, Watauga gave its cordial welcome to these honest-hearted and virtuous patriots : and here was the cra- dle of the infant Hercules-Tennessee.
The tide of emigration continued from Southern Virginia,
1770 and from the country near the sources of the Yadkin and Catawba, in North-Carolina, and was spreading itself beyond the limits assigned to the white inhabitants, by the treaty of Hard Labour, in 1768. Some of the settlements were within what was supposed to be the Indian territory, and the Cherokees began to remonstrate against the encroach- ment. To avoid Indian resentment, and to prevent hostilities on the part of the Cherokees, the Superintendent of Southern In- dian Affairs took measures to establish a new boundary further
. / west. The treaty of Lochaber was signed on the 18th of Octo- ber, 1770, by the council of the chiefs, warriors, and head men of the Cherokee nation. The new line commenced on the south branch of Holston river, six miles east of Long Island-thence to the mouth of the Great Kenhawa. t This boundary-the western limit of the frontier settlements of Virginia and North- Carolina-was a feeble barrier against the approaches of the emigrants, who came in greatly increased numbers to the - West. The Holston river was considered as the line dividing * Letter to D. L. Swain, Esq., from Mr. Bancroft. + Monette.
108
ARRIVAL OF ROBERTSON.
North-Carolina and Virginia. An act of the Legislature of this Province, allowed every actual settler having a log cabin erected, and any portion of ground in cultivation, the right of four hundred acres of land, and so located as to include his improvement. A subsequent act extended the privilege much further-allowing such owner and occupant the preference right of purchasing a thousand acres adjoining him, at such cost as scarcely exceeded the expense of selecting and sur- veying it. These acts greatly encouraged emigration to the West, where every man, with the least industry, could not fail to secure to himself a comfortable home and a valuable estate for his children. Crowds of emigrants immediately advanced to secure the proffered bounty .* When the line was afterwards run, many of these were found to be within the limits of North-Carolina.
But the misgoverned Province of North-Carolina sent forth most of the emigrants to Watauga. The poor came in search of independence others to repair their broken fortunes-the aspiring, to attain respectability, unattainable in the country of their nativity. In the wilderness beyond the mountain, they promised themselves, at least, exemption from the super- cilious annoyance of those who claimed a pre-eminence above them.t Others came prompted by the noble ambition of form- ing a new community, of laying broad and deep the founda- tion of government, and of acquiring, under it, distinction and consequence for themselves and their children.
Amongst those that reached Watauga about this time, was Daniel Boon, who had previously crossed the mountain upon a hunting excursion, and had been as low as Boon's Creek, in the present county of Washington. He acted as pilot to the new settlements, and continued the pioneer to civilization, from the Yadkin to the district of St. Charles, in Missouri, where he ended his remarkable and eventful life, in 1820, in the eighty-sixth year of his age.
A little after Boon, and early in 1770, came also James Robertson, from Wake county, North-Carolina. "He is the same person," to use the language of Haywood, who was his countryman, and knew him well, "who will ap- * Monette. + Haywood.
104
CHARACTER OF ROBERTSON.
pear hereafter by his actions, to have merited all the eulo- gium, esteem and affection, which the most ardent of his coun- trymen have ever bestowed upon him. Like almost all those in America who have attained eminent celebrity, he had not a noble lineage to boast of, nor the escutcheoned armorials of a splendid ancestry. But he had what was far more val- uable : a sound mind, healthy constitution, a robust frame, a love of virtue, an intrepid soul, and an emulous desire for honest fame. He visited the delightful country on the wa- ters of Holston, to view the new settlements which then began to be formed on the Watauga. Here he found one Honeycut living in a hut, who furnis ed him with food. He made a crop there the first year. On re-crossing the moun- tains he got lost for some time, and coming to a precipice, over which his horse could not be led, he left him there and travelled on foot. His powder was wetted by repeated show- ers and could not be used in the procurement of game for food. Fourteen days he wandered without eating, till he was so much reduced and weakened that he began seriously to despair of reaching his home again. But there is a Provi- dence which rules over the destinies of men, and preserves them to run the race appointed for them. Unpromising as were the prospects of James Robertson, at that time, having neither learning, experience, property, nor friends to give him countenance, and with spirits drooping under the pres- sure of ponury and a low estate, yet the God of nature had given him an elevated soul, and planted in it the seeds of vir- tue, which made him in the midst of discouraging circum- stances look forward to better times. He was accidentally met by two hunters, on whom he could not, without much and pressing solicitation, prevail so far as to be permitted to ride on one of their horses. They gave him food, of which he ate sparingly for some days, till his strength and spirits returned to him. This is the man who will figure in the future so de- servedly as the greatest benefactor of the first settlers of the country. He reached home in safety, and soon afterwards returned to Watauga with a few others, and there settled."
While a nucleus of a civilized community was thus being formed in what is now East Tennessee, the adventurous
105
LOWER CUMBERLAND EXPLORED.
hunters whom we left upon the Lower Cumberland were extending explorations in that part of the country. In 1769 or 1770. Mr. Mansco, Uriah Stone, John Baker, Thomas Gor- don, Humphrey Hogan, Cash Brook, and others, ten in all, built two boats and two trapping canoes, loaded them with the results of their hunting, and descended the Cumberland river-the first navigation, and the first commerce probably ever carried on upon that stream by Anglo-Americans. Where Nashville now stands they discovered the French Lick, and found around it immense numbers of buffalo and other wild game. The country was crowded with them. Their bellowings sounded from the hills and forest. On the mound near the Lick the voyageurs found a stock fort, built, as they conjectured, by the Cherokees, on their retreat from the battle at the Chickasaw Old Fields. Descending to the Ohio, they met with John Brown, the Mountain-leader, and twenty-five other warriors, marching against the Senekas. The Indians offered them no personal injury, but robbed them of two guns, some ammunition, salt and tobacco. De- scending the river, they met Frenchmen trading to the Illi- nois, who treated them with friendship. The voyage was prosecuted as low as the Spanish Natches. Here some of them remained, while Mansco and Baker returned by the way of the Keowee towns to New River.
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