USA > Tennessee > The Annals of Tennessee to the End of the Eighteenth Century: Comprising Its Settlement, as the. > Part 18
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At - - term of Washington County Court, " On motion of E. Dun- lap, State Attorney, that J. H., for his ill practices in harbouring and abetting disorderly persons who are prejudicial and Inimical to the Com- mon Cause of Liberty, and frequently disturbing our Tranquility in General, Be imprisoned for the term and time of one year.
. " The Court duly considering the allegations Alledged and objected against the said J. H., are of opinion that for his disorderly practices as aforesaid, from time to time, and to prevent the further and future prac- tice of the same pernicious nature, do order him to be imprisoned for the term of one year, & Is, accordingly, ordered into the custody of the Sheriff."
The jurisdiction of the court seems to have extended not only to the persons of political offenders but to their property also, whether in possession or expectancy. We extract again from the minutes :
" On motion of E. Dunlap, Esq., that a sum of money of fifteen hun- dred pounds, current money due from R. C. to said J. H. for two negroes, be retained in the hands of said C., as there is sufficient reason to believe that the said H.'s estate will be confiscated to the use of the State for his misdemeanors, &c.
* Journal of Washington County Court.
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182 . FIRST CHRISTIAN MINISTERS.
"The Court considering the case, are of opinion that the said monies ought to be retained.
" On motion that Commissioners ought to be appointed to take into possession such property as shall be confiscated, dec.
"The Court on taking the same under consideration, do Nominate and Appoint John Sevier, Jesse Walton and Zachariah Isbell, Esqs., for the aforesaid purpose."
Amidst these scenes of civil disorder and violence, the chris- § tian ministry began to shed its benign influence. Ti- 1779 ( dence Lane, a Baptist preacher, organized a congrega- tion this year. A house for public worship was erected on Buf- falo Ridge. About the same time, Rev. Samuel Doak was .preaching through Washington and Sullivan counties.
The second term of the Washington County Court was held May 25, 1778, at the house of Charles Robertson. Ephraim Dunlap was admitted as Attorney ; Valentine Sevier was appointed Sheriff ; John Sevier, Jesse Walton and Zachariah Isbell, entered into bond for faithful performance of duties as Commissioners of Confiscated Estates ; Spruce McCay was admitted as Attorney.
The first settlers in the Greasy Cove were Webb, Martin and Judd.' The large bottoms on the Nollichucky were then dense masses of cane. Webb discovered, in a cane-brake, a company of Indians. They followed him to his house, and intimated to him that they would not permit him to stay there unmolested. He returned to Virginia and brought back to his settlement additional emigrants, and they were allowed to form a considerable neighbourhood without molestation ; but higher up, above this, on Indian Creek, Mr. Wm. Lewis, s wife and seven children, were killed by the Indians, and his house was burned. One of the sons escaped, and a daughter was taken prisoner and was afterwards ran- somed for a gun. The Indians were pursued by a company of troops commanded by Nathaniel Taylor, but were not overtaken till they, crossing French Broad river, reached the inaccessible retreats beyond it.
To counteract the intrigues of the British agents, and the wicked influence of disaffected Americans who had taken refuge in the Cherokee nation, a Superintendent of Indian
183
CAPTAIN ROBERTSON'S AGENCY TO CHEROKEES.
Affairs was directed by Gov. Caswell to repair to their towns and reside among them. Captain Robertson was selected for that station. He carried, from the governor, a talk for the Raven of Chota, to be delivered to that chieftain and his nation by the hands of the agent and Col. McDowell. By this embassy the governor acknowledged the receipt of a peace talk from Savanuca, and gave assurances that he was pleased with it and desired further correspondence with him, and promised to use every effort for the preserva- tion of peace and to inflict adequate punishment on all who should violate it. He further added that, if any of the Indians were kept in captivity by the whites, they should be restored. But these conciliatory measures were misunder- stood by the deluded savages. Savanuca and some of the . more aged chiefs were disposed to peace, but were unable to repress the warlike attitude of the Dragging-Canoe and his hostile tribe, the Chickamaugas. This tribe of the Cherokees, at first, occupied the borders of Chickamauga Creek, but afterwards extended their villages fifty miles below, on both sides of the Tennessee.
The passage of this river through the several ranges of the Cumberland Mountains, forms one of the most remark- able features in American topography. It is unique, roman- tic and picturesque-presenting views at once variegated, grand, sublime and awful. At the Great Look Out or Chatta- nooga Mountain, commences a series of rapids, where, in its tor- tuous windings along the base of several mountain ranges, the Tennessee River, contracted into a narrow channel, hemmed in by projecting cliffs and towering precipices of solid stone, dashes with tumultuous violence from shore to shore, crea- ting, in its rapid descent over immense boulders and masses of rock, a succession of cataracts and vortices. Beautiful and interesting in the extreme to the beholder, these rapids constitute a formidable obstacle to navigation, which, even yet, is not entirely overcome by the agency of steam. Che- rokee tradition is prolific of accident and disaster to the navigation of the aborigines. It is fabled that a fleet of Indian canoes, rowed by Uchee warriors, and destined for an invasion of the Shawnees, at the mouth of the Ohio, was
184
CAVE OF NICAJACK.
engulphed in the Whirlpool, now known as the Suck. Civi- lization, skill and experience have diminished these obstacles to commerce and navigation, but three quarters of a century since it was an achievement of no ordinary kind to pass through them, though at high tide. Even now, the voyageur must be fearless and vigilant.
If the channel of the river presented dangerous physical impediments, its environs held those of another character, not less formidable. Along those foaming rapids and on either side of the river, the shores are wild, elevated and bold, in some places, scarcely leaving room for a path separating the stream from the adjacent mountain, with here and there a cove running back from the river into the heights which sur- round and frown down upon it, in sombre solitude and gloomy silence. In these mountain gorges were fastnesses, dark, forbidding and inaccessible. Their very aspect invited to deeds of violence, murder and crime. No human eye could witness, no vigilance detect, no power punish, no force avenge them. A retreat into these dreary seclusions, stimu- lated to aggression, as they furnished a perfect immunity from pursuit and punishment.
NIC-A-JACK CAVE.
One of the secret resorts of the free-booters who infested this region, was an immense cavern still known as the Nic- a-jack Cave. It is situated in the side, or end rather, of Cum- berland Mountain, at a point near the present depot of the Nashville and Chattanooga Rail Road, and about thirty-six miles below Chattanooga. Its main entrance is on the Ten- nessee River. The cave has been thus described by an- other : " At its mouth it is about thirty yards wide, arched over head with pure granite, this being in the centre about fif- teen feet high. A beautiful little river, clear as crystal, issues from its mouth. The distance the cave extends into the moun- tains has not been ascertained. It has been explored only four or five miles. At the mouth the river is wide and shallow, but narrower than the cave. As you proceed further up the stream the cave becomes gradually narrower, until it is con- tracted to the exact width of the river. It is beyond this
185
THE " NARROWS" OF THE TENNESSEE.
point explored only by water in a small canoe." The abo- riginal name of this cavern was Te-calla-see.
Into this vast cavern, for the purposes of concealment and murder, the banditti of the " Narrows" retired with their spoils and their victims. The place now enlivened and enriched by the genius of Fulton, and in view of the Steamer and Loco- motive, was then the dismal and gloomy retreat of savage cruelty and barbarian guilt.
These impregnable fortresses of nature were as yet un- occupied by the sons of the forest. The hunter avoided and was deterred from entering them. The Indian, in his canoe, glided swiftly by them, as if apprehending that the evil ge- nius of the place was there to engulph and destroy him. It remained for American enterprise to see and overcome them.
About 1773 or 1774, some families in West Virginia and North-Carolina, attracted by the glowing accounts of West Florida, sought a settlement in that province. They came to the Holston frontier, built their boats, and following the stream, reached Natchez by water. Necessity drove them to employ Indians and Indian traders, as pilots through the dangerous passes of the Tennessee River. Occasionally a boat was either by accident or design shipwrecked, at some point between the Chickamauga Towns and the lower end of the Muscle Shoals. Its crew became easy victims of savage cruelty-its cargo fell a prey to Indian cupidity. As these voyages increased, and the emigrants by water multi- plied from year to year, so did the Indian settlements all along the rapids, also extend. The Chickamaugas were the first to settle there, and to become depredators upon the lives and property of emigrants. Conscious of guilt, unwilling to withhold their warriors from robbery and murder, they failed to attend with the rest of their tribe at treaties of peace, and refused to observe treaty stipulations when entered into by their nation. They broke up their old towns on and near Chickamauga, removed lower down on the river, and laid the foundation of several new villages, afterwards known as the Five Lower Towns-Running Water, Nicajack, Long Island Villages, Crow Town, and Look Out, which soon be- came populous, and the most formidable part of the Cherokee
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186
COL, EVAN SHELBY'S AXPADITION.
nation. They were situated near the Great Crossing on Tennessee, where the hunting and war parties, in their ex- oursions from the south to the north, always crossed that stream. To this point congregated, with fearful rapidity, the worst men in all the Indian tribes. Murderers, thieves, pirates, banditti, not of every Indian tribe only, but depraved white men, rendered desperate by crime, hardened by out- lawry and remorseless from conscious guilt, fled hither and confederated with barbarian aborigines in a common as- sault upon humanity and justice, and in defiance of all laws of earth and heaven. These miscreants constituted for a number of years the Barbary Powers of the West-the Al- giers of the American interior.
They had become very numerous, composing a banditti of more than one thousand warriors. These had refused the terms of peace proposed by Christian, and had perpetrated the greatest outrages upon the whole frontier. The Chicka- mauga Towns were the central points from which their de- tachments were sent out for murder and plunder, and where guns, and ammunition, and other supplies, were received from their allies in Florida. It was determined to invade and destroy these towns. North-Carolina and Virginia, in conjunction, ordered a strong expedition against them, under the command of Colonel Evan Shelby. It consisted of one thousand volunteers from the western settlements of these two states, and a regiment of twelve months' men under the 1779 command of Col. John Montgomery." At this period the two governments were much straightened in their resources on account of the existing war of the Revolution, and were unable to make any advances for supplies or trans-
* When General George Rogers Clarke, in 1778, was planning his celebrated expedition to Kaskaskias, Vincennes, etc., in the Illinois country, Major W. B. Smith was despatched to the Holston settlements to recruit men for that service. It was desired by the government of Virginia that the troops should be raised west of the Blue Ridge, so as not to weaken the Atlantic defence. Smith raised four com- panies on Holston. Montgomery's regiment was intended as a reinforcement to Clarke, and was temporarily diverted from that object, and opportunely was at hand to assist in the reduction of the Chickamaugas. Montgomery had recently returned from Richmond, whither he had gone in charge of M. Rocheblave, the British commandant of Kaskaskias.
187
NAVAL ARMAMENT DESCENDS HOLSTON.
portation necessary for this campaign. All these were pro- cured by the indefatigable and patriotic exertions, and on the individual responsibility, of Isaac Shelby .*
The army rendezvoused at the mouth of Big Creek, a few miles above where Rogersville, in Hawkins county, now stands. Perogues and canoes were immediately made from the adjacent forest, and, on the 10th of April, the troops em- barked and descended the Holston. So rapid was the descent of this first naval armament down the river, as to take the enemy completely by surprise.' They fled in all directions to the hills and mountains, without giving battle. Shelby pur- sued and hunted them in the woods-killed upwards of forty of their warriors, burnt down their towns, destroyed their corn and every article of provision, and drove away their great flocks of cattle.t
In this sudden invasion Col. Shelby destroyed eleven of their towns, besides twenty thousand bushels of corn. He also captured a supply of stores and goods valued at £20,000, which had been provided by his majesty's agents for distri- bution, at a general Council of the Northern and Southern Indians, that had been called by Governor Hamilton, of De- troit, to assemble at the mouth of Tennessee.}
SHELBY'S CHICKAMAUGA EXPEDITION.
Evan Shelby commanded 350 and Col. Montgomery 150 men, on the Chickamauga expedition. Their pilot was named Hudson. The boats turned up the Chickamauga Creek ; near the mouth of a branch an Indian was taken prisoner. With him as their guide, the troops waded out through an inun- dated cane-break, and entered Chickamauga, a town nearly one mile long; Dragging Canoe and Big Fool were its chiefs. The Indians, five hundred in number, astonished at the sudden invasion of their towns by an armament by water, made no resistance and fled into the mountains. The town was burned. John McCrosky, late of Sevier county, took a party and followed the flying Indians across the river, and dispersed a camp of them which he found on Laurel
* Haywood. .
+ Idem.
# Monette.
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TROOTS RETURN NORTH OF THE RIVERS.
Creek. Another party took Little Owl's Town, and others were in like manner taken and burnt. Besides the other spoils, Shelby took 150 horses, 100 cattle and great quanti- ties of deer skins, owned in part by a trader named McDonald. These were all sold at vendue. Isaac and all the other sons of Col. Evan Shelby, were out on this campaign.
This service performed, the troops destroyed or sunk their little vessels and the supply of provisions that was in them, and returned home on foot. In their march they suffered much for the want of provisions, which could be procured only by hunting and killing game. They returned on the north side of the Tennessee, passed by the place since known as the Post-Oak-Springs, crossed Emery and Clinch a little above their confluence, and Holston some miles above its junction with French Broad. These were the first troops that had seen the richest lands of the present Hamilton, Rhea, Roane, Knox, and the north part of Jefferson counties, and seen as they were in all the beauty and verdure of May, it is not strange that a new and increasing current of emi- gration was at once turned to this beautiful and inviting country.
About the time of the expedition of Shelby to Chicka- mauga, Gov. Hamilton was attempting to form a grand co- alition between all the northern and southern Indians, to be aided by British regulars, who were to advance and assist them in driving all the settlers from the Western waters. In the prosecution of this object he had advanced from Detriot and re-captured Vincennes, and contemplated an expedition against Kaskaskias, where he expected to be joined by five hundred Cherokees and Chickasaws. Shelby had destroyed the towns and killed the warriors of his allies at Chicka- mauga, and the coalition of the southern and northern Indians was thus entirely prevented.
Col. Evan Shelby, the commander of this expedition, has been elsewhere mentioned, as an officer at the Kenhawa battle. He had been before in the military service of Vir- ginia, as a captain of rangers under Braddock, and led . the advance under General Forbes when Fort DuQuesne was taken by that officer. After the successful expedition to
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JONESBORO, OLDEST TOWN IN TENNESSEE. . 189
Chickamauga, Col. Evan Shelby was appointed by Virginia, a general of her militia.
At the close of a useful life he died, and was buried near King's Meadow, in Sullivan county.
The Legislature of North-Carolina, this year, laid off and established Jonesborough as the seat of justice for 1779 Washington county. John Wood, Jesse Walton, George Russell, James Stewart and Benjamin Clerk, were appointed commissioners to lay out and direct its buildings. This was the first town in what is now Tennessee. Jonesboro' was so called after Willie Jones, Esq., of Halifax, N. C., a friend to the growth and prosperity of the western counties. He was an active patriot and statesman in the days of the Revolution, as well as before and after. He was an intelli- gent, useful and honest legislator, exercising great candour and independence .*
Commissioners were appointed this year to run the boun- dary between Virginia and North-Carolina. This was the more necessary, as lands near the line had not been entered in the proper offices, and many of the settlers did not know to what jurisdiction, civil or military, they belonged. At the October sessions of the North-Carolina Legislature, a new county was laid off. It was called, in honour of a general then commanding in the army of the United States, Sullivan.
Sullivan county Records show that in February, 1780, the county court met at the house of Moses Looney. A commission was presented, appointing as Justices of the Peace Isaac Shelby, David Looney, William Christie, (Chris- tian ?) John Dunham, William Wallace, and Samuel Smith; John Rhea was appointed Clerk ; Nathaniel Clark, Sheriff till court in course.
Isaac Shelby exhibited his commission from Gov. Caswell, dated Nov. 19, 1779, appointing him Colonel Commandant of the county; D. Looney, one of same date, appointing him Major. Ephraim Dunlap was appointed State Attorney, and John Adair, Entry-Taker.
The next court was to be held at the house of James Hollis. * Blount papers.
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190 .
ATTACK ON BOILSTON'S HOUSE.
Anthony Bledsoe had lived, in 1769, at Fort Chisel, and, in a short time after, with his brother Isaac and the Shelbys, removed further west, into what is now. Sullivan county. His station was not far from Long Island. He was in the battle of the Flats.
After the repulse of Sir Peter Parker from Charleston, the Southern States had a short respite from British attack and invasion. The conquest of the states was thereafter at- tempted from north to south. But that order was, from this 179.
( time, inverted, and his majesty's arms were directed ( against the most southern of the states. On the 29th Dec., 1778, Savannah, the capital of Georgia, was taken, and soon after British posts were established as far into the interior as Augusta. General Lincoln, who commanded the southern department, sent a detachment of fifteen hundred North- Carolina militia, under command of Gen. Ashe, to oblige the enemy to evacuate the upper part of Georgia. The detach- ment was surprised by General Provost and entirely defeated. By this victory of the British, their communication with their friends, the tories, in the back country, and with their allies the Cherokees, across the mountains, was restored. The effect of this was soon felt upon the frontier.
Frequent conferences were held with the Cherokees to induce them to further outbreaks upon the western settle- ments. The Indians invaded the country soon after and attacked Boilston's house, on the frontier, with the loss on the part of the assailants of four warriors killed and a num- ber wounded. During the attack, Williams and Hardin were killed. The enemy was driven off. They were pursued by George Doherty, Joseph Boyd and others, but escaped.
Other mischief was attempted, but the scouts and light- horse companies guarded the frontier so vigilantly, that little injury was sustained by the settlers. The apprehension of danger kept up the military organization of the new country, made the inhabitants familiar with the duties of camp life, inured them to toil and exposure, deprivation and endurance, and kindled into a flame that martial spirit, which in the course of the next year they were called upon to exhibit with such advantage to the country and such honour to themselves.
191
FURTHER EXPLORATION OF CUMBERLAND.
Stopping the order of current events, we return to the 1775
further exploration and settlement of that part of Ten- nessee west of the Cumberland Mountain. By the treaty of Watauga, in March 1775, the Cherokees had ceded to Richard Henderson & Company all the lands lying between the Kentucky and Cumberland Rivers. Although that treaty had been repudiated by the proclamations of Lord Dunmore and Governor Martin, and settlements upon the ceded terri- tory had been inhibited, the Company, regardless of conse- quences, proceeded to take possession of their illegal purchase. The spirit of emigration from Virginia and North-Carolina was aroused, and pioneers were anxious to lead the way in effecting settlements.
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Boon and Floyd and Callaway opened the way, and Benja- min Logan, who resided some time on Holston, soon followed ; and with a host of other valiant and enterprising men erected forts, built stations, repelled, with unsurpassed heroism and self-sacrifice, hostile invasion, and contemporaneously with the pioneers of Tennessee laid the foundations of society and government in Kentucky. .
A portion of Henderson's purchase on the Lower Cumber- land, was within the supposed boundary of North-Carolina. It was at first reached through the old route by the way of Cumberland Gap, and explorers continued to pass through it on their way to what is now called Middle Tennessee. Amongst others, Mansco * renewed his visit in Nov., 1775, and came to Cumberland River, in company with other hunt- ers of the name of Bryant. They encamped at Mansco's Lick. Most of them became dissatisfied with the country, and re- turned home. Mansco and three others remained and com- menced trapping on Sulphur Fork and Red River.
But finding themselves in the neighbourhood of a party of Blackfish Indians, they deemed it essential to their own safety to ascertain where they were encamped and what was their number. Mansco was selected to make the discovery. He came cautiously upon their camp on the river, and standing behind a tree was endeavouring to count them. He could see but two, and supposed the rest were out of camp, hunting.
. Condensed or copied from Haywood.
192
ARRIVAL OF CAPTAIN DE MUMBRUNE.
At the moment when he was about to retire, one of the In- dians took up a tomahawk, crossed the stream and went upon the other side. The other took up his gun, put it upon his shoulder, and came directly towards the place where Mansco stood. He hoped the advancing Indian would go some other way, but he continued to come in a straight line towards the spot where he lay concealed, and had come within fifteen steps of him. There being no alternative but to shoot him Mansco cocked and presented his gun, and aiming at the most vital part, pulled trigger, and fired. The Indian scream- ed, threw down his gun and made for the camp ; but he passed it and pitched headlong down the bluff dead, into the river. The other Indian ran back to the camp, but Mansco outran him, and picking up an old gun tried to shoot, but he could not get it to fire, and the Indian escaped. Mansco broke the old gun and returned in haste to his comrades. The next day they all came to the Indian camp, found the dead warrior, took away his tomahawk, knife and shot-bag, but could not find his gun. The other Indian had returned, loaded his horses with his fars, and was gone. They pursued him all that day and all night, with torches of dry cane, but could not overtake him. Returning to Mansco's Lick, they soon after began their journey towards the settlements on New-River, but were detained four weeks by snow, which was waist- deep. After that melted, they resumed their journey and arrived safe at home.
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