USA > Tennessee > The civil and political history of the state of Tennessee from its earliest settlement up to the year 1796 : including the boundaries of the state > Part 12
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53
In the course of the night an orderly sergeant of the enemy, from their main army, rode in amongst the American troops and was taken prisoner. No material paper was found upon him that night, which was very dark, before he made his escape, except some returns which contained the strength of the enemy's main army and their number on the sick list, which was very great.
As soon as daylight appeared, Mayhem, with those under his command, advanced to the British post and sent in a confiden- tial person to demand the immediate surrender of the garrison, who in a few minutes returned and reported that the officer commanding would defend the post to the last extremity.
117
HAYWOOD'S HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
Shelby then proposed to Mayhem to go himself and make an- other effort to obtain a surrender, which he readily consented to. Shelby approached the garrison and assured the com- mander in chief that should he be so mad as to suffer a storm every soul within would be put to death, for there were several hundred mountaineers at hand who would soon be in with their tomahawks upon the garrison. The officer in- quired of Shelby if they had any artillery, to which he replied that they had guns which would blow him to atoms in a moment, upon which the officer said, " I suppose I must surrender," and immediately threw open the gate, which Mayhem saw and ad- vanced quickly with the detachment. It was not until this mo- ment that the American officer saw another strong British post five or six hundred yards to the east, which they understood was built to cover a landing on Cooper River. The garrison, about one hundred strong, and forty or fifty dragoons, marched out as if with a design to charge the American troops; but soon halted, seeing that the latter stood firm and were prepared to meet them. Mayhem took one hundred and fifty prisoners, all of them able to have fought from the windows of a brick building which was there and from behind the abatis; ninety of them only were able to stand or march that day to the American camp, which was nearly sixty miles distant. Mayhem paroled the remainder, most of whom appeared to have been sick, but were then convalescent. Gen. Stewart, who commanded the main army, eight or ten miles above, made great efforts to intercept this detachment on its re- turn; but Mayhem, with those under his command, arrived at Marion's camp about 3 o'clock the morning following, and there it was announced before sunrise that the whole British army was in the old field, three miles off, at the outer end of the causeway that led into Marion's camp. Sevier and Shelby were ordered out with their regiments to attack him, should he ap- proach the swamp, and to retreat at their own discretion. On receiving information that Marion had been re-enforced with a large body of riflemen from the west, the enemy retreated in great disorder near to the gates of Charleston.
About the 28th of November Shelby obtained leave of ab- sence to attend the Assembly of North Carolina, of which he was a member, which was to meet at Salem early in December, whence, in a day or two after his arrival, it adjourned to meet
118
HAYWOOD'S HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
again at Hillsboro in April, 1782. In 17S2 he was again a member of the Legislature, where he was appointed to adjust preemption claims in Cumberland and lay off the lands allotted to the State troops in the continental army. In the winter fol- lowing he and his colleagues performed that service, and imme- diately afterward he settled where he now lives in Kentucky. Sevier, with his troops, reached home early in January, 1782.
The battle of Eutaw and the surrender of Lord Cornwallis covered the tories with dismay and confusion, mixed with des- peration. A great number of them took shelter among the Cherokees, and continued to threaten the neighboring countries with devastation. Gen. Pickens requested Col. Sevier to make the Indians drive them out of the country. Many and great were the miseries of these times, and, amongst the rest, the prac- tice of plundering, both by whigs and tories, had grown to an alarming excess, and had reduced both Georgia and South Car- olina to the most afflicting poverty. The Whigs, as they got pos- session of any valuable property, retired from the army to take care of it. Every soldier began to look for an opportunity to plunder, and when the officers gave countenance to their de- signs, insubordination immediately took place and discord en- sued. They thought no longer of defending the country, plun- der being the object of the common men; they thought it was also the object of the officers when in the least countenanced, and for want of confidence in their superiors would no longer obey them. "Who are the virtuous few," said Pickens, "who will defend the country which others are robbing of its riches, and not caring when the war will end?" Examples, he insisted, must be made to prevent this practice, or the country will con- quer itself. "The object of those who are in arms," said he, "is property; they regard neither whig nor tory." A vast number of negroes and property were taken from South Carolina and Georgia and carried away, and a great number of free persons of color were seized and hurried from their acquaintances and friends into remote countries, where their color condemned them to slavery and where they had no means to procure the evidence which proved their freedom. But to the honor of the troops under Sevier and Shelby, no such captives or property came with them into the countries of their residences; their integrity was as little impeached as their valor.
1
داليا
-..
119
-------
HAYWOOD'S HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
The Assembly of North Carolina, in June, 1781, consid- ering the great pressure of the times, the difficulties which had arisen from the defeat of the American army under the command of Gen. Gates, in August, 1780, at Camden, as likewise from the consequent irruption of the British forces into North Carolina; considering also the general insurrection of the tories and the numerous devastations they were every- where committing, together with the astonishing depreciation of the paper money occasioned by these events, deemed it expe- dient to close the land office, and they did so. It was not opened again till after the war was terminated. Not a moment of re- laxation was now left from the toils and dangers of war; its ravages were carried to every plantation and family in all parts of Georgia and South Carolina, and in many parts of North Carolina; the horrors of war were exhibited in every shape which it can put on. This state of things continued without material alteration through the whole of the year 1782. The Indians re- tained their deep-rooted animosities, and in September of this year were hurried by revengeful spirits to the frontiers. The Chickamauga Indians and those of the lower Cherokee towns went thither with some of the Creeks, killed some of the set- tlers, and took away their horses. Col. Sevier immediately summoned to his standard a hundred men from the county of Washington, and was joined by Col. Anderson with seventy or seventy-five from Sullivan, all of whom rendezvoused at the Big Island on French Broad River, and from thence marched to the upper towns of the Cherokees, who were at peace. There they procured John Watts, who afterward became a celebrated chief of the Cherokee Nation, to conduct them to Chiccamauga, and from thence to Will's Town and to Turkey Town, thence to Bull Town and to Vann's Town, and thence by the Hiwassee to Chesto. In this expedition they killed some of the Indians, and, as usual, burned their towns. They returned home by way of the Big Island in the French Broad River. The officers in this ex- pedition, who were of grades inferior to those of Col. Sevier, were Jonathan Tipton and James Hubbard; the captains were McGreen and others. They camped on the first day on Ellijay; on the second they crossed Little River and encamped on Nine Mile Creek; on the third they crossed the Tennessee at Cittico, and there held a council with the friendly Indians, at which
120
HAYWOOD'S HISTORY OF TENNESSEE
was present the Hanging Maw. They engaged to be at peace. On the fifth day they crossed the Tellico on the Hiwassee trace; on the sixth day they encamped on the Hiwassee River, above the former agency; on the seventh they crossed the Hiwassee and encamped in an Indian town on the opposite bank; thence they marched to Vann's Town and destroyed it; thence to Bull Town, on the head of Chiccamauga Creek. John Watts there brought in a white woman by the name of Jane Iredell, who had been taken some time before, and delivered her to the commanding officer. The troops destroyed Bull Town and marched to Coosa River, a distance of thirty miles. Near a village on the river they killed a white man who called himself "Clements." He had papers which showed that he had been a British sergeant. He was then with an Indian woman called Nancy Coody. Thence they marched to Spring Frog Town; thence up the Coosa to Estanaula and destroyed it; thence through the old Hiwassee towns to Chota, on the Tennessee River, where the friendly Indians and whites held a council; and thence the troops returned home.
The War of the Revolution, which had fallen with such de- structive weight upon the Southern States, was now drawing to a close. Every heart palpitated with joy at the prospect of peace and independence. The opening of the year 1783 found them in possession of both; the storm of civil discord was tranquillized, and the whole community became intent upon the reparation of the shattered population and fortunes of the country. The foundations of a magnificent structure were laid, which will one day tower to the heavens and be viewed with admiration by the whole earth, unless the builders, like those of the Tower of Babel, shall, by disunion and confusion, be dispersed in fragments to all parts of the earth.
The Assembly of North Carolina began immediately to pre- pare for the extinction of her national debt, and for paying the arrears then due to the officers and soldiers of that part of the continental line which was raised in the State of North Carolina. The people had then a lively and stimulating sense of the great obligations they were under to this patriotic band of heroes. But soon it began to die away, and after a short space the im- pressions which were once so deep were no longer discernible. In May, 1783, they opened an office for the sale of western lands.
$
121
HAYWOOD'S HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
Without any previous consultation with the Indians they en- larged the western boundary. Beginning on the line which di- vided that State from Virginia, at a point due north of the mouth of Cloud's Creek, running thence west to the Missis- sippi; thence down the Mississippi to the thirty-fifth degree of north latitude; thence due east until it strikes the Appalach- ian Mountains; thence with the Appalachian Mountains to the ridge that divides the waters of the French Broad River and the waters of Nolichucky River, and with that ridge until it strikes the line described in the act of 1778, commonly called Brown's line; and with that line and those several water-courses to the beginning. But they reserved for the Cherokee hunting -. grounds a tract of country beginning at the Tennessee, where the southern boundary of North Carolina intersects the same nearest to the Chiccamauga towns; thence up the middle of the Tennessee and Holston to the middle of the French Broad River, which lines are not to include any island or islands in said river, to the mouth of Big Pigeon River; thence up the same to the head thereof; thence along the dividing ridge between the wa- ters of Pigeon River and Tuckasejah River to the southern boundary of this State. At the same session they divided the county of Washington again and formed a part of it into Greene County. The dividing line began at William Williams's, in the fork of Horse Creek, at the foot of Iron Mountain; thence a di- rect course to George Gillespie's house, at or near the mouth of Big Limestone; thence a north course to the line which divides the counties of Washington and Sullivan; thence with said line to the Chimney Top Mountain; thence a direct course to the mouth of Cloud's Creek, on the Holston River. That part of Washington which lay to the west of this line was thenceforward to be the county of Greene. The Assembly also laid off a district + for the exclusive satisfaction of the officers and soldiers in that part of the late continental line which was raised in North Caro- lina. The claims to be satisfied were founded upon certain promises held out to them by the Legislature of North Carolina in May, 1780. They shortly afterward provided that in case of a deficiency of good land in this district to satisfy their claims, the same might be entered upon any vacant lands in this State, which should be appropriated for their satisfaction by grant.
On the 20th of October, in the year 1783, according to an act
122
HAYWOOD'S HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
passed for the purpose in May, John Armstrong's office was opened at Hillsboro for the sale of western land included in these reservations or in the counties of Washington and Sul- livan, at the rate of ten pounds specie certificates per hun- dred. These certificates were issued by Boards of Auditors appointed by public authority for services performed, and ar- ticles impressed or furnished in the time of the Revolution- ary War were made payable in specie. The lands were to be entered in tracts of five thousand acres, or less, at the option of the enterer. Vast numbers of persons crowded to the office, and were so clamorous and disorderly that no business could be done in the office till the 23d, before which time they agreed to settle by lot the order in which their locations should be presented to be entered in the entry-taker's book. By the 25th of May, 1781, vast quantities of land were entered, and certificates to a very large amount had been paid into the public offices. A provision in the laws directing surveys to be made to the car- dinal points rendered it wholly unnecessary to resort to such constructions for fixing the localities of entries as the judges of Kentucky were forced to resort to for want of that provision. In this State, if a beginning were called for, and the direction of the survey could be ascertained by implication from the words of the entry, immediately the court applied the courses in that direction to the beginning, as if the same had been expressed in the entry as they were in the law; and the next line was de- termined by the objects it was to adjoin or include. The same precise certainty could not be attained when an object was to be included, and it was not said in the entry in what part of the survey. But the law cured this mischief also, for it directed the surveys to be made in the same order in which the entries had been; and when that was done, the unappropriated lands left for the subsequent enterer were distinguishable and certain. The latter enterer had nothing to do but wait till the former entry was surveyed, and then, without incurring the least risk, he might proceed to make his survey. Many enterers, however, would not abide by these provisions, and made surveys before those on former entries had been completed. The consequence was that very frequently subsequent surveys upon former entries included within their bounds part of the lands surveyed for latter entries. The judges gave preference to the latter grant upon a former en-
123
HAYWOOD'S HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
try, if the survey were made upon that entry as the law di- rected. To prevent this relation of title to the date of the entry, attempts were made to define special entries, so as to ex- clude the one in question, to which preference by relation was claimed from that character. But the judges very wisely gave to entries such interpretations as would save them from destruc- tion, whenever it could be done. At length, the attempt was made in imitation of the Kentucky decisions, to centralize in the survey the objects called for in the entry; than which nothing could have produced more confusion nor a greater disturbance of title. These innovations received some countenance at first, but at length the supreme tribunals of the country have given them such a decided condemnation by many repeated determi- nations, as nearly to put to rest the numerous controversies which were likely to spring up from them.
By a subsequent law of the next session, the surveyor of Greene County was allowed to survey all lands for which war- rants might be granted by John Armstrong, lying westward of the Appalachian Mountains, and including all the lands on the waters of Holston from the mouth of French Broad River up- ward to the bounds of Washington and Sullivan Counties, exclu- sive of the entries made by the entry-taker of Greene County.
The settlements, in the year 1783 and in the next year, ex- tended as far as to the Big Island in the French Broad River, thirty miles above Knoxville, and thirty to Little and Big Pig- eon Rivers. There were also a few settlements on Boyd's Creek. On the north side they had not reached as low down as where Rogersville now is, but only as far as Big Creek, three or four miles above.
CHAPTER V.
Persons Killed and Wounded by the Indians in 1780-Whites Routed and the Greater Part Killed on Battle Creek-Leiper Routs a Party of Indians-The Crew of a Boat All Killed on Stone's River-Hunters Supplied the Settlers with Meat-Many of the Settlers Removed to Kentucky, and Some to Illinois -- Lands Promised the Soldiers in 1780 by a Resolution of the Assembly of North Carolina-Freeland's Station Attacked, 1781-Great Devastations Com- mitted by the Indians; Those in Different Stations Fled to the Bluffs; Many Removed to Kentucky or Went Down the River-Battle of the Bluff-Indian Ambuscade-Persons Killed-Killed and Wounded 1782-Custom When Two or More of the Inhabitants Met-Proposition Made to Break up the Settle- ments-Capt. Robertson Earnestly Opposes It-His Reasons-Persons Killed in 1782-Right of Preemption Allowed to the Settlers in Cumberland by the Assembly of North Carolina-Court of Equity Established-New Settlers from North Carolina in 1782-Commissioners and Guard in 1783 to Lay Off the Military Lands-Settlers Encouraged by Their Presence, and Their Strength Added To-Relinquish the Design of Removal-Gen. Greene's Lands Laid Off -Continental Line-Officers' and Soldiers' Line-Lands not Purchased by Individuals for Their Own Use from the Indians-Col. Henderson-Grant of the Assembly to Him and His Partners for Their Trouble-Davidson County -- Officers, Civil and Military, Appointed-Domestic Government of the First Set- tlers-Entry Taken of Preemption Entries-Persons Killed and Wounded in 1783-Indians Invited to Conference by the Spaniards-Persons Killed and Wounded-Prueit's Battle with the Indians-Chickasaws Disturbed by the Land Law of 1783 Passed by the Assembly of North Carolina-New Settlers in 1783-Spain, and the Designs of Her Rulers-Mero's Invitation to Gen. Robertson.
W E now enter upon a subject full of danger and hazard, of daring adventure and perilous exposure. He who is pleased with the storm and earthquake, and can behold with serenity national convulsions and the works of death, will now enjoy a repast in perfect association with his ferocious appetite. But let him who suffers at the tale of woe, and bleeds with the victims which barbarity sacrifices in vengeance for its wrongs, cover his head with a mantle of mourning and fly to other scenes, consigning, as far as he is able, to the tomb of oblivion the events which are now to be recorded.
Mr. Rains, on the same day that he crossed the Cumber- land River on the ice, went and settled on the land now called Deaderick's plantation. He remained there three months and
(124)
.
2
125
HAYWOOD'S HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
three or four days before the Indians did any harm to the settlers.
But in the month of April, 1780, Keywood and Milliken, two hunters, coming to the fort, stopped on Richland Creek, five or six miles west from the bluff, and as one of them stepped down to the bank of the creek to drink the Indians fired upon Milli- ken, and killed him. Keywood escaped, and brought intelli- gence of this affair to the bluff. Mr. Rains then moved to the bluff, and continued there four years before he again-settled in the country. The Indians soon afterward killed Joseph Hay on the Lick Branch. In less than ten days after killing Milliken a party of Indians came to Freeland's Station, and finding an old man, Bernard, making an improvement at a place then called Denton's Lick, they killed him, and cut off his head and carried it away. They were either Creeks or Cherokees. With the old man were two small boys, Joseph Dunham and William Dun- ham. They ran off and gave information to the people at Free- land's Station. Between Denton's Lick and the fort the Indians found a young man whom the boys had neglected to alarm. The Indians killed him, and cut off and carried away his head. His name also was Milliken. Soon afterward a party of In- dians, supposed to be Delawares, killed Jonathan Jennings, at the point of the first island above Nashville, in July or August. At Eaton's Station they killed James Mayfield, and at the same place, which is on the north side of the Cumberland River, a man by the name of Porter was shot by the Indians in the ce- dars, in view of the station, in the day-time, and early in the spring season, About the time the Indians killed Jennings they also killed Ned Carver five miles above Nashville. His wife, with two children, escaped, and came to Nashville. This was done on the bluff of the river, on the north side, where William Williams, Esq., now lives. In a day or two afterward the same party killed William Neely at Neely's Lick, and took his daugh- ter prisoner. At Mansco's Lick, a little while before, they killed Jessie Balestine and John Shockley. They afterward killed David Goin and Risby Kennedy at the same station, in the winter of the same year. In this year Mansco's Station was broken up in the winter-time. Some of the inhabitants went to Nashville and some to Kentucky. In November or December, at Eaton's Station, they shot Jacob Stump, and attempted to
126
HAYWOOD'S HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
kill the old man, Frederick Stump, but he ran, and got safely into Eaton's Station after they had pursued him three miles. The Indians killed two persons at Bledsoe's Lick or on the creek near it. They killed W. Johnson in the woods on Barren River, in company with Daniel Mungle, who ran off.
In the latter part of the year 1780 a company of Indians met Thomas Sharp Spencer in the woods, and on the path in which he was returning to the bluff with a load of meat. They fired at and missed him, but took his horses and went with them up the river. At Station Camp Creek they saw and took other horses which had strayed from a camp of white men that was near, but which the Indians did not discover. They went off with both sets of horses. At Asher's Station, two miles and a half from where Gallatin now is, some white men were in à cabin in the night-time. At break of day the Indians crept up to the cabins and fired into them.' They killed and scalped one man, and wounded Phillips. They then went off toward Bled- sce's Lick, and met hunters who were returning to the bluff. They were Alexander Buchanan, James Manifee, William Ellis, Alexander Thompson, and one or two more. Buchanan killed one Indian, and another was wounded. The Indians ran off and left the horses they had taken from Spencer and Phillips. When the Indians came to Freeland's Station in May, the whites pursued them-namely, Alexander Buchanan, John Brock, and William Mann, with Capt. James Robertson and others, being in number twenty-to the neighborhood of Duck River ( near where Gordon's Ferry now is, and near the Duck River Licks), where the pursuers came within hearing of them, and heard them cutting. The party of white men dismounted, and marched to their camp; but it is supposed that the Indians heard their horses snort, for they had all run off before the whites could get to their camp. Whilst about Freeland's Station the Indians killed D. Lariman and cut off his head.
In the summer of this year Isaac Lefevre was killed near the fort on the bluff, at the spot where Nathan Ewing, Esq., now lives. In the summer season of the same year Solomon Phil- lips went out from the fort to the place now called Cross's old field for cymlings. The Indians shot and wounded him. He reached the fort, but soon died. Samuel Murry, who was with him in the field, was shot dead, nearly at the same place they
127
HAYWOOD'S HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
hind killed Robert Aspey in the spring. Near the mound, on the south side of the spot where the steam-mill now is, they killed Bartlette Renfroe, and took John Maxwell and John Ken- drick prisoners.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.