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 3
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HAYWOOD'S HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
barren country, and as they have great reason to believe, from the information of Gen. Smith, that the line commonly called Walker's line is the true one, your committee are of opinion that the object is not worth the expense of sending commission- ers to confer on the propriety of establishing Henderson's line in preference to that of any other; and do recommend that a law be passed confirming and establishing the line commonly called Walker's line as the boundary between North Carolina and Vir- ginia, with a reservation in favor of the oldest grants from either State, in deciding the rights of individual claimants on the tract between the two lines commonly called Walker's and Hender -. son's line. Signed, Thomas Person, Chairman." This report was concurred with by both houses of the Legislature; at least so it is stated to have been, by the next report made upon the same subject. In the House of Commons, on the 11th of December, 1790, the committee to whom the letter from the Governor of Vir- ginia, on the boundary line between North Carolina and the State of Virginia, was referred, reported "That in the opinion of your committee, the boundary line between North Carolina and Virginia be confirmed agreeably to the report of a committee concurred with by both houses, last session of assembly; and that a law be passed confirming the line commonly called Walker's line as the boundary between the States of North Carolina and Virginia, reserving the rights of the oldest patents, grants, or en- tries made in either of the States. All of which is submitted. Signed, Thomas Person, Chairman." On the 11th of December, 1790, this report was concurred in by both houses.
On the 7th of December, 1791, the Assembly of Virginia, hav- ing received official information that the Legislature of North Carolina had resolved to establish the line commonly called Walker's line as the boundary between North Carolina and Vir- ginia therefore enacted that the line commonly called Walker's line shall be, and is hereby declared to be, the boundary line of this State. As these proceedings were after the cession act, and the latter of them after the date of the deed made by the North Carolina Senators in Congress, ceding to the United States the western territory, they were not recognized by the State of Ten- nessee as valid.
On the 13th of November, 1801, the Assembly of Tennessee, by an act passed for the purpose, authorized the Governor to
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HAYWOOD'S HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
appoint commissioners to meet others appointed or to be ap- pointed on the part of Virginia, to take the latitude and run the line. Commissioners were appointed for the same purpose by the State of Virginia. They all met at Cumberland Gap, and on the 18th of December, 1802, came to an agreement, which they reduced to writing, and signed and sealed; in pursuance of which they ran the dividing line between the two States. The agreement and the line run in pursuance of it, both States con- firmed by an act of their respective Legislatures. The act of the State of Tennessee was passed on the 3d of November, 1803, and that of Virginia in the same year. Joseph Martin, Creed Tay- lor, and Peter Johnston were the commissioners on the part of Virginia; and John Sevier, George Rutledge, and Moses Fisk, on the part of Tennessee. The agreement, and the certificate of the surveyors who ran the dividing line, follow:
"The commissioners for ascertaining and adjusting the bound- ary line between the States of Virginia and Tennessee, appoint- ed pursuant to public authority, on the part of each-Gen. Jo- seph Martin, Creed Taylor, and Peter Johnston, for the former; and Moses Fisk, Gen. John Sevier, and Gen. George Rutledge, for the latter-having met at the place previously appoint- ed for the purpose, and not uniting from the general result of their astronomical observations, to establish either of the former lines, called Walker's and Henderson's, unanimously agreed, in order to end all controversy respecting the subject, to run a due west line, equally distant from both, beginning on the summit of the mountain generally known by the name of the White Top Mountain, where the north-east corner of Tennessee terminates, to the top of the Cumberland Mountain, where the south-western corner of Virginia terminates, which is hereby declared to be the true boundary line between the said States, and has been accord- ingly run by Brice Martin and Nathan B. Markland, the surveyors duly appointed for the purpose, and marked under the direction of the said commissioners, as will appear more at large by the re- port of the said surveyors hereto annexed, and bearing equal date herewith. The commissioners do further unanimously agree to recommend to their respective States that individuals having claims or titles to lands on either side of said line as now fixed and agreed on, and between the lines aforesaid, shall not, in consequence thereof, in any wise be prejudiced or affected
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thereby: and that the Legislatures of their respective States should pass mutual laws to render all such claims or titles se- cure to the owners thereof.
"And the said commissioners do further unanimously agree to recommend to the States respectively, that reciprocal laws should be passed confirming the acts of all public officers, whether mag- istrates, sheriffs, coroners, surveyors, or constables, between the said lines, which would have been legal in either of the afore- said States had no difference of opinion existed about the true boundary line. This agreement shall be of no effect till ratified by the Legislatures of the States aforesaid respectively, and un- til they shall pass mutual laws for the purposes aforesaid.
"Given under our hands and seals, at William Robertson's, near Cumberland Gap, the 8th of December, A.D. 1802."
The certificate of the surveyors then followed in the report, in these words :
"The undersigned surveyors having been duly appointed to run the boundary line between the States of Virginia and Ten- nessee, as directed by the commissioners for that purpose, have agreeably to their orders run the same.
"Beginning on the summit of the White Top Mountain, at the termination of the north-eastern corner of the State of Ten- nessee, a due west course to the top of the Cumberland Mount- ain, where the south-western corner of the State of Virginia ter- minates, keeping at an equal distance from the lines called Walker's and Henderson's; and have had the new line run as aforesaid, marked with five chops in the form of a diamond, as directed by the said commissioners."
This certificate is dated on the same day the report of the commissioners was. Laws were passed by the Legislatures of both States for the confirmation of all these stipulations.
As to the other part of the boundary between this State and Kentucky, proposals, and negotiations, and acts of Assembly con- tinued to be made for many years, and matters seemed as if they never could be settled. At length, in 1819, Kentucky took a step of a very decisive character. Her commissioners, Alexan- der and Munson, came to the Cumberland River, and took the lati- tude upon its bank, sixteen or seventeen miles above the termi- nation of Walker's line on that river, and to the south of it, and from thence ran due west to the Mississippi. Tennessee was
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HAYWOOD'S HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
about to open a land office, and to appropriate the lands lately purchased by treaty from the Chickasaw Indians. Old entries had been made in the land offices of North Carolina, to a con- siderable amount, for lands north of Alexander and Munson's line; and if this territory should be lost to the State of Tennes- see, either those claims must be satisfied out of the residue of the Chickasaw lands within the bounds of Tennessee, or must abide the event of a judicial contest between the two States, when there might be no longer any lands left wherewith to sat- isfy their claims, should the decision eventually be unfavorable to the State of Tennessee. Such were the existing circumstances at the meeting of the Assembly of the State of Tennessee, in Sep- tember, 1819; and they imperiously called for the attention of the Legislature. The subject was referred to a committee, and they reported, giving a historical statement of all the material facts which related to Walker's line, and recommended the ap- pointment of commissioners to negotiate afresh upon the subject of the boundary. The assembly passed a law upon the subject. It directed two commissioners to be appointed by joint ballot of both houses, who should forthwith repair to the Legislature of Kentucky, then in session, and come to an agreement for settling the boundary. It gave them full and absolute powers, without revision or control of the Legislature as to what they did, not needing the previous consent or ratification of the Legislat- ure to make it valid. The Assembly foresaw the impossibility of reconciling all parties who might be affected by the treaty when made; and prudently, as they supposed, cut up the diffi- culties of future opposition by the roots, by this determined and unusual step. The commissioners elected were Felix Grundy and William L. Brown. Well aware of the high responsibility they had undertaken, and of the important consequences which were to ensue from their conduct, and aware, also, of the splen- did talents which it was well known the State of Kentucky could put in array against them, they set forward, arrived at the place where the Legislature of Kentucky were in session, pre- sented themselves, and made known their commission. They opened and conducted the negotiation with ability, and finally succeeded in making a convention, which may be seen in the "Ap- pendix " to this volume.
As is the fate of every treaty, whether bad or good, and with
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the aets of public servants, whether praiseworthy or otherwise, this treaty, as soon as it saw the light, was encountered with ex- ceedingly animated opposition. It finally triumphed, however: the Legislature recognized its validity, and provided for its exe- cution.
As to the southern boundary, in the year 1712, Gov. Hyde, in his commission, was called the Governor of North Carolina. From the year 1693 the legislative bodies were called assem- blies, but prior to that time, parliaments .* In the year 1737 commissioners were appointed on behalf of North Carolina and South Carolina, to run a dividing line. The commissioners on the part of North Carolina were Robert Hilton, Matthew Rowan, and Edward Moseley. The commissioners began at a cedar stake, on the sea-shore, by the mouth of Little River, and having run a north-west line until they arrived, as they con- ceived, at the beginning of the thirty-fifth degree of north lati- tude, they altered the course by mutual consent, and ran to the river Pedee. At the termination of the north-western line, they erected a light wood stake, upon a mound of earth. The line was extended twenty miles by private persons, and that tempo- rary line was continued farther in the year 1764. This was taken for the true line, according to Gov. Tryon's proclama- tion of the 9th of May, 1765. Since the Revolution it has been extended to the eastern boundary of the State of Tennessee.
Commissioners were lately appointed to run the dividing line between the States of Georgia and Tennessee, and they reported that they, pursuant to "an act to run and establish the boundary line between this State and the State of Georgia," proceeded to appoint Joseph Cobb, Esq., surveyor, and employed and appoint- ed two markers and two chain-carriers, Robert Blair, Isaac Ray. Short Shelton, and David Boling; and that they arrived at Ross's, in the Cherokee Nation, on the Tennessee River, on the 15th of May, 1818, being the place to which they were ordered by the Governor's instructions; from whence they proceeded to Nicka- jack, on the Tennessee River, being the boundary line between the States of Georgia and Alabama, and met the commissioner, mathematician, and surveyor, who were appointed on the part of Georgia, on the 16th of May, 1818. And after exchanging their powers, proceeded to ascertain the thirty-fifth degree of north
* 1 Will., 162.
HAYWOOD'S HISTORY OF TENNESSEE. 27
latitude. After sundry observations, and great delay, occasioned by unfavorable weather, on the 31st it was ascertained, by mut- ual consent of all concerned, to be one mile and twenty-eight poles from the south bank of the Tennessee River, due south from near the center of the town of Nickajack, near the top of the mountain. At this point, it was supposed, should be the corner of the States of Georgia and Alabama. "Here we caused a rock to be set up about two feet high, and four inches thick, and fif- teen inches broad, engraved on the north side thus: 'June 1st, 1818, car. [for variation ], six and three-fourth deg. east,' which was found to be the variation of the compass. And on the south side of said rock was also engraved, 'Geo. lat. 35 north. J. Car- mack.' The corner-stone being set, we ran the line due east, lessening the variation by degrees, and closed it on the top of the Unaca Mountain, with five and a half deg. of variation. The line was marked by blazing all the trees on the east and west side that stood within six feet of the line, and all that stood on either side of these blazed trees were marked with the chops pointing to the line. It was measured and mile-marked, with the number of miles on the west side of the tree, and a cross on the east side. Old Mr. Ross's is two miles eighteen yards in Ten- nessee; David M'Nair's is one mile and one-fourth of a mile in Tennessee. We began the extension of the line on the first day of June, 1818, and closed it on the twenty-seventh of the same month. The length of the line is one hundred and ten miles lacking two outs, from the rock before described to the top of the Unaca Mountain. This mountain is the ridge that divides the waters of the Tennessee and the Hiwassee, the line running near the head of the latter river."
This report was made by Maj .- Gen. John Cocke, the Tennes- see commissioner. Mr. Gaines, the mathematician on the part of Tennessee, was also to have signed it, but being absent, it was signed by Gen. Cocke alone.
The line west of Nickajack was extended in part by Gen. Coffee, and the residue by Gen. Winchester, to the river Missis- sippi, and all parties concerned acquiesced therein.
The eastern boundary of this State was established by the act of Assembly of North Carolina, 1789, ch. 3, commonly called the cession act, which ceded to the United States all the territory now called Tennessee, and which lay west of the bounds they
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described. These bounds were as follows: Beginning at the ex- treme height of the Stone Mountain, at the place where the Vir- ginia line intersects it; running thence along the extreme height of said mountain, to the place where the Watauga River breaks through; thence a direct course to the top of the Yellow Mount- ain, where Bright's road crosses the same; thence along the ridge of said mountain between the waters of Doe River and the waters of Rock Creek, to the place where the road crosses the Iron Mountain; thence along the extreme height of said mount- ain to where the Nolichucky River runs through the same; thence to the top of the Bald Mountain; thence along the extreme height of said mountain to the place where it is called the Great Iron or Smoky Mountain; thence along the extreme height of said mountain to the place where it is called Unacoy or Unaca Mountain, between the Indian towns of Cowee and Old Chota; thence along the main ridge of said mountain to the southern boundary of this State.
A controversy arose concerning the Unaca Mountain, and commissioners were appointed between the States of Tennessee and North Carolina to ascertain which was the mountain so called in the act of cession. The commissioners met at New- port, in Tennessee, on the 14th of July, 1821, to make the neces- sary arrangements for running and completing the line between the two States. Commissioners from North Carolina alone had run it in part, from the White Top Mountain, on the Virginia line, to the place where they stopped.in 1797. This was near the Catatooche road, on the Smoky Mountain; from which place to the crossing of the Tennessee River, a few miles above the Ta- lassee Old Town, is twenty-two miles; and from thence to the termination of the main Unaka Mountain, the last point desig- nated in the act of cession, is seventy-nine miles, making the whole distance one hundred and one miles, to a hickory tree and rock, set up at the edge of the Unaca turnpike road, marked with the distance and initials of the two States. From that point the commissioners unanimously agreed to run due south, until they should strike the southern boundary of the two States, on the Georgia line, which was found by them to be one hundred and sixteen miles, at a point twenty-three poles east of the seventy-two mile tree, from the point where the southern bound- ary of this State strikes the south bank of the Tennessee River, at
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HAYWOOD'S HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
the State of Alabama. This leaves the upper part of the Hiwassee River, contrary to what was expected, in North Carolina, includ- ing the Middle Settlements of the Cherokees, or what was termed the Valley Towns, which is sufficient in extent to make a consid- erable county in North Carolina, west of Haywood County. To this tract the Indian claim is yet unextinguished. The line having been run by the proper authority, their proceedings were fully ratified by the Legislatures of North Carolina and . Tennessee, and the boundary between them, in this quarter, be- came thenceforth certain and fixed. The principal part of the Indian claim is extinguished by the late treaties.
The Indian boundaries which have been established by trea- ties, from time to time, are next to be described.
The first cession was made at Fort Stanwix, in the month of November, in the year 1766, by commissioners on behalf of his Britannic majesty, on the one part, and the Six Nations on the other. They then passed away from the Six Nations, the sole sovereigns of the soil, all their right south-east of the Ohio, and down to the Cherokee River, which, they said in the treaty, was their just right, and vested the soil and sovereignty thereof, in the King of Great Britain. In the year 1781 it became neces- sary to fix the extent of Indian claims, and the deposition of Col. George Croghan was resorted to for that purpose. He had lived nearly thirty years among the Indians, in the charac- ter of deputy superintendent, and seems to have possessed a more general knowledge of the state of their claims and the history of their wars than any other who has been drawn into public ob- servation. His deposition is in these words: "George Croghan, Esq., being duly sworn on the Holy Evangelists of Almighty God, doth depose and say that the Six Nations claim by right of conquest all the lands on the south-east side of the river called Stony River; and that the Six Nations never had a claim of any kind, nor made any claim to lands below the Big Miami or Stony River, on the west side of the Ohio; but that the lands on the west side of the Ohio, below Stony River, were always supposed to belong to the Indians of the Western Confeder- acy; that Col. Croghan, the deponent, has for thirty years been intimately acquainted with the above country and the Indians, and their different claims to territory, and never heard the Six Nations claim, and knows they never did claim, beyond the above
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description; nor did they ever dispute the claim of the Western Confederacy. Sworn to the 20th of October, 1781, before me, George Miller." Some visiting Cherokees, at the treaty held at Fort Stanwix, had, on their route, killed game for their support, ' and on their arrival at Fort Stauwix they immediately tendered the skins to the Indians of the Six Nations, saying, "They are yours; we killed them after we passed the "Big River," the name by which the Cherokees have always designated the Tennessee. The Six Nations claimed the soil by conquest, not as the abo- riginal owners, and this is the traditionary account of their na- tion. Who were the aborigines, and whether they were all de- stroyed or driven from their possessions, and when these events happened, are left unfixed. But in 1750 they rested upon tra- dition, which at that time had lost the circumstantial details which belong to recent transactions. Certain it is, the whole country which they claimed was depopulated, and still retained the vestiges of an ancient and very numerous population.
' In the fall of the year 1774 a treaty was commenced between a company composed of Richard Henderson, Thomas Hart, Na- thaniel Hart, John Williams, William Johnston, John Luttrell, John Hogg, David Hart, and Leonard H. Bullock, of the one part, and the Cherokees of the other, which terminated in March, 1775. The treaty was held at Watauga. The company obtained from them, in fair and open treaty, two deeds. One of them was called the Path Deed, and the courses and boundaries expressed in it are as follow: "All that tract, territory, or parcel of land. beginning on the Holston River, where the course of Powell's Mountain strikes the same; thence up the said river as it mean- ders to where the Virginia line crosses the same; thence west- wardly along the line run by Donelson, etc., to a point six En- glish miles eastward of the Long Island, in the said Holston River; thence a direct course toward the mouth of the Great Kanawha, until it reaches the top ridge of Powell's Mountain; thence westwardly along the said ridge, to the beginning." The other deed, which was called the Greut Grant, contained the fol- lowing boundaries: "All that tract, territory, or parcel of land, situated, lying and being in North America, on the Ohio River, one of the eastern branches of the Mississippi River, beginning on the said Ohio, at the mouth of Kentucky, Cherokee, or what by the English is called Louisa River; thence running up said
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HAYWOOD'S HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
river, and the most northwardly fork of the same, to the head spring thereof; thence a south-east course to the ridge of Powell's Mountain; thence westwardly along the ridge of the said mount- ain unto a point from which a north-west course will hit or strike the head spring of the most southwardly branch of Cum- berland River; thence down the said river, including all its wa- ters, to the Ohio River; thence up the said river as it meanders, to the beginning." The benefit of these cessions was claimed by the States of Virginia and North Carolina, under the Constitu- tions of these States, the proclamation of the King of Great Britain, soon after the treaty of 1763, for regulating the inter- course of the colonies with the Indians, and laws made in the time of their provincial dependence upon the crown of Great Britain.
After the Cherokee War, which terminated by a peace made in 1777, the boundaries agreed upon between the Cherokees and white people, and which were repeated, confirmed, and recog- mized by an Act of the Assembly of North Carolina in 1788, were these: "Beginning at a point on the boundary line which has been agreed upon by the Cherokees and colony of Virginia, where the line between that commonwealth and North Carolina shall intersect the same; running thence a right line to the north bank of the Holston River, at the mouth of Cloud's Creek, be- ing the second creek below the Warrior's Ford, at the mouth of Carter's Valley; thence a right line to the highest point of a mountain called the High Rock or Chimney Top; from thence a right line to the mouth of Camp Creek, otherwise called Mc- Name's Creek, on the south bank of the Nolichucky River, about ten miles, be the same more or less, below the mouth of the Great Limestone; and from the mouth of Camp Creek aforesaid, a south-east course to the top of the ridge of the mountain called the Great Iron Mountain, being the same which divides the hunting-grounds of the Overhill Cherokees from the hunting- grounds of the Middle Settlements; and from the top of the said ridge of the Iron Mountain a south course to the dividing ridge between the waters of the French Broad River and the waters of the Nolichucky River; thence a south-westwardly course along the said ridge to the Great Ridge of the Appalachian Mountains, which divides the eastern and western waters; thence with said dividing ridge to the line that divides the two States of North and South Carolina."
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In April, in the year 1783, the Assembly of North Carolina, in the plenitude of their sovereign power, at times not less dictato- rial than any other sovereign power upon earth, assigned for the future new boundaries to the Cherokees, intending to appropri- ate all those lands not included within them, for redemption of their public debt, and to satisfy the claims which the officers and soldiers had upon them. These boundaries they thus de- fined: "Beginning on the Tennessee, where the southern bound- ary of North Carolina intersects the same, nearest to the Chic- amauga towns; thence up the middle of the Tennessee and Hol- ston to the middle of the French Broad River, which is not to in- clude any island or islands in said river, to the mouth of the Big Pigeon River; thence up the same to the head thereof; thence along the dividing ridge between the waters of the Pigeon River and the Tuckasejah River, to the southern boundary of North Carolina." All other lands claimed, whether by Cherokees or Chickasaws. they included, either in the bounds of the entry office to be kept for the sale of lands by John Armstrong, or of the office opened for surveying and granting the lands promised to the offi- cers and soldiers, or of the county offices for selling and entering lands. The boundaries for the military lands they established as follows: "Beginning at the Virginia line, where the Cumber- land River intersects the same; thence south fifty-five miles; thence west to the Tennessee River; thence down the Tennessee to the Virginia line; thence with the said line east to the begin- ning." The bounds of John Armstrong's office were: "Begin- ning in the line which divides Virginia and North Carolina, at a point due north of the mouth of Cloud's Creek; running thence west to the Mississippi; thence down that river to the thirty-fifth degree of north latitude; thence due east until it strikes the Ap- palachian Mountains; thence with the Appalachian Mountains to the ridge that divides the waters of the French Broad River and the waters of the Nolichucky River; and with that ridge till it - strikes the line established in 1777, and described in the Act of 1778," as before stated.
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