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 6
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Some transient persons who had come to the Watauga previ- ously to Robertson, intending to become residents there, were men of bad character; others, again, were men of industrious habits and of honest pursuits, who sought for good lands to re- ward their toils in the tillage of the earth. Soon afterward some arrived who had fled from oppression, in the character of "Reg- ulators;" some came thither who had withdrawn from the de- mands of public justice in their own country, and sought the most, remote and inaccessible frontiers that they could find. Afraid of their own government and of the rewards due to their demerits, and unwilling to trust themselves among the savages for fear of the punishment for offenses like those which had driven them from the bosom of civilization, they herded togeth- er in the wilderness, and involuntarily rendered to their country a beneficial service, which in no other way could have been ex- tracted from them. They formed a barrier on the frontier be-
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tween the savages and the industrious cultivators of the soil. As society gathered around them in their new situation they again inquired for new frontiers, and established new stations, to be resorted to by a feeble population but just commencing. A part of them, unable to abandon the practice to which long usage had naturalized them, retreated into inaccessible parts of the mount- ains, and there settled for some time in the enjoyment of their darling occupation. When the inhabitants first settled that part of East Tennessee now composing the counties of Sullivan and Hawkins, on the north side of the Holston River, they agreed among themselves to adhere to the government of Virginia, as well for protection against the Indians as against the numerous bands of horse-thieves who infested the frontiers at that early period. It was known, however, as early as the year 1771, from an experiment made by the late Col. Anthony Bledsoe, who was a practical surveyor and extended the boundary line as far west as Beaver Creek, nearly on the same parallel as it was afterward run by the commissioners mutually appointed by both States, that they would fall into the State of North Carolina upon the ex- tension of the boundary line. Those who settled on the south side of the Holston adhered to North Carolina, and lived with- out law or protection except by rules of their own adoption.
In 1772 the settlement on the Watauga, being without gov- ernment, formed a written association and articles for their con- duct. They appointed five commissioners, a majority of whom was to decide all matters of controversy, and to govern and di- rect for the common good in other respects. The settlement lived under these articles for some time. James Robertson was one of the five commissioners. He soon became distinguished for sobriety and love of order, and for a firmness of character which qualified him to face danger. He was equally distin- guished for remarkable equanimity and amenity of manners, which rendered him acceptable to all who knew him.
Early in 1772 the colony of Virginia held a treaty with the Cherokees, and agreed upon a boundary between them, to run west from the White Top Mountain, in latitude 36° 30'. Soon after this Alexander Cammeron. a deputy agent for the govern- ment of Great Britain, resident among the Cherokees, ordered the Watauga settlers to move off. Some of the Cherokees ex- pressed a wish that they might be permitted to stay if they
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would make no further encroachments. This avoided the ne- cessity for their removal.
The settlers, uneasy at the precarious tenure by which they occupied their lands, desired to obtain a more permanent title. For this purpose, in the year 1772, they deputed James Robert- son and John Boon to negotiate with the Indians for a lease; and for a certain amount in merchandise, estimated at five or six thousand dollars, muskets, and other articles of convenience, the Cherokees made a lease to them for eight years of all the country on the waters of the Watauga.
In the same year Jacob Brown, with one or two families from North Carolina, settled on the Nolichucky River, where, keep- ing a small store of goods, he ingratiated himself with the In- dians; and made with them a contract for lands on the waters of that river, similar to the former. In both instances the property advanced to purchase the goods was re-imbursed by selling out the lands leased, in small parcels, to individuals for the time the lease was to last.
Soon after the arrival of Mr. Robertson on the Watauga some persons settled in Carter's Valley, fourteen or fifteen miles above where Rogersville now is. All the country was then supposed to be a part of Virginia, and it soon became settled from the Wolf Hills, where Abingdon, in Virginia, now is, to Carter's Valley. The river was deemed the boundary between North Carolina and Virginia. Parker and Carter opened a store in the valley, which the Indians robbed. When Henderson's Treaty was held with the Cherokees in 1774, and again in 1775, these merchants came to it, and demanded Carter's Valley as a compensation for the injury they had sustained, to extend from Cloud's Creek to the Chimney Top Mountain, of Beech Creek. The Indians were willing to give the valley, provided an additional price was thrown into the bargain. Parker and Carter agreed to the pro- posal, and took Robert Lucas in as a partner to enable them to advance the additional price. There were at this time three settlements in the country-one at Watauga, and Brown's and Carter's settlements. Parker and Carter leased their lands to job-purchasers; but, when some time afterward, it began to be suspected that the lands lay in North Carolina, and not in Vir- ginia, the purchasers refused to hold under them, and drove them off. Prior to this time persons immigrating to Natchez
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frequently stopped at the Holston for a year or two, cleared land, and made crops of corn, and disposed of the crops and of the lands on which they were made to Parker and Carter. Such improvements were understood by the law of Virginia to entitle the improvers, or their assignees, to the right of preemption. These rights fell to the ground the moment it was discovered that the lands lay in North Carolina. Parker and Carter, after making the purchases, usually sold to other immigrants who had come to reside permanently in the county, demanding a price for the lands and for the improvements, which conferred the right of pre-emption.
When Henderson held the treaty with the Indians those who were seated on lands leased by the Indians purchased them. and paid the Indians for them. Their deed was made to Black Charles Robertson, in behalf of the Watauga settlers. Jacob Brown also purchased a tract of land of the Indians, beginning at the Chimney Top, thence to Camp Creek, and to the bound- ary (afterward called Brown's) line, which, in 1778, was spec- ified in an act of the Legislature of North Carolina as the bound- ary between the Indians and white people.
After the lease made by the Indians of lands on the Watauga a great race was agreed to be run there, at which, on the ap- pointed day, were numbers of persons from all the adjacent country. Amongst them were some Indians. drawn to the spot by the same curiosity which collected others there. Certain persons of the name of Crabtree, as was afterward suspected. came from the section of country in Virginia, above the Wolf Hills (now Abingdon ), and lurked in the environs of the place where the race was run; and in the evening, selecting a fit op- portunity, fell upon and killed one of the Indians. an act of great heroism in that day of barbarous habits, when the unin- structed white man knew no other rule for the government of his actions but the approbation or condemnation of vulgar opin- ion and prejudice. The inhabitants were greatly alarmed at this rash act, as it immediately endangered their repose, and ex- posed them to the retaliating resentment of the savages in their neighborhood. In this state of alarm and danger James Rob- ertson undertook a journey to the Indian Nation to pacify them. and allay the irritation which this imprudent act had provoked. The attempt was full of hazard, and required much intrepidity.
-
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as well as affection for the people, in him who engaged in it. Mr. Robertson, however, did engage in it, and succeeded. He proceeded directly to the Cherokee towus, and stated to the chiefs and people that the settlers upon the Watauga viewed the horrid deed which had been perpetrated with the deepest concern for their own character; and with the keenest indigna- tion against the offenders, whom they meant to punish as he deserved whenever they could be discovered. The Indians were appeased by this instance of condescension in the white people, and of the discountenance which they gave to the miscreant. The settlers were saved from their fury, and Robertson began to be looked upon as an intrepid soldier, a lover of his country- men, and a man of uncommon address in devising means of ex- trication from difficulties.
In the year 1774 the Shawnees and other hostile tribes north of the Ohio commenced hostilities and penetrated as far south as the section of country now called Sullivan County, in East Tennessee. In the month of July of this year it was announced that Lord Dunmore, the Governor of Virginia, had ordered an expedition against those Indians under the command of Col. Andrew Lewis. Capt. Evan Sehlby raised a company of more than fifty men, in what are now Carter and Sullivan Counties, composed in part of the Robertsons and Seviers. They marched on the 17th of August, and joined Col. Christian on New River; and then proceeded to the Great Levels of the Greenbrier, where they joined Col. Lewis's army about the 1st of September. They then proceeded by slow marches, and arrived at the mouth of the Great Kanawha on the 6th of October, where the army lay apparently in a state of perfect security until the morning of the 10th of that month, when James Robertson ( afterward Gen. Robertson ) and Valentine Sevier ( afterward Col. Sevier), both of them sergeants at that time, went out of camp before day to shoot a deer, and very unexpectedly met the Indians half a mile from camp, advancing toward the provincials in a line from the Ohio back to the hills, a distance of half a mile. They were on the extreme left of the enemy, and fired on them at the distance of ten steps. As it was yet too dark to see a man distinctly at that distance, it caused a general halt of the enemy, while Rob- ertson and Sevier ran into camp and gave the alarm. Three hundred men were instantly ordered out to meet them-150
1
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under Col. Charles Lewis, to the right, and 150 under Col. William Fleming, to the left, up the bank of the Ohio. They had scarcely progressed out of sight of the sentinels when they met the enemy, and a most furious action commenced. The provincials were re-enforced from camp, and the battle lasted nearly the whole day. The enemy was composed of Shawnees, Delawares, Mingoes, and others, and had to the number of eight hundred men. The provincials kept the field; their loss in killed and wounded being one hundred and sixty. The killed and wounded of the enemy were about the same number. Thus it has happened that East Tennessee, in the earliest stages of her infancy, has been called on to contribute all in her power to the common defense, and seems to have been made much less for herself than for the protection of her neighbors. It fell upon this occasion to the lot of men from East Tennessee to make an unexpected discovery of the enemy, and by that means to save from destruction the whole army of the provin- cials, for it was the design of the enemy to have attacked them at the dawn of day, and to have forced all whom they could not kill into the junction of the two rivers. The first Congress of the United Colonies was sitting in Philadelphia at the time this battle was fought. It had the happy effect of quelling the In- dians till the year 1776. Cornstalk, a chief of the Shawnees, commanded the combined army of Indians on that day, and on the whole of that day exhibited prodigies of valor; in whatever part of the army his voice was heard from thence immediately issued a thick and deadly fire.
In April, 1775, the treaty of Henderson with the Cherokees was brought to a conclusion, and the cession was made which has already been described. Upon this occasion, and before the Indians had finally concluded to make the cession, one of the Cherokee orators, said to have been Oconostota, rose and deliv- ered a very animated and pathetic speech. He began with the very flourishing state in which his nation once was, and spoke of the encroachments of the white people, from time to time, upon the retiring and expiring nations of Indians who left their homes and the seats of their ancestors to gratify the insatiable desire of the white people for more land. Whole nations had melted away in their presence like balls of snow before the sun, and had scarcely left their names behind, except as imperfectly
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recorded by their enemies and destroyers. It was once hoped that they would not be willing to travel beyond the mountains, so far from the ocean, on which their commerce was carried on, and their connections maintained with the nations of Europe. But now that fallacious hope had vanished; they had passed the mountains, and settled upon the Cherokee lands, and wished to have their usurpations sanctioned by the confirmation of a treaty. When that should be obtained the same encroaching spirit would lead them upon other lands of the Cherokees. New cessions would be applied for, and finally the country which the Cherokees and their forefathers had so long occupied would be called for; and a small remnant which may then exist of this nation, once so great and formidable, will be compelled to seek a retreat in some far distant wilderness, there to dwell but a short space of time before they would again behold the advancing banners of the same greedy host; who, not being able to point out any further retreat for the miserable Cherokees, would then proclaim the extinction of the whole race. He ended with a strong exhorta- tion to run all risks and to incur all consequences, rather than submit to any further dilacerations of their territory. But he did not prevail, and the cession was made.
In 1775, in the month of November, the people of the Wa- tauga still lived under a government of their own appointment. Their committee settled all private controversies, and had a clerk ( Felix Walker ), now or lately a member of Congress from North Carolina. They had also a sheriff. Their committee had stated and regular times for holding their sessions, and took the laws of Virginia for the standard of decision.
In 1775 Mr. Joseph Greer came to the settlement. After the conclusion of the treaty which Henderson and company made with the Cherokees in April, 1775, Mr. Andrew Greer, father of Joseph Greer, went to the Cherokee Nation and purchased furs. There he watched the conduct of Walker and another white trader, and was convinced that they intended some mischief should be done to him. As he returned with his furs, and came to a creek which is now called Boyd's Creek, he left the main trading path and came up the Nolichucky trace. Two persons from Virginia, sent by the government or some of its military officers ( Boyd and Doggett ), as they traveled on the path that Greer left were met by Indians at the creek, and were killed by
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them and hid in the creek. Hence the name of Boyd's Creek. Thus the rising ill-will of the Cherokees began to make itself apparent. A part of the measures of the British government. adopted for the subjection of America in the year 1776, was to arm all the adjacent Indian tribes, and to excite them to hostil- ities-a people whose mode of warfare was the destruction of all ages and sexes. "This infernal malignity," says a paper com- posed at the time by Col. Arthur Campbell, "of a professed Christian prince was reserved to be exhibited to the world in the reign of George III."
The instructions of the British War Department reached the superintendent, John Stuart, early in the spring of this year. He had previously fled from his residence in South Carolina, and taken refuge in Florida, whence he dispatched orders to his deputy agents, resident with the different Southern tribes. Al- exander Cammeron, formerly a highland officer, who had fought in the late war for America, was at this time agent for the Cher- okee Nation. After receiving his instructions, he lost no time in calling together the chiefs and warriors, and made known to them the designs of his government: This was a phenomenon to the Indians, and it was with difficulty that they could be brought to believe that the quarrel was real, or that a part of the same people would be armed to destroy the other, a civil war being unknown among Indians who speak the same lan- guage. Besides, the Americans had friends in the towns, who endeavored to counteract the agent and gain time, that the front- ier inhabitants might be apprised of their danger. Eventually Cammeron was successful in gaining a majority of the chiefs and warriors to the British interests, by promise's of large pres- ents in clothing, the plunder of the conquered country, and that part of it which was on the Western waters to be reserved for their hunting-grounds.
This formidable invasion was rendered much less destructive than was intended by the address and humanity of another Po- cahontas (Nancy Ward), who was nearly allied to some of the principal chiefs, obtained their plan of attack, and without de- lay communicated it to Isaac Thomas, her friend and a true American. She procured him the means to set out to the inhab- itants of Holston, as an express to warn them of their danger, which he opportunely did; and proceeded without delay to the
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Committee of Safety, in Virginia, accompanied by William Fal- lin as far as the Holston settlements.
At this early period of the Revolution the executive authority of Virginia was a feeble body. Unfortunately, there was not an experienced military character among them. They took some notice of the messenger, and the convention, being then in ses- sion, aided in forming measures to defend the country.from in- vasion. Brown's Settlement was in part composed of tories. Of this circumstance he had given timely notice to Carter, who applied for aid to the settlements in Virginia, at the Wolf Hills, where Abingdon now stands. A body of men came from thence immediately to Brown's Settlement, and called the inhabitants together, who came readily, not knowing what was intended, and there administered to all of them an oath to be faithful to the common cause. After this Brown's people and those of the Wa- tauga were considered as one united settlement, and appointed all their officers as belonging to the same body. They appoint- ed Brown and Carter to be colonels, and Jacob Wommack a major. They built a fort at Gillespy's, and placed a garrison in it just above the mouth of Big Limestone. Upon the movement of the Indians afterward toward the settlements, that fort was broken up, and the inhabitants who lived in it retired to Wa- tauga.
The Wommack Fort was built about the latter part of July, 1776, east of the Holston, ten or twelve miles above the mouth of the Watauga. The Virginians built a fort at Heaton's Sta- tion. Evan Shelby erected one on Beaver Creek, two miles south of the State line. John Shelby, his brother, built a fort whilst he lived on the Holston, east of Wommack's three or four miles.
The united settlements elected John Sevier, Carter, Wom- mack, and John Hill as their representatives, and sent them to the convention at Halifax. They were received, and sat as members of the convention which established the District of Washington.
Capt. Sevier was endowed by nature with those rare qual- ities which make the possessor in all places and with all people an object of attention and a depository of their confidence --- qualities which cannot be learned, and which cannot be kept from observation. Whilst a resident of Virginia, in the year
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1774, the Earl of Dunmore, then Governor of Virginia, appoint- ed him captain of a militia company in the county of Dunmore. On the 24th of December, 1777, Governor Caswell, of North Carolina, gave him a commission of Lieutenant-colonel of the Washington Regiment of Militia, under the command of Col. John Carter.
The Long Island of the Holston is about three miles in length in the main Holston River, just above the point where the North Fork joins it. In the fork between the two rivers, and about five or six miles above the junction, stood Heaton's Station. Just above the islands were flat lands, with a few bushes and saplings, but otherwise open, lying between the two rivers.
The substance of the intelligence which the inhabitants of Holston received from Thomas and Fallin was that a body of seven hundred Indians had assembled, and had divided them- selves into two parties-one destined by way of the mountains, on a circuitous road, to fall on the settlements of Watauga and above; the other, a body of three hundred and fifty men, com- manded by Dragging Canoe, was ordered to break up the set- tlements in the fork and above, and thence to proceed north- wardly into Virginia. Alarmed by this information, and for the fate of the unprotected inhabitants, five small companies, raised chiefly in Virginia, assembled under their respective cap- tains, the eldest of whom in the commission was Capt. Thomp- son. They marched to Heaton's Station, where a fort had been built, by the advice of Capt. William Cocke, in front of the set- tlement, and there halted, as well to protect the people in the station as to procure information, by their spies and scouts, of the position of the enemy, of their numbers, and of their de_ signs, if possible. In a day or two it was ascertained that the Indians, in a body of three or four hundred, were actually on their march toward the Fork. A council was immediately held to determine whether it was most advisable to await in the fort the arrival of the Indians, with the expectation that they would come and attack it; or to march out in search of them, and fight them wherever they could be found. It was urged in council by Capt. Cocke that the Indians would not attack them in the station, inclosed in their block-houses, but would pass by them and fall upon the settlements in small parties; and that, for want of protection, the greater part of the women and children in the
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settlements would be massacred. This argument decided the controversy, and it was determined to march out and meet them. The corps, consisting of one hundred and seventy men, marched from the station and took their course down toward the Long Island, with an advance of about twelve men in front. When they reached what are called the Island Flats, the advance- guard discovered a small party of Indians coming along the road meeting them, and immediately fired upon them. The In- dians fled, and the white people pursued for some time, but did not meet the enemy. A halt was then made, and the men were formed in a line. A council was held by the officers, in which it was concluded that probably they would not be able to meet the enemy again that day; and, as evening was drawing near, that it was most prudent to return to the fort. Whilst the line was thus formed, some persons make a remark unfavorable to one of the captains on the score of his personal firmness. He soon heard of it; and the corps having commenced its returning march in the same order as they had marched forward, the cap- tain whom the remark implicated, being at the head of the right line, after going a short distance, halted, and addressed the troops in defense of himself against the imputation. The whole body collected into a crowd to hear him. After the address was over the offended captain took the head of his line, marching on the road that leads to the station. But before all the troops had fallen into the ranks, and left the place where they had halted, it was announced that the Indians were advancing in order of battle in their rear. Capt. Thompson, the senior offi- cer, who, on the returning march, was at the head of the left line, ordered the right line to form for battle to the right, and the line which he headed to the left, and to face the enemy. In attempting to form the line, the head of the right seemed to bear too much along the road leading to the station; and the part of the line farther back, perceiving that the Indians were endeavoring to outflank them, were drawn off by Lieut. Robert Davis as quickly as possible and formed on the right, across the Hat to a ridge, and prevented them from getting around the flank. This movement of Lieut. Davis cut off a part of the right line, which had kept too far along the road. Some of them, however, when the firing began, returned to the main body, which was drawn up in order of battle, and a few of them
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