F442 .A34 ^.. r<( 'J- r ^y .f^' >^ '^-t'^o 3- '^ ^J. rS - j: A^ ^t. -r. ^ •."'^ * /vT-^ -» ^ *Ml^ '«r^"' ■ ^'^ o r ■' "- - >.or, •5^ * Q H ' ..o'^"^ S* ' *- ..i??' ,-e. \' ■^^ C> ^ M • ,^ Early History 6>/ Middle Tennessee BY EDWARD ALBRIGHT Copyright, 1908, by Edward Albright Brandon Printing Company Nashville, Tenn. 1909 f^ecsived from Copyright Office. MAY 4 1910 Preface The history of Tennessee, and especially that of our own section of the State, was long sadly neglected, and it is now wath the greatest difficulty that many of the isolated facts of tradi- tion may be woven into a continuous thread of history. The failure of preceding generations to gather and record, first-handed, many of the stirring events of early times in the Cumberland Valley from those who participated in them., has increased the task of the historical writer of to-day. Only one other attempt has been made to write a history of Middle Tennessee and that was by Col. A. W. Putnam, of Nashville, in 1859. From this work I have gathered much valuable infor- mation as well as from Carr's Early Times, the histories of the State written by Judge Haywood, Dr. Ramsey, Mr. Phelan, Prof. McGee, Garrett and Goodpasture, and others. I am also in- debted to Imlay's Historical Works, Roosevelt's Winning of the West, and Washington Irving's account of Spanish travels. Much of the latter-day traditions extant in both Sumner and Davidson Counties has been collected and harmonized and to the many sources from wdiich this has been gathered I acknowl- edge myself indebted. Especially do I desire to express thanks to Dr. J. H. McNeilly, of Nashville, Dr. R. V. Foster, of Lebanon, and Col. Ruben T. Durrett, of Louisville, for the courtesies and help extended and many favors shown. Without the aid of these and of others wdio might be mentioned I should have fallen far short of the historical accuracy which I believe to be a charac- teristic of the forthcoming work: For my own gratification as well as for that of coming generations, I have gathered the facts presented from every avail- able source, and now give them to the public, trusting that they may both instruct and entertain, Edward Albright. Gallatin, Tenn., Jan. 15, 1909. Early History of Middle Tennessee CHAPTER I. THE MOUND BUILDERS. The first inhabitants of Middle Tennessee belonged to a race of people called Mound Builders, because of the mounds or monuments they erected and left behind. No one knows from whence they came, how long they remained, or whither they went. They were quite numerous. This is evident from the fact that around many of the lasting springs, and in various localities along the water courses, early immigrants found acres of graves containing their remains. These burial places gave evidence of having been made long before the advent of the whites, possibly several hundred years previous to the beginning of the 17th century. Though seemingly sound, when exhumed, the bones therein crumbled to powder when exposed to the air, thus attesting their great age. One of these ancient graveyards covered a part of what is now Sulphur Spring Bottom in Nashville. Another was located in .North .Edgefield. A third was clustered about the mouth of Stone's river, above the city, and a fourth^ the largest of all, was situated upon the farm of Mr. O. F. Noel, South, ad- joining Glendale Park. Others w^ere found throughout Sumner County, especially at and around Castalian Springs, formerly Bledsoe's Lick. These places of interment were also numerous along the Harpeth River in Williamson, Cheatham and Dickson Counties. Mounds and stone graves are also to be found in Humphreys and Hardin Counties. It is related of the "Long Hunters," the first organized band 6 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE of adventurers coming to this region, that to them no trace of human habitation was visible, the primeval state of things then reigning in unrivaled glory. But in dry caves on the side of creeks tributary to the Cumberland, down the course of which they traveled, they found many places where stones were set together, thus covering large quantities of human bones ; these were also found far in the caves with which this region yet abounds. The conical shaped mounds left throughout Middle Tennessee by these early builders afford evidence of industry, and also of a measure of skill. They^ too, were used as places for burial of the dead, and possibly for religious and military purposes as well. At Castalian Springs there may yet be seen the remnant of one of these mounds^ which was formerly sur- rounded by a low wall or embankment enclosing a small acreage of land. This was opened first by General James Winchester about a hundred years ago, and within were found a quantity of human bones, some broken pottery, a box of red powder, burnt corn cobs, and several cedar posts. The latter had doubtless constituted part of the framework of a chamber formerly ex- isting, but then in decay. At the time of the discovery of Bledsoe's Lick there stood on the top of this mound an oak tree three feet in diameter, thus indicating that it was then at least a century old. In the same neighborhood have been found from time to time other relics of this pre-historic race. Near the door of a storehouse at Castalian Springs there lay for many years the carved sandstone image of a human form. This was about two feet in length, the arms of which, though partially broken off, seemed to have been raised in supplication. The shape of its head and the expression of its rude features were foreign, being entirely unlike those of the Indians. It was probably an idol once used in some form of heathen worship. It was not taken from EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 7 the mound above described, as has been alleged, but was ploughed up from a neighboring field. Another elevation of similar character in Sumner County is located on the farm of Mr. Alexander Kizer^ and stands neat the public road leading from Shackle Island to Hendersonville. This mound measures thirty-five feet across the top. From the south side it is fifty feet in height, having been approached for- THK KIZKR MOUND NEAR HENDKRSONVILLK, SUMNKR COUNTY merly from the north to the summit^ by a slanting roadway thrown up from the surrounding soil. At a radius of about a hundred yards it is surrounded by the remains of a number of smaller mounds. An excavation conducted by Eastern scien- tists some years ago disclosed the fact that the latter were used 8 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE as receptacles for the dead, in truth the entire space between these and the central mound was covered with graves such as those already described. Popular tradition says that ages ago these ruins constituted the seat of government of a community or tribe of an extinct race ; that the ruler or principal chief dwelt on the large elevation, while the lesser ones were used as stations by the officers of his council. A more probable theory is that the entire arrangement was for use in the ceremonial minutiae incident to the burial of their dead. Near Nashville, at a point half way between the west bank of the river and the north side of old French Lick Creek, stands an elevation known as the Charleville mound, so called in honor of a French trader who many years before the coming of the settlers had a station on its summit. This, too, was opened in 1 82 1, and found to contain broken pottery, and a piece of oval- shaped metal on one side of which was an indented outline of the head of a woman. In Williamson County a short distance north of Franklin, are three mounds of about equal size standing in a row from north to south. The remains of others like unto these are to be seen also in Warren, Lincoln and Hickman Counties. Near Manchester in Coffee County under the shadow of the great dividing range of the Cumberland Mountains stands an old moss covered stone fort which is yet in a partial state of preservation. Builded in the long ago it is without even a tradition to disclose its identity. Its architects are now in that happy hunting ground from whose bourn no traveler has yet returned. The Indians met by the pioneers on the arrival of the latter in Middle Ten- nessee could give no information as to the origin of these antiqui- ties, all of which they held in great veneration, but were content to say that they had been here always. At the discovery of this region, its soil, which was covered by EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 9 thick cane-brakes and forest trees of mammoth size, seemed never to have been broken by cultivation. We are, therefore, left in ignorance as to the means by which the Mound Builders supplied themselves with food and clothing. They had undoubtedly attained a degree of civilization, but despite all that has been written upon the subject, a large part of which is mere fiction, there is little to indicate that they were highly civilized, or to a great extent acquainted with the arts of more recent progress. Modern scientists have cast aside many of the mysterious theories with which the existence of the Mound Builders was long enshrouded, and now believe that they were simply the ancestors of the American Indians, the latter through the lapse of many centuries having degenerated into the low state of civilization in which they were found by the early dis- coverers. CHAPTER II. FIRST INDIAN SETTLERS. Following the Mound Builders came the Shawnees, who were the first tribe of Indians to settle in Middle Tennessee. They journeyed from a region surrounding the Great Lakes about 1650 and built their villages along the banks of the Cum- berland. The boundaries of this settlement extended north to what is now the Kentucky line, and as far west as the Tennessee River. Until the time of their coming the country now compris- ing Kentucky and Middle Tennessee had been held as neutral territory by the Indians, and was used as a common hunting ground by the Iroquois on the north, and by the tribes composing the Mobilian race on the south. Chief among the latter were the Creeks, Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws and Scminoles. 10 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE The Shawnees were of the Algonquin race, a part of the powerful Iroquois Confederacy, and are called by historians the ''Gypsies of the Forest." There was among them a tradition that their ancestors were of foreign birth, and had come to /Vmer- ica from over the seas. Until a short time previous to their advent into the region of the Cumberland, they had made yearly sacrifice in thanksgiving for their safe arrival after a long and dangerous voyage. They had been once wealthy and powerful, but following a natural inclination to rove, were now weakened by division into bands, some one of which at various times sub- sequent thereto resided in almost every portion of the United States. The Indians with whom they came in contact having no written language and no definite rules of pronunciation called them by various names, such as Shawnees, Sewanees, Suwanos. Savannahs, Satanas, and many others of like sound. These names the Shawnees generously gave to the villages, rivers and mountains of the land through which they traveled. While living along the Cumberland they explored the whole of Middle Tennessee and gave their name to Sewanee Mountain, on which is now located the University of the South. Another tradition, if true, explains their location on the Cumberland. According to this legend a large party of them were moving south in search of new fields of adventure. Arriv- ing at Cumberland Gap in East Tennessee they halted for rest, and in order that they might take council as to a future course After much discussion it was found they could not agree as to the latter, whereupon a part of the band pursued the wel) known trace through the mountains of East Tennessee south into Georgia and Florida, while the other portion directed its journey toward the west, thus founding the settlement above described. However, the stay of the Shawnees in the valley of the Cum- berland was comparatively of short duration. Angered by such EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TEXXESSEE II a continued occupancy of the common hunting ground, the Cher- okees, Creeks and Chickasaws, their nearest neighbors, laid plans for their expulsion. After a short but bloody war the Shawnees were driven north and became again a wandering tribe among the Iroquois. By the generosity of the victors they were allowed a return to the hunting ground during the winter season of each year, but were forbidden to remain after dogwood blossoms appeared. The date of this war, probably the first in a region which has since been the scene of many bloody conflicts, is not now definitely fixed. In the year 1788, Piomingo, the Mountain Leader, famous Chickasaw chief, and friend of the whites, came from his village near the present site of ^Memphis to visit the settlers at Bledsoe's Lick, ^^llile there he told the latter that the expulsion of the Shawnees from the Cumberland \ alley took place in 1682. He said that the length of his life at the time of this visit had been "a hundred and six snows," and that he was born the year the war occurred. His father, himself a noted Chickasaw chief, was killed in one of the battles incident to the contest. Piomingo also vouchedsafe the information that before the attacking forces would venture to engage the Shawnees in battle they held themselves a long time in readiness awaiting a signal from the Great Spirit. At length it came in the rumblings of an earthquake which, as Piomingo said, "broke open the mountains and shook the rocks from their places of rest." The settlers associated this tradition with an account given by their ancestors of an earthquake which occurred about the year 1685. It is quite probable that small, roving bands of these nomads continued to make headquarters near the present location of Nashville for some years after the main force had been driven away. The Shawnees were the last permanent Indian residents of Middle Tennessee, but the latter continued to be held as com- mon property by the neighboring tribes until the white settlers came upon the scene a hundred years later. 12 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE CHAPTER III. SPANISH ADVENTURERS. For more than two hundred years after the discovery of America by Columbus in 1492, with perhaps one exception, no European adventurer set foot upon the soil of Middle Tennessee. This possible exception we shall now notice. By reason of the successful voyage of Columbus, and a few subsequent discoveries by his fellow countrymen, Spain claimed the whole of North America. Following the return of these expeditions there were circulated throughout the Spanish domain the most extravagant stories of the wealth and beauty of this new found land, and numerous parties were formed for its exploration and conquest. In 15 12 Ponce De Leon, a Spaniard, crossed the Atlantic at the head of a company and landed on the southern extremity of the continent. He named the country Florida, because of the abundance of wild flowers growing along its shores and also because the discovery was made on Palm Sunday. For many years thereafter all the country south of the island of Newfoundland was called Florida. The object of this expedition led by Ponce De Leon was the discovery of a fabled fountain of youth^ said by the mystics to be located within the interior of the continent. It was confidently believed by the Spaniards that those who were so fortunate as to drink from this source would enjoy perpetual youth. Before they had long pursued their journey, however, they found instead, death from wounds inflicted by poisoned arrows from the bows of hostile Indians. At intervals for twenty-six years thereafter other Span- ish explorers visited America for purposes of spoil and conquest but returned without evidence of success. Ferdinand De Soto was a renowned Spanish soldier of for- tune who had served with Pizarro in the conquest of Peru. In EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 1$ 1538, under the patronage of the emperor, Charles V, this vet- eran warrior hegan the organization of a company for the pur- pose of exploring Florida. His patron, the emperor, had but recently ascended the throne of Spain, which was now the most powerful monarchy in all Europe, uniting as it did under one scepter ''the infantry of Spain, the looms of Flanders, and the gold of Peru." Thus with unlimited resources at his command, De Soto soon found himself leading a company of nine hundred and fifty adventurers. Ramsey says that ''the chivalry, rank and wealth of Spain entered into this army," and Irving declares that "never had a more gallant and brilliant body of men offered themselves for the new world." Many of them, though of immense wealth, had made disposition of all, and in reckless disregard of the fu- ture had invested the proceeds in this enterprise, some bringing over their wives and children together with a retinue of servants. On board ship when they sailed from Spain, were three hundred and fifty horses and mules and a herd of swine, the latter the first of their kind yet brought to America. Arriving at Havana, Cuba, during the month of May, 1538, a year was spent in further preparation for the journey into the interior of the continent. Having added here fifty recruits to their number, they again set sail, landing at Santo Bay on the west coast of Florida, May 27, 1539- From thence a few days later they marched bravely into an unknown region. A majority of these adventurers were yet in the springtime of life, and cared but little for fountains of youth. Instead, they were searching for cities of silver and gold, the glittering battlements of which they fancied now hidden away within the region they were about to invade. If in the days of our youth^ over field and fen we have trudged in fruitless search of a pot of gold at the end of a fitful rainbow, we have already an idea of the disappointment which at every turn awaited these 14 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE credulous wanderers. For two years they traveled hither and thither through the Southern States, deluded by savage deceit and beset by savage foe. However, the latter were not altogether the aggressors. De Soto and his officers had been trained in a bad school of warfare, and in turn their treatment of the natives was in many instances both treacherous and cruel in the extreme. On the Savannah River at the present site of Silver Bluff, Georgia, they came upon the village of a beautiful Indian princess, the ruler of a large domain. When informed of their approach she ordered no resistance, but going at once to the camp of the Spaniards, made a peace offering of blankets and shawls and such other supplies as she possessed. Taking from her neck a string of pearls, she gave them to De Soto, at the same time offering to him and his followers the freedom of her realm. They accepted this invitation, and after remaining at the village for a month, rewarded the kindness of the princess by taking her cap- tive and leading her in chains on foot behind them as they trav- eled through the surrounding provinces. At length she escaped and returned to her subjects, remaining forever thereafter a bitter enemy of the whites. This incident is but an example of many others of like character. In the early spring of 1541, the army came by some route to the Chickasaw Bluffs, the present site of Memphis, and there De Soto discovered the Mississippi River. Because of the unfamiliar Indian names used by the historian of this expedition we are now unable to locate, with certainty, all the mountains, rivers and villages by, over and through which they passed en route. That at some period of the journey they visited the Muscle Shoals of the Tennessee River in Northern Alabama is supposed by reason of the location there of two ancient forts or camps, more recently identified as of Spanish con- struction. The names of some of the villages and the numerous EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 1 5 crossings of streams have led to the behef that they traveled also through a portion of East Tennessee, the line of march being from North Georgia through Polk, ]\IcMinn and Monroe Counties to the foot of the Chilhowee mountains ; thence west and south- west, crossing the Tennessee River near Chattanooga, and from thence into Middle Tennessee. Canasauga, Talisse, and Se- quachie, all mentioned by the Spanish historian in connection with this part of the journey, are now familiar names in the locality mentioned. They camped for a while at the foot of the mountains which are supposed to be the modern Chilhowee. Around the base of these there flowed a small but rapid river, which properly describes the Little Tennessee. Leaving there ''the first day's march westward was through a country covered with fields of maize of luxuriant growth." During the next five days they traversed a "chain of easy mountains covered with oak and mulberry trees, with intervening valleys, rich in pasturage and irrigated by clear and rapid streams." When at the rate of ten miles a day they had journeyed for sixty miles, they came to a village which "stood in a pleasant spot bordered by small streams which took their rise in the adjacent mountains." These streams "soon mingled their waters and thus formed a grand and powerful river," probably the Tennessee. Turning now from a westerly course they resumed their journey along the bank of this stream toward the south. Eighty miles below they discov- ered a village on the opposite shore to which they crossed in many rafts and canoes which they prepared for that purpose. Here their wornout horses were for a season allowed to enjoy rich and abundant pasturage in the neighboring meadows. While in this retreat the Indians showed them how to obtain pearls from oysters or muscles, taken from the river. If the theory ad- vanced be true, the village mentioned was near the present site of Chattanooga, and beneath the shadow of the overhanging cliffs l6 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE of Lookout Mountain, a locality which for ages was the haunt of the Aborigines. The mountains, the rivers, the distances traveled, and the pearls all tend to establish the route indicated. From this place they crossed the mountains westward. Martin's history of Louis- iana suggests that from thence they passed entirely through Mid- dle Tennessee and into Southern Kentucky, in which event their journey lay through Maury, Rutherford, Davidson and Sumner Counties. It is not unreasonable to suppose that the natives with whom they conversed during the first of their travels had not failed to lure this band of plumed and armored pilgrims searching for mystic treasures into a region so fruitful of legend. By the glens of the far-famed Hiwassee, under the sheltering coves of the Chilhowees and Lookout, on the ancient forest-covered crest and slopes of the Cumberlands, and into the darkened ravines and beautiful valleys beyond ; on every hand might be uncovered se- cret portals to hidden treasures. These once discovered, they would return in triumph to Spain and there with sparkling jewels dazzle the eyes of their less hardy countrymen. From the top of every mountain range stretching itself athwart their chosen route, their scouts might gaze eagerly for a glimpse of silver-paved and gold-domed cities with which a vivid imagination had vested an unknown land. After crossing with his band the Mississippi at Memphis and traversing a region afterwards called the "Great American Des- ert," De Soto died in Louisiana a year later in a lonely glade near the mouth of Red River. Wrapping his body in a cloak a few of his officers rowed out at midnight to the middle of the Mississippi and there buried their gallant commander in the waters of the mighty river he had discovered. The hour selected was because of the purpose of the Spaniards to conceal from the EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE I7 natives among whom they were encamped the knowledge of De Soto's death. The latter had told the Indians who came every day to his tent that he was from the land of the Great Spirit, and therefore would never die. The expedition now^ ended in disaster, having already lost by disease and warfare more than two-thirds of its original number. CHAPTER IV. HUNTERS AND TRADERS DR. WALKER AND PARTY. From the expulsion of the Shawnees to the coming of the white settlers in 1779 the region now embraced in Middle Tennessee was indeed a hunter's paradise. Through its valleys and over its hills roamed countless herds of buffalo, deer, and elk. Within its forests and canebrakes bears, wolves, panthers, bob-cats, foxes, and other wild animals in great numbers found a home. Besides the food necessary for each they must also have salt. The pro- vision made by nature for this essential was the saline water of the sulphur springs with which the country yet abounds. In times of overflow these springs left on the surrounding ground a slight deposit of salt, and over this the beasts would tramp and lick until often long trenches or furrows were made, sometimes over several acres. Thus were formed the "licks" which played so important a part in determining the location of early forts. Sulphur sj)rings and the accompanying "licks" were especially numerous in Sumner and Davidson Counties. To this fact, to- gether with the close proximity of these counties to the Cumber- land River is largely due their selection as a location by the pioneers. The big sulphur spring in the bottom now within the corporate limits of Nashville, no doubt determined the location of that city. l8 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE To the licks in the region now embraced in Sumner and David- son came at regular intervals the animals from over a large terri- tory, and these in their journeys to and fro formed beaten paths or trails, all centering in this locality like the spokes of a wheel. As with the ancients all roads led to Rome, so with the con- querors of this boundless and uninhabited wilderness, all traces led to central licks which spots were destined to become the scene of earliest activity. Hunters, both Indian and white, roam- ing at will through the forests came upon these narrow paths, and turning about threaded them to the end. Here these mighty Nimrods fell upon and mercilessly slaughtered the game, large and small, which was usually found assembled in great abundance. After feeding upon the flesh of the slain animals, they carried away the hides or pelts from which they made clothing for them- selves and their families, and in the case of the Indian hunter, covering for their tents, or "tepees." Such as were not thus applied to personal use were sold for trade in the colonies east of the mountains^ or for export to the countries of Europe. In the course of time as a result of the natural evolution and growth of traffic, foreign-made clothing, blankets, boots and shoes, wares and trinkets were brought by enterprising traders to such localities and there exchanged for pelts. The Indian hunter, who, in such transactions, was sure of the worst of the bargain, readily exchanged the most valuable buffalo robe for a string of glass beads or a daub of red paint with which to be- streak his visage when he went forth to war. The French were the earliest tradesmen in Middle Tennessee. The first of these to appear was a young man, Charles Charleville by name, who, in 17 14, built his post on a mound near the present site of Nashville. This mound has been mentioned already in connection with a sketch of the Mound Builders. Here, besides the hunting and trapping done by himself and his companions, an £ARLY history of middle TENNESSEE 19 extensive trade was carried on with the savage hunters from all the tribes frequenting the hunting ground. However, Charle- ville's station did not long remain, and in 1740 Middle Tennessee was again without a single white resident. The establishment of this and subsequent posts by men of the same nationality gave to the locality around Nashville the name, French Lick^ by which it was known to early historians. Some of the old logs from the walls of the Charleville storehouse were found on the mound by the settlers who came to Nashville sixty-five years later. From the departure of Charleville and his band to the year 1748, no white adventurer came to disturb the peaceful serenity of the hunting ground, but in the latter part of that year Dr. Thomas Walker led a party of hunters across the mountains from Virginia. Walker was an explorer and surveyor of renown, and is described as a man of mark among the pioneers. With his com- pany came Colonels Wood, Patton and Buchanan, and Captain Charles Campbell. After giving the name Cumberland to the lofty range of mountains crossed, they pursued their journey by way of Cumberland Gap through the counties of Campbell, Scott, Fentress, Overton and Jackson. Finding a beautiful mountain stream flowing across their course they called it Cumberland River in honor of the Duke of Cumberland, who was then Prime Minister of England. The latter had taken his title from the county of Cumberland, a picturesque region of lakes and moun- tains in the northern portion of his native land. Previous to this time Cumberland River had been called Warioto by the Indians and Shauvanon by the French traders. It is probable that Walk- er's party hunted along the river as far as French Lick, and from thence returned to Virginia through Kentucky. 20 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE CHAPTER V. TIMOTHY DEMONBREUN. Late in the autumn of 1760 a strange craft appeared on the Cumberland just below French Lick. With a single sail flutter- ing from a low mast it was creeping up with noiseless motion along the western bank of the river. On deck stood a tall, ath- letic man with broad shoulders, long arms, and an eagle eye. Over his face was an expression of daring and adventure. He was clothed in a blue cotton hunting shirt with red waistcoat, and leggins of deer skin, and on his head he wore a fox-skin cap with the tail hanging down his back. With him were several companions. The craft proved to be a French trading boat heavily ladened with wares and merchandise, and the strangely attired individual in command was Timothy DeiMonbreun, a French soldier who had come to establish a post in the Wilderness, as the Cumberland country was then called. The Indian hunters loitering on the bluff wdiere Nashville's countless mills and factories now stand had never before seen a vessel like this, and supposing it to be a ''war boat from the Great Spirit's lake" prostrated themselves in an attitude of hum- ble worship. Slowly the party moved up the river, and on coming to a small tributary now known as Lick branch, they decided to enter and trace it to its source. A little way up they found a spring and around it the tracks of much buffalo, bear and deer. At this spring they landed, cooked their evening meal, and retired for the night, sleeping on their arms lest they might be attacked by the natives. However, they were undisturbed, and in the morn- ing after having stretched a line between two trees, they hung out bright red blankets, strings of heads, shining trinkets and other articles with which to attract the Indians. They were care- ful to show by their actions that the mission on which they had EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 21 come was one of peace, and made such signs as they were able indicating a desire to trade their wares for pelts and furs, such as the savages possessed. DeMonbreun had come to Canada with the army of his native land during the war between England and France. He fought bravely at the battle of Quebec, which took place on the Plains of Abraham in 1759, and upon the restoration of peace con- cluded to make America his home. In the spring of 1760 he journeyed from Quebec to Kaskaskia, Illinois, and thence to the French Lick. His trade wdth the Indians proved profitable, and here, except at brief intervals, he spent the remainder of his life. For some years he lived during the winter months in a cave above Nashville on the bank of the Cumberland between the mouth of Stone's River and Mill Creek. After the first season his family came to live with him in the cave, and here was born his son, William DelVIonbreun, long an honored citizen of Wih liamson County, where some years ago he died, leaving a large family and a fine estate. William DeMonbreun was probably the first white child born in Middle Tennessee. In the summer of each year DeMonbreun, the elder, would return to Kaskaskia, taking with him a cargo of bufifalo hides and furs w^hich had been laid by in store during the winter and spring. Later he would come back to his station with a new supply of goods for the trade of the following season. At the beginning of the Nashville settlement he built two cabins of cedar logs ; one near the northeast corner of the Pub- lic Square, and the other at the juncture of Broad and College Streets. The first was used as a storehouse and the other as a dwelling for himself and family. Later he erected a farmhouse on Broad Street near High, and in this he died in 1826, at the advanced age of ninety-six years. It was in honor of this brave and venerable pioneer that the city of Nashville gave the name ''DeMonbreun" to one of its principal streets. 22 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLP: TENNESSEE CHAPTER VI. WALLEN, BOONE, CALLAWAY, AND SCRAGGINS. The solitude that for ages had rested like a protecting can- opy over the great national park of the Red man was again about to be disturbed. The fame thereof had crossed the moun tains and reached the fartherest limits of the colonies, now slowly but surely turning the tide of emigration this way. A party of men known as ''Wallen's Company," composed of Wallen, Scaggs, Blevins and Cox, together with fifteen others whose names are unknown, came over in 1763. This company had been formed in Virginia two years before for the purpose of exploration and trade, and had spent two winters thereafter in Kentucky and East Tennessee. This season they followed the route previously taken by Dr. Walker and party in 1748. Pass- ing through Cumberland Gap they hunted during the whole sum- mer along the Cumberland River^ later recrossing the mountains with an abundance of game. In 1764 Daniel Boone, the renowned hunter and explorer, who is popularly accredited with having led the vanguard of civiliza- tion into western wilds, came on a short expedition into the east- ern portion of Middle Tennessee. Boone was a typical pioneer, loving as he did the solitude of the forest and usually making his journeys alone. On this occasion, however, he had with him his kinsman, Samuel Callaway, the ancestor of a distinguished family by that name, pioneers of Tennessee, Kentucky and Mis- souri. As they came in sight of the Cumberland Valley Boone looked down from the summit of the mountain on the vast herds of buffalo grazing beneath and exclaimed : "I am richer than the man mentioned in the Scriptures who owned the cattle on a thousand hills, for I own the wild beasts of more than a thou- sand valleys." At this time Boone's home was upon the Yadkin EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 23 River in North Carolina, whither he had moved from Virginia many years before. He returned to the Cumberland in 1771, and later played an important part in the settlement of Kentucky. With the establishment of courts of justice at the admission of the latter State into the Union in 1792, Boone lost possession of nearly all the lands he had secured in Kentucky, his titles thereto being contested and declared invalid. Disgusted at this treat- ment by the commonwealth he had done so much to found, he emigrated to Missouri and built for his abode a cabin in the wilderness forty-five miles west of St. Louis. There he remained until his death in 1822. By order of the Legislature of Kentucky his remains were removed to Frankfort in 1845, and re-interred in the city cemetery on a beautiful site above the Kentucky Rivei and now just across the valley from the new capitol building. Above this new grave a fitting monument was erected^ on either of the four sides of which were scenes wrought in bas-relief, com- memorating the heroic deeds of Boone's eventful life. This mon ument still stands, though now much defaced by the ravages of time and the hand of the vandal. Other monuments to the mem- ory of Boone have since been located at various places through out Kentucky, notable among these being a statue in Cherokee Park at Louisville, the latter a gift to the city by Mr. C. C. Bickel. Following Boone and Callaway came Henry Scraggins, who ex- plored the lower Cumberland in 1765, and for a while had a station near the present site of Goodlettsville in Davidson County. Of him but little is known save that he was a representative of Henderson & Company, of North Carolina, who were large deal- ers in western lands^ and of whom we shall learn more later on. The exploratiohs made by Scraggins were the most extensive yet undertaken west of the mountains. During the summer of 1766 Col. James Smith, accompanied by Joshua Horton, William Baker and Uriah Stone came hither for the purpose of exploring along 24 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE the Cumberland and Tennessee. Some of this party were from the north, Baker being from Carlisle, Pennsylvania. They en- tered the region they proposed to traverse by way of East Ten- nessee, having first explored the Holston Valley. They brought with them a mulatto slave, a boy about eighteen years old, the property of Horton, and the first slave ever seen in Middle Ten- nessee. Stones River^ near Nashville, was explored, and named by this party, being so called in honor of Uriah Stone. They traversed a large portion of the section now include'd in Sumner and Davidson Counties, and then going west, followed the course of the Tennessee River to its mouth at Paducah, Kentucky. There they separated. Smith, with the slave for company and protection, returned to North Carolina, The other members of the party went north into Illinois. Uriah Stone returned the following year^ and in partnership with a Frenchman, spent the season trapping on Stones River. One day late in the spring when they were loading their boat with furs preparatory for a journey to market, the Frenchman, in the absence of his partner, stole off with the boat and cargo. Stone having thus lost the fruits of several months ofdabor returned empty-handed to his home in Virginia. Next in order came Isaac Lindsay and four others from South Carolina. They crossed the Alleghanies westward and hunted along the Cumberland as far as French Lick. Here they met Michael Stoner and a companion named Harrod, both of whom lived in Pittsburg, having come by way of Illinois on their way to the hunting ground. These parties were hunting for pleasure, and met by accident. It is quite probable that each also had an eye on valuable tracts of land upon which, in the future, they hoped to obtain concessions. After remaining together for some time in the region about French Lick they separated and returned to their respective homes. Later on Lindsay was an important factor in the early settlement at Nashville. EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 25 CHAPTER VIL THE LONG HUNTERS. The year 1769 witnessed the coming of the largest party of white men yet seen in Middle Tennessee. They were organized in Jime for the purpose of hunting game and exploring in the country west of the mountains^ and were afterwards called ''Long Hunters" because of the length of time they were away. Among them were Kasper Mansker, John Rains, Abraham Bledsoe, John Baker, Joseph Drake, James Knox, Obadiah Terrill, Uriah Stone, Henry Smith, Ned Cowan, Robert Crockett, Thomas Gordon, Cash Brook and Humphrey Hogan. Some of these were from North Carolina, some from the neighborhood of Natural Bridge, and others from a small settlement near Inglis' Ferry, Virginia. The party was well equipped with guns, ammunition and all other supplies necessary for a protracted hunting and exploring expedi- tion. After having met at the town of New River in southwestern Virginia, they proceeded to the head of Holston River, traversing the north fork of same. Traveling on from thence they crossed Clinch and Powell Rivers, and passing on by way of Cumberland Gap, journeyed through Kentucky to the headwaters of Cumber- land River. Proceeding down this stream they camped at a place since called Price's Meadow in Wayne County, Kentucky, six or seven miles from the present site of Monticello. This camp they agreed to make a station or rendezvous, for the deposit of their game and peltries. The hunters then dispersed in many directions, a part of them crossing what is now the Tennessee line, and exploring the country as far south as Caney Fork River and along its tributaries in Putnam, White and DeKalb counties. Most of the hunting, however, was done on Roaring and Obey Rivers in Clay, Jackson, Overton and Pickett Counties. Obey 26 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE River, as it is now called, was at that time given its name, the same being in honor of Obadiah Terrill, a member of the party. A sad event of this outing was the death of Robert Crockett which occurred on the headwaters of Roaring River in Overton County. While returning to camp at nightfall he was fired upon and killed by a band of six or eight Indians who were hid in ambush. This is the first recorded death suflfered by the whites at the hands of the Indians in the territory now embraced in Middle Tennessee. The country at this time abounded in small game, and the expedition was very successful. The entire landscape was cov- ered with high grass, tall trees and low undergrowth, the whole forming a boundless wilderness hitherto untrodden by the foot of civilization. Most of the game they got by what was called "still hunting." Some deer, however, was killed after having been lured within gun shot by imitating the bleat of a fawn. Some also were fired upon from scaffolds when they came to the salt licks at night. In mid-winter the hunters donned snow-shoes and followed the practice of ''crusting" the game — that is, run- ning it down in the snow. Of this practice, however, many of the hunters did not approve. They continued in the region above mentioned until the spring of 1770, when some of them returned home. Others, led by James Knox, went further north into the Kentucky country where they hunted for a season before recrossing the mountains. The remainder, consisting of Stone, Baker, Gordon, Brook, Hogan and three or four others, all under the leadership of Kasper Mansker, having built two flat-boats, and hollowed out of logs two pirogues, or dug-out canoes, began a river journey with the proceeds of the hunt to Natchez, Mississippi. On their way down the Cumberland they stopped at French Lick, the present site of Nashville. There they saw enormous herds of buffalo, elk and EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 27 deer, and great quantities of other game. The country surround- ing was crowded with wild animals, the bellowings of the buffalo resounding from the hills and forests. They had found but little big game in the upper country, so some of this they now killed, and of the hides made coverings for their boats. At this place also they met Timothy DeMonbreun, who, as before related, had erected his trading station there ten years before. This visit by Mansker to French Lick marked his advent into a region in the subsequent settlement of which he was destined to play a con- spicuous part. Rowing on down the river they came at length to the Ohio. There some of their boats were looted by a band of Indians, but Mansker and his party fell in with some French traders who were generously inclined, and in return for what they had lost, gave them a supply of flour, salt, tobacco, and taffa, the latter a drink which was especially prized. Proceeding down the Ohio and Mississippi they arrived in due season at Natchez, then an outpost of the Spanish headquar- ters at New Orleans. There they sold their cargo, consisting of hides, furs, oil and tallow, after which Mansker and Baker re- turned to their home at New River, Virginia. Others went around by ship to North Carolina, and the remnant of the party settled in Natchez. Those who returned to the colonies gave such glowing accounts of the abundance of game and fertility of the soil on the Cumberland that the desire for western explora- tion became very intense. At Natchez Uriah Stone found his boat which had been stolen from him by the Frenchman on Stones river several years before. The latter had descended to that place by water and then disposed of the boat and cargo, departing thence for parts un- known. 28 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE CHAPTER VIII. MANSKER's party. first INDIAN KILLED. In the fall of 1771 Kasper Mansker led another party of adventurers into the wilds of Tennessee. Among them were Isaac Bledsoe, John Montgomery, Joseph Drake, James Knox, Henry Suggs, William Allen, Christopher Stoph, and William and David Lynch. There was with them also an old hunter named Russell whose eyesight was so poor that he was obliged to fasten a piece of white paper on the muzzle of his gun in order that he might thus direct his sight to the game. Despite this hindrance, however, he killed a large number of deer. Arriving at what is now Sumner County, Mansker's party pitched its station or camp close to a creek near where Dr. Ander- son formerly resided, on' the turnpike leading from Gallatin to Nashville. It was in this way that Station Camp Creek got its name. This camp was made headquarters for the party, while they hunted over Sumner, Robertson, Davidson, Wilson, Smith and Trousdale Counties. The winter was exceedingly cold, and they built skin houses for protection from the ice and snow. Some one of the hunters was usually left behind to guard the stores. However, on one occasion when all were away on the chase, a party of twenty-five Cherokee Indians made a raid on the camp. They carried away all the pots, kettles and ammuni- tion they could find, besides about five hundred deer skins, and a large amount of clothing. The trail by which they came into camp was plainly to be seen, but they were careful to leave none on their retreat. It is supposed that they left the camp singly in different directions, or waded up stream in Station Camp Creek. During this memorable hunt many of the licks and streams of this locality took the name of their discoverers, which names thev have since retained. Among these are Mansker's Lick and EARLY HISTORY OP MIDDLE TENNESSEE 29 Mansker's Creek^ Bledsoe's Lick and Bledsoe's Creek, Drake's Lick and Drake's Creek, so called in honor of Kasper Mansker the leader of the party, Lsaac Bledsoe and Joseph Drake. At other periods in the history of early explorations Stoner's Lick and Stoner's Creek were named in honor of Michael Stoner, a Dutchman from Pittshurg, previously mentioned. Flinn's Lick BLEDSOE'S LICK and Flinn's Creek were discovered by George Flinn. Barton's Creek in Wilson County was so named in honor of Col. Samuel Barton. This year, as in that preceding, the country was full of all kinds of game, large and small. When Isaac Bledsoe discovered 30 EARLY HISTORY OP MIDDLE TENNESSEE the lick which bears his name, the location of which was the present site of Castalian Springs, the herds of buffalo in the bottoms surrounding the sulphur spring were so numerous that he was afraid to alight from his horse lest he might be trampled beneath the hoofs of the restless beasts. Mansker discovered two licks near Goocllettsville, they being distinguished as the Upper and Lower. They were about three hundred yards apart. On the day this discovery was made Mans- ker is said to have killed nineteen deer in passing along the path from one to the other. At length the ammunition of the party was exhausted, and having already enjoyed the fruits of a most successful hunt they took the long trail for their homes east of the mountains, arriving late in the spring. In company with other hunters, two of whom were named Bryant, Mansker came a third time to the Cumberland country in November, 1775. Traveling the well known route through Cumberland Gap^ and passing down through the river counties the party camped at Mansker's Lick, which had been discovered by the latter in 177 1. Most of them soon returned to Virginia, but Mansker and three others whose names are unknown to history, remained at the camp and began hunting and trapping on Sulphur Fork and Red River in Robertson and Montgomery Counties. Finding that a party of Blackfish Indians were hunt- ing in the same neighborhood the whites thought it the part of wisdom to discover their number and the location of their camp. Mansker was selected as the spy and proceeding forthwith on his mission, came upon the rendezvous of the Indians near the bank of Red River. Slipping nearer and nearer from tree to tree he soon came in full view and discovered there were only two of them in the camp. These were seated on the ground by the fire; the rest of the party he supposed were hunting in the distance. He decided to remain in hiding and await their return. A few moments later one of the Indians arose and taking his EARLY HISTORY OP MIDDLE TENNESSEE 3I tomahawk crossed the river to the opposite shore. The other shouldered a gun and started directly toward the tree behind which Mansker was standing. That was an eventful moment in the life of this mighty hunter, but there was no alternative. Mansker leveled his rifle and shot the Indian through the body. The latter gave a yell, threw down his gun, turned, and rushing by the camp pitched headlong down the bluff, dead, into the river. Mansker and the Indian on the other bank of the stream then had a race for the camp, but Mansker outran his adversary, and seizing a gun which had been left on the ground tried to fire, but it flashed in the pan and the Indian made his escape. Mans- ker broke the gun and returned with all haste to his companions. Next morning they all went back to the camp, but found that during the night the surviving warrior had returned, recovered and buried the body of his dead comrade, and loading his horse with furs and the camp utensils had gone toward the west. They followed him for a long distance, but finally gave up the chase. Returning to the camp at Mansker's Lick the hunters soon there^ after began their journey to Virginia. The Indian killed in this affray was probably the first of his race to be killed by the whites in Middle Tennessee. CHAPTER IX. THOMAS SHARP SPENCER. Thomas Sharp Spencer came next as an adventurer into the Cumberland Valley. Having heard from his neighbors, Mansker and Bledsoe, of the rich lands and abundance of big game throughout this region he came over from his home in Virginia in the spring of 1776. Besides other companions he brought with him a man named Holliday, and together they fixed a station at Bledsoe's Lick, probably having been directed hither by Isaac Bledsoe, who had discovered it several years before. 32 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE During the summer following, Spencer and . Holliday hunted over and explored the country for many miles around. In the bottom adjoining Bledsoe's Lick they cleared a few acres of land which they planted in corn. This they cultivated and gathered in autumn, thus being the first crop of grain raised in Middle Tennessee. Later on Holliday became dissatisfied and decided to return to Virginia. Spencer accompanied him to the Barrens of Ken- tucky, near where Glasgow now stands, and through which in those days there ran a trail leading back across the mountains. When they had bidden each other adieu and were about to separate, Holliday discovered that he had lost his hunting knife, whereupon Spencer broke his own knife in two and gave half of it to his departing comrade. The latter was never heard from thereafter and it is supposed he was killed by the Indians on his journey homeward. Spencer returned to Bledsoe's Lick and spent the winter alone in a hollow sycamore tree which stood in the bottom near the present site of the postoffice at Castalian Springs. This tree perished many years ago, but so long as it stood it was called by the settlers ''Spencer's House." Some time after the events above mentioned Spencer went back to Virginia, his native State, but returned to the Cumberland country in 1780. During the time of his residence in the sycamore tree he ex- plored the country side from Bledsoe's Lick to the mouth of Red River, near Clarksville, always keeping a sharp lookout for choice tracts of land to which, in the future, he might lay claim. Because of a false impression as to the provisions of the pre- emption law under which he was laboring, he supposed that by clearing a few acres and building a cabin on each section of 640 acres an individual would thus be able to possess himself of as much land as he might desire. In pursuance of this idea he EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 33 selected for himself four fine tracts in Sumner County. Three of these were in the region around Castalian Springs, and the fourth was near Gallatin, it being the same as that subsequently owned by General Miller. spencer's tree In 1781 the State of North Carolina, to which the territory embracing Middle Tennessee at that time belonged, defined by enactment its pre-emption law, which allowed only one section to each head of a family^ or single man who had reached the age of twenty-one. Spencer was thereby forced to make a choice of the four tracts previously staked off, and he accordingly selected 34 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE the one near Gallatin. This splendid body of land has ever since been known as "Spencer's Choice." It bounds the corporate limits of the town on the south, and comprises the land now occu- pied by the heirs of the late Capt. J. B. Howison, together with the farm just south of it, the latter the property of Mrs. John H. Oldham, and a part of the farm owned by Mr. R. P. Hite. The description of this tract, when granted to Spencer, called for natural boundaries which were supposed to embrace a sec- tion, but when an actual survey w^as made many years later it was found to contain about eight hundred acres. The records on file in the Register's office of Sumner County show that on August 17, 1793, Thomas Spencer conveyed to Stephen Cantrell two hun- dred acres of the above tract, the consideration being ''two hun- dred hard dollars." The remainder of the tract was inherited by William Spencer, brother of Thomas Spencer, at the latter's death. Spencer was a man of great physical strength, a giant in his day, well proportioned, broad shouldered, huge in body and limb, and weighing nearly four hundred pounds. His traditional feats of strength were numerous. On one occasion, shortly after the beginning of the settlement at Nashville, he was hunting with a fellow sportsman on Duck River in what is now Humphries County. As evening came on they sought a secluded spot where they might build a fire, cook a deer they had killed, and camp for the night. While they were preparing the meal a skulking party of Indians espied them, and creeping up to within range of the camp fired at them, killing Spencer's companion. Spencer, w^ho was unharmed, gathered up the dead body and gun of his fellow hunter and with the -added weight of his own arms and ammuni- tion dashed into the thick cane and was soon beyond the reach of danger. The Indians, seeing his great strength and activity, and knowing that he had with him two loaded guns, followed at a respectful distance. He succeeded in carrying off and burying EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 35 the remains of his comrade, after which he returned in safety to French Lick. That veteran pioneer of Sumner County, John Carr, who has written so entertainingly of the early period of our history, says that on one occasion he rode through a parcel of ground which SPENCER-S CHOICE Spencer had cleared. There were five or six acres in the field, around which was a rail fence. The timhers used therein, each of which was equal in size to ten or fifteen rails, Spencer had cut from the clearing and carried on his shoulder to where the fence was being built. 36 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE Another instance of his strength is related. He was sick and lying on a blanket by a fire near where two of the settlers were building a cabin. For a long time he watched them both strug- gle under the weight of a log trying in vain to put the end of it in place. Finally he arose from his blanket, walked to the cabin, took hold of the log and brushing the men aside threw it into position with apparent ease. Spencer had a large foot, huge even in proportion to his immense body. During his first winter at Bledsoe's Lick, Timothy DeMonbreun, as previously related, was conducting a trading station near Nashville, and had associated with him a party of hunters from Indiana and Illinois. One morning just at daybreak Spencer, who was himself a mighty hunter, and who happened to be in that neighborhood^ chased a herd of buffalo close by the door of a hut in which one of these Frenchmen was sleeping. It had been raining and the ground was very soft. The sleeping hunter, aroused by the noise of the chase, came out and seeing Spencer's footprint in the mud near the door, became frightened, swam the Cumberland River, and ran north through the wilderness until he reached the French settlement at Vincennes. There he related his experience and declared he would never return to a country that was inhabited by such giants. Spencer was of a quiet and peaceable disposition, and being possessed of a good face and gentlemanly manners was held in high esteem by all the settlers. Like Daniel Boone and others in kind who blazed the way of civilization on its westward march, he loved the solitude of the forest and often in times of greatest danger would for weeks hunt through the woods alone, and seem- ingly without fear. In this way he supplied food to the settlers in times of great need. He was never married, and after the settlements began to be established in Sumner and Davidson Coun- ties, he had no abode of his own. When not away on an expedi- EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 37 tion it was his custom to spend the night at any station most liable to be attacked by the Indians. In the fall of 1793 Spencer re- turned to Virginia for the purpose of winding up an estate and receiving therefrom a legacy which was his due. Returning with a party on horseback by way of Knoxville, they had reached an elevation which, because of this event has since been called Spen- cer's Hill, near the headwaters of Caney Fork River. True to his custom Spencer was riding alone some distance in advance of his party, when at a gap near the top of the hill he was fired upon and instantly killed by a band of Indians who were lying in wait. Thus ended a career than which in all the annals of early his- tory there is no more shining example of undaunted courage and heroic self-sacrifice. His horse, which was a splendid animal, took fright from the fall of his master, and dashing through the line of howling savages which had surrounded him, fled back to the party and thus escaped capture. Spencer's early advent into the region of Bledsoe's Lick proved to be a connecting link between the roving bands of hunters and adventurers who first came hither, and that hardier company whose annals we are about to consider, and who through toil and bloodshed, with trowel in one hand and sword in the other laid broad and deep the foundation of a mighty commonwealth. CHAPTER X. INDIAN TRIBES AND TREATIES. The first permanent settlers came to the French Lick in the winter of 1779. Let us now locate the principal Indian tribes living east of the Mississippi River at that time. As before related the region now included in Middle Tennes- see and Kentucky had for ages been held by the Indians as a 38 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE great National Park or Hunting Ground. The reasons for this were as follows : It was well watered and, to a greater extent than any other portion of North America, abounded in fish and game. All of this made it doubly desirable to the savage heart. The section thus embraced lay on either side of a dividing line between the tribes of the North and those of the South. The former were called the Iroquois, and consisted of various clans, principal among them being the Mohawks, Senecas, Cayugas, Oneidas, Ottawas and Kickapoos. They dwelt in the country now in- cluded in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan. Those of the South who were known collectively as the Mo- bilian race, included the Cherokees, Creeks, Seminoles, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Chickamaugas and Natchez. These were scattered over the States of Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee. For purposes of a common defense, the tribes of each of these groups were bound together in a kind of loose Con- federacy. Both the Iroquois and the Mobilians had formerly laid claim to the region in question, but neither could establish a better title than the other. After long and bloody wars over its possession, during the course of which many of the smaller tribes were completely exterminated, it was tacitly agreed that the land should be held in common. We have seen already that the Shaw- nees at one time invaded the Cumberland Vallley, but soon came to grief. Although at certain seasons they were allowed to re- turn and hunt, their rights thereafter were much abridged. The Cherokees were the mountaineers of their race and inhab- ited East Tennessee and North Georgia. They numbered about twelve thousand and were the inveterate foes of the pioneers. South of these were the warlike Creeks, twenty thousand strong, who lived in Alabama and South Georgia. They, too, were enemies of the whites. The Seminoles, originally a part of the EAKLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 39 Creek nation, inhabited the peninsula of Florida. Of these there were about five thousand. The Chickasaws occupied West Ten- nessee and were only about four thousand in number. They were peaceful and brave, and soon became allies of the early settlers, to whom they often gave warning- and aid in times of impending danger. Mississippi was inhabited by the Choctaws, of whom there were about fifteen thousand. They were far to the south, and, therefore, played but small part in the numerous wars in the western colonies. The Natchez, a remnant of an ancient but powerful tribe of Sun worshipers, occupied a small reservation on the Mississippi River just south of the Tennessee line. The Chickamaugas were a band of murderers and horse thieves, composed largely of out- laws previously belonging to the surrounding tribes, who were now clustered about the base of Lookout Mountain in the re- gion near Chattanooga. The westward march of civilization across and beyond the mountains during the last half of the eighteenth century had created a market for the Flunting Ground, and straightway each Indian tribe, both North and South, began afresh to assert its claims thereto. As later events disclosed, they were willing to sell to the whites on the most favorable terms, secretly resolving to take the scalps of the latter when they should try to possess themselves of their purchase. England was anxious to secure for her American subjects such titles from the Indians, little caring as to their real value. Her reason was self-evident. Spain claimed xMiddle Tennessee and Kentucky by right of the discov- eries of Columbus and the more recent expedition of I)e Soto. England having secured her title from those whom, for the time l)eing, she chose to regard as the real owners, might thus assert her priority of right. 4^ EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE At Fort Stanwix, New York, on November 5, 1768, the chiefs and head-men from seventeen tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy met Sir WilHam Johnson, agent of the Enghsh government, for the purpose of arranging a treaty. This council resulted in a sale to England by the Northern Indians of their right, title and interest in and to all that region known as the Hunting Ground, the boundaries of which were the Ohio River on the north and the Tennessee River on the south. The above transaction is known in history as the treaty of Fort Stanwix, and constituted the first conveyance of the land now included in Middle Tennes- see. By its terms as they appear in the original document it was a warranty of title "so long as grass grows and water flows," The latter is until this day a favorite expression among the In- dians when indicating an indefinite lapse of time. • Because of this transfer by the Iroquois the southern tribes were greatly enraged, but did not at this time take action as a whole. Later, however, the Cherokees made a sale of their in- terest thereto in a manner as below related. In the early colonial period, and even during the infancy of the republic, more than one man dreamed of a day when within the heart of North America he might found an empire over which he should sway the scepter and in which his will should be su- preme. Colonel Richard Henderson^ of North Carolina, was one of these, though his plan of government was a modification of that above outlined. He had selected the Hunting Ground be- yond the mountains as the scene of his venture. Henderson was a man of ability and enterprise, and entered into his scheme with the best of intentions. To his colonists he would grant the right to make their own laws, retaining only in his hands the power of the governorship. However, a pretext for seizing upon the lands above indicated must first be obtained. Therefore on March 17, 1775, Henderson, together with sev- EARLY HISTORY OP MIDDLE TENNESSEE 4I eral business associates and a number of hunters, among the lat- ter being Daniel Boone, met the Cherokees at Sycamore Shoals on tlie Watauga River in East Tennessee. This meeting was for the purpose of arranging terms of purchase of the Cherokee in- terest in the lands above mentioned. Henderson was an able lawyer and well knew that any conveyance thus obtained would be little more than a quit-claim deed, but such a title would afford the desired excuse for entering thereupon. At this conference were present about twelve hundred mem- bers of the tribe. After several days of consultation the Indians proposed a sale of all the lands lying between the Cumberland, Ohio and Kentucky Rivers, which tract comprised about seven- teen millions of acres. In return for this they agreed to accept goods to the value of fifty thousand dollars. Their proposition was promptly accepted, and the treaty signed on the part of the Cherokees by their chiefs, Oconostota, The Raven, and The Car- penter. Oconostota had previously made an eloquent speech in opposition to the sale thus made, but had finally accepted as his own the will of the majority. As the crowd dispersed the old chief took Boone by the hand and said : "Brother, we have sold to your people a fine country, but I believe they will have much trouble in settling it." In the light of after events these words were indeed the language of prophecy. This transaction is known in history as the treaty of Sycamore Shoals, or Watauga. This tract, which of Middle Tennessee included only that part north of the Cumberland River, was called by Henderson the Transylvania Purchase, the word Transylvania meaning "beyond the mountains." Associating with himself eight other persons, Henderson organized the "Transylvania Company" for the purpose of carrying out his plans. However, the scheme was finally abandoned, as it was clearly in violation of the law of the land for a private citizen to purchase land from the Indians, 4^ Early history of middle Tennessee a fact doubtless well known to Henderson. A number of the hunting and exploring parties mentioned in previous chapters had come to the Cumberland country under the patronage of the Transylvania Company. In 1780 the State of X'irginia declared void the treaty of Sycamore Shoals. However, in order that a feud might be avoided with the large and influential following of Henderson the Virginia Legislature granted to him, in com- pensation for his trouble and expense, a fine body of land in Western Kentucky. This tract, twelve miles square, w^as located between Green River and the Ohio in the region surrounding Owensboro. At the time of the Transylvania purchase, no survey having actually been made^ it was generallv supposed that the Cumberland Valley was within the territory belonging to Virginia. By right of title acquired from the Indians in the. treaties al)ove mentioned the early settlers came to inhabit Middle Ten- nessee. CHAPTER XI. FIRST SETTLERS. Because of glowing accounts given by the hunters on their return from the French Lick country a number of colonists in East Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia decided to move thither and form a settlement. At a council of those interested, held at Watauga, it was decided that a company of men should first go over, clear land and raise a crop of corn, that their wives and children might have bread awaiting them wdien the removal should take place later on. For this purpose a party set out from Watauga in the month of February, 1779. This band of hardy pioneers consisted of EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 43 James Robertson, George Freeland, William Neely, Edward Swanson, James Ilanly, Mark Robertson, Zachariah White, Wil- liam Overall, and a negro man whose name is unknown. James Robertson, the leader, had carefully selected his men, taking with him only suitable volunteers and exi)erienced woodmen, all true and tried. After three weeks of hardships on their journey over the mountains and through the wilderness they reached the French Lick. A few days later they were joined by a small BRIGADIKR-GENRRAL JAMES ROBERTSON " FATHER OF TENNESSEE'' company from the region of New River, \^irginia. These were led by Kasper Mansker, with whom Robertson had doubtless been in correspondence before leaving Watauga. A body of land near the Sulphur Spring and now within the corporate limits of Nashville was selected as the site of the cornfield. This both parties united in clearing, planting and cultivating during the spring and summer which followed. Around it they built 44 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE a rude fence for its protection against the wild animals that came daily to drink at the spring. When at length the crop was laid by, Swanson, White and Overall were left to keep the buffalo out of the corn while the rest of the party returned to the settlement for their families. James Robertson, however, did not go with the latter, but made the journey homeward by way of Kaskaskia, Illinois. This pil- grimage was for the purpose of having an interview with General George Rogers Clark, a distinguished citizen and soldier of Vir- ginia, and pioneer in the settlement of Kentucky. The latter had founded the city of Louisville at the Falls of the Ohio in 1778, and was now quartered near Kaskaskia at the French fort he had recently captured. As previously related, the boundary line between North Car- olina and Virginia, to which the territory included in Tennessee and Kentucky at this time respectively belonged, had not yet been fixed. Robertson believed that the country around French Lick was within the limits of Virginia. He also doubted the legality of the title thereto of Henderson's Transylvania Company under whose patronage he and his fellow settlers had come. He had heard that General Clark, as the agent of Virginia, had for sale along the Cumberland certain land claims, called ''cabin rights," which could be bought for a small sum. By the purchase of these he might insure himself and his fellow immigrants against future annoyance. Just what information Robertson received during his visit is unknown to history. It is believed, however, that General Clark gave him assurance that French Lick was safely within the boundary of North Carolina, and that he would therefore need no favors from Virginia. At least that was the impression that soon thereafter prevailed among the colonists. Before leav- ing Kaskaskia, Robertson bought a drove of live stock, consisting EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 45 of horses, mules and ponies. Finding some men who were going to East Tennessee, he offered them passage on the backs of his animals. The proposition was readily accepted, and soon this caravan was on its way to Watauga, the route being to Harrods- burg, Ky., and thence through Cumberland Gap. On reaching home Robertson found everything in readiness for an early re- moval to the new settlement. By the middle of October a company of about 380 immigrants, gathered from all the settlements between Knoxville and New River, were ready to begin the journey. It was arranged that they should go in two parties. The first of these, led by James Robertson, and consisting of a majority of the men, should travel overland, and by an early arrival have everything in readiness for the coming of the second party. The latter, composed largely of the families of the first party, and commanded by Colonel John Donelson and Capt. John Blackmore, were to proceed by boats down the Tennessee River to the Ohio and thence up the Cumberland to French Lick. It was agreed that after the arrival of the land party at the new settlement some of their number should go down to the upper end of Muscle Shoals on the Tennessee River in North Alabama. There they would either await the coming of the voyagers under Donelson and Blackmore, or leave certain signs indicating whether or not it was considered safe for the river party to quit the boats and go from thence across the country to the French Lick. If this could be done, it would shorten the journey and also avoid the danger of running the shoals. Colonel John Donelson, who is mentioned in connection with the above, was born in the year 1718, and was a native of Pittsyl- vania County, Virginia. He was by profession a surveyor, which vocation in that day was a mark of the highest educational at- tainment. From the same section of Virginia originally came 46 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE the Robertsons, the Bledsoes, the Cartwrights and Hendersons, all of whom were untiring in their efforts to extend the limits of civilization across the western mountains. We shall learn much more of Colonel Donelson in subsequent chapters. CHAPTER XH. JAMES ROBERTSON. THE ARRIVAL AT FRENCH LICK. James Robertson, the leader of the expedition about to be described, and who from henceforth will play an important part in the Cumberland settlement, is called l)y some historians the ''Father of Tennessee." With equal propriety he may be called the "Father of Middle Tennessee." He was born in Brunswick County, Virginia, June 28, 1742, and while yet a youth removed with his parents to Orange County (now Wake County), North Carohna. In 1768 he married Miss Charlotte Reeves, of that State. Having heard and answered the alluring call of the West he journeyed in the spring of 1770 from North Carolina to the Holston River in East Tennessee. There he lent his aid to the Shelbys, Seviers and others in founding Watauga, the first col- ony west of the mountains. For nine 3'ears previous to his coming to the Cumberland he had heroically braved the dangers of the wilderness and suffered innumerable privations because o^ the ravages of hostile Indians, being exposed to the cruelties of these savage foes. Of him Judge John Haywood, his contemporary and intimate friend, has said : "Like almost all those in America who have attained distinction Robertson could boast of neither noble lineage nor splendid ancestry. But he had what was far more valuable, a sound mind, a healthy body^ a robust frame, an intrepid soul and an emulous desire for honest fame." EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 47 In personal appearance Robertson was tall, of fair complexion, light blue eyes, and dark hair. Though quiet and retiring in manner, he was by nature a leader of men and master of affairs. That pioneer Frenchman, Timothy DeMonbreun, once said of Robertson : ''He always know savoir faire, vat to do and he do him." During the thirty-five years succeeding the foundation of the Cumberland settlement he was a representative of the Federal Government in the negotiation of every treaty made with the Indians of the South. The latter held him in great veneration, always explaining this esteem by saying that "he has winning ways and makes no fuss." In dealings with the savages Robert- son was unquestionably the greatest diplomat the world has ever known. But let us return to the immigrants. Late in October, 1779, the overland party, about two hundred strong, left Watauga. The route chosen was a difficult one, leading as it did, by way of southern Kentucky. Passing along the well-beaten trace through the mountains at Cumberland Gap they traveled what was then known as the Kentucky Trace to Whitley's Station on Dick's River, thence to Carpenter's Station on Green River, and thence to Robertson's Fork on the north side of Green River. From there they journeyed down the river to Pittman's Station, descend- ing the stream to Little Barren, which was crossed at Elk Lick. From thence they passed over to Big Barren and then up Drake's Creek to a noted 1)ituminous spring, thence to a location in Simpson County called Maple Swamp. From the latter place they crossed into Robertson County, Tennessee, and traveled along Red River to Cross Plains, going south by way of Good- lettsville, and passing over Cumberland River at the bluff where Nashville now stands. This, the end of their journey, was reached the latter part of December, probably on Christmas Day. 48 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 1779, and quite two months after their departure from Watauga. The weather during the months of November and December had been extremely severe, a large part of the journey having been made through snow. The party had suffered much from cold. This season has ever since been known throughout the Eastern States as the "hard winter." However, Robertson and all his fol- lowers arrived in safety, having traveled about five hundred miles. No deaths had occurred and they had been free from attacks by the Indians. Cumberland River was frozen solid from bank to bank, and the entire party crossed over on the ice. When they were in mid stream the ice began to break with a cracking sound that might have been heard for many miles, and all the company were badly frightened lest they should be plunged into the river. It only settled a little, however, and finally landed them safe on the other side. Soon after leaving Watauga, Robertson and his companions had been overtaken by a party from New River under the leader- ship of John Rains. The latter had with them both horses and cattle, and were bound for Harrod's Station, which was located at the present site of Harrodsburg, Mercer County, Kentucky. Robertson prevailed on them to change their plan and accom- pany him to French Lick. Rains had formerly visited both loca- tions, and in discussing the matter with Robertson declared that he felt like a man who wished to get married and knew two beau- tiful women either of whom He could have, and both of whom he wanted. During the same winter Kasper Mansker, Daniel Frazier, Amos Eaton and a number of other immigrants followed the route pursued by the first company, and after suffering great privations reached the Cumberland country about the first of January. Near the same time there arrived from South Carolina EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 49 a party consisting of John and Alex Buchanan, Daniel and Samp- son Williams, John and James Mulherrin, Thomas Thompson and others whose names are now unknown, all of whom had come to cast their fortunes with the new colony. Many ties of kinship were afterwards disclosed as existent between various members of these several companies, and it is more than likely that this seeming coincidental movement westward by those from widely separated localities was brought about by a previous nat- ural correspondence resulting from such relations. There were a few women and children with the Rains and Mansker parties, but none with those led by Robertson and Buchanan. Seeing no signs or Indians on their arrival, and having been unmolested on their journey thither, the settlers were inclined to scatter over the country, locating on any body of land they might fancy within a radius of twenty or twenty-five miles of French Lick. Robertson, however, believed there was trouble ahead, and therefore advised the building of a stockade into which all should come for j^rotection at night. By many this advice went unheeded, and as a result they soon came to grief. It was agreed, however, that the stockade at the Bluff should be headquarters for the colony. This fort, which was called the Bluff Station, was located at the foot of Church Street, in what Is now the city of Nashville, and near a bold spring, the water of which at that time flowed out of the bank and down a precipice into the river. This spring was filled and lost sight of while the city was in progress of building, but was again uncovered a few years ago by workmen who were excavating for the foundation of a new structure in that vicinity. This fort was to be a place of general council, the seat of government, and together with the small village which sprang up immediately around it was offi- cially called Nashborough in honor of General Francis Nash, a 50 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE former Governor of North Carolina, and Brigadier-General in the Revolutionary Army. He was mortally wounded and died at Germantown, October 4, 1777. The main building in the Bluff fort, which was at first occu- pied by Robertson and two or three companions was a log struct- ure two stories high, with port holes around the walls both above and below. These were for rifles in case of attack. On top was a lookout station from which sentinels might discover the ap- proach and movements of the enemy. Other cabins were built round about, the whole being inclosed by a circlet of cedar pickets driven firmly into the ground. The upper ends of these pickets were sharpened to a point, making it practically impossible to scale the rude wall thus formed. There was but one entrance to this enclosure ; a gate, which by means of a heavy log chain was securely fastened at night. From the lookout on this fort the settlers might have a com- manding view of the surrounding country. To the west and south beyond Broad Street, the scene was much obstructed by a forest of cedars under which was a thick growth of bushes. On the uplands and slopes around and beyond this was an abun- dance of timber of all varieties, and of gigantic size. The bot- tom lands along the river and to the east and north were covered by a thick growth of cane from ten to twenty feet in height, presenting a picture quite in contrast to that which might be viewed to-day from a similar elevation. 1 CHAPTER Xni. LOCATION OF FORTS. Within a few weeks after the completion of the Bluff Fort a number of other and smaller stations had been planted in the EARLY HISTO.RY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 5I surrounding country. The first of these was that of John Rains, who went out to what is now Waverly Place, and selecting a site near a spring built a cabin for himself and family, and also constructed pens of brush and rails for the twenty-one cows and seventeen horses brought by him from New River. Rains is thus entitled to credit for having first introduced these annnals into Middle Tennessee. George, Jacob and James Freeland and others of the party selected a site in McGavock's addition to Nashville, and there beside a large spring which sent forth a lasting stream of water, built a fort which is known to history as Freeland's Station. This was connected with the Bluff Fort by a few buffalo paths running through the thick canebrake which at that time covered the Sul- phur Spring bottom. Eaton's Station was located on the east side of the river, a mile and a half down the same from the Bluff. It was built by Amos Eaton, Isaac Lindsey, Louis Crane, Hayden Wells, Frederick Stump, Sr., Isaac Roundsever, William Loggins and a man named Winters. This station was composed of a number of cabins built around a circle with a stockade from one to another. There were portholes through both the stockade and the outer walls of the cabins for purposes of defense. Kasper Mansker, as previously noted, was by no means a stranger to the Cumberland country. Now taking with him Wil- liam Neely, James Franklin^ Daniel Frazier and others, he jour- neyed twelve miles north of the Bluff to the region of the twin licks he had discovered while hunting eight years before. Here on the west side of Mansker's Creek, and three or four hundred yards from what was later known as Walton's camp ground, they built a fort which was called Mansker's Station. It was located near Goodlettsville on the farm now owned by the heirs of Peyton Roscoe. In the spring of 1783 this fort was moved to a site a mile above this location on the east side of 52 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE the creek. Mansker was of German descent, and in conversation with the settlers spoke broken EngHsh. Though without col- legiate education he was a man of fine intelligence and superior 1 judgment, a great woodsman, a splendid marksman, a mighty hunter and a brave soldier. No man among the early pioneers understood better than did he the art of Indian warfare, and on RESIDENCK OF MRS. HATTIK UTLKY NEAR GOODLETS VILLE FORMER HOME OF KASPER MANSKER this account he was able to render excellent service in routing the savages from the Cumberland Valley. In the early days he was the proud possessor of a flintlock rifle which he called "Nan- cy," after the manner of the old hunters who were given to the habit of denominating each his favorite weapon by some feminine EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 53 nickname. In his latter years the younger generation often lis- tened with eager attention while he related his exploits and con- flicts with the Indians. Soon after the founding of his station Mansker was made a colonel in the frontier militia. He engaged actively iu nearly all of the bloody wars which followed, and though far advanced in years was present at the taking of the Indian village Nickajack, a campaign to be described later on. His wife, like himself, was of foreign birth, and lived to an ad- vanced age. To them no children were born. Both, true to the instincts of their nationality, were thrifty, and in their old age owned and occupied a fine farm near the site of the second fort. Here they died some years after the cessation of Indian hostilities. Their rmains are buried in the family cemetery on the old home- stead, now owned by Mrs. Hattie Utley. During the spring of 1780 Isaac Bledsoe built a fort in Sumner County at the lick he had previously discovered. The time of the location of this fort is positively determined by the fact that Bledsoe's Station is mentioned in the compact of government which was formulated at Nashborough on May i, 1780. The site of this fort is near Castalian Springs and on land now owned by Henry Belote. In the walls of a barn belonging to the latter are some of the old logs used in the construction of the station cabins. Another of the immigrants by the name of Asher, taking with him a party of companions from the Bluff, went twenty-eight miles northeast into Sumner County and built a fort two and a half miles southeast of Gallatin on the buffalo path leading from Mansker's Lick to Bledsoe's. This was called Asher's Station, and was located on what is now known as the Arch Overton farm near the dirt road leading from Gallatin to Cairo. .Some time during the month of January or February, another party consisting of Thomas Killgore, Moses and Ambrose Mauldon, 54 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE Samuel Mason, Josiah Hankins and others went up into the Red jl River country and estabHshed Killgore's Station in Robertson County near Cross Plains. Fort Union was also built by Robt. Hays at a point five or six miles up the river from the bluff and on the site of the more modern Haysborough. The settlers at the Bluff and surrounding stations lived dur- GRAVES OF KASPER MANSKER AND WIFE ing the first winter and spring chiefly on wild game, which was of sufficient quantity but very poor in quality. Large numbers of the deer and other animals of like nature were found to have died of hunger by reason of the heavy snows and long and intense cold. All food was of the plainest and most simple of prepara- tion. The only obtainable substitute for butter and lard was EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 55 bear's oil, of which, however, the hunters became very fond. The small crop of corn raised in the Sulphur Spring bottom the sum- mer before furnished them a limited supply of bread. In the latter part of January some of the men in pursuit of game through the woods were surprised to find traces of a party of Indians. These they were able to identify by the moccasin prints and also because the toes of the tracks turned inward, a characteristic of the savage foot. Following on apace the hunt- ers found them encamped on a branch of Mill Creek in Davidson County, a few miles south of the Bluff. The stream mentioned has since been called Indian Creek because of this incident. The whites returned at once to the Bluff, and a delegation was sent down from the settlement to seek an interview, and discover if possible whether the intruders were only friendly visitors or on mischief bent. The whites had no interpreter, but after ''heap much talk/' combined with a variety of sign making it was found that they were of the Delaware tribe. Probably ignorant of the advent of the settlers they had journeyed hundreds of miles from their home in New Jersey for a quiet hunt in the reservation. Having been already for some time in the Caney Fork country, which at that time abounded in game, they remained only a few days near the settlement, after which they quietly took their leave going south into Alabama. This was the first Indian fright ex- perienced by the settlers. Many others followed, some of which proved more serious in consequences. Soon after the erection of the stations James Robertson, who, with such marked success, had led the largest of the four bands through the wilderness, was chosen colonel of the local militia. This office was conferred by unanimous vote, and for the time being bestowed the highest authority in matters pertaining to t^e government and defense of the settlements. Though several months had now elapsed since the beginning of the journey from 56 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE Watauga, no tidings had yet been received from the river party, and a feeling of uneasiness as to their safety began to pervade the colony. Let us return to the scene of their embarkment and follow them through the events of their voyage. CHAPTER XIV DONELSON S VOYAGE. THE RIVER FLEETS BEGIN THEIR LONG JOURNEY. Because of delays incident to such occasions, the fleets under Colonel Donelson and Captain Blackmore did not sail for nearly two months after the departure of the land farce. Finally, how- ever, the voyage was begun by each about the same time; Donel- son's party from Fort Patrick Henry, five or six miles above the north fork of Holston River, and that commanded by Blackmore, from Blackmore's Fort on Clinch River. Of the adventures of the latter we know but little until after they were united with Donelson's fleet at the mouth of Clinch River some time there- after. Colonel Donelson was aboard the "Adventure," the largest boat in the flotilla, and for this he kept a journal in which was re- corded all the principal events of the journey from the time of sailing until it reached the French Lick four months later. For- tunately this document has been preserved^ and is now m the archives of the Tennessee Historical Society at Nashville. It is styled a ''Journal of a Voyage intended by God's permission in the good boat Adventure from Fort Patrick Henry on Holston River to the French Salt Springs on Cumberland River, kept by John Donelson." From this journal we gain the- information that the first mentioned wing of the fleet took its departure from Fort Patrick Henry on December 22d. At that time, as we have EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 57 already seen, the land party was within a few days of its desti- nation. From there the Adventure and its companion boats fell down the river to Reedy Creek^ where they were stopped by low water and excessive cold. Here they remained for some time, finally reaching the month of Cloud's Creek on Sunday evening, February 20, 1780. They passed the mouth of French Broad River on Thursday morning, March 2. About noon that day one of the boats which was conveying Hugh Henry and fam- ily ran on the point of William's Island two miles above Knox- ville, and by force of the current sank. The freight therein was much damaged, and lives of passengers greatly endangered. Colonel Donelson ordered the whole fleet tied up while the men of the party assisted in bailing the sunken boat and replacing her cargo. The same afternoon Ruben Harrison, one of the party, went hunting in the woods along the shore and did not return. Dur- ing the afternoon and night many guns were fired to warn him. Early next morning a small four-pound cannon, the property of Robert Cartwright, and which was mounted on the Adventure, was also fired, the voyagers hoping thereby to attract the atten- tion of the lost man. Numerous parties were sent out to scour the woods, but all to no avail. On Saturday morning, March 4th, after leaving the young man's father and the occupants of a few boats to continue the search, the main body moved off down stream. About ten o'clock that day young Harrison was found and taken aboard from the shore some miles below, to which place he had wandered the day before. The party camped that night on the vSouth bank of the river in Loudon County, near the present beautiful and picturesque site of Lenoir City. Sunday morning, March 5th, the fleet was under way before sunrise, and at noon passed the mouth of Clinch River in Roane County, where Kingston now stands. Three hours later they 58 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE overtook the boats under command of Captain Blackmore, the whole party camping again that night on the shore. Donelson's Journal does not record the number of boats in this fleet, but James Cartwright, for many years a citizen of Gallatin, and whose father, Robert Cartwright, was with Donelson on the Adventure, related that when the boats from the Holston united with those from the Clinch they were about forty in number. These consisted of scows, canoes and pirogues, the latter being a kind of rude craft hollowed out from the trunks of trees. Nearly all the boats had tvv^o or more families aboard. In the combined party there were a hundred and thirty women and children, and about fifty men. The cargo consisted of the household goods and personal effects of those aboard and of, those who had gone with Robert- son by land. The Adventure carried the largest number of pas- sengers. Among them were the wife and five children of James Robertson, Robert Cartwright and family, and Colonel Donelson's family, including his daughter^ Rachael, who afterwards became the wife of General Andrew Jackson. The names of other per- sons who came with this fleet are as follows : John Donelson, Jr., son of Colonel Donelson, Benjamin Porter, Hugh Rogan, James McCain, Isaac Neely, John Cotton, Jonathan Jennings, William Crutchfield, John Boyd, Isaac Renfroe, John and Solomon Tur- pin. Francis Armstrong, John Montgomery, Isaac Lanier, Dan- iel Dunham, John Cockrill, John Caffrey, Thomas Hutchins, Ben- jamin Belew, John Gibson, Hugh and Thomas Henry, Frank Haney, Russell Gower, Daniel Chambers, David Gwinn, M. Roundsever, and Messrs. Maxwell, Stuart, Payne and Johns, also Mrs. Mary Purnell and Mrs. Mary Henry, and their respect- ive families. The flotilla now proceeded in a body. During Wednesday, March 8, they came to the first inhabited Indian town on the 4 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 59 Tennessee River near Chattanooga. Its inhabitants were of the treacherous Chickamauga tribes, who, on sighting the boats, came flocking to the river and insisted that the voyagers should come ashore. They gave signs of friendship^ calhng the whites brothers and addressing them in other famihar terms, insomuch that John Donelson, Jr., and John Caffrey took a canoe and rowed toward them, the fleet having anchored on the opposite shore. When Donelson and Caffrey were about mid-stream they were met by Archie Coody, a half-breed, and several other In- dians who warned them to return to the fleet. They did so, followed by Coody and his companions. The latter seemed friendly, and Colonel Donelson distributed among them presents, with which they were much pleased. Looking across toward the village just at this time they saw a large party of Indians armed and painted in red and black, embarking in canoes on the other side. Coody at once made signs to his companions ordering them to quit the fleet, which order they readily obeyed, while he remained with the whites and urged them to move off at once. The boats were scarcely under way again when they discovered the village Indians, still armed and bedecked in war-paint, coming down the river, seem- ingly to intercept them. However, the whites were not over- taken. Coody rowed along in his canoe with the fleet for some time, but finally assuring Colonel Donelson that he had passed all the Chickamauga towns and was, therefore, free from danger, turned about and rowed back toward the first village. The whites had not proceeded far, however, before they came in sight of another mud-cabin town situated likewise on the south side of the river, and nearly opposite a small island. Here the savages again invited them to come ashore, calling them brothers as on the previous occasion. However, the settlers were too wise to be led into such a trap, and headed their boats for the opposite 6o EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE channel around the island. Seeing this, the Indians called to them through one of their number who could speak English, tell- ing them that the channel chosen was unsafe, and that their side of the river was much better for such passage. Captain Blackmore's boat ran too near the northern shore, and was fired upon by a band of Indians who lay concealed near the bank. Young Mr. Payne, who was aboard the craft, was killed as a result of such an unexpected volley. There was with the flotilla a boat carrying twenty-eight pas- sengers, among whom an epidemic of smallpox had broken out. To guard against a spread of this disease to other members of the fleet agreement had been made that it should keep well to the rear, its owner, Mr. Stuart, being notified each night by the sound of a hunting horn when those ahead went into camp. Therefore, this unfortunate party was far behind while the events above mentioned were taking place. When they came down opposite the towns the Indians were on the shore in large num- bers and seeing them thus cut ofif from the rest of the fleet swarmed out in canoes and with cold-blooded, murderous intent killed and captured the entire crew. Cries of the latter were dis- tinctly heard by those in the boats ahead, but they were unable to stem the swift current and thus return to aid their perLshing comrades. But the Indians sufifered a swift and righteous retribution for this wanton act of cruelty. They became infected with the dis- ease of their victims, and for many months thereafter smallpox raged, not only among the Chickamaugas, but in the tribes of their neighbors, the Creeks and Cherokees. When stricken with the malady and while the fever was yet upon them, the savages would take a heavy sweat in their huts. When driven to madness by the fever and heat, they would rush out and leap into the river, from the eflfects of which folly they died by scores. Old EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 6l persons of to-day well remember the traditional accounts of a great and terrible mortality which prevailed among- the savages after the capture of Stuart's boat. CHAPTER XV. PERILS OF THE RIVER. News of the fleet's approach seems to have preceded it down the river, and now at every turn the unhappy voyagers were greeted with signs of hostility. They had by this time reached the Whirl or Suck, ten miles dow^n from Chattanooga, where the river is compressed into less than half its usual channel by the jutting walls of the Cumberland Mountains. While passing through the "boiling pot" near the upper end of these narrows an accident occurred which almost cost the immigrants their lives. John Cotton had attached a large canoe in which he was travel- ing, to Robert Cartwright's flatboat on which his household goods were stored, and into the latter Cotton and his family had gone for greater safety. At this point the canoe was overturned and its cargo lost. Pitying Cotton's distress those ahead decided to call a halt and help recover the property. They landed at a level spot on the north bank and were going back to the scene of the accident when to their utter surprise the Indians appeared in great numbers on the opposite cliffs above and began firing down on them. The would-be rescuers beat a hasty retreat to their boats and shoving off rowed rapidly down the river. The sav- ages lining the bluffs overhead kept up a brisk fire, during which four of the immigrants were wounded. In the boat of Russell Cower was his daughter^ Nancy Cower. When the crew was thrown into disorder by the attack, Nancy took the helm and steered through the narrows though exposed to all the fire of 62 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE the enemy. A bullet from an Indian's rifle passed entirely through her body, but she made no outcry, standing bravely at her post. No one knew she was wounded until her mother dis- covered the blood-stains on her garments. She survived the wound and afterwards became the wife of Anderson Lucas, one of the first settlers at Nashville. It would seem that the events above recorded were enough for one day, but the end was not yet. A boat belonging to Jona- than Jennings ran on a large rock jutting out into the water at the lower end of the whirl. The enemy soon discovered Jen- nings' plight, and turning their whole attention to him, kept up a most galling fire on his boat and its occupants. He immediately ordered his wife, a son nearly grown, a young man who was a passenger, and two negro servants, a man and a woman, to throw all the goods into the river that they might thus lighten the craft and get it afloat. Jennings himself, being a good sol- dier and a fine marksman, took up his rifle and returned the fire of the Indians with great effect. Before the boat was unloaded, his son, the young man who was a passenger, and the negro man jumped overboard and started to swim ashore. The negro man was drowned, but the two young men reached the bank where they secured a canoe and started down the river. Mrs. Jennings and the negro woman continued their work of unload- ing the boat, assisted by Mrs. Peyton, a daughter of Mrs. Jen- nings and the wife of Ephraim Peyton, who had gone overland with Robertson. An infant, to which Mrs. Peyton had given birth only the day before this disaster, was accidentally killed in the confusion and excitement incident to unloading the boat. When the goods were all thrown overboard Mrs. Jennings got out and shoved the boat off the rocks. In so doing she nearly lost her life because of its sudden lurch into the water. History has seldom recorded deeds of greater heroism than those accred- EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 63 ited to the brave women who were among the immigrants on this most memorable voyage to a new and unknown land. The two young men who deserted the boat were met on their way down the river by five canoes full of Indians. By the latter they were taken prisoners and carried back to one of the Chicka- mauga towns. There young Jennings was knocked down by the savages who were about to take his life, when a friendly trader by the name of Rogers came up and ransomed him with goods and trinkets. He was afterwards restored to his relatives at the French Lick settlement. The other captive was killed and his body burned. All other boats of the fleet were ahead of that of Jennings, and though their occupants feared for its safety, they were ignorant of its peril. They had proceeded without inci- dent during Wednesday night, and after sailing all day Thursday, Marcli 9, considered themselves beyond the reach of danger, and camped at dusk on the northern shore. About four o'clock next morning they were aroused by a cry of "help !" from the river. Upon investigation it was found that the call was from the Jen- nings boat, whose occupants were drifting down stream in a most wretched condition. They had discovered the whereabouts of their fellow-travelers by the light of the camp fires ashore. It was little short of miraculous that they should have escaped with- out the slightest wound, as their boat and even the clothing they wore had been pierced by many bullets. The members of this unfortunate family having now been distributed among the remaining boats, the voyage was resumed. After a day of safe passage the fleet anchored again at night on the northern shore. On March 12 they came to the upper end of the Muscle Shoals near the present site of Tuscumbia, Alabama. Here, we remember, it had been agreed that a party from French Lick should either meet them or leave a sign which should determine 64 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE theii future course. Doubtless the commanders of this flotilla and the company they were leading looked forward with a sense of relief to a probable journey from this point overland, by which they might escape the further perils of the river. In this, how- ever, they were doomed to disappointment, for upon their arrival at the head of the Shoals neither the party nor the promised sign were in evidence. Colonel Robertson's reason for not ful- filling this part of the agreement is unknown. A probable ex- planation is that because of the unexpected length of his own journey he supposed the river party had already passed the Shoals by the time he reached French Lick. Nevertheless, the crews of the flotilla, though well aware of the dangers confronting them, were determined to continue the voyage. The Shoals are described as being at that time dreadful to behold. The river was swollen beyond its wont, the swift current running out in every direction from piles of driftwood which were heaped high upon the points of the islands. This deflection of the stream made a terrible roaring, which might be heard for many miles. At some places the boats dragged the bottom, while at others they were warped and tossed about on the waves as though in a rough sea. The passage which was, withal, exceedingly dangerous, was made in about three hours, the entire fleet coming through into the western channel of the river without accident. CHAPTER XVI. END OF THE VOYAGE. Two days later some of the boats coming too near the shore were fired upon by the Indians and five of the crew were wounded That night after having gone into camp near the mouth of a creek in' Hardin County, Tennessee, the party became alarmed by EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 65 the loud barking of their dogs, and supposing that the eneniy was again upon them, ran hastily down to the river, leaving all the camp outfit behind. Springing into the boats they drifted in the darkness about a mile down stream and camped again on the opposite shore. Next morning John Donelson, Jr., and John CaiTrey, who seem to have been the scouts of the expedition, determined to find out the cause of alarm. Securing a canoe they rowed back to the first camp where they found an old negro man, a member of the party, sound asleep by the fire. In the hurried flight of the night before no one had thought to wake him, and he was yet undisturbed by the rays of the morning sun. The alarm was false, for nothing had been molested. The party now returned and gathered up their belongings, after which another day's voyage was begun. On Monday night, March 20, they arrived at the mouth of the Tennessee River and went into camp on the lowland which is now the site of Pa- ducah. Though already much worn by hunger and fatigue, the supply of provision having run short, they were here confronted by new difficulties, the whole making the situation extremely disagreeable. Having been constructed to float with the tide their boats were unable to ascend the rapid current of the Ohio, which was almost out of banks by reason of the heavy spring rains. They were also ignorant of the distance yet to be trav- eled, and the length of time required to reach their destination. Some of the company here decided to abandon the journey to French Lick; a part of them floating down the Ohio and Mis- sissippi to Natchez, the rest going to points in Illinois. Among the latter were John Caffrey and wife, the son-in-law and daugh- ter of Colonel Donelson. This loss of companionship made a continuation of the voyage doubly trying on those who were left behind. However, noth- ing daunted, they determined to pursue their course eastward, 5 66 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE regardless of all the danger. Accordingly they set sail on Tues- day, the 2 1st, but were three days in working their way up the Ohio from Paducah to the mouth of the Cumberland, a distance of fifteen miles. Arriving at the latter place they were undecided as to whether the stream they found was really the Cumberland. Some declared it could not be the latter, because it was very much smaller in volume than they had expected to find. Prob- ably their three days of incessant toil against the swift current of the Ohio had much to do with this pygmean appearance of our own beloved and historic river. However, they had heard of no stream flowing into the Ohio between the Tennessee and Cumberland, and, therefore, decided to make the ascent. They were soon assured by the widening channel that they were correct in their conjectures. In order to make progress up stream Colo- nel Donelson rigged the Adventure with a small sail made out of a sheet. To prevent the ill effects of any sudden gusts of wind a man was stationed at each lower corner of this sail with instruc tions to loosen it when the breeze became too strong. For three days after entering the mouth of the Cumberland their journey was without incident. An occasional hunting ex- cursion was made through the forest which skirted the shore Thus was procured a supply of buffalo meat, which was poor but palatable. On the second day out a large swan came floating by the Adventure. Colonel Donelson shot it, and describes the cooked flesh thereof as having been very delicious. Two days later they gathered from a place in the bottoms near the shore a quantity of greens which some of the company called Shawnee salad. To this day the spot above mentioned is known as "Pat's Injun Patch," so named for Colonel Donelson's old negro cook. Patsy, who was called "Pat for short.'' On Friday, March 31, they had the good fortune to meet Colonel Henderson, of the Transylvania Company, who was out EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 67 with a surveying party trying to establish the much disputed boundary line between Virginia and North Carolina. This meet- ing was very timely, as Colonel Henderson had come over by way of French Lick and brought to them good tidings of the arrival of Colonel Robertson and his companions from whom they had not heard since the latter began their perilous westward march over the Kentucky trail five months before. Until late in the night they plied him with questions about the new country toward which they were journeying. He painted in glowing colors the future before them, and by way of relieving anxiety as to present needs vouchsafed the information that he had just purchased a quantity of corn from the settlements in Kentucky to be shipped by boat from Louisville to French Lick for the use of the settlers. Doubtless there was then a silver lining to the cloud of uncertainty that had long hovered over this hardship-riden band of adven- turers. But there were yet three weeks of sailing before them. At length they arrived without further accident, at the mouth of Red River in Montgomery County, where they bade adieu to Isaac Renfroe and several companions, the latter having on a previous hunting trip selected a location at that place. The voy- age was now near an end, and on April 23, they found them- selves alongside of Eaton's Station, a mile and a half below the Bluff fort. The following day, Monday, April 24, they joined their relatives and friends of the Robertson expedition from whom they had parted many weeks before. Colonel Donelson records the fact that it was then a great source of satisfaction to himself and his associates that they were now able to restore to Colonel Robertson and others their families and friends, whom sometime since, perhaps, they had despaired of ever meeting again. Thirty-three of the party had perished by the way, and nine of those who remained were wounded. 68 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE Truly has Gilmore said : ''This voyage hm no parallel in his- tory. A thousand miles they had journeyed in 'frail boats upon unknown and dangerous rivers. The country through which they passed was infested by hostile Indians, and their way had been over foaming whirlpools and dangerous shoals where for days they had run the gauntlet and been exposed to the fire of the whole nation of Chickamaugas, the fiercest Indian tribe on this continent." In all events it will stand forth to the end of time as one of the most remarkable achievements in the early settlement of the American continent. CHAPTER XVII. COMPACT OF GOVERNMENT. Soon after his arrival Colonel Donelson, together with his son, John Donelson, Jr., Hugh Rogan and others, went ten miles up the Cumberland to the mouth of Stones River. There in the midst of a fine body of land, since known as the ''Clover Bottom," they built a fort, the location of which was about a hundred and fifty yards northwest of where the Lebanon turnpike now crosses Stories River. This beautiful tract of rich bottom land took its name from the thick growth of native white clover which covered it at that time. The Turpins and Johns went back down the river to Clarksville and there joined Renfroe in establishing near the mouth of Red River the station which bore his name. The rest of those who had come by water found locations m the various forts already erected at the time of their arrival. Thus it appears that the entire population of Middle Ten- nessee at that time was less than five hundred. These were housed in the eight or nine forts of Davidson and Sumner EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 69 Counties. The little colony thus constituted was in the heart of a wild and, save their own presence, an uninhabited country several hundred miles from any other settlement and much fur- ther from the seat of government. North Carolina, the parent State, was now engaged in the Revolutionary War, and, therefore, could not, or would not, minister to the wants of her colony upon the distant frontier, while the latter, by reason of its seeming security from the legal processes of the States, was fast becoming a rendezvous for murderers, horse thieves, and all other fugitives from justice. From time to time also there arose between members of the colony matters of legitimate contro- versy which must of necessity be settled at law. In consequence of the above the leading men of the settlement soon set about drafting a form of local self-government. Col. James Robert- son and Col. Richard Henderson were leaders in the movement. They were not without experience. The former had assisted in launching the Watauga compact some years before. The latter had been a leading spirit in early governmental affairs both at Watauga and at Boonesboro in central Kentucky. By his re- cent survev Henderson had established to his own satisfaction the fact that the Cumberland settlement was within the bounds of the territory belonging to North Carolina. He proposed now to claim his right of purchase by the treaty of Sycamore Shoals. This he did, and afterwards sold to the emigrants the land on which they entered. He took no money from them, however, but simply entered into an agreement by the terms of which the purchase price, which was small, should be paid when the State of North Carolina should declare his title valid. This was never done. Instead, North Carolina followed the example of Vir- ginia by declaring his title void, and in partial payment therefor granted him two hundred thousand acres of fine land in the Holston Valley of East Tennessee. Henderson in all things 70 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE dealt justly with the early pioneers, and left among them when he died an honored name. Robertson and Henderson probably wrote the articles of agreement establishing the compact of government which was entered into by the settlers on May i, 1780, and which was finally ratified on May 13, following. This agreement was signed by two hundred and fifty-six of the colonists, only one of whom was unable to write his own name. This number repre- sented nearly the entire male population. It provided that as soon as convenient after its adoption the free men of the settlement who were over twenty-one years of age should elect or choose from their number twelve suitable persons to be called Judges, or Triers. The latter should con- stitute a court having jurisdiction over such matters of a civil or criminal nature as in the future might arise. These judges should serve without salary and were divided among the various stations as follows : The Bluff, or Nashborough, three ; Eaton's, two; Mansker's, two; Bledsoe's, one; Asher's, one; Freeland's. one ; Donelson's, one ; and Fort Union, one. Other stations at that time located were not recognized as entitled to representation on this court, probably because the number inhabiting each was considered too small. We shall see that some of the latter were soon thereafter abandoned. By the solemnity of an oath these Judges were bound to do equal and impartial justice to all parties to the best of their skill and judgment. It was also provided that as often as the people in general became dissatisfied with the acts or decisions of the members of this body they might call a new election and elect others in their stead. This court, having due regard, of course, for the rules and regulations of the government land office, was empowered to settle contests arising from entries upon tracts of land, of which EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 7I contests there is always an abundance in every newly settled coun- try. Its decisions in such cases were final as to any future claim of the party against whom said judgment was rendered. It was further provided that until such time as the State of North Carolina should extend the jurisdiction of its courts be- yond the mountains and thereby relieve the settlement from the many evils which had arisen, these Judges, or Triers, should be a proper tribunal for the determination of any suit for debt or damages. Of course, no jurisdiction or authority could be exer cised over those who did not subscribe to the agreement, but provision was also wisely made that the latter should neither own land thereabouts nor become citizens of the colony. In all cases where the debt, demand, or damages did not exceed a hun- dred dollars, any three of the judges might sit as a court of competent jurisdiction to try the cause, and from their decisions in such cases there was no right of appeal. If the amount in- volved was greater than one hundred dollars, any three should also hear the cause, but from their judgment either party might appeal to the entire court consisting of the twelve judges. In this event nine of their number should constitute a quorum, whose decision should be final, provided as many as seven con- curred. A majority of the court was clothed with power to punish criminal offenses, even those of a capital nature, provided, how ever, that they should not attempt to authorize the infliction of the death penalty. In accusations calling for the latter punishment, the prisoner should be sent under strong guard to the locality where a legal trial for such an offense might be had. All young men over the age of sixteen years who were able to perform military duty were given the right to enter and ob- tain land, each in his own name as though he were of legal age. Provision was also made for calling the settlers to military service for the safety and defense of the stations. 72 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE As above suggested this improvised government was not de- signed to operate in conflict vvith the laws of North CaroHna. In fact, the latter was urged to speedily organize the Cumberland settlement into a separate county over which it should appoint proper officials for the discharge of public duty. It was in- tended to last only until such time as the State might extend its protection over the new settlement. The local government above described was an Absolute De- mocracy. We view it now as a foundation stone of a mighty republic, the like of which the world has never seen before, and under the protecting folds of whose flag the oppressed of all lands may find personal and religious freedom. Col. James Robertson was selected as one of the three judges from the Bluff. He became Chief Justice of the court and also commander-in-chief of the military forces of the settlement. CHAPTER XVIII. EVENTS OF 1780. INDIAN WARFARE P.EGINS. For fourteen years after the founding of the Cumberland settlement the lives of the pioneers were in daily peril. Looking back over that eventful period from a distance of more than a century we wonder that a single individual escaped such a ter- rible onslaught of savage cruelty. In the language of Judge Haywood, it was indeed "a period of danger and hazard ; of dar- ing adventure and dangerous exposure." When the articles of agreement were adopted the settlers began in peace to plant their fields and plow their corn. But the Indians deeply resented this sudden advent of so large a number of the whites into their hunting grounds. By way of adding fuel to the flame, the British on the North and the Spaniards on the south were now EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 73 busily, but secretly^ engaged in urging the savages to open hos- tilities against the defenseless outposts on the western frontier. The latter now by seeming systematic effort began to pick off the stragglers from the various stations. One morning during the month of May a hunter by the name of Keywood came running into the fort at the Bluff and reported that John Milliken had been killed on Richland Creek, five or six miles away. The two men were journeying toward the settlement and had stopped at the creek for a drink. While they stooped down they were fired upon by a band of Indians hidden on the bank and Milliken fell dead. Keywood had es- caped uninjured and made his way alone to the settlement to bear the news of the tragic death of his comrade. A few days later Joseph Hay was alone down on the Lick Branch between the Bluff and Freeland's Station, when a skulk- ing party of savages who were hiding in the cane shot and scalped him. They then beat a hasty retreat, carrying away with them his gun, hunting knife, shot pouch and powder horn. His body was buried by the settlers in the open ground on a point of land east of Sulphur Spring. Soon thereafter a man named Bernard was at work on his clearing near what is now Beuna Vista Springs. So busily en- gaged was he with his work that he did not hear the stealthy footfalls of the approaching savages. Creeping up to within easy range the latter shot him dead in his tracks, after which they cut off the head of their victim and carried it away in triumph. In their retreat they encountered near by three young men ; two brothers named Dunham, and the third, a son of John Milli- ken^ whose death is mentioned above as having occurred only a short time before. The Dunhams escaped to Freeland's Sta- tion, but young Milliken was killed and his head likewise cut off and carried away by the enemy. In the month of June two set- 74 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE tiers by the names of Goin and Kennedy were clearing land be- tween Mansker's and Eaton's Stations. A party of Indians stole up behind some brush heaps the men were making and when the latter came near they were fired upon and killed. The savages then rushed out, tore off the scalps of their victims and escaped unharmed into the surrounding forest. During the months fol- lowing a number of the settlers were killed within what are now the city limits of Nashville. D. Larimer was shot, scalped and beheaded near Freeland's Station. Isaac Lefeore met a like fate on the west bank of the river near the end of the Louisville & Nashville railroad bridge. Soloman Murry, Soloman Phillips, and Robert Aspey were fired upon while at work near where the Fogg High School building now stands. Murry and Aspey were killed, the savages taking away the scalp of the former. Phillips was wounded, but escaped to the fort at the Bluff, where he died a few days later. Benjamin Renfroe, John Maxwell and John Kennedy were fishing on the river bank near the mouth of Sul- phur Spring Branch. Indians crept up behind them and made an attack. The men fought bravely, but were overpowered and made prisoners. Renfroe was tomahawked and scalped, but the lives of Kennedy and Maxwell were spared. Philip Catron journeyed from Freeland's Station to the Bluff. The buffalo path along which he passed ran through a thick clus- ter of undergrowth near the present crossing of Cedar and Cherry Streets. While in the midst of this thicket he was shot from ambush. Holding on to his horse he rode to the station, where he received such medical attention as could be given him. Though severely wounded he finally recovered. John Caffrey and Daniel Williams, two occupants of the Bluff fort, went for a row up the river. On returning they had made fast their canoe and were coming up the bank near the foot of Church Street when the Indians opened fire, wounding them in EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 75 the legs. Hearing the report of the rifles John Raines and several companions who were in the fort near by rushed out and chased the savages, eight or ten in number, as far as the Sulphur Spring. The latter were fleet of foot and made their escape. Late in the month of August Jonathan Jennings, whq with his family barely escaped death in the voyage over, was killed near the river bank at a point opposite Island No. i, above Nashville. He was at that time building a cabin on the tract of land upon which he had recently made entry. Not content with taking his life, the Indians, who were a roving band of Delawares. chopped his body into pieces with their tomahawks and scattered the fragments over the surrounding ground. James Mayfield and a man named Porter were murdered in plain view of their comrades over in Edgefield near Eaton's Sta- tion. The men in the fort caught up their rifles and gave chase, but the enemy made good their escape. Col. Richard Henderson's body servant and negro cook, Jim, was killed by a party of Indians near Clover Bottom. His mas- ter had begun the erection of a camp at that place, a short way above that occupied by Colonel Donelson, but at that time was away on a visit to forts in Kentucky. Jim and a young white man, a chain carrier in Henderson's surveying party, were about to begin a journey down the river by canoe from the camp to the Bluff. The savages were in hiding in the thick cane on the bank and fired upon them with the above result. The white man, Jim's companion, made his escape. One of the emigrants, Ned Carvin by name, had made an entry on land four miles east of Nashville. He built thereon a cabin in which he lived with his family. One day while hoeing in his garden beside the house he was shot by the Indians from a neighboring thicket and in- stantly killed. His wife and two small children escaped by a door on the opposite side of the cabin and hid in the cane near by. 76 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE For some unknown reason they were unmolested, and after re- maining in hiding all night in the woods made their way in safety next morning to Eaton's Station. Here they were kindly comforted and provided for by the settlers. A few days thereafter John Shockley and Jesse Balestine were killed while hunting in the woods not far from Carvin's cabin. Jacob and Frederick Stump, two Dutchmen, had selected land and built a cabin on White's Creek, three miles north of Eaton's Station. Pursuant to custom one of them usually stood on guard while the other worked in the clearing, but on a certain occasion this precaution was neglected. While both were busily engaged some Indians crept up behind a clump of trees at the edge of the field and fired at them, killing Jacob. His brother seeing that it would be folly to stand his ground started on a run toward Eat- on's, the nearest place of refuge, closely pursued by the enemy. Up hill and down, over ledges of rock, through cane brakes and cedar thickets, the race was one of life and death. After a mile or two the pursuing savages got near enough to hurl a tomahawk at Stump's head with such force as to land it twenty or thirty feet beyond. There the race ended, the supposition being that the Indians stopped to search for the lost hatchet. They probably thought more of the latter than of the prospect of capturing Stump's scalp, especially so in consideration of the rate of speed Stump was making just at that particular time. This same band of marauders went on up the river to Bled- soe's Station and there killed and scalped two persons : William Johnson and Daniel Mungle. Then after shooting all the cattle they could find about the fort and setting fire to some out houses and fencing they pursued their journey up the river toward Flarts- ville. On the way they met Thomas Sharp Spencer returning alone from a hunting trip and leading two horses ladened with bear meat and pelts. The Indians fired at Spencer, slightly wounding him. EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 77 Finding himself badly outnumbered Spencer ''stood not on the order of his going" but very promptly dismounted and ''went at once," leaving the horses and cargo to the enemy. He ran through the woods and escaped into Bledsoe's fort. Tradition tells us that when safely inside the station he made but little complaint because of his wound, but grieved long and loud on account of the loss of the horses and especially the bear meat, of which he was exceedingly fond. Other hunters had been with Spencer on this expedition, but had left him before the Indians were encountered. Some of the forts were abandoned before the end of 1780 be- cause of their apparent inability to defend themselves against attacks of which they were in constant danger. In the latter part of May, John Raines had moved his family from his station in Waverly Place to the Bluff fort, and thence later into Kentucky. CHAPTER XIX. EVENTS OF 1780 (continued). MASSACRE AT RENFROe's STA- TION. ATTACK AT ASHER'S. DEATH OF WM. NEELY. CLOVER BOTTOM DEFEAT. During the month of July Renfroe's Station at the mouth of Red River was attacked by a combined force of Choctaws and Chickasaws. In this onslaught Nathan Turpin and another man whose name is now unknown were slain and scalped. The fort- was thereupon abandoned. The Turpin family were relatives of the Freeland's, and, therefore, would go to Freeland's Sta- tion, while Johns and some of the others would stop on the East side of the river at Eaton's. They began their journey at once, taking with them only a few necessary articles. The remainder of their household goods and personal effects were hidden as 78 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE securely as possible about the deserted fort. After a day of hard travel they camped by the roadside about dusk. After they had eaten supper some of the party began to express regret at their hasty flight and decided to return that night to the fort and bring away more of their property. Beginning the return journey at once, they reached the deserted fort in the early hours of the morning, and by daylight had gathered up all they could carry away. They then started the second time toward Eaton's and the Bluff. That evening they went into camp in what is now Cheat- ham County, two miles north of Sycamore Creek. During the night they were surprised by a party of Indians who fell upon them with sudden and destructive fire. The set- tlers scattered and fled through the darkness in every direction, but they were pursued and all save one — a Mrs. Jones — perished by the tomahawk in the hands of an unrelenting foe. Men, women and children, the latter detected by their crying, were hunted down and chopped to death with wanton cruelty. About twenty persons were killed in this terrible massacre. Among the number were Joseph Renfroe, and Mr. Johns together with his entire family, consisting of twelve persons. Mrs. Jones, who escaped, was rescued next day and brought in safety to Eaton's Station by Henry Ramsey, a brave Indian fighter and worthy pioneer. Those of the company who had not turned back but had continued their journey, arrived at their destination in safety. When news of the above disaster reached Eaton's and the Bluff a rescuing party from each went at once to the scene of the massacre and there gave aid to the mortally wounded, and buried the dead. By the light of the morning they found that the In- dians, probably the same band which had made the assault on Renfroe's Station, had captured and carried away all the horses and much of the plunder. Such of the latter as remained they had broken and scattered over the ground. EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 79 At length the Indians directed their attention to Mansker's Station and killed Patrick Quigley, John Stuckley, James Lumsley and Betsy Kennedy. This station was afterwards abandoned for a time as will be later recorded. Late in the sum- mer a party of hunters were spending the night in a caljin at Asher's Station, in Sumner County. The Indians who by some unknown means had learned of their presence, surrounded the cabin during the night and at daybreak made an attack by poking their guns through the cracks and firing at the sleeping whites. They killed a man named Payne and wounded another by the name of Phillips. After scalping Payne and capturing all the horses about the station they started on toward Bledsoe's, riding single file in the bufifalo path which led in that direction. Sud- denly they found themselves face to face with a company of settlers composed of Alex. Buchanan, William Ellis, James Mani- fee, Alex. Thompson and others, who were returning to the Blufif from a hunting expedition in Trousdale County. Buchanan, who was riding at the head of his party, fired and killed the first Indian and wounded the second. Seeing their leader slain, the remaining savages sought safety in flight, leaving to the whites the captured horses. After this the settlers at Asher's became so much alarmed that they broke up the station and went to Mansker's. A short time thereafer Col. Robertson, Alex. Buchanan, John Brock, Wil- liam Mann and fourteen others equally as true and tried, chased a band of Indians from Freeland's Station, a distance of forty miles, to Gordan's Ferry, on Duck River. Here they came upon the savages, killed several of their number and captured a large amount of stolen plunder. This was the first military expedi- tion conducted by Col. Robertson under the new local government. Later in the fall another party of Indians approached the Bluff Station in the night, stole a number of horses, loaded them So EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE with such goods and plunder as they could lay hands on and made their escape. The next morning Capt. James Leiper, with a company of fifteen, pursued and overtook them on Harpeth River. When the savages heard the approach of the whites they made every efifort to escape, but their horses^ which were heavily loaded with the plunder stolen from the settlement, could make but little headway through the entangled undergrowth. At the first fire from Leiper's party the Indians fled, leaving the horses and plunder to their pursuers. The settlers were now in great need of salt for use in season- ing the fresh meat upon which they were obliged to depend almost solely for food. Their only way of securing this necessity of life was by evaporation from the waters of sulphur springs. The first attempt at salt-making was at Mansker's Lick. Hav- ing failed there, a party consisting of William Neely, his daughter, a young lady about sixteen years old, and several men, went from that station to Neely's Lick, afterwards known as Neely's Bend, up the river from the Bluff. Here they had established a camp and were meeting with some success. Neely daily scoured the woods for game and thus kept the company supplied with food, while the young lady did the cooking. The kilns at which the salt was made were located some distance from the camp, and the workmen suspecting no danger, went off each day, leaving the father and daughter alone about the camp. One evening about sunset Neely returned from a successful hunt, bringing with him a fine buck which had been killed a few miles away. Being much fatigued he lay down by the camp fire to rest while his daughter skinned the deer and prepared the venison for sup- per, singing as she passed back and forth from the tent to the oven, some distance away. Suddenly a rifle barrel gleamed in the fading sunlight from behind a neighboring tree and a shot broke the stillness of the forest. Neely, raising himself half-way up on EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 8l his elbow, uttered a groan and fell back dead. The savages now rushed out from their hiding places, seized the girl^ tied her hands behind her and gathering up her father's gun and powder horn dragged her away captive, a big Indian holding her on either side. Thus they forced her to run between them until far into the night, when the party reached a Creek camp many miles south of Nashville. Here they rested for awhile, but the next morning resumed their flight, going on into the interior of the Creek nation. Neely's companions returning to camp shortly after dark and finding him dead and his daughter missing, hastened to carry the sad tidings to the wife and mother at Mansker's, which place they reached about daylight. The occupants of the fort at once organized a party to pursue the murderers and rescue the girl, After following the trail for fifteen or twenty miles, acting on -the advice of Kasper Mansker, their leader, they quit the chase lest the captors, seeing themselves pursued, might kill their prisoner. The details of Miss Neely's final rescue have not been preserved. However, it is known to historians that after remaining in cap- tivity among the Creeks for several years, her release was secured and she was allowed to return to her friends. Later she married a prominent settler at one of the Kentucky stations, living there- after a happy life. As previously related, Col. Donelson early in May had fixed his station at Clover Bottom, near the mouth of Stone's River. It was already late in the season, therefore he did not take time to build a fort, but constructed a number of cabins with open fronts, known in those days as "half camps," into which he moved his own family and other members of his party. Beside his wife and children. Col. Donelson had with him a number of slaves and dependants. He therefore felt the necessity of pitching his crop at once that he might be able to provide them with food dur- 6 82 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE ing the winter. He planted corn in an open field on the south side of Stones River, and then crossing over made a small clear- ing and planted a patch of cotton on the north shore. These crops came up promptly, thrived and gave promise of a fine yield. But in the month of July heavy rains fell throughout the Cum- berland Valley, causing the river to overflow the bottoms on either side. Being now under water, it was supposed that the crops in the Clover Bottom were destroyed. This, together with the daily increasing danger of Indian attacks, caused the station to be abandoned, the settlers going by boat up the Cumberland to Edgefield Junction, and thence across the country to Mans- ker's Station, where they were received and where they took up a second residence. In the fall Col. Donelson learned that the crops at Clover Bottom had not been destroyed, as he had supposed, but upon the receding of the water they had matured and now awaited the harvest. Generously wishing to divide with the settlers at the Blufif, the latter having suffered loss by reason of the summer floods, he proposed to them that a boat party from that plac^ should meet a like company from Mansker's at the Clover Bottom on a given date for the purpose of gathering the corn and cotton. This offer was readily accepted and accordingly about November I the two parties met at the place mentioned. The company which came from the Bluff was under command of Capt. Abel Gower, and beside the latter consisted of Abel Gower, Jr., John Randolph Robertson, a relative of Col. James Robertson; William Cart- wright and several others, to the number of ten or twelve. Col. Donelson himself was not present, but sent his company under the direction of his son, Capt. John Donelson, Jr., then a young man twenty-six years of age. With him were Hugh Rogan, Robert Cartwright and several other white men, together with a number of the Donelson slaves. Among the latter was Somerset, Col. Donelson's faithful body servant. EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESESE 83 This party had brought with them a horse to use in sledding the corn to the boats and also for the purpose of towing the latter down Stones River to the Cumberland after they were loaded. On their arrival the boats were tied to the bank near where the turnpike bridge now spans the stream and all hands began the harvest, packing the corn in baskets and sacks, which were in turn hauled on a sled to the boats. They were thus engaged for three or four days, during which time they saw nothing of the enemy. However, they felt some uneasiness because of the constant barking of the dogs at night, a circumstance which to the settlers indicated that Indians were skulking about. During the last night of their stay the dogs were much disturbed, rushing as if mad from place to place about the camp. By daylight next morning the hands were in the field gathering and loading the rest of the corn and making ready in all haste for a speedy departure. CHAPTER XX. EVENTS OF 1780 (continued) CLOVER BOTTOM DEFEAT (CON- TINUED) BEAR HUNTERS. Captain Donelson and his companions got their boat loaded first, and, pushing it across to the northern shore, began gather- ing the cotton, of which there was only a small amount, heaping the bolls on the corn in the boat. It was expected that they would be joined directly by the party 'from the Bluff, and that thus working together, the task would soon be complete. A little later^ however. Captain Donelson was much surprised to see the latter rowing on down the river toward home. He hailed them and asked if they were not coming over. Captain Gower replied in the negative, saying that it was growing late 84 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE i and they must reach the Bluff before night, at the same time expressing the behef that there was no danger. Donelson began a vigorous protest against their going, but while he yet spoke a horde of Indians, several hundred strong, opened a terrific fire upon the men in Gower's boat. The savages had been gradually gathering and were now ambushed in the cane along the south bank and near to the corn-ladened craft, which by this time had drifted into a narrow channel on that side. At the first fire several of the men jumped from the boat and waded through the shallow water to the shore, where they were hotly pursued by the foe. Captain Gower, his son, and Robertson were killed and their bodies lost in the river. Others were slain and fell on the corn in the boat. Of the party that reached the shore only three, a white man and two negroes, escaped death. The white man and one of the negroes wandered through the woods without food for nearly two days, finally reaching the Bluff. The other survivor, a free negro by the name of Jack Cavil, was wounded, captured and carried a prisoner to one of the Chickamauga towns near Chattanooga. He afterwards be- came notorious as a member of a thieving band of Indian ma- rauders who, making headquarters in that region, wrought great havoc on the settlements west of the mountains. The village of Nickajack, or "Nigger- jack's Town," which was afterwards founded, took its name from this captive. Gower's boat, containing the bodies of three of the slain, the corn and two or three dogs, floated unmolested down to the Bluff, where it was sighted during the forenoon of the day following the slaughter. It was brought to shore near the foot of what is now Broad street. After assaulting Captain Gower and his men, the Indians started on a run up the river to a point on the shore opposite Donelson's boat, but here they found the water too deep to ford. EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 85 Donelson and several of his companions seeing the attack upon the other party, had rushed down to their own boat for their rifles and shot-bags. Returning they found that the other mem- bers of their party, alarmed by the roar of guns and yells of the enemy, had fled for safety into the cane. Pausing long enough to fire a volley across the river at the savages, they now at- tempted to join their comrades. With much difficulty all were collected and a council held. It was decided that they should abandon the boat and make their way through the woods east of the river to a point opposite Edgefield Junction, when an effort would be made to cross over and escape to Mansker's. Mr. Cart- wright, being old and infirm, was placed on the horse which had been brought from the station. All that day they journeyed^ each man traveling alone lest any two or more together should make a trail which might be found and followed by the enemy. At dusk they were called in by a signal and huddled together for the night in the leaf-covered top of a large hickory tree which had fallen to the ground. The weather was damp and they suffered much from cold, but dared not build a fire lest they might be discovered. Next morning they tried to construct a raft on which to cross the river, but had neither tools nor suitable material out of which to make such a craft. Gathering sticks and poles such as were found lying about, they fastened them together with grape vines and on this made several attempts to go over, but each time the current drove them back. Finally this rude conveyance was abandoned and allowed to float away. At last Somerset volunteered to swim over on the horse and ride to Mansker's for help. This he did in safety, thus carrying to the Stationer's their first news of the disaster. Several men from the station, bringing with them a supply of tools, returned with Somerset. By these a strong raft was built on which the party was brought over and restored to their friends. 86 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE In these times of danger there was but Httle communication between the forts. Therefore for some days after the events above related it was supposed by the settlers at the Bluff that the Donelson party had been either killed or captured. The shocking details of this disaster, which is known in history as the ''Clover Bottom Defeat," caused great sorrow among all the people of the Cumberland Settlement. The Indians who were responsible for this attack were not armed entirely with guns, but many of them carried the primitive bows and arrows, using the latter with deadly effect. After the supposed destruction of his crop by the summer flood. Colonel Donelson had contemplated a removal to one of the forts in Kentucky, where he had relatives, and where food was more abundant. Later on the prospect of obtaining corn had caused him to delay, but now that this prospect was gone he made ready and began the journey at once, arriving with his family in due time at Davis' Station. Mansker's fort was now broken up for the winter, Mansker and his wife going to Eaton's. Others who were able to secure horses, among them being James McCain, followed the Donelson party to Kentucky. That brave Irishman, Hugh Rogan, than whom none played a more heroic part in the early settlement of Middle Tennessee, carried William Neely's widow and her family to a place of safety in Kentucky, after which he returned to share the dangers of his comrades on the Cumberland. Rogan had left his native land some years before, coming to seek his fortune in America. He tarried for awhile in Virginia, but was among the first of the settlers to cross the mountains and seek a home in the far-famed hunting ground. After coming to Middle Tennessee he was led to believe, through the false representation of a supposed friend, that his wife, whom he left in Ireland, had married the second EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 87 time, thinking her husband dead. He remained under this im- pression until after the close of the Indian wars. Learning then the falsity of the report, he went at once to Ireland and there, being happily reunited with his family, brought them to his home in Sumner County. He died many years ago. His remains were buried and now rest in the old Baskerville burying ground near Shiloh Church, in the Tenth District. During the summer of 1780, Robert Gilkie sickened and died at the Bluff, this being the first natural death to occur in the settlement. Shortly thereafter Philip Conrad was killed by a falling tree near what is now the corner of Cherry and Demonbreun streets, in Nashville. The first white child born in the Cumberland Settlement was Chesed Donelson, son of Capt. John Donelson^ Jr., and wife, Mary Purnell. His birth took place in one of the ''half-camps" at Clover Bottom on June 22, 1780. He died while yet young. A little later in the same year John Saunders was born at Mansker's Station. He grew to manhood and afterwards be- came Sheriff of Montgomery County. Anna Wells, whose birth also occurred this year, was the first girl born in the settlement. Because of the scanty supply of food, lack of ammunition and danger from the savages, many left the colony during the fall, going to the several settlements in Illinois and Kentucky. By the first of December only about a hundred and thirty re- mained. These were indeed dark days for the pioneers, but among the latter were many brave spirits, men and women, who resolved to stay at their posts regardless of the cost. They be- lieved and so expressed the belief that their newly adopted land, so rich in resources and fertile of soil, would in the future become a center of civilization and a seat of learning. In this they were not mistaken. During these trying times the intrepid spirit and unselfish example of Col. James Robertson did much to prevent 88 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE the breaking up of the settlement. Despite his own privations and personal bereavements, he looked always with the ,eye of an optimist to the future, believing in and advising others of the better times yet to come. When the supply of fresh meat, their only food, became scarce, mighty hunters under the leadership of Spencer, Rains, Jacob Castleman and others, braved all dangers and made long excursions into the woods, always returning ladened with an abundance and to spare. In one winter John Rains is said to have killed thirty-two bears in the Harpeth Knobs, seven miles south of the Bluff, and not far from the present location of Glendale Park. A party of these hunters went in canoes up the Caney Fork River, and in the course of a five days' hunt throughout the region thereabouts killed a hundred and five bears, seventy-five buffalo and eighty-seven deer. After all we little wonder that the right to possess such a land should make it for fourteen years the bloody battle-ground of pioneer and Indian. The first wedding in the colony took place at the Bluff during the summer of 1780. It was the marriage of our brave Indian fighter, Capt. James Leiper, and the young lady who thus became his wife. No minister had yet come to the settlement and a question arose as to whether or not any one was authorized to perform the marriage ceremony. Colonel Robertson, who was Chief Justice of the court, sent out to the other Judges a hurry call for a consultation. It was decided by this court that either of its members, by virtue of his office, was empowered to exercise such a function. This decision was probably more "far-reaching" than any yet handed down by the Colonial Judiciary. It consti- tutes the first "reported case" in the annals of Tennessee juris- prudence. Because of his official position Colonel Robertson was accorded the honor of performing this the first ceremony, which he is reputed to have done with his usual grace of manner. EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 89 In the fall other weddings occurred as follows : Edward Swanson to Mrs. Corwin ; James Freeland, one of the founders of Freeland's Station, to Mrs. Maxwell ; John Tucker to Jennie Herod, and Cornelius Riddle to Jane Mulherrin. The ceremony in each of these instances was performed by James Shaw, one of the Judges. Tradition has brought down to us some details of the festivities attending the Riddle-Mulherrin nuptials. It seems these young people were unusually popular in colonial society and their friends were anxious that their marriage should be made more than an ordinary event. As the colony was yet in its infancy there were no silks, broadcloths or other finery in which the bride and groom might array themselves, neither was there piano, organ or other instrument on which to play the wedding march. Of more consequence, however, than either of these was the lack of both flour and meal from which to make the wedding cake, and none was to be had at any of the neighboring stations. But in those days large difficulties were quickly over- come. Accordingly two of the settlers were mounted on horses and sent post-haste to Danville, Ky., then the metropolis of the western settlement, for a supply of corn. Three or four days later they returned with a bushel each of this highly prized cereal, which was speedily ground into meal. From this was made the first ''bride's cake" in Middle Tennessee. CHAPTER XXI. EVENTS OF I781. — IN SEARCH OF AMMUNITION. ATTACK ON FREE- LANd's station. PIOMINGO. At the close of 1780 the distressed colony was reduced to three or four stations, and lack of ammunition made impossible a long-continued defense of these. Therefore in the early part of 90 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE December Colonel Robertson, accompanied by his son, together with his friend, Isaac Bledsoe, and a negro servant, had set out on a journey to Harrod's Station, Kentucky, for the purpose of securing a supply of powder and lead. The undertaking was one of extreme hazard, but they passed through the Indian lines and arrived at HarrodsbUrg in safety. Here they received their first news of the splendid victory which had been gained by the Ameri- can forces over the British at King's Mountain, in October pre- ceding. In this memorable battle their friends from East Ten- nessee, under the leadership of Col. John Sevier and Isaac Shelby, had played a most heroic part. On receiving the news Isaac Bledsoe is said to have exclaimed, "If Sevier and Shelby can handle the combined force of British and Tories, can we not whip the Indians in the backwoods?" The party was given a hearty welcome at Harrodsburg, but because of the depleted condition of the store they were unable to secure ammunition, and accordingly journeyed on to Boones- borough. Here they found Daniel Boone, who in former days had been a comrade of both Robertson and Bledsoe, and who cheerfully divided with them his supply. But this was too scanty and the amount they thus received was not enough to last through the winter. It was therefore decided that Colonel Robertson, his son and servant, should return at once to the Cumberland with what they had, and that Bledsoe should go across to Watauga and there lay before Colonel Sevier the urgent needs of the Western Settlement. This he did and came back later to the Cumberland^ bringing with him an abundant supply of ammunition. He brought his family also, the latter having hitherto remained in East Tennessee. In the meantime Colonel Robertson had returned to the set- tlement, having crossed over to his station at the Bluff on the afternoon of January 15, 1781. There he learned that on January EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE QI II, four days previous to his return, another son had been born to him, the late Dr. Felix Robertson, for many years an honored citizen and prominent physician of Nashville. Upon his arrival Colonel Robertson hastily divided his ammu- nition with his men at the BlufT and went out to spend the night at Freeland's, where his wife and child were staying with friends. This fort was, in the matter of construction, very much as the one at the Bluff, the latter having been previously described. There were a number of one and two-story cabins built near together, the whole being surrounded by a stockade, thus form- ing an enclosure. To this there was but one entrance, a gate which was fastened each night by a heavy chain. Within the fort that night were eleven men and a number of women and children. One of the former was Major Lucas, who before com- ing to the Cumberland had served as an officer under Colonel Sevier in several expeditions from Watauga against the Indians. He had also been one of the founders of the local government of Watauga. The negro man who came with Colonel Robertson and his party over the mountains in 1779 for the purpose of rais- ing a corn crop at French Lick, as it was then called, was also in the fort at this time. The scouts, among them Jacob Castleman, had come into the fort about dark on the evening above mentioned and reported no signs of Indians, therefore no danger was feared. Having had a late supper the occupants of the fort did not retire at an early hour, but by eleven o'clock all were asleep except Colonel Robertson. The latter was known among the Indians as the "Chief who never sleeps," and was probably more alert than usual now by reason of his recent experience in sleeping out of doors on his return journey from Kentucky through a dangerous and lonely forest. Major Lucas and the negro man, together with several others, occupied a newly built cabin in which the 92 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE cracks had not yet been chinked. A full moon shone from a clear sky and the night was one of surpassing beauty. About midnight Colonel Robertson heard a rattling of the chain and looked out just in time to see the gate open and a band of a hundred and fifty Indians, who proved to be Chicka- sawS; come rushing into the fort. He at once gave the alarm and seizing his rifle fired through the window at the approaching savages. The report of Robertson's rifle awoke Major Lucas, who sprang out of bed and rushed through the door of his cabin into the yard. He was immediately surrounded by the savages and fell mortally wounded, pierced by a dozen shots. The set- tlers were now thoroughly aroused and began firing at the In- dians through windows and port-holes, the women lending all the aid possible. Surprised at this vigorous assault from within the savages ran out of the fort after the first volley and renewed the attack from the outside. Some of them went around to the back of the cabin from which Major Lucas had come and began firing through the cracks at the men within. During this fusil- lade they killed the negro man above mentioned. The onslaught was terrific and for a time the fortunes of the conflict wavered. Round after round was fired from within and from without. The attacking party, in their savage thirst for blood, rushed from place to place about the fort, jumping high into the air, all the time whooping and yelling like demons. They lighted brands and made repeated attempts to set fire to the roofs and walls of the cabins, but the brands and logs were too green to burn. For six hours this attack was kept up, but just as the gray light of the morning dawn came over the eastern hills the little cannon which had come around on the good boat Adventure, and which was now mounted on the fort at the Blufif, opened its brazen lips and a solitary "boom" echoed along the Cumberland. Capt. John Rains was thus saying to Colonel Robertson and his beleaguered EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 93 comrades that he had been apprised of their danger and would be along directly with reinforcements. The Indians, who stood in great fear of a cannon, heard the shot, too, and knowing that the settlement was now thoroughly aroused, began a hasty re- treat. However, they were joined during the morning by a party of Cherokees, and together for several days thereafter they con- tinued to infest the neighborhood roundabout, plundering and thieving. In the attack on Freeland's only Lucas and the negro man, of the settlers, were killed, and none were wounded. Next morning no less than five hundred bullets were dug from the walls of the cabin in which these men had been sleeping. One Indian was shot in the head by Colonel Robertson. His body was found partially covered with dirt the next day some distance away in the woods where it had been left by his fleeing comrades. No one knew how many of the dead had been carried ofif, but the bloodstains about the fort and along the trails leading therefrom indicated that a number were either killed or wounded. Had it not been for the timely presence of Colonel Robertson on the night of the attack the fort must surely have fallen into the hands of the enemy. His vigilance on this, as well as on many subsequent occasions, saved the settlers from slaughter. This was the first and only attack ever made on the settlement by the Chickasaws. Soon thereafter Colonel Robertson had a "peace talk" with Piomingo, the Chickasaw chief, forming with him an alliance which gave to the pioneers the everlasting friendship of this famous warrior and his people. At heart the Chickasaws hated the Cherokees, who were the relentless foes of the whites. Though they had on previous occasions allied themselves with the Chero- kees, they now joined the settlers in expeditions against them. Piomingo was a striking figure among the noted Indian rulers of his day. He is described as having been of medium height, 94 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE well proportioned in body, and as possessing a face of umisr.al intelligence. Though at the time of his visit to Bledsoe's Lick more than a hundred years old, he strode the earth with the grace of a youth. His dress was of white buckskin, and his hair, which he wore hanging down his back in the form of a scalp- lock, was, by reason of his great age, as white as snow. This was clasped round about on top of his head by a set of silver combs. Despite the early offenses of his tribe the name of Piomingo deserves an honored place in the annals of Middle Tennessee because of the generous deeds of his later years. CHAPTER XXn. EVENTS OF 1781 (continued). — MRS. DUNHAM AND DAUGHTER WOUNDED. ATTACK ON BLUFF STATION. In the summer of 1780, John and Daniel Dunham had located on that splendid body of land near French Lick, now known as Belle Meade. Having in the meantime built thereon a log house and made some other improvements, they were now obliged to move their families back to the fort at the Bluff for protection. A few days later Mrs. Dunham sent her little daughter to the woodpile, about three hundred yards up the hill, and near where the Maxwell House now stands, for a basket of chips. Some Indians were concealed in a fallen treetop near by. When the child came up they sprang out, seized her by the hair and tore off her scalp. Attracted by her cries the terrified mother was wounded by a shot from the Indians as she ran up the hill toward them. In the meantime the men from the fort had armed them- selves and came rushing to the rescue, but at sight of them the savages fled into the surrounding thickets and escaped. Both mother and daughter recovered and lived for many years there- EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 95 after. During the months of February and March the stations were free from attack and the hope was ventured that since their faikire to capture Freeland's fort the savages were disheartened and had abandoned hostiHties. However, in this they were doomed to bitter disappointment. Their success during the pre- vious year in breaking up the various stations had been so marked that they were yet determined not to yield their favorite hunting ground without a deadly struggle. On the night of April i a war party of about four hundred Cherokees advanced on the Bluff Station and lay in ambush about the fort. It was doubtless a part of their plan to destroy this at one blow and then, acting in concert with reinforcements from other tribes already on the march hither, to quickly exter- minate the smaller colonies at Eaton's and Bledsoe's. The plan of attack was well laid. About two hundred of the party con- cealed themselves in the wild-brush and cedars which grew on the hillside along Cherry street, between Church and Broad. The remainder of the band went down and lay along the bank of a small stream which ran south of Broad street, near to and parallel with Demonbreun and into the river near'the foot of Broad. Early next morning three of the Indians, sent out as decoys, came near the fort, fired at the sentinel in the watch-tower, and then ran back some distance, where they halted to reload their guns. All this time they were shouting and waving their hands as if to attract attention. Unable to resist this challenge, and not suspecting the trap which had been laid, about twenty of the settlers saddled their horses and, led by Colonel Robertson, dashed out of the fort and down the hill toward the retreating savages. The latter kept themselves in sight, however, and by their mockeries still tempting the whites onward, finally made a stand on the bank of the branch near the intersection of College and Demonbreun. The settlers 96 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE had by this time crossed Broad and, now dismounting, gave battle. No sooner were they on the ground than a swarm of savages arose from their hiding places immediately in front and poured a deadly fire into the ranks of the whites. At this the horses of the latter took fright and breaking away from their masters, started on a run up the hill toward the fort. In the meantime the party concealed along College street had come out, and rais- ing a warwhoop, were stringing along Church street toward the river in an effort to completely cut off the retreat of Robertson and his men to the fort. The position of the latter was now, indeed, one of extreme peril, and had the Indians carried out their plan the little company must certainly have perished, every man. But at this juncture the horses came dashing through the line. Many of the savages, unable to resist such a temptation, now broke ranks and pursued the frightened animals in an effort to capture them. The horses ran up to the fort, but finding the gate closed, went on over Capitol Hill and down into the Sulphur Spring Bottom, closely followed by the Indians. A few of them were captured, but the larger number returned later to the fort, where they were admitted to a place of safety. The battle down on Broad continued. Capt. James Leiper, Peter Gill, Alex. Buchanan, John Kesenger, Zachariah White, George Kennedy and John Kennedy had been killed and Kasper Mansker, James Manifee and Joseph Moonshaw were wounded. The rest of the settlers were now fighting desperately and mak- ing their way as best they could toward the station, dragging with them their disabled comrades. Shut up in the fort was a pack of fifty dogs. These, by in- stinct and training, hated the Indians, and during the progress of the battle were charging madly around the enclosure in an effort to get into the fray. Mrs. James Robertson, who with the other women of the fort, had been watching with breathless alarm EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNEvSSEE 97 the varying fortunes of the battle, now directed the sentinel to open the gate and let the dogs out. History has not recorded a more vigorous onslaught than that made at this time by these noble brutes in defense of their masters. Rushing furiously down the hill and into the ranks of the enemy, they sprang at the throats of the latter and for a time completely arrested the efforts of the savages, who were utterly surprised by this attack from such an unexpected source. This incident and the flight of the horses turned the tide for the whites and saved to them the day. It is said that Mrs. Robertson stood at the gate after the battle and, patting each dog on the head as he came into the fort^ said she "thanked God that he had given Indians a love for horses and a fear of dogs." As soon as the attention of the Indians was diverted by the attack of the dogs, the settlers started on a run for the fort, still carrying with them the wounded. In this retreat Isaac Lucas, brother of Major Lucas, who had been killed at Freeland's, was shot down, his thigh being broken. He was in the rear and the other members of the party having already passed on, could not return to lend him aid. As he fell he turned his face toward the advancing foe, determined to fight to the death. Quickly prim- ing his gun, he took aim at a big Indian in front of the pursuing party and shot him dead In his tracks. Some of the men had now reached cover of the fort and seeing the dangerous position of Lucas, began firing at the savages, whereupon they turned and fled. Dragging himself to a place of safety the wounded man escaped Into the fort. After lying on his back for a few weeks this hardy pioneer arose and went about his work with only a little lameness as a result of his wound. Edward Swanson, whose marriage is recorded as having taken place only a short time before, was also one of this retreating party. LIIs rifle having been knocked from his hand by one of 7 9^ EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE the enemy when only a short distance from the gate, he tnrned upon the savage and, seizmg his gun barrel, began a struggle for its possession. Finally the Indian wrested it from Swanson and struck the latter a blow which felled him to the ground. All this time the men within the fort had been watching the contest, but were afraid to shoot lest they might wound their comrade. How- ever, seeing that Swanson would be killed unless relief was given, John Buchanan now rushed out of the gate and fired at the In- dian, inflicting a mortal wound. The latter supported himself against a stump nearby for a short time and then hobbled off into the woods, where his dead body was afterwards found. Swanson was carried into the fort and afterwards recovered. Thus ended the "Battle of the Blufif." The Indians scalped the settlers who had been left dead on the field, and taking with them such guns and ammunition as had been left, retired to the woods about lO a. m. Just how many of the attacking party were killed is not known. The bodies of several were found at various places in the forest round about, and by reason of the Indian custom it is supposed that a number of their dead and wounded were carried away. That night another feeble attack was made on the fort, presumably by a party that had failed to arrive in time to take part in the battle of the morning. They were plainly to be seen gathered in a group several hundred yards west of the station. They had fired only a few rounds when Colonel Robertson deter- mined to give them a shot from the cannon. Some of the men protested that they could not spare the powder, and that there were no cannon balls in their stock of ammunition. However, over these objections the piece was well loaded with broken horseshoes, scraps of lead and bits of pottery. Behind this was a heavy charge of powder, each settler having contributed a small amount from his flask. Despite constant danger and privation EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 99 there was yet left to the Stationers a fine sense of humor. Every- thing being in readiness, the spark was appHed. Many cannon, both great and small, in peace and in war, have since that time been fired on the Cumberland, but probably none has ever made quite so loud a report as did this little swivel as it broke the stillness of that April night. The party of redskins toward which the shot was directed quickly vanished and were seen no more. The scarred and broken tree trunks and saplings in the neighbor- hood of where they stood, afterwards paid silent but eloquent tribute to the wisdom of their unceremonious departure. Sup- posing this shot to be a signal of distress^ a party from Eaton's Station soon arrived on the opposite bank of the river and called for boats to bring them over. Two men were quietly slipped down the bank behind the fort and made the crossing and return in safety, bringing their friends into the Blufif Station, There the visitors spent the night, keeping watch in the tower until day- light. A few days later William Hood and Peter Ren f roe were killed in North Nashville; Hood in the McGavock addition near Free- land's, and Renfroe between there and the sulphur spring. The enemy now lay in wait by every path and along every trail until it was perilous to attempt passage from one fort to another, while others in bands hovered around, shooting cattle, killing and driv- ing the game from the woods, and committing every other con- ceivable depredation in order that the food supply might be ex- hausted and the unwelcome emigrants thus forced to abandon their newly-acquired land, lOO EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE CHAPTER XXIII. EVENTS OF 1782.— DAVID HOOD SCALPED. KILGORE's STATION BROKEN UP. — GENERAL COUNCIL CALLED. WM. m'murry killed. About the close of the year 1781 the settlers enjoyed a brief season of quiet, but early in February following, signs of the enemy again appeared. Soon thereafter John Tucker and Joseph Hendrix were fired upon near the sulphur spring while returning by the buffalo trail from Freeland's to the Bluff. Each had an arm broken, but in the race which followed they reached the fort ahead of the savages. Having grown careless they had on this occasion gone out unarmed, a mistake seldom made by the settlers. From this attack it was evident that the Indians were again on the warpath, and a signal gun was fired to^warn the residents of Freeland's and Eaton's. A party of scouts set out at once from the Bluff in search of the band which had made the attack on Tucker and Hendrix, but they had made good their escape. A few days later David Hood was traveling the same road from Freeland's to the Bluff. When in the sulphur spring bot- tom several Indians who were hiding in the cane gave chase, firing at him as he ran. Thinking there was no chance for escape Hood fell forward on his face, feigning death. The savages, coming up, gathered about him, and concluding that he was dead, one of them twisted his fingers in the hair of their victim and with a dull knife deliberately sawed off his scalp. This operation Hood endured without moving a muscle or uttering a groan. His tormentors then stamped him several times on the back with their feet and journeyed on toward the fort. When their foot- steps were no longer heard he raised his head cautiously and seeing no sign of danger, got up and started toward the Bluff. EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE lOI For some reason the Indians had halted just over the hill, and Hood, following them unawares, suddenly found himself again in their presence. They promptly fell upon him the second time, and after inflicting what they supposed to be mortal wounds, threw his body on a brush heap and left him for dead. Next morning he was found by some of the settlers, who, thinking him dead, carried him to the station and placed him in an outhouse adjoining. Some of the women went out to see him and insisted there were signs of life in the body. At their direction he was taken into the fort, his wounds dressed and restoratives admin- istered. He soon recovered and by midsummer was able to be about his work. Hood was a cooper by trade and a bachelor. He was long and lank of body, a great wag, and withal a noted character among the early settlers. He lived at Nashborough for many years after the events above described. The settlers at Kilgore's Station, in Robertson County, had so far been undisturbed. They had come to suppose that because of their distance from the other forts they were free from attack. In this, however, they were doomed to disappointment. The sharp eye of the avenging savage had spied them out. Late in the summer of 1782 Samuel Martin and Isaac Johnson, two occupants of the station, were captured near by and taken prisoners into the Creek Nation. Johnson soon escaped and returned to the fort, but Martin remained with his captors for about a year. He came home elegantly dressed, wear- ing silver spurs on his boots and bringing with him two valuable horses. It was currently reported and generally believed that during the period of his alleged captivity he had accompanied the Creeks on some of their marauding expeditions and shared with them the captured booty. In the fall two young men by the name of Mason went from Kilgore's to Clay Lick to watch for deer. They hid in a canebrake i I02 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE close by, and while thus in waiting seven Indians came to the Lick, probably for the same purpose as themselves. The Masons fired and killed two of them, the remainder of the band retreating. Elated at this easy victory the young men hastened back to the fort and there were joined by three or four of the settlers with whom they returned to the lick and scalped the dead Indians. Late the same evening John and Ephraim Peyton, en route from Bledsoe's Station to Kentucky^ stopped at Kilgore's to spend the night. When they arose to pursue their journey next morning they discovered that their horses^ together with some of those belonging to the settlement, had been stolen. Suspicion at once pointed to a band of Indians who at that time were prowl- ing around the neighborhood. Pursuit was made and the thieves overtaken on Peyton's Creek, a stream afterwards so called because of this incident. The whites opened fire, killing one of the band and retaking all of the horses. On their return, and while they were encamped for the night, the Indians made a cir- cuit and lay in ambush at a point in the road between them and the fort. As the whites were going on toward home next morning the savages poured into their ranks a deadly fire, killing Josiah Hoskins and one of the Masons. The bodies of these were car- ried to the fort and buried nearby. The settlers at Kilgore's now became so much alarmed that they moved to the Bluff, thus break- ing up their station. Among those residing at Kilgore's Station at the time it was broken up were the Kilgores, Moses and Am- brose Maulding, Jesse Simons and others. The occupants of all the forts were at this time so much harassed that they could neither plant nor cultivate their fields. Sentinels must be stationed on every side, and even while one person knelt at a spring to drink another must stand ready, rifle in hand, to shoot a creeping savage who might suddenly appear. If three or four were assembled on the open ground on business £ARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE I03 or for social visitation,. they dared not face each other, but stand- ing back to back, they looked north^ south, east and west, watch- ing in every direction for the stealthy approach of a skulking foe. A general council was now called to consider the best interests of the settlement. Many favored a removal to a place of greater safety. This, however, was vigorously opposed by Colonel Robertson. He pointed out to the assembled colonists the impos- sibility of escape either to East Tennessee or to the forts in Ken- tucky, as all the roads thither were now known to be heavily guarded by the Indians, in evident anticipation of such an at- tempt. He argued that a journey could not be made by water to Natchez or Kaskaskia. There were no means of transportation. Nearly all the boats belonging to the Donelson flotilla had been dismantled and the material used in building cabins and out- houses adjacent thereto, and it would be imprudent at this time to venture into the woods for material with which to build another fleet. Thus in whatever way they might begin the journey they would be surely stalking into the jaws of death. Indeed, this meeting marked a crisis in the history of the settlement. Before its adjournment all came to recognize the fact that conditions and not theory nuist guide their deliberations, and the idea of re- moval was abandoned. Later in the fall of this year General Daniel Smith, Hugh Rogan and William McMurry were traveling the buffalo trail from Bledsoe's to Mansker's Lick. When near the present site of Cragfont, the ancient home of Gen. James Winchester, in the First Civil District of Sumner County, a party of Indians opened fire upon them, kilhng McMurry and wounding General Smith. The gun of the latter fell from his hands, but he caught it up again, and, with Rogan, began a fusillade with the enemy, who soon got the worst of it and ran, making their escape into the tall cane. General Smith recovered and after- wards became Secretary of the territorial government and later io4 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE succeeded Andrew Jackson as Senator from Tennessee in the Congress of the United States. He was born in Fanguier County, Virginia, October 29, 1748; was a skilled civil engineer, and by actual survey made the first map of the State of Tennessee. Com- ing to Middle Tennessee at an early period in its history, he mar- ried a daughter of Col. John Donelson, and selected a fine body of land on Drake's Creek, near Hendersonville, in Sumner Coun- ty. Here in 1784 he built "Rock Castle," his historic residence, 1 ROCK CASTLE which Still stands. Under General Smith's own supervision it was built from stone taken from a quarry a few hundred yards away. The land on which it stands is now the property of his great-granddaughter, Mrs. Horatio Berry, of Hendersonville. ( leneral Smith died at Rock Castle, June 16, 1818, and was buried ill the family cemetery nearby. EARLY HISTORY OP MIDDLE TENNESSEE I05 CHAPTER XXIV. EVENTS OF 1783. FORTS ESTABLISHED IN SUMNER COUNTY. COURT OF TRIERS ASSEMBLES. SAVAGE FURY AGAIN UPON THE SETTLEMENT. TREATY FORMULATED. With the beginning of 1783 prospects of peace began to brighten. News of tlie surrender of CornwalHs and the ac- knowledged independence of the American colonies came over the mountains and caused great rejoicing on the western frontier. In its wake came a number of emigrants to take the place of those who had removed to other localities. The colonies at Boonesborough, Harrodsburg and Davis' Station, in Kentucky, were also augmented by emigrants from the East. During this year the first dry goods store west of the Allegheny Mountains was established at Louisville, the goods with which it was stocked being brought on pack horses from Philadelphia. Soon thereafter Col. James Wilkinson established a second store at Lexington. Because of a feeling of greater security which now prevailed, some of the Cumberland stations formerly abandoned were re- occupied and others established. Kasper Mansker and his asso- ciates who for two years had been living at Eaton's and the Bluff, selected a site on the east side of Mansker's Creek a mile above the old station, and there built a new fort. The Ashers also re- turned to their station southeast of Gallatin. In the early spring Maj. John Buchanan and the Mulherrins selected land and built a fort four miles east of Nashborough, near where the Lebanon branch of the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railroad crosses Mill Creek. This was known as Buch- anan's Station and some years later was the scene of a vigorous assault by the Indians. During this year Anthony Bledsoe, Absalom Tatom and Isaac io6 p:arly history of middle Tennessee Shelby, who afterwards became the first Governor of Kentucky, were sent over as a commission from North Carohna charged with the duty of laying off to certain soldiers lands in the Cum- berland Valley. This was in payment for services rendered in the recent war of the Revolution. Bledsoe, who was accom- panied thither by his family, decided to remain in the settlement. In the fall he established a station at Greenfield, about two and a half miles north of his brother Isaac's fort at Bledsoe's Lick, and on a beautiful eminence in one of the richest bodies of land in Sumner County. The site is on the farm now owned by Wil- liam Chenault. About the same time James McCain, James Franklin, Elmore Douglass^ Charles Carter and others built a fort on the west side of Big Station Camp Creek in Sumner County. It w^as located at a point south of where the Long Hollow turnpike crosses that stream. This site is near Douglass Chapel and on the land owned by Mrs. Ellen Brown, wife of the late Dr. Alfred Brown. Because of an almost incessant warfare with the Indians the Court of Triers had held but few sessions since its creation two years before and of these no official record had been kept. It now began to sit regularly, the first recorded session being held on January 7, 1783. At this time the following Judges were present, to wit : James Robertson, George Freeland, Thomas Molloy, Isaac Lindsey, David Roundsevall, Heydon Wells, James Maulding, Ebenezer Titus, Samuel Benton and Andrew Ewing. At a second meeting held on January icS, Isaac Bledsoe and Capt. John Blackmore appeared and took the oath of office, completing the twelve, and thus constituting a full bench. Numerous sessions were held this year at which a number of orders were made and decisions rendered. On February 5, John Montgomery was sworn in as sheriff of the district, and Andrew Ewing, one of their number, was made clerk of the court. Mont- EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE IO7 o-oiiiery was later deposed from office because he was suspected of being in league with the ''Colbert Gang," a notorious band of river pirates who infested the Cumberland, Tennessee and Mis- sissippi Rivers. Thomas Fletcher was selected by the court to fill out Montgomery's unexpired term. The minutes of this court as preserved by the Tennessee His- torical Society are at once unique and interesting. By an order made at the February term the sheriff was commanded to take the body of John Sasseed, keep it safely and bring it before the court on the first day of March following, then and there to satisfy a judgment for twenty pounds and cost of suit, recently rendered against said Sasseed and in favor of John Tucker. At the August meeting of the court one of the cases heard was that of Frederick Stump against Isaac Renfroe. This suit was over certain property hidden away at the breaking up of Ren- froe's Station, on Red River. Renfroe had left there at that time a quantity of iron which he had later sold "sight unseen" to Stump, who was a miller and blacksmith. Renf roe's brother James afterwards brought away a part of this iron, placing it in the custody of David Roundsevall. vStump, hearing of this action, forthwith attached the estate of Isaac Renfroe, seeking to hold same for the loss thus sustained. He also caused to be issued a garnishment against Roundsevall. The latter answered, but declined to make defense. The facts appearing to the court as alleged, judgment was given against Renfroe for a hundred and sixty dollars and costs. However, the court considered that the iron in Roundsevall's possession was of equal value and it was ordered delivered to the plaintiff in satisfaction of all claims. This year six spies were em])loyed by the settlement. It was their duty to continually scout through the woods and thus dis- cover, if possible^ the movements of the savages. They were un- der the direction of Colonel Robertson and Isaac Rledsoe, and Io8 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE were paid seventy-five bushels of corn per month in compen- sation for services rendered. As fifty dollars per bushel was considered a reasonable price for corn on the Cumberland at that time it would seem that th^ir wages were ample. However, their duties were full of peril. The record shows that most of the spies employed from time to time in defense of the settlement met death at the hands of the Indians. The latter exhibited an especial delight in taking them captive, torturing them, and muti- lating their bodies after death. In the month of March Colonel Robertson was elected to represent the settlement in the North Carolina Legislature, which was then in session. He set out at once for Hillsborough, the State capital, traveling the entire distance of seven hundred miles alone and at his own expense. While there he secured the passage of an act establishing an ''In- ferior Court of Pleas and Quarter Session" at Nashborough. This tribunal, which took the place of the Court of Judges and Triers, consisted of eight members, appointed by the Gov- ernor from the citizenship of the settlement. It was clothed with military, legislative and judicial powers. As members of the court the Governor issued a commission each to Isaac Bled- soe, Samuel Barton, Isaac Lindsey, Francis Prince, James Rob- ertson, Thomas Molloy, Anthony Bledsoe and Daniel Smith. The peace which for several months had been maintained was now broken, and the fury of the savages was again upon the set- tlement. Roger Top was killed and Roger Glass wounded at Rains' Station, in Waverly Place. William, Joseph and Daniel Dunham, were all killed, while prospecting on Richland Creek, and Joshua Norrington and Joel Mills soon thereafter met a like fate. Patsy, daughter of John Raines, with Betsy Williams behind her, was riding on horseback in West Nashville when they were fired upon and the latter killed. Miss Raines escaped uninjured and fled in safety to the blufif. Joseph Nolan lost his life while alone in EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE lOp the woods, and a while thereafter his father, Thomas Nolan, was also killed. The Indians crept up to Buchanan's Station, only recentlly established, and killed Samuel Buchanan and Wil- liam Mulherrin, who were guarding the fort. William Overall and Joshua Thomas were ambushed and shot while en route from the Cumberland Settlement to Kentucky. Finally the enemy came at night to the Bluff, stole all the horses around the country- side and began a hasty flight toward the South. A company of twenty soldiers under command of Captain Pruett pursued them to a point beyond Duck River. There they overtook the Indians, wdiom they fired upon and dispersed. Recovering the stolen horses the whites recrossed the river and camped for the night on the northern shore. The Indians followed them over in the darkness, and at daybreak made an attack on the camp, during which they killed Moses Brown. Thus surprised, the whites fled from the canebrake in which the camp was located to a higher point on the open ground in the rear. There they reformed and awaited the approach of the enemy. The latter, who were far superior to them in numbers, came up in good order and a fierce battle ensued. Captain Pruett's men were put to rout and fled in all haste to the Bluff, leaving Daniel Pruett and Daniel John- son dead on the field. Morris Shine and several others were wounded, but escaped by the aid of their comrades. The In- dians recaptured all the stolen horses, together with those belong- ing to the men who had been killed. This defeat was a great misfortune, coming as it did at a time when the strength of the enemy was somewhat on the wane. Captain Pruett had only recently come to the settlement, and though a trained soldier, was unskilled in Indian warfare. At the beginning of the attack he reproved his men for sheltering behind rocks and trees, insist- ing that they should line up in the open and fight as in regular warfare. They obeyed his command and thus met disastrous defeat. no EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE During April or May, 1783, the State of Virginia appointed a commission to visit the Cumberland Settlement and there make a treaty with the Southern tribes. This action aroused some in- dignation on the part of the settlers. They desired to know by what authority representatives of another State could come upon soil of North Carolina for such a purpose. They also doubted the wisdom of assembling around the stations a large party of the enemy whom they had so long fought^ and of whom the people stood in such continuous dread. Added to the danger with which such action was fraught was also the expense of fur- nishing food to so large a company for an indefinite period. On the other hand it was argued that such a gathering might bring about peace, a condition above all others to be desired. To determine the will of the people on this subject an election was held at the various stations on June 5. Colonel Robertson and the leading men of the settlement generally voted against the proposition, but a summing up of the returns showed that it was favored by a majority of the settlement, and in pursuance thereof the Indians and commissioners were invited to assemble. The council took place the latter part of June at the big spring four miles northwest of Nashville on the east side of the Char- lotte turnpike. The body of land surrounding this spring had already -been selected by Colonel Robertson as his homestead, and thereon he later built a brick residence, which stood for many years after his death. This was also the site of the old Nashville camp-ground. Thither came the chiefs and head warriors of the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws and Chickasaws, bedecked in all their savage regalia and accompanied by a vast horde of squaws and papooses^ and as is the latter-day custom of these tribes in the West on such occasion, they brought with them all the dogs, cats, chickens, geese and other domestic animals and fowls, such as they happen to possess. On the whole the assembly was in- \ EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE III deed a motley crew. However, they were received in a cordial manner by the settlers, by whom they were well fed and other- wise provided for during a stay of a week or ten days. There were provided for the occasion various kinds of amusement, such as foot races^ ball games and jumping contests, in which the visitors engaged with great zest. They were delighted with the reception accorded and some friendships were formed which proved of value to the settlers in after years. Col. John Donelson, at that time living in Kentucky, and Colonel Martin represented Virginia at this council, and by the end of June a treaty was concluded ceding to the whites a scope of country extending forty miles south of the Cumberland to the watershed of Elk and Duck Rivers. But this agreement was likewise between an individual State and the Indians instead of being between the latter and the Federal Government. It was therefore open to legal objctions and was later declared void. However, the occasion of its making was of benefit to the settlers by reason of the personal association above mentioned, and also because it served to further cement the friendship already exist- ing between them and the Chickasaws. The Creeks and Chero- kees, as was their custom, violated all the terms of the treaty and soon thereafter were preying upon the settlement with char- acteristic cruelty. Though this treaty was rendered void, its principal features were included in that made by the Government with the same tribes at Hopewell^ South Carolina, in November, 1785. On April 14, 1783, the Legislature of North Carolina estab- lished Davidson County. It was so named in honor of Gen. Wil- liam Davidson, of North Carolina, who was killed on the Catawba while trying to check the British troops in pursuit of General Morgan on his march from the battle of the Cow^pens. The boundary of Davidson at that time included the entire populated portion of Middle Tennessee. 112 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE The first act of the Davidson County Court was to order the building of a courthouse and jail, the contract for these structures being let soon thereafter. The former was eighteen feet square and of hewed logs. There was also on one side of the building a lean- to, or shed, twelve feet long. The site of the present courthouse on the Public Square in Nashville was selected for its location. The jail building was also built of hewed logs, each a foot square. CHAPTER XXV. EVENTS OF 1784. MILITIA REORGANIZED. HUNTING PARTIES ATTACKED BY INDIANS. On January 6, 1784, the Court of Pleas and Common Sessions, all the Judges present, convened at Nashborough and proceeded to exercise the military arm of its power by reorganizing the mili- tia. Officers were elected as follows : Anthony Bledsoe, First Colonel ; Isaac Bledsoe, First Major ; Samuel Barton, Second Major; Kasper Mansker, First Captain; George Freeland, Second Captain ; John Buchanan, Third Captain ; James Ford, Fourth Captain; William Ramsey, Jonathan Drake, Ambrose Maulding and Peter Sides, Lieutenants ; William Collins and Elmore Doug- lass, Ensigns, and Daniel Smith, Surveyor. The court met for the April term some distance out of Nashborough in a vacant house owned by Jonathan DrakeV Probably because of some question as to its right to sit so far from the designated place, an immediate adjournment was taken to the residence of Israel Herman, who lived near the Blufif fort. By an act of the Legis- lature of North Carolina in May of this year the name of the village which had grown up around the Blufif was changed from Nashborough to Nashville, and such it has since remained. Fre- quent excursions for purposes of murder and plunder continued EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLEj^ TENNESSEE II3 to be made by the Indians. Cornelius Riddle was hunting be- tween Buchanan's Station and Stones River. He killed two wild turkeys and hung them up in a tree while he went in pursuit of another. The Indians who were skulking in the neighborhood heard the report of his gun, and coming near lay in ambush awaiting his return. He was shot and mortally wounded. The enemy took his scalp, and then seizing the turkeys, fled hastily from a vengeance which they knew would otherwise be swift. In the early spring Nicholas Trammel and Philip Mason were stalking game along the headwaters of White's Creek, a few miles northwest of Goodlettsville. While they were down on the ground skinning a deer which had been killed a large company of Indians crept up from behind and opened fire, slightly wound- ing Mason. They then stole the carcass of the deer and pursued their journey up the creek. After running some distance through the woods Mason stopped to dress his wound and also to await the return of Trammel, who went on to Eaton's for reinforce- ments. Later Trammel came back with four of the settlers, and being joined by Mason, the entire party started post-haste after the enemy. They soon found the trail and followed rapidly, but in tlicir liaste failed to notice that the large number of tracks they were following had grown less. The Indians, suspecting pursuit, has gradually slipped aside, one and tw'o at a time, in order that the whites might be thus entrapped. Finally a few who yet led on were overtaken and the settlers dismounting rushed upon them, killing two of their number. In the meantime the Indians in the rear came up, captured the horses and opened a deadly fire on the whites, during which Mason received a mortal wound. His companions ran into the woods and thus escaped. Trammel objected to this hasty retreat and desertion of Mason, but his comrades insisted that it was useless to continue the fight, as the contest was unequal. After traveling 8 114 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE some distance they met Josiah Hoskins^ who was known in the settlement as a soldier braver than Julius Caesar, and also a better rifleman. Led now by Trammel and Hoskins, the party started again in pursuit of the Indians, and coming up with them the fight was renewed, this time from behind trees. After three of the Indians had been killed, Trammel and Hoskins boldly came out into the open determined to put the enemy to flight. No sooner had they done so than each received a shot and died instantly. The rest of the whites held their ground and kept up the fire until both parties were exhausted, and by common consent gave up the contest. Each company then went its way, leaving its dead on the field. During the summer George Espie, Andrew Lucas, Thomas Sharp Spencer and a scout by the name of Johnson left the Blufif on horseback for a hunting -expedition on Drake's Creek, in Sum- ner County. As they crossed the creek their horses stopped to drink. A band of Indians who were in ambush along the bank opened fire upon the party while they were yet in midstream. Lucas was shot through the neck and also wounded' in the mouth. He rode to the bank, dismounted, and attempted to return the fire, but the blood gushed from his mouth and wet the priming in his gun. Seeing that the weapon was thus useless he crawled away and hid himself in a bunch of briers. Espie alighted from his horse and at the same moment received a shot which broke his thigh, but he continued to load and return the fire. Spencer and Johnson made a gallant stand in defense of their comrades and for a time held the enemy at bay. Finally, however, a bullet broke Spencer's right arm and they were obliged to leave the wounded men to their fate. Espie was killed and scalped, but the savages failed to find Lucas, who escaped and returned to the fort. EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 115 CHAPTER XXVL EVENTS OF 1785. WM. HALL ARRIVES AT BLEDSOE's LICK. REV. THOS. B. CRAIGHEAD. The gloom of despair hung hke a cloud over the settlement at the beginning of 1785. Indian foes, incited to action by an un- seen influence, were again making frequent excursions into the region round about, murdering and maiming as zealously as at any time during the previous foui' years. The Spanish Government, with headquarters at New Orleans and Natchez, had so far failed in its attempts, first to win the allegiance of the colony, and second, to destroy it by intrigues with the savages. It now threatened to prohibit all navigation of the Mississippi River and thereby close the only avenue by which the settlers in Tennessee and Kentucky might market their corn and tobacco. Such action on the part of Spain must surely lead to ultimate disaster. Colonel Robertson was again at the capital of North Carolina. Here he was exerting himself in an effort to convince the Legislature of the needs of its western settlement in order that aid might be extended. About all he could at any time secure from that august body was its permission to do certain things, provided always that any expense thus incurred should be borne by the settlement, and that under no condition should any part thereof be paid from the State treasury. An appeal to the Federal Government for protection against Spanish oppression and savage onslaught was at this time and for many years thereafter equally futile. Some excuse for this action on the part of the latter may be found in the fact that dur- ing most of the period mentioned its foreign representatives were attempting to negotiate a treaty with Spain. It therefore feared to offend that power by demanding protection for its western frontier. Both Congress, and the Legislature of the parent State Il6 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE by their acts were continually saying to the struggling colonists beyond the mountains : "You have assumed your present posi- tion of danger without our leave, therefore shift for yourselves. We have enough to do to take care of our colonies east of the Alleghanies." Moses Brown this year built a fort two and a half miles west of Nashville, near Richardson Creek and south of Richland turn- pike. Scarcely was it finished when Brown was killed and scalped and his family driven back to the Bluff. A hired man who lived with William Stuart was murdered at the forks of Mill Creek on the farm which was afterwards owned by Judge John Haywood, the Tennessee historian. During the summer of this year Colonel Robertson, Colonel Weakly and Edmund Hickman, the latter a popular man and a good surveyor, went down on Piney Creek, in Hickman County, for the purpose of entering some tracts of land. They were sur- prised by a party of Indians and in the fight, which followed, Hickman was killed. Robertson and Weakly made a safe re- treat to the Bluff. Late in the fall William Hall arrived at Bledsoe's Lick. He was accompanied by his wife and children, among the latter being William Hall, Jr., a future Governor of the State. Having sold his possessions in Surrey County, North Carolina, in 1779, the elder Hall started to Kentucky, but because of his inability to get through the wilderness with his family at that time, halted at New River, Virginia. There he bought a tract of land on which he lived until the present year. Conclud- ing now to remove to the Cumberland country he again disposed of his property and pursued his journey, reaching Bledsoe's fort on November 20. Selecting land a mile north of the Lick he built a residence and removed his family thereto about January I. This property has since remained in the family and is now owned by his great-grandson, Judge William Hall, of Gallatin, EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE 117 The year 1785 was marked by the advent of Rev. Thomas B. Craighead, a Presbyterian minister, and the first of any de- nomination to make his home on the Cumberland. Craighead was a graduate of okl Nassau Hall, now Princeton University, a man of sound learning^ strong intellect and earnest piety. By the GOV. WILLIAM HALL presbytery of Orange, in his native State, North Carolina, he was ordained to the ministry in 1780. A few years later he removed to Kentucky and for a time preached to the Stationers there, but again changed his residence, coming to Middle Tennessee. It is said that this was done at the solicitation of Colonel Robertson, Il8 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE with whom he had become acquainted in North CaroHna. On arriving at the Cumberland settlement he at once began his work, preaching his first sermon with a stump for a pulpit, and with fallen trees as seats for his congregation. Fixing his residence at Haysborough, six miles northeast of Nashville, he taught school during the week and preached on Sunday. A stone building twen- ty-four by thirty feet in size was erected at Nashville, and in this for thirty years thereafter he taught and held religious service. The decHning years of this pioneer preacher were saddened by a trial for heresy, the result of which was his suspension from the ministry. This order of suspension, however, was revoked before his death. He was a man of strong character, and while active in extending the knowledge of the gospel, he was opposed to the revival measures which led to the formation of the Cum- berland Presbyterian Church. He died at Nashville in 1824. Throughout all his trials Gen. Andrew Jackson was his staunch admirer and loyal friend. During the year 1785 also the first physician to the settlement arrived at Nashville in the person of Dr. John Sappington. The latter acquired much reputation as a practitioner throughout the colony. The first lawyers in the settlement came this year in the per- sons of Edward Douglass and Thomas Molloy, who announced that they would practice in all the courts of Davidson County. A historian of that period says that neither of these gentlemen had studied law as a science, but being of sound practical sense, and possessed of good business talents, and of the gift of speech, they soon had a large clientage. The only law books they pos- sessed were the Acts of the North Carolina Legislature in pamphlet form. EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE II9 CHAPTER XXVII. EVENTS OF 1786. POPULATION OF SETTLEMENT INCREASES. IN- DIANS RENEW HOSTILITIES. DEFEATED CREEK ATTACK. DEATH OF COLONEL DONELSON. SUMNER COUNTY ORGANIZED. This year, despite frequent attacks from the enemy, the popu- lation of the settlement was largely increased by immigration from beyond the mountains. A new station was established by John Morgan, who built a fort in Sumner County at the mouth of Dry P^ork Creek, two and a half miles northwest of Col. Anthony Bledsoe's Station at Greenfield, and near the present site of Rogana. This fort was also in the midst of a beautiful body of land, formerly the property of William Baskerville, but now owned by Dr. Jesse Johnson. The Indians were again on the warpath, however, and the first act in the annual tragedy was the murder of Peter Barnett and David Steel by a party of Chero- kees on the waters of Blooming Grove Creek, below Clarksville, in Montgomery County. Near the same place a few days later the Indians captured William Crutcher, and sticking a rusty hunt- ing knife into his body, went on their way, leaving him by the roadside to die of pain and neglect. When they were gone Crutcher crawled to the cabin of a neighboring settler, where he was nursed back to life. He continued for man}^ years there- after a valued citizen of the settlement. In January a band of horse thieves, probably Creeks, who having ended a war in Georgia now turned their attention to the Cumberland, appeared in the region around B)ledsoe's Lick. Dur- ing the night they stole all William Hall's horses, twelve in nuni- bcr, from an enclosure near his house. Fearing for the safety of his family. Hall now moved back to Bledsoe's fort, where he remained until fall, when he again returned to his plantation. I20 EARLY HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE About the first of February a party, consisting of John Peyton, Ephraim and Thomas Peyton, his brothers ; John Frazier, Thomas Pugh and Esquire Grant, went hunting and surveying in Smith County. They camped on what is now known as Defeated Creek, north of Carthage. The weather was cold, the ground being covered with snow, and they had built a log fire around which they were lounging late at night. About ten o'clock the dogs belonging to the party began to bark and run about the camp, but the hunters supposed that wild animals were prowling around, having been attracted thither by the fresh meat of which they had killed a large quantity. John Peyton raised himself on his elbow and was in the act of hissing the dogs on when a band of about sixty Indians, led by ''Hanging Maw," the Cherokee chief, fired a volley in upon the unsuspecting whites as they lay stretched around the camp fire. Four of the six were wounded. John Peyton's arm was broken in two places. Thomas Peyton was shot in the shoulder, Esquire Grant in the thigh, and John Frazier through the calf of the leg. Ephraim Peyton escaped a shot, but put his ankle out of place in jumping down a blufif on the bank of the creek. As he sprang to his feet in the beginning of the attack John Peyton threw over the fire a blanket which was around him, and in the darkness the party separated an