Rome, Georgia - History (part 3 of 17)

I must not omit here to mention that often and often since this affair have I blessed the chance which kept out of my reach any of these aboli- tion pamphlets which have been so much talked about. I have never seen any and have had some desire to see one for I am in the habit of gathering scraps of that sort as curiosities, and if one had come in my way I should certainly have preserved it, as valuable for a future illustration of our times; and that would have sealed my fate, for had the slightest document of such a nature been discovered in my possession, no explanation could have saved me. A pretext, and not the truth, was wanted; and such an accident, and by no means an unlikely one, could ere this have cost my life upon a scaffold.

Before I close my list of escapes, let me mention one more. Mr. Ross had told me during our ride when first captured how glad he was of the precautions which had been taken a long time before to prevent any resentment on the part of the Indians of any wrong whatever to their nation or its chiefs. Some indignity to him had long been expected and he felt satisfied that the Cherokees would be discreet. I learned afterwards, however, that the indignation of some of them at this enormity almost overpowered the efforts of their leaders to keep them patient. Had they attacked the camp for our rescue I am convinced that as a first step of the defenders, we should have been shot. A scheme was also on foot, I have been told, in the bordering counties of Tennessee, to raise a force and bring us and the Guard back over the line, and there punish the intruders. This attempt would equally have exposed our lives, and in either case we should have been branded as having caused a civil war, and the first bloodshed might have been made an excuse to exterminate the Indians. In more than one instance during our imprisonment I remarked some uneasiness in the camp, but have only since learned whence it probably arose.

But to resume my story. I sent a messenger across the forest to Red Clay, for the purpose of knowing what had become of Mr. Ross. With the messenger next day Mr. Ross and his Assistant Principal Chief* and Dr. Butler** came to congratulate me on my escape. Of Dr. Butler I ought to make some special mention. He was one of those who had been imprisoned in the Georgia penitentiary under the famous attack upon the Missionaries. He had deeply felt my danger, had written to my friends, though a stranger to them, in order that the result he secretly apprehended might not come upon their knowledge too suddenly, and had travelled a long road through a dreary night to seek influence in my favor. His little family had implored Heaven for me with their prayers, and when I met them again, welcomed me with a touching enthusiasm, which told the story of the peril I had escaped. It was when I went back with my visitors to the house of Mr. Ross that I saw them, and soon after, Mr. Ross and Mr. Lowry accompanied me as far as the agency. There the venerable Eena-tah-naah-eh, commonly called Going Snake, speaker of the Council, and one or two of its other members were in waiting to congratulate me. Old Eena-tah-naah-eh, though he could not speak a syllable of English, was eloquent with looks of joy. He had told Mr. Ross when he first called to see him after his emancipation, "It makes me happy to find you here. . But I am only half happy. I do not see our friend. I look at the chair where he used to sit, and it is empty. I look at the door and he does not enter. I listen for his voice, but all is silent."

On hearing I was to be at the agency,*** the old man hastened thither. There, too, the officers of the United States army hailed me with the cordiality of compatriots and gentlemen, feeling that the republic had been insulted in the treatment I had received, a spirit which appeared to prevail wherever I happened to pass people in my lonely ride to Knoxville, where I have had ample proof that Tennessee disdains the baseness of which I have been the victim within her sway.

It may be asked whence this highhanded outrage of which Mr. Ross and myself have been the victims arose. There must have been some cause for it. The only cause I can guess for it is this : There was a wish to get possession of certain documents regarding the treaty discussions from Mr. Ross, which had been asked for by the government agents and not given. It was known that I had made copies of all the recent public documents of the Cherokee nation. The seizure of the papers of both Mr. Ross and myself would probably supply all that had been asked. There was no

**Rev. Elijah Butler, who had charge of Missioivary Station at Coosa, and who had spent a year and four months in the penitentiary at Milledgeville for "interfering" with the Indians.

force sufficiently lawless to undertake this but the Georgia Guard. Having adventured on the step, it was requisite to invent a pretext, and to cover themselves from indignation by keeping us out of view until the country could be excited against us. The mad-dog cry of the day is Abolitionist. That was the most obvious mode of strangling complaint against the injury, for it was the most certain to get the injured themselves strangled, and "dead men tell no tales." Besides, if a mob could be raised, mischief could be done without responsibility. In order to make "assurance doubly sure"* the slander was heightened by the imputations of a French and Indian, connected with a negro plot, for universal massacre. The scheme, however, did not take the effect expected. Then was Mr. Ross set free, under the plea, probably, that he had more friends than I. He was even treated at the dismissal with a show of courtliness, that his story might discredit mine.

I was probably detained after him for two reasons. My papers contained fair copies of all such among his as might be wanted. Mine were fairly written and arranged and could more easily be made use of by the transcriber. It was convenient to keep me until copies could be made of whatever Cherokee documents the parties concerned might think useful.

The other reason appears very likely to have been this: Alone and a stranger in a strange place, I might be made the readier victim could a stir be raised against me, either within the camp or within the neighborhood. The frequent mention by the officers of my having "abused the guard" was intended to spirit them to do me an injury. I heard one of them intimate with some indignation one day that he himself so understood it. To them and to all, my continued imprisonment was doubtless meant to convey the idea of proven guilt. The mode of my dismissal was evidently intended to be understood as an encouragement to any violence that the "boys" within might choose to perpetrate, and the hostile pursuit by threats as an excitement to the "boys" without. By crushing me, my persecutors might crush a witness and prevent future inquiry. Perhaps I was only saved by taking a road which no one

But whatever the pretext for this enormity, there can be no excuse. If my visit to the house of Mr. Ross was objected to by the government agents, a hint would have been enough. If doubt were entertained of the nature of my memoranda, a request would have opened them to examination. Violence would have been early enough when a disposition had been shown to respect gentleness. But that I was really engaged in any plot of any sort, I am persuaded never was believed by those who have committed this outrage. What could I gain by the Cherokees? Every moment that I have passed in their country has been a loss to me and an inconvenience. Nothing which they can offer can render me services, and men do not contrive treason when they can gain no advantage. I have been swayed in the very little I have gathered regarding the Cherokees by a pure and distinterested wish to render my own country service, in leading it to be simply' just to theirs, and I have wished to' supply myself with such material that the fairness which it might be impossible for me to excite for them from present legislation, I might myself bestow on them in future history. In party questions I take no interest. I repeat again and again that I have looked into this matter as a philanthropist, not as a politician.

Mr. Ross will presently tell his own story.** His affairs have prevented him from joining me here in time to give it to the world with mine. I have wished to put my portion of the facts on record as speedily as possible, because I am aware that great falsehood must be resorted to by my oppressors in order to prevent public indignation against a great wrong. Indeed, with such foes and such modes as they adopt for gaining ends and such a' long and lonely road to travel, who knows how soon the complainer may be yet silenced? It is but a week since I was a prisoner. But whatever may be the risk, I deem it a duty to my country not to shirk from speaking the entire truth.

People of Tennessee, to you I appeal! T was a peaceful visitor to your state. I had dwelt in it some weeks. A band of armed men, who, in overpassing the limits of their, own region, surely rendered themselves felons and banditti.

burst into my retreat at midnight, dragged me four and twenty miles through a forest and during a drenching tempest. I was denied to communicate with friends, with your government, with our common protector, the President of the Union. I was denied a knowledge of the charge against me, or my accuser. After nearly two weeks of imprisonment I was insultingly and without examination ordered back into Tennessee by the Captain of the outlaws who had laughed at your power of protection, your own chartered boundaries to scorn. People of Tennessee, will you bear these things? Will you see your hospitality thus dishonored? Will you know that the stranger who comes to visit you can not be safe, even in his blamelessness, from injury and insult within your domain?

People of Georgia, I appeal to you ! I came among you as a fellow countryman. I came to make myself acquainted with your history and your character and with the numberless natural beauties and with the countless riches of your domain. I came under the guarantee of the compact between the sister states of the Republic, which secures to the citizens of each unobstructed communication with all. I came relying upon the spirit of hospitality which has distinguished the South. I have told you how I have been treated. If any member of the Republic has been especially remarkable for her resistance to the intrusion of one state upon the rights of another, it is Georgia. How, then, can I believe that she will uphold her officers, who have in the most glaring and the coarsest manner been guilty of such an intrusion? I do not, therefore, identify the state with the wrongs. I can not again enter the state until the people do the justice to tell me that I have judged them fairly in believing they feel themselves insulted by the insults which have been heaped in their name upon a neighboring power and upon the constitution, our common protector^in the person of a stranger, a countryman, a friend.

My fellow citizens throughout my native land! To all of you alike I appeal, for there is not one in our Republic to whom this case is not of vital impoi-t. It is not a party, but a universal question, and I doubt not but that the Chief Magistrate of the Republic, whose government has been prophaned by being made by subalterns to seem the source of the wrong, will be foremost in declaring this eJiormity. Insulting inquisitions, domiciliary visits, midnight intrusions into the sanctuary of homes, seizure by armed men of private papers, the imprisonment and secreting of citizens, without the disclosure either of the charge or the accuser, contempt of the boundaries of the states, mockery of the hallowed privileges of the constitution - all these the worst deeds of the basest despotism have been perpetuated already in the instance now before you, and if you do not rise like men and declare such things shall not be suffered, not a citizen among you can say he sleeps in safety!

John Howard Payne

This is no idle declamation. It has happened to me and it may happen to any one of you. The Rubicon has been passed. But think of me, think of yourselves, think of those most dear to you, to whom you would bequeath the freedom you inherited. Not for personal chagrin, but for the honor of our country I will tell you, and oh ! let not posterity echo the assertion as a prophecy, if tamely you look on and see these things, unmoved! I care not for proscriptions nor for bayonets; neither the Guards of Georgia nor the denunciations of reckless and wily and insidious hirelings shall frighten me into silence; for I will tell you and with my last breath, if tamely you behold these things you are only slaves - heartless, abject slaves, and unworthy of the immortal ancestors who bravely fought and nobly died to make their country free. But for this, I am satisfied, you will give no cause. The spirit of your fathers is not dead within you. My country will not see even the humblest of her sons oppressed. JOHN HOWARD PAYNE.

*Evidently Nov. 2S. Since he was released Friday, Nov. 20, he could not have reached Knoxville, 125 miles, in less than four days. Payne was born June 8, 1792, at 33 Pearl St., New York, N. Y., and died at 60 years of age Apr. 10, 1852, while serving as United States consul at Tunis, Morocco. He lay buried there until W. W. Corcoran, of Washington, D. C, brought his body back to his native land late in March, 1883, and reinterred it in Georgetown, a suburb of Washington. He corresponded with such literary lights as Washington Irving (who also died a bachelor), Samuel Tavlor Coleridge and Chas. Lamb, and roomed with Irving in Paris for a while.

Chapter Iv

liE arrest of Payne and Ross stirred up a "hornet's nest" in Georgia and Tennessee and to a less extent and throughout the country. Governor William Schley had just come into office at Milledgeville as the successor of Wilson Lumpkin, and he was bombarded with protests. President Jackson was bombarded at Washington. A volunteer force of soldiers was organized in Tennessee to patrol "the l:)order" and keep the rambunctious Georgians on their "own side." Congress and the Georgia Legislature prepared to review the case. The Georgia Guard began to "spew out."

Major Currey explained to President Jackson through Elbert Herring', commissioner of Indian Affairs, and called Payne a prevaricator. He was supposed to have ordered the arrest, or at least to have inspired it. Some said the order came from Milledgeville. Schermerhorn contended that he was at Tuscaloosa, Ala., when -he heard the news ; had nothing to do with it, but would have had Payne arrested had he known of his designs.

Two Indians from near Rome figured in the aft'air. Payne's account mentions that one of them hung himself in the guard house at Spring Place, which became his own "home" for nearly a fortnight. Combatting Payne's statement that the Indian was driven to desperation by the Georgia Guard, Major Currey offered this explanation :

*The Howling Wolf was of the Chickamauga District, which included part of Rome. He was no doubt identical with Crying Wolf. Robbin was a member of Challocgee district, which included half of Floyd County. Both attended the Running Waters council in July, and Robbin voted with the faction led by Ridge.

The Howling Wolf, charged with stabbing an Indian for supporting the treaty, and Lowny, or Robbin, charged with killing and robbing a white man, were being held at Spring Place. An old ms.n named Trigg was arrested and confined with the Indians; he told them their own people would shoot them through the cracks of the calaboose in the early morning. Lowny, or Robbin, tried to persuade the Howling Wolf that they should hang themselves. The latter refused, but the former committed suicide by hanging from a rafter with a small cord that had been tied loosely to his arms.'"'

The occurrence was well calculated to inflame public opinion. John Ross knew this, and he tactfully refrained from rushing into the discussion. Theodore Frelinghuysen, Edward Everett, Jas. K. Polk, Jno. C. Calhoun, Sam Houston, John Bell, Hugh Lawson White and other leading friends of the Indians took up the cudgels at Washington. Mr. Bell, who became the candidate of the Constitutional Union party for President in 1860 (with Mr.' Everett in the minor position) undertook to bring about a Congressional investigation.

The Georgia Journal, of Milledgeville, a consistent opponent of Gov. Lumpkin and his "strong-arm gang," printed the following protest under date of Tuesday, Nov. 24, 1835 :

A rumor reached us sometime since of another outrage committed by the Georgia Guard. It was vague and uncertain, however, and as we did not wish to array in the catalogue of violations of law committed by this armed force a single outrage that was not stated on good authority, we hesitated to give it publicity. This rumor has proved true.

It seems that this Guard, under the command of one of the subalterns, crossed the line of the State and kidnapped from the State of Tennessee John Ross, the principal chief of the

A Few Things The Indians Left Behind

Here is part of Wesley O. Connor's collection of relics at Cave Spring. These articles Yol? """/^io ""'^o^^?'^^ on the Moultrie farm, Foster's Bend, Coosa River, in the freshets of 1881 and 1886. Included among the more obvious articles are a bone necklace, Indian money, spear pomts and arrow heads, pipes, pestles and bits of pottery. The skulls are undoubtedly- Indian. '

The pitiful reason urged to palliate this gross enormity seems to have been that Mr. Payne "was conspiring against the welfare of Georgia." Mr. Payne's real offense, in the eyes of these vandals, was his copying certain documents relative to the manners and customs of the Indian tribes, which their wiseacre of a leader construed to be high treason against the State.

It was indeed time that this scourge to the peaceful citizens of Murray County was removed ; it is high time the military rule and despotism was made to give place to the authority of the laws. We should like to inquire of the Governor by what legal authority these arrests were made, and why on the receipt of information orders were not immediately given for the release of the prisoners?

The officious members of this armed force ought to be made to smart in damages; an action on the case for illegal arrest and false imprisonment will clearly be made against them.*

John H. Underwood, Rome grocer, who was a member of the Guard in the arrest, did not give any interviews to newspaper editors, so all he observed is lost save wdiat little he told Bill Arp, which is to be found elsewhere herein. But a number of others "writ upon time's immortal scroll."

Sir: I have just received information that my brother, John Howard Payne, on the night of the 10th of November,*** inst., while in company with John Ross, the Cherokee chief, at his dwelling in the Cherokee nation,

*Payne's effort to have something definite done at Washington failed, and in a letter from New York to Gen. Harden at Athens in 1836, he said he would try to proceed against Col. Bishop, Major Currey and Sergt. Wilson Young.

****The brother estimated 24 miles. Blue Spring, Bradley County, Tenn., where the arrest took place, is eight miles north of the Georgia line, and about 40 miles from Spring Place as one would travel by horseback in 1835.

was seized by a party of about 25 of the Georgia Guard, and conducted by them to their headquarters, at about 20**** miles distant from the place of seizure, where, as I am informed, he is now imprisoned.

Mr. Payne's general object, in a tour through the western and southern states, has been partly to obtain subscribers to a periodical work in which English and American writers may meet upon equal ground, and partly to collect such materials for his own contributions to the work as a personal acquaintance with the various peculiarities of our diversified country may supply. To one acquainted with his pacific disposition and exclusive literary habits, the supposition of his entertaining any views politically dangerous, either in reference to Georgia or the United States in their respective relations to the Cherokees if it were not accompanied with results painful and perhaps perilous to himself, would seem ludicrous. My informant, a stranger, states that "it is there reported that he is considered by the officers of Government to be a spy." Whether by officers of Government is meant those of Georgia or of the United States I am not informed. He likewise states that "Mr. Payne is supposed to have had some influence in producing the failure of a late treaty with the Cherokees."

In the present excited state of feeling in that section of the country, on subjects connected with the Indian removal, there may, perhaps, be serious danger to the personal safety of one coming under suspicions of the character above alluded to, however groundless.

I take the liberty, I hope not unwarrantable, to request and urge a speedy inquiry into the circumstances of the case, and the use of the means within the province of your department of the Government to procure his release, if, as will undoubtedly appear upon investigation, he shall be found to have been wrongfully detained.

Thatcher T. Payne

Payne himself was making quill and ink fly, to such an extent that Col. Bishop resigned his commission in December. Soon thereafter the Standard of Union threw Bishop this bouquet :

Col. Bishop at Home. - After all the abuse that has been heaped upon Col. Bishop as a man and a public officer, the people of Murray have given an additional proof of their confidence in his capacity and integi-ity to serve them. From the returns of the election in that county on the first Monday in January last (1836), Col. Wm. N. Bishop received for the office of clerk of the superior court 158 votes, and his opponent 12. We are sincerely gi'atified at the support which Col. Bishop has I'eceived from his countrymen, and hold it as the highest evidence of his value as a private citizen and a public officer. Well done, Murray County; you know you are right - go ahead!

As for Georgia, "Never again !" exclaimed the outraged playwright and budding historian in a letter of Dec. 5 from Knoxville to Gen. Harden :*

My Dear Sir: You have no doubt ere this heard of my adventures. I sent you the statement by last post. Have you ever known of a more impudent enormity? There has been a public meeting here, spirited and dignified. The proceedings will, I hope, be printed at Athens. This example ought to be followed throughout the Union; I hope especially, for these measures offer the only opportunity he has of casting the blame upon the delinquents who deserve it.

I have no time to write now, but could not allow myself to depart on my way homeward without a card of remembrance. It will perhaps be as well for me not to make my line of march generally known, but I want to go to Hamburg** because my trunks are all in Augusta, Ga. I shall never enter again without a formal public invitation. I will go to the border and look in.***

Mr. Ross and many of the delegation are here. Many have made formal protest against their mission from Currey, but of this they take no heed.

Mj way must be made alone and on horseback. I should not wonder if these scoundrels made my journey a longpi one than I have intended. But no matter if the worst happens - I shall not be the first who has not lived out his time in a free country, and unless

I write to you in great haste, and enclose the statement of a great wrong I have suffered. I wish you to exert your talent on this affair, not because I have been personally insulted, but because it is only by a strong expression of feeling that any man's liberty can be secured. There is no freedom in America if these things can be tolerated.

If I reach Charleston, S. C. in safety, I shall be there just in time to have your answer, provided you wish further information. At any rate, it will afford me sincere pleasure to hear of you and your fortunes.

In a communication from Washington on Mar. 3, 1836, to Secretary of War Lewis Cass, Mr. Schermerhorn commented as follows on the Payne-Ross af-

Permit me also to make a few observations in reference to the arrest of Messrs. John Howard Payne and John Ross by the Georgia Guard, which, I perceive from the public papers, they charge or insinuate was done by the direction of the commissioner and agent of the Government.

Although the statements of Mr. Payne in reference to myself were exceedingly unjust and incorrect, I could not condescend to a newspaper con-

*Courtesy of Miss Evflyn Harden Jackson, of Harden Home, Athens, a cousin of Miss Mary Harden and author of an interesting booklet on the love affair between the college beauty and Mr. Payne.

***Miss Jackson is authority for the statement that Payne came back in 1842 to Athens to "re-press his suit," but that he had no better success than before.

****Courtesy of Mr. G. H. Buek, vice-president of the American Lithographic Co., New York, N. Y., and owner of the old Payne home (and collection) at Easthampton, Long Island.

troversy with him; therefore, I have passed it by in silence; but lest my silence should be interpreted by some of the members of the Senate, as I find it has been by some others, as a tacit acknowledgement of the truth of his statement, I now say that I had no knowledge or agency, directly or indirectly, in this matter.

The first information I received on this subject was through the Georgia newspapers, while I was at Tuscaloosa, Ala.; and immediately on hearing it I left there, to use my best endeavors to obtain their release, and I arrived at the agency only a few days after Mr. Payne had been liberated. It was owing to my interference that Mr. Ross was not taken by the Georgia Guard last July,* for some violations of the laws of that State.

I must, however, say that it is evident from Mr. Payne's own statements, which he has given to the public, that he did interfere at Red Clay in a very improper and unwarrantable manner with the negotiations then pending between the Government and the Cherokee Indians, and I should have been perfectly justifiable to have had him arrested and removed from the treaty ground; and if I had known what he has since disclosed of the part he acted there, I should have done it.

The committee to whom were referred the several communications of His Excellency, the Governor, on the subject of the establishment of the Georgia Guard in the Cherokee Circuit, have had the same under consideration, and beg leave to make the following report:

. . . Your Committee beg to proceed now to the further discharge of their duty, by enquiring, first, as to the conduct of the Guard in the recent arrest and detention of John Howard Payne. . . . Your Committee greatly regret that they have not all the facts in such a shape that implicit credit might be given to them. They are compelled then, in the investigation of this branch of the subject, to discard all the contradictory statements found in newspapers, and to decide only from such facts as have been legitimately brought before them, in the communications of the Governor.

that the recent arrest of Mr. Payne was made in the State of Tennessee. Your Committee conceives that the Guard transcended their power in crossing the line of the State of Georgia to arrest an individual out of the limits of this State. And your Committee believes that it was an act of which the sovereign State of Tennessee has just right of complaint against the authorities of Georgia. The only testimony before your Committee relative to the arrest of Mr. Payne will be found in the communication of His Excellency, William Schley, of the 10th instant. ... It appears then to your Committee that the Georgia Guard, in the recent arrest of John Howard Payne, trampled under foot the Constitution of the United States. . . . How long he was kept under guard before the arrival of Col. Bishop at Spring Place your Committee are uninformed. . . . But the commander of the Guard says, after examining his papers, and finding him guilty of no offense for which he was answerable in our courts, I, the commander of the Guard, kept him in custody a few days and then discharged him.

Your Committee would ask with feelings of mortification, why he was kept in custody one minute beyond the time when it was ascertained he had committed no offense. Was it to punish him for his indiscreet statements in relation to the Georgia Guard? Perhaps so. But in so doing the Guard have violated every principle of the Constitution, which guarantees liberty and equal rights to the citizens of this country. They have jeopardized the character and reputation of the state of Georgia abroad, by this act of wanton and uncalled for vandalism, and will bring down upon the people of the State the inevitable and odious charge of inhospitality and cruelty to the stranger. . . .

Resolved, That the Legislature highly disapproves of the conduct of the Georgia Guard in the recent arrest and confinement of John Howard Payne in the Cherokee Nation.

The pro-administration press sounded a different note on the incident. A Nashville Banner view proved good enough for the Georgia Telegraph (Macon) of Thursday, Dec. 24, 1835, and The Telegraph reprinted it verlxitim : chief, was lately seized at the house of the latter by the Georgia Guard, has availed himself of the occasion to inflict upon the public eight mortal columns of the dullest, most fatiguing narrative it was ever our fortune to encounter. A concise statement of the principal facts connected with the outrage, if given in about half a column of an ordinary newspaper, would have been read with interest; but to wade through this mass of verbiage merely to learn that Messrs. Ross and Payne were seized by a party of desperadoes, called the Georgia Guard, carried over the Georgia line, kept under duress for a day or two and then released, would be paying quite too much for the whistle.

If Mr. Payne succeeds in making his intended "literary periodical" as uninteresting as he has this account of his capture, it will certainly be a remarkable work!

It was while these efforts were making to induce the Cherokees to emigrate that the literary pursuits of the celebrated John Howard Payne led him to visit the Cherokee people and country. He was known to be strongly opposed to the views of the Government in regard to Indian emigration and this led to his arrest by Col. Bishop, the State's agent. The arrest was both premature and illegal, but the impertinent intermeddling of Payne was very unbecoming a stranger, a gentleman, or an author professedly collecting facts for history. He was the partisan, if not the agent, of Northern fanatics, whose avocation is to repent for the sins of everybody except themselves.

The charge made b}^ Payne that President Jackson (through his agents) had offered Ross a bribe stirred Washington as much as the arrest itself.** This charge was carried in an anonymous communication printed by several newspapers in the "Pryne Free-Service Syndicate," and is believed to have been played up especially by the Knoxville Register, wi:h whose editor Payne's liaison was complete.*** The sum and substance was that Ross could have had $50,000 if he had stood out of the way of the Cherokee removal ; a Creek chief is said to have offered it to him, and to have been ordered from the wrathy presence of Ross.

Here is the anonymous communication attribtited to Payne. It was undoubtedly written from the Red Clay Council ground in Whitfield County, one day before the council convened with Payne prominently present :

Sir: I am no politician. Of this you are aware. I generally avoid, if possible, even thinking upon what are called political questions. Their discussion is apt forthwith to become personal, and instead of eliciting truth, to produce brawls. But there are points of policy upon which we are sometimes forced to think; and when we are called upon to detest the Mussulman for his tyranny over the Greek, and to pity the exile from what once was Poland, we are at a loss to believe that there are scenes passing in our free country at this very moment,

Letter of Apr. 16, 1836, Major Currey to Elbert Herring, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and Exhibit 14 as inclosure of same, both included in Report of Secretary of War on Cherokee Treaty (1835), ps. 549-590.

to which both the Turk and the Russian might triumphantly appeal, for a sanction to the despotism at which all have shuddered. Shall I tell you what they are?

In travelling through Georgia I, of course, heard frequent mention of the Cherokees; but I took little heed of what I heard. I considered the Cherokees as they had been represented, as but the miserable remnant of a broken race, given up to all sorts of degradation; and I thought the sooner they could be transported beyond the^ bounds of civilization, the better for the world. Accident, however, brought me to some very different views of the question. I inquired more thoroughly. I determined to judge them with my own eyes. I purchased a horse, traversed the forests alone and went among them.

Still I was perplexed. I was desirous of seeing the head men of the nation; I was particularly desirous of seeing John Ross. Some Georgian told me I ought not to see him, that he was a selfish, and a sordid, and a silent man, in whom I should take no interest, from whom I should obtain no information. At one moment I had turned aside from my purpose, and was proceeding homeward. But I felt as if my errand would be a fruitless one if I went away. So, little instructed, I changed my course, and travelled the wilderness for three days to the abode of Mr. Ross.

I found Mr. Ross a different man in every respect from what I had heard him represented to be. His person is of the middle size, rather under than over; his age is about five and forty; he is mild, intelligent and entirely unaffected. I told him my object. He received me with cordiality. He said he regretted than he had only a log cabin of but one room to invite me to, but he would make no apologies. If I could put up with rough fare, he should be glad if I would stay with him.

****Silas and Geo. W. Ross were undoubtedly born at Rome, and an infant died there and was buried on the lot, as was Daniel Ross, father of John.

*****Land Lot 237, Twenty-third, District Third Section (160 acres) was drawn by Hugh Brown, of Deavour's District, Habersham Co., Ga. The office of the Secretary of State, the Capitol, Atlanta, has the date Nov. 11, 1835. Most of the lottery drawings were held in October, 1832. Land lot 244 was drawn by Stephen Carter, of Robinson's District, Fayette County. (The Cherokee Land Lottery, p. 288).

ed how the principal chief happened to live in such discomfort. The story contains the story at this moment of the whole nation. Last winter he was delegated with others to Washington, in order to attempt a treaty upon available terms - such terms as his people would accept. He could not obtain such. It was evening when he had arrived, on his returning way, within twenty miles of the dwelling he had left, then a beautiful abode at the head of Coosa*, upon a rising ground, overlooking a luxuriant plain below, and rivers running through it, and in the distance a noble mountain.** A friend desired him to remain all night. No, he was approaching home after a long absence; he was impatient to see his family. He hurried on. In the dead of night*** he aroused the house; strange voices answered him. His family had just been turned from the spot where his children were cradled.**** and it was occupied by a Georgian. The land was drawn in the Georgia lottery,***** and though not claimable until the Indians should be removed by treaty, was seized in his absence to petition Congress for his country - seized under the delusion of that wayward and selfish policy which has led Georgia to defy the General Government and all its solemn pledges to protect the Indians and vindicate its honor, in not swerving from its treaties.

It was this hard conduct which had driven the principal chief to one of the humblest dwellings in his nation. But he made no complaint, even after I had grown familiar with him. I learned this wrong from other lips.

Some of your readers may have glanced, but lightly, as I did, at the real position of the Cherokee case. Though so often and so eloquently stated, I will recapitulate it in brief; disputes between the General Government and Georgia were a long time ago compromised by an arrangement for certain advantages for Georgia, in return for advantages given by her to the General Government; and as a part of the compensation from the Government, Georgia was to receive the Cherokee lands, as soon as the Indian title could be peaceably extinguished, and upon reasonable terms. But the Cherokees are pi-overbial, and have been so for ages, for a peculiar devotedness to their native soil.

portment; rather slow and reserved in tlieir conversation, yet frank, cheerful and humane; "tenacious of the liberties and natural rights of man; secret, deliberate and determined in their councils; honest, just and liberal, and ready always to sacrifice every pleasure and gratification, even their blood and life itself, to defend their territory and maintain their rights." - Barham's* Travels, 1791, London Edition, Page 483.

"It may be remarked that the Cherokees differ in some respects from other Indian nations that have wandered from place to place and fixed their habitations in separate districts. From time immemorial they have had possession of the same territory, which at present they occupy. They affirm that their forefathers sprung from that ground, or descended from the clouds upon those hills. These lands of their ancestors they value above all things in the world; they venerate the places where their bones lie interred, and esteem it disgraceful in the highest degree to relinquish these sacred repositories. The man who would refuse to take the field in defense of these hereditary possessions is regarded by them as a coward and treated as an outcast from their nation." - Historical account of the rise and progress of South Carolina and Georgia, Vol. II, 201, London, 1777.

This was known to the Georgians. This has been felt by the General Government in the extreme difficulty which it has experienced in the attempt to persuade the Cherokees to part with their lands. Millions after millions of acres were reluctantly wrung from them, until at length they came to a pause: "We have not lands enough," exclaimed they, "for ourselves; we part with no more land!" A Creek chief endeavored to tamper with their councils and offered a bribe from the United States of many thousand dollars to their principal men, if they would countenance the sale of the country to our Government; but their principal men repelled the bribe, and drove the Creek from their territory with scorn.

Threats and gold and persecution and sufferings unprecedented have been equally incapable of overpowering their sacred love for the wild wood of their bii-th and the resting place of their ancestors. Other Indians have been lured away, but the Cherokee remains inflexible. And when the Georgian asks, "Shall savages infest our borders thus?" the Cherokee answers him, "Do we not read; have we not schools, churches, manufactures; have we not laws, letters, a constitution; and do you call us savages?"

The Georgian can only reply by pointing to a troop of border cavalry whose appearance reminds one of banditti more than of soldiers, and exclaiming "dare prate to us and these men's muskets shall be our spokesmen

And true enough it is that they are not savages. Never has a tribe of the aborigines made such advances in civilization. They have even produced among themselves an alphabet and letters of a fashion entirely original, and they have books among them printed with their own letters in their own language, and with this alphabet they daily communicate from one end of the nation to the other; they clothe themselves in stuffs of their own manufacture; they have made roads, bridges, established a seat of Government. But Georgia has hated them the more because of their civilization ; she has made it treason for them to keep up their courts and councils and laws; she has broken down their turnpikes and bridges, and denies them the right of appearing to testify in her courts against any insult or injury they may receive. They have consefiuently removed their seat of internal government beyond her borders to the corner of another State,** and the decrees issued thence are obeyed with reverence even by the offender, who knows if he were to resist, he would be upheld by the stronger power, to which he never will appeal, because he regards it as the irreconcilable foe of his country.

This state of things has convinced all parties of the necessity for a settlement of the question, by the removal of the Cherokees from the neighborhood of those whose interests will not let them understand the Cherokee rights. The Cherokees themselves at length acknowledge that it is better for them to remove. "But let us not remove," say they, "till we can be assured of a kindlier dwelling place. The Government of America has given us no reason to confide in its power to protect us against Georgia, and therefore, we must remove, for if we do not, we must perish. If we do re-

The United States, on the other hand, wish the Cherokees to go to a country of their selection; they wish the Cherokees to sell their own country (in which the United States are solemnly pledged to protect them, until they choose to select) upon such terms as the United States think fit to offer.

"Take our price for your land," says Gen. Jackson, "and I will not insist on governing you; buy another country with it." "We can not buy another country and be indemnified for our own by what you offer," says the Cherokee; "give us our price and you may have our land, if we must go; but we do not wish to go; no money can pay us for our homes." "You ask too much," answers Gen. Jackson; "you can not have your price." "Then let us remain," replies the Cherokee; "keep your money, and give us your protection; take all the rest of the land we have, and leave us such portions as are connected, and incorporate us in counties with the states on which these poor fragments, which we ask to retain for ourselves, border; and let us belong to your nation, and send our representatives, like other countries, to Congress; and satisfy Georgia as you may for her disappointment, from the impossibility you find of purchasing all our land from us, on such terms as we can sell it for. Georgia has no fathers, mothers, children buried in the land. She has never seen it. She has no nation to establish. She would rather have money than the land. You can not give her the land. Give her the money." To this Gen. Jackson answers with a peremptory "No!"

What is the next step taken? The agents of Government tamper separately with the Indians. They get together a few unauthorized Cherokees ; make up a scheme of a treaty upon their own terms, and endeavor to inveigle the men who possess the entire confidence of the nation: First, they withhold the annuity to the nation on frivolous pretexts, thus taking away their only resource for defiance in the courts of law, and for remonstrance in the House of Congress. A party is attempted to be conjured up in the nation by the acts of the Government agents; and twice attempts have been made to parade that little and reluctantly gathering party, and on both occasions the people, the great body of the people, have looked them down; on the last, especially, not three months since, when they poured their thousands upon a plain, upon which the agents of Government, with all the magic of their promises and their patronage, could bring against them scarcely more than a miserable hundred.*

The immediate position of the nation is this: The Government treaty has been exhibited to the Cherokees, and rejected. It has been attempted to shake their confidence in their principal chief, but in vain. The council established a newspaper, and the Government agents have seized their press, avowedly for the purpose of changing it to a Government vehicle, for swaying the people to such a treaty as Gen. Jackson longs for. Here at once is an acknowledgment how base is the pretense that the Cherokees ought to be dealt with as a separate tribe! Were they truly looked upon as savages, would any importance be attached to their press? Were they not known to be much advanced in civilization, would the agents of the Administration have entered upon the perilous extravagance of seizing an instrument over which they had no legal power, for selfish and corruptive purposes? But the Jackson myrmidons have the press; and possession in law is like power in politics - it takes the place of reason and of right.

Then let us leave our Government the Cherokee national paper, however disreputably obtained, and proceed to the next point. Having juggled the written power into their hands, the agents are now seeking the oral power ; they are wandering about with interpreters to talk up their cause. "You may speak, if you like," say the Indians, "but must we listen?" "Let us speak," is the reply; and the commissioner rises, and the people walk away and leave him to listen to himself.** The next measure is force; arrests are made upon the most absurb pretexts; influential Indians are seized by the Georgia Guard and detained, and then set free, no reason being assigned either for the capture or for the release. Some laugh and defy their fate; some are driven to despair, for the arrest is so often made a punishment that an innocent Indian

But all the Indian hater's hate is concentrated against the inflexible chief of the Cherokees, John Ross. Intimidation has been attempted against him to no purpose ; so has seduction. He has resisted bribery in every instance, even in one amounting to $50,- 000; rather than enrich himself by his country's ruin, he will remain poor, but honest. The agents insult him; still he goes on. The Georgia guard watches for a pretext to make him prisoner, but the pretext is not to be found, and in some cases, where they would not be deterred by the fear of wrong, they are understood to have been held back through the fear of the people. It is rumored, however, that some attempt of the sort is, even at this moment, in contemplation.

Even the President himself has now and then lost his temper because he cannot shake Mr. Ross, and has called the impoverished and discreet patriot of the wilderness "wicked and selfish," and has swo n if he does not forego his policy and do as Andrew Jackson bids him, that Andrew Jackson will never listen to the Cherokees, but give them up to ruin. With internal dissensions attempted to be fomented by the agents of Government, and with incessant external attacks from Georgia, and not only undefended by their legitimate protector, the United States, but threatened by the Chief Magistrate of those states, the Cherokee nation now stand alone, moneyless, helpless, and almost hopeless, yet without a dream of yielding.

With these clouds around them, in their little corner of Tennessee,** to which they have been driven from Georgia for shelter, their national council holds its regular annual convention tomorrow. I can not imagine a spectacle of more moral grandeur than the assembly of such a people under such circumstances. This morning offered the first foretaste of what the next week is to present. The woods echoed with the trampling of many feet; a long and orderly procession emerged from among the trees, the gorgeous autumnal tints of whose departing foliage seemed in sad harmony with the noble spirit now beaming in this departing race. Most of the train was on foot; there were a few aged men, and some few women, on horseback. The train halted at the humble gate of the principal chief; he stood ready to receive them. Everything was noiseless. The party, entering, loosened the blankets which were loosely rolled and flung over their backs, and hung them with their tin cups and other paraphernalia attached, upon the fence.

The chief approached them. They formed diagonally in two lines, and each, in silence, drew near to give his hand. Their dress was neat and picturesque; all wore turbans, except four or five with hats; many of them tunics and sashes; many long robes, and nearly all some drapery; so that they had the oriental air of the old scripture pictures of patriarchal processions.

The salutation over, the old men remained near the chief, and the rest withdrew to various parts of the enclosure; some sitting Turk fashion against the trees, others upon logs

**Red Clay was so near the line, and the line 30 poorly defined, that the impression was often given that it was in Tennessee. Ross had a hut there as well as at Blue Spring, eight miles to the north.

and others upon the fences, but with the eyes of all fixed upon their chief. They had walked sixty miles since yesterday, and had encamped last night in the woods. They sought their way to the council ground. It was explained to them. At one moment I observed a sensation among them, and all arose and circled around their chief. Presently an old man spoke above the rest; each one went for his pack, and all resumed their way. There was a something in the scene which would have subdued a sterner spirit than mine. All who gazed stood rooted to the spot with involuntary awe.

"Oh!" cried an old negro woman, wringing her hands and her eyes streaming with tears, "Oh! the poor Cherokees, the poor Cherokees; my heart breaks and will not let me look on them!"

Parties varying from 30 to 50 have been passing the main road, which is somewhat distant from the residence of Mr. Ross, all day. All seem to contemplate the approaching meeting as one of vital import. I myself, though a stranger, partake in the general excitement. The first movements, which will probably be the most important, I will communicate to you; perhaps I may find leisure to do morCj for I wish our countrymen to understand this subject.* It becomes us as Americans, devoted to our country's glory, not to slumber over the wrongs of a nation within our power. This people does not approach us denouncing vengeance ; they do not, like the ferocious spirits we would represent them, avoid lingering extermination as exiles in the desert, by springing up in a mass, and inscribing themselves with a terrible lesson of blood among the illustrious martyrs to insulted liberty; but in the patient and meek spirit of Christians they come again, and again, and again, and again, imploring humanity, imploring justice, imploring that we will be honest to ourselves.

*Here is a hint that Payne made arrangements with certain editors to print his articles. **Payne claimed this original article was signed "Washington."

***This is still standing in a good state of preservation. It was literally a "House of Tragedies." On Sunday, Nov. 8, 1835, John Howard Payne and John Ross arrived as prisoners of the Guard, and occupied an outhouse used to quarter troublesome Indians. On Dec. 16, 1836, Major Benj. F. Currey, who had been active" against Payne and Ross, died in the house of Vann or at a nearby house.

The wilds of Cherokee Georgia were getting more and more dangerous as the whites squatted upon the Indian lands. Murders and robberies were things of almost every-day occurrence. Spencer Riley, a sort of constable, formerly of Bibb County, then of Cass, had an exciting experience in 1835 with Col. Wm. N. Bishop and the Georgia Guard. It seems that Riley had a lottery claim on the Vann house*** near Spring Place, and Bishop sought to dispossess him. The Georgia Journal (Milledgeville) of Tuesday, Apr. 7, 1835, printed Riley's side of the affair:

March 11, 1835. To the Public: There being many erroneous reports concerning the transaction detailed in the following statement, I have deemed it necessary to present to the public a succinct account of the facts. I can not for a moment believe that this flagitious outrage upon the rights of the citizen under color of the law and under pretense of executive sanction can be viewed with indifference by my fellow citizens, or approbated by the Governor. The facts are these:

I became a boarder of Joseph Vann, a Cherokee residing near Spring Place, in Murray County, in October last, and continued to board with him up to the 2d March inst., when the outrage hereinafter stated took place.

On the 23d of February last, Mrs. Yann, in the absence of her husband, received a written notice to quit the possession of the lot, from Wm. N. Bishop, one of the agents of the State of Georgia, appointed by the Governor under the law of 1834. This was done without the request of the drawer or any person holding or claiming under him. It was known that one Kinchin W. Hargrove, brother to Z. B. Hargrove, had obtained a certificate from Wm. N. Bishop with the view of obtaining the grant from Milledgeville, in consequence of which the grant issued some time in February upon his application. This lot on which Joseph Vann lived is an Indian improvement and his right of occupancy is not forfeited by any provision of the laws of Georgia. It is known as Lot No. 224, 9th district and 3d section, and was drawn by a Mr. Turley of Warren; it contains a spacious two-story brick house and many outhouses and is very valuable, particularly as a public stand. It had been returned as a fraudulent draw by Major Bulloch, scire facias had obtained preference by being first filed. It was also returned by Z. B. Hargrove as informer in a second scire facias.

Such was the situation of the lot on the 2d of March, when W. N. Bishop, as agent and acting under the state's authority, summoned some 20 men and placed in their hands the muskets confided to him by the Governor for another purpose, and furnished them with ammunition, came over to Mr. Vann's at the head of his guard, resolved to clear the house and put his brother, Absalom Bishop, in possession, who afterwards opened a public house. Some articles of Mr. Vann were allowed to remain in the house and he was permitted to occupy at sufferance a small room. I occupied a room on the second floor at the head of the stairs. This armed force was accompanied by one Kinchin W. Hargrove, a sort of deputy to Bishop. When they approached the house, I inquired of W. N. Bishop what all of this meant, and stated to him that he had given Mrs. Vann until Saturday, the 7th, in which to move. He replied that Joshua Holden was the agent. This man Holden is notorious in the upper part of the state for his vices and subservience to Bishop. Upon receiving this reply from W. N. Bishop, I inquired of Holden if he was the agent for the drawer. He replied, "No, I am agent for Mr. Hargrove, and have a power of attorney from him." Mr. Hargrove did not claim to have any right or title to the lot as derived from or through the drawer. Convinced as I was that this was all a trick to get Vann out of the house, and to put him out unlawfully and fraudulently, in order to get possession for Absalom Bishop, I demanded of W. N. Bishop to see the plat and grant and his authority for thus acting. He stated that Holden was seeking possession, but exhibited no authority, and there was no agent of the drawer or person claiming under him seeking possession.

with his guard and commanded them to present arms. Having some things in the room I occupied, I went up to take care of them. I heard Bishop demand possession of Vann, who answered that he considered himself out of possession from the Monday previous. "Where is that damned rascal Riley?" inquired Bishop. The reply was, "He is in his room." By this time I had got to the head of the stairs* and called out to Bishop that there was no use for any violent measures or for bloodshed, for if he would acknowledge he had taken forcible possession from me, he could throw my things out of doors. His reply was, "Hear that damned rascal; present arms and march upstairs, and the first man that gets a glimpse of him, shoot him down." Upon hearing these orders given to his guard, I thought it high time to defend myself as best I could, and exclaimed, "The first man that advances to obey Bishop's orders I will kill!"

One man named Winters, an itinerant carpenter, advanced upstairs with a loaded musket, and his valiant commander behind him. As soon as they saw me they fired upon me and fell back; I then fired, too. Their shot slightly wounded me in my hand and arms, and immediately after, ten or twelve muskets were fired at me, but being protected by the stairs, the shots did not take effect. I being out of sight, they aimed at the spot where they supposed I was and shot the banisters to pieces. I then presented a gun in sight to deter their further approach, and prevent if possible the accomplishment of their murderous design. Then a rifle was fired by Absalom Bishop ; the ball struck my gun and split, one part of it striking me glancingly on my forehead just above my right eye, and fragments of it wounding me on several other places on my face. I desired them to bear witness to who shot that rifle, for I had been severely wounded. Wm. N. Bishop called out tauntingly, "The State of Georgia shot the guns!" After I was thus wounded and bleeding freely, I opened the door of the room and called out to them that I was severely wounded, and they could come and take my arms. As soon as I showed myself, several more muskets were fired on me. One shot struck me on the left cheek, another wounded me severely on the head and one

through the door over my head. During this extraordinary outrage, W. N. Bishop was heard frequently exclaiming, "Kill the damned rascal ; we've got no use for nullifiers in this country!" and K. W. Hargrove also often exclaimed I should come down dead or alive. W. N. Bishop procured a flaming firebrand and threw it upon the platform of the stairs, exclaiming that he would burn him out or burn him up. After the fire had made some progress, and probably recollecting that if the house was destroyed, Absalom Bishop would have no house to occupy, Vann was requested to go up and extinguish the fire.

Being much debilitated by the loss of blood, I laid down on the bed. They soon after entered my room and seized my desk and papers as if I had been a malefactor. I desired them to permit me to put up my papers in my secretary and to lock it. Hargrove replied, "Let him put what he pleases in the desk, but don't let him take anything out." I had $10 in money in the desk. After I had locked it, they took the keys from me and the desk also, under the pretext that they would secure the costs. The money I never saw afterwards.

Just before the close of the conflict, Hargrove called out to me and asked if I did not know that there was an officer who had a warrant against me. I answered, no, but if such were the case I would submit to the laws of my country and surrender to the sheriff. Bishop then abused the sheriff and cursed him. In a short time the sheriff. Col. Humphreys, came, and I was asked to show myself, which I no sooner did than several muskets were levelled and fired at me, but happily without much injury.

It afterward appeared that in order to give their conduct the semblance of law, they had procured this tool of Bishop, Holden, to make an affidavit to procure a warrant for forcible entry and detainer. Both affidavit and warrant, upon being produced, proved to be in the handwriting of Z. B. Hargrove, and dated first in February, but that month was stricken and 2nd March inserted. It is believed that this notable proceeding was planned in Cassville, 4.5 miles off, and given to Kinchin W. Hargrove when he went up to Spring Place.

I was taken out of his custody, conveyed before a magistrate, also under the control of Bishop, charged with an assault with intent to murder, and immediately ordered off in my wounded condition, 45 miles, in a severe snow storm under a strong guard, my wounds undressed, and filched of the little change I had in my pockets, and lodged in the Cassville jail in the dungeon. The guard received their orders from Bishop and Hargrove not to allow me to have any intercourse with my friends, and so rigidly were these orders observed that when I arrived at Major Howard's* in the neighborhood of my family and desired him to inform them of my situation, and not to be alarmed, the guard threatened to use their bayonets if I did not proceed. Bishop even designated the houses at which we were to stop on our way. I was placed in a dungeon until my friends at Cassville, hearing of my situation, relieved me on bail.

Spencer Riley

The foregoing statement can be attested by many respectable witnesses, and is substantially correct. The transaction has created a great sensation in Murray County, and must have received the unqualified condemnation of every law-abiding citizen. SPENCER RILEY.

We had flattered ourselves that the State had drained the cup of humiliation to the dregs and had suffered all it could suffer from violence, fraud, proscription and misgovernment. But unhappily we were mistaken; low as we had sunken, we find that there is a point still lower. The letter of Spencer Riley, Esq., in this paper displays a state of things in a part of the' country where the dominant faction has had full sway that is absolutely appalling.

We have personally known Mr. Riley twelve years as a freeholder and citizen, as deputy sheriff and 'high sheriff of Bibb County, where they have had no officer we know of whose public services were more generally approved. Since then, we understand, he has held a commission of the peace in Cass County, and his word, we think, will hardly be doubted by any to whom he is known. His statement presents a picture at which the most careless and the most thoughtless man must pause. It is one of the consequences of subverting the judicial authority throughout one whole circuit in a new country.

Finally the toe hold of the Indian be£?an to give way. For a decade the Indian's had been going west in small detachments, under the diplomatic urge of the Government. At the slow rate of moving, it was calculated that half a century would be required to be rid of them all. In 1829, the old records show, quite a number of Indians enrolled with the Government agents to go west, received their bounty and then failed to go, thinking, perhaps, that they might successfully pass around the hat again. Many of these Indians appeared in 1835 at the council at Running Waters and voted for the annuity measure proposed by John Ross.

But the patience of Federal and State authorities was threadbare. If the Indians would emigrate peaceably, all well and good ; if they balked, bayonets would move them. The white man's necessity under the program of civic and commercial progress was the red man's misfortune. Gen. Winfield Scott, of the United States army, was selected to gather the Indians in stockades.

Under the pressure from Gov. Lumpkin, Major Currey, Mr. Schermerhorn and others, 2,000 of the Indians prepared to depart by Jan. 1, 1837; but the death of Major Currey, Dec. 16, 1836, at Spring Place, set the movement back seriously. Hence the general roundup did not get under wav until May 24, 1838.

Numerous Indians submitted without protest ; many others secreted themselves in the mountains and in caves, and were vigorously hunted out. A few resisted and shot or were shot ; some committed suicide rather than leave the lands they had learned to love and the sacred bones of their departed ancestors.

The Rev. George White tells as follows of the removal in his Historical Collections of Georgia (ps. 152-3) and incidentally, defends the troopers who had this unpleasant duty to perform :

Gen. Scott called upon the Governor of Georgia for two regiments, to which call there was an immediate response. On Friday, the 18th of May, 1838, a sufficiency of troops had arrived at New Echota, the place of rendezvous, to organize a regiment and warrant the election of officers. On the morning of the 24th of May, the regiment took up the line of march for the purpose of collecting the Indians. Five companies, viz. - Capt. Stell's, Daniel's, Bowman's, Hamilton's, Ellis' were destined to Sixes Town, in Cherokee County; two companies, Capt. Story's and Capt. Campbell's to Rome; Capt. Vincent's to Cedartown; two companies, Capt. Horton's and Capt. Brewster's, to Fort Gilmer.

The collecting of the Indians continued until the 3rd of June, 1838, when they started for Ross' Landing, on the Tennessee River, numbering about 1,.560, under the immediate command of Capt. Stell. They arrived at Ross' Landing at 10 o'clock, the 10th of June. The Georgia troops re-

In small detachments, the army began its operations, making prisoners of one family after another, and gathering them into camps. No one has ever complained of the manner in which the work was performed.** Through the good disposition of the army and the provident arrangements of its commander, less injury was done by accidents or mistakes than could reasonably have been expected. By the end of June, nearly the whole nation was gathered into camps, and some thousands commenced their march for the West, the heat of the season preventing any further emigration until September, when 14,000 were on their march. The journey of 600 or 700 miles was performed in four or five months. The best arrangements were made for their comfort, but from the time - May 24 - - v/hen their removal commenced, to the time when the last company completed its journey, more than 4,000 persons sank under their sufferings and died.

A tragic sequel followed the removal and the stirring- events preceding it. The anti-treaty or Ross party of Indians did not Iniry in the red hills of Georgia with the hallowed dust of their ancestors the resentment they felt toward the men who had signed away their lands. A l)and of several hundred Indians took a secret oath to kill Major Ridge and his clan brother (nephew by blood) Elias Boudinot,*** and John Ridge, his son. Thev bided their time, and June 22, 1839, killed all three.

Major Ridge was waylaid on the road 40 or 50 miles from home, and shot. His son was taken from his bed earl}^ in the morning and nearly cut to pieces with knives. Air. Boudinot was decoyed away from a house he had l)een erecting a short distance from his residence, and then set upon with knives and hatchets. One version has it that Boudinot was a sort of doctor, and that several Indians came to him in a friendly way and asked him to get some medicine for a sick comrade. Thrown off his guard, he was an easy prey.

Mrs. Mabel Washbourne Anderson, of Pryor, Okla., daughter of John Rollin Ridge, grand-daughter of John Ridge and great-granddaughter of Major Ridge, tells on ps. 11-12 of her Life of General Stand Watie**** of this shocking tragedy :

A demon spell now enveloped the Cherokee country, as is ever the case when feuds and factions arise within a nation. The members of the former Treaty party, headed by Ridge and Boudinot, were called traitors by the Ross party, and this continued 'accusation became the platform of strife and bloodshed, turbulence and suffering for a newly-divided people in a new land. Had bitterness and disagreement been forgotten and a united effort made toward rebuilding the broken fortunes of a broken people, the cruel history from 1838 to 1846 might never have been written.

If history had preserved for us a record of the "Secret Council" of the anti-Treaty party, said to have been held at Double Springs, near Tahlequah, in the spring of 1839, much that will forever be a question to the searcher for truth would be revealed.

Passing hastily over this black page of Cherokee history, so closely allied with the life of Gen. Watie, it must be mentioned that secret police forces of 100 men each soon after this council were organized by the Ross party, with a commander for each company, whose purpose was to extinguish the leading men of the Ridge party. And the pages of Cherokee history will forever be shadowed by the atrocious tragedy that took place in the assassination in one night of Major Ridge, an aged man of 75;***** his son, John Ridge, and Elias Boudinot, three of the most powerful and influential men of the Treaty party. The murders of these three men, which took place within a few hours of each other, were most systematically carried out, though they were widely separated at the time. John Ridge was slain on

Honey Creek, Cherokee Nation, near the Missouri line; Major Ridge was slain in the Cherokee Nation near Cincinnati, Ark.; and Elias Boudinot near Park Hill, Cherokee Nation.

This opened an international wound of sorrow and bloodshed for the Cherokee people, extending over a terrible, dark period of eight or ten years, and whose influence lasted for decades upon this nation. Stand Watie, Jack Bell and Walter Adair were slated to die at this same time, but were absent from home the night these foul murders were committed. Thereafter they were constantly on scout and guard against some hidden plot to take their lives. A short time after this horrible event. Stand Watie organized a military force, stationed at Beattie's Prairie, to oppose the Ross police force.

Despite opposition and oppression, Watie became after the assassination of his kinsmen the most influential man and the conceded leader of the Ridge party. Among the incidents current among his people today of the bravery of Stand Watie is one connected with this terrible tragedy. When his brother, Elias Boudinot, lay dead in the midst of his foes, Watie silently rode up unarmed. The crowd of his enemies suddenly drew back, making way for this grim horseman. Removing the sheet that covered the face of his murdered brother, he looked down long and earnestly upon the still features. Then turning to the crowd, he said in a voice that each could hear, "I will give $10,000 to know the name of the man who struck that blow!"

All who knew Stand Watie were aware of his ability to pay this reward, but not one in that guilty crowd answered him, and he rode away as fearlessly as he had come, though there were fully 100 men in that same company who had sworn to take his life the night before.

Thos. Watie and James Starr were killed by the Ross party in 1845, but the old tradition among the full-blooded Indians that "No weapon was ever made to kill Stand Watie,"" seemed verily to fulfil itself, and he successfully passed through the dangerous and trying years from 1838 to 1846.

A PAYNE MEMORIAL. - A patriotic service was performed Saturday morning, Oct. 7, 1922, by the Old Guard of Atlanta in the unveiling of a handsome marble tablet at Spring Place to John Howard Payne. The exercises had been planned for Friday, Oct. 6, but bad roads delayed the party, traveling in automobiles, and it was necessary to postpone the affair a day. The speaker of the occasion was Col. Geo. M. Napier, attorney general of Georgia and a member of the Guard. He was introduced by Jos. A. McCord, commandant of the Guard and Governor of the Federal Reserve Bank in Atlanta. Prof. Ernest Neal, school superintendent at Chatsworth, Murray County, recited his poem, "The Rivers of Cherokee Georgia;" the poem will be found in the poetry section herein.

The Payne tablet stands within 200 yards of the Vann house, at a conspicuous road crossing where it will be beheld by thousands of tourists yearly. It is of rough gray Elbert County granite, mined at a place near which Payne journeyed in 1835 on horseback from Augusta to inspect the natural wonders of Northeast Georgia. It is sunk deep in concrete, and a concrete platform six feet in radius surrounds it. The inscrption follows :

"John Howard Payne, author of 'Home, Sweet Home,' suspected as a spy of the Cherokee Indians, was imprisoned here in 1835, but released. Erected by Old Guard of Atlanta, Oct. 6, 1922; Jos. A. McCord, commandant."

The Old Guardsmen were the guests of Mr. McCord at his apple orchard twelve miles to the north. Prominent in their entertainment was the Governor John Milledge Chapter of the D. A. R., of Dalton, and Dr. T. W. Colvard, at whose estate they enjoyed a barbecue. Prior to the exercises they inspected the home of Jos. Vann, the Indian chief, near which, in a log hut, Payne was incarcerated. It is said this hut now stands in the park at Chatsworth, near the L. & N. railroad station, having been removed from Spring Place.

Other Old Guard members who attended were Robt. A. Broyles, Ossian D. Gorman, Jr., Sam Meyer, Jr., H. M. Lokey, G. A. Wight, W. E. Hancock, Dr. L. P. Baker, Henry C. Beerman, Fred J. Cooledge, E. H. Goodhart, W. M. Camp, Peter F. Clarke, W. S. Coleman, W. B. Cummings, Dr. Thos. H. Hancock, W. T. Kuhns, Edmund W. Martin, M. L. Thrower, Jas. T. Wright, A. McD. Wilson, G. G. Yancey, Jr., and Walter Bennett. Others included Jos. A. McCord, Jr., Walter Sparks, and J. A. Hall, of Decatur, formerly of Calhoun, an authority on Indian lore.

|NCE the Indians were out of the way and their lands thrown open to the white settlers, Rome and Floyd County began to grow with a vim. As early as 1837, according to a report from Capt. J. P. Simonton, disbursing agent of the Cherokee Removal, sent from New Ecliota to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and dated Sept. 27, 1837, Col. Wm. C. Hardin was president of the Western Bank of Georgia, of Rome.* Col. Hardin and Andrew Miller, agent of the Bank of Georgia, of Augusta, loaned the Government $25,000, transmitted through the Rome bank, toward the removal of the Cherokees.

The Western was undoubtedly the first bank in Rome, and Col. Hardin its first president. It was located at the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and East First Street. An old $10 bank note shows that William Smith was president on July 13, 1840, with R. A. Greene as cashier. Zachariah B. Hargrove had been connected with it prior to his death in 1839. The Bank of the Empire State, which also got into financial difficulties and was forced to suspend, was organized much later. In 1851 the Rome Weekly Courier expressed the hope that a bank would soon be formed at Rome.

The first inn was kept by William Quinn at "Cross Keys," as the local neighborhood at the present "Five Points," North Broad Street, was then known. A Mrs. Washington, descended from

**Destroyed in 1864 by soldiers of the Union Army, according to the )ate Mrs. Robt. Battey. No reason can be assigned for the destruction of this property except that Ross was in bad odor with the United States Government at the time.

George, kept the Washington Hotel. The McEntee House was in operation in 1845 when Rev. and Mrs. J. M. M. Caldwell stopped over in Rome on their way to Selnia, Ala., where Dr. Caldwell had been offered the pastorate of the First Presbyterian church. James McEntee, the proprietor, and others persuaded the newly-married couple to remain in Rome, and they taught one of the first schools of any pretensions in a part of their dwelling, the old John Ross House,** in which they had been temporarily settled by the owner, Col. Alfred Shorter. Aftei" assuming charge of the Rome Female College on Eighth Avenue in 1856, they taught on East Second Street.

Another early hotel was the Choice House, built by John Choice, probably prior to 1850. This was conducted from 1855 to 1857 by Wm. Melton Roberts, father of Frank Stovall Roberts, of Washington, D. C. It was located where the Hotel Forrest now stands. For several years around 1857 it had six colonial columns of white in front.

The Buena Vista, at the southeast corner of Broad Street and Sixth Avenue, was built in 1843 by an Irishman named Thos. Burke, who soon got into a serious difficulty and turned the property over to Daniel R. Mitchell as a fee for representing him.

About 1850 Wm. Ketcham was proprietor of the Etowah House, southeast corner of Broad Street and Second Avenue, and in 1863 the proprietor was Gen. Geo. S. Black.

The first newspaper, according to The Weekly Bulletin of Thursday, Jan. 8, 1876, was the Western Georgian, published by Gen. Jas. Hemphill and Samuel S. Jack.* It was started in 1837, and Mr. Jack was the first editor. The location was at 602 East First Street, where a hand press was installed. This was on the spot where Mrs. Naomi P. Bale now lives.

Pisgah Baptist church at Coosa is the oldest religious institution of its kind in the county. It was organized in the spring of 1833 by Rev. Hugh Quin and associates.

The First Methodist was organized at Rome in 1840 by Mrs. Samuel S. Jack, Mrs. James Hammet; Mrs. Daniel R. Mitchell, Mrs' Jesse Lamberth, Mrs. Samuel Stewart and Miss Emily McDow. The location was the southwest corner of Sixth Avenue and E. Second Street. The circuit of which Rome was an appointment in 1836 extended from Knoxville, Tenn., to the Chattahoochee River, and Rev. J. B. McFerrin, of Tennessee, stood every four months on a stump at Fifth Avenue and West First Street (now the courthouse property) and jjreached to mixed crowds of Indians, negroes and whites.*** On one of these occasions Dr. McFerrin converted John Ross, who thereafter spread the doctrines of Methodism among his tribesmen.**** It is considered worthy of note in . this connection that Sam P. Jones, the Methodist evangelist, went to preaching 40 years later four blocks from this spot and two blocks from the Fourth Ward home of Ross.

St. Peter's Episcopal church was first located at Fifth Avenue and E. First Street, and was established Mar. 31, 1854, by Rev. Thos. Fielding Scott, of Alarietta, and associates.

Sardis ^Presbyterian church at Livingston and churches in Ridge Valley and Vann's Valley (.such as the Baptist, the Methodist and the Episcopal at Cave Spring) and at

*Mrs. Naomi P. Bale states that Mr. Jack's daughter, Amanda (the first white child born in Rome), said it was the Rome Enterprise. J. O. Winfrey calls it the Northwest Georgian, and says Miles Corbin was associated with Mr. Jack. Mr. Jack's father was a soldier in the American Revolution.

**According to Acts, 1837, p. 48. the trustees of the corporation on Dec. 2.5, 18,37, were Wesley Shropshire, Elijah Lumpkin, Jobe Rogers, Thos. W. Burton and Alford B. Reece.

Arniuchee, Chulio, Everett Springs and the other pioneer districts of the county are also very old. Some folks say Sardis Presbyterian is older than Pisgah Baptist ; others say it ain't.

The Episcopal church at Cave Spring-, by the way, was built through the generosity of Francis S. Bartow and his parents, Dr. and Mrs. Theodosius Bartow, of Savannah, who maintained a summer home there a number of years before 1860. The land for this church was given by ]\Iaj. Armistead Richardson.

The Baptist church of Cave Spring stands on the Hearn Academy campus. The brick it contains, still in a fine state of preservation, were made of Floyd County clay by the slaves of Maj. Armistead Richardson, Alexander Thornton Harper and Carter W. Sparks.

Undoubtedly the oldest religious agency in the county (now only a memory) was the mission at Coosa (theu known as Missionary Station). This was established in 1821 by Rev. Elijah Butler and his wife, Esther Butler, of the North, who were succeeded in the work ^y Rev. Plugh Ouin, about 1827.

Such l)usiness estal)lishments as might be expected in a growing town sprang up between 1834 and 1861. Col. Alfred Shorter began to trade in cotton, merchandise and real estate, and was recognized as Rome's leading financier and business man. Col. Cunningham M. Pennington, a civil engineer, appeared on the scene as Col. Shorter's agent, and also gave considerable attention to railroad enterprises. Chas. M. Harper, a nephew, likewise was early associated with Col. Shorter.

and all the folks came for their mail. The streets were bad for many years, and pigs and cattle roamed over them at will, and many a Roman of the period kept a pig-sty in his yard. The thoroughfares were lighted at night with oil lamps and the homes v/ith lamps or candles, and early retiring was the rule, and early rising, too.

Stage coach lines were established, with thrice a week service, leading to Cassville through North Rome, to New Echota via Oostanaula River road, to Jacksonville, Ala., and Cave Spring via the Cave Spring road, to the towns of Chattooga County via the Summerville road, and to Livingston and points beyond through the Black's Blufif road.

Alabama through northwest Georgia. These stages were joggling, rickety affairs, pulled by four horses. As we view it now, it was worth a man's life to undertake a long journey, but somehow they always reached their destination and the trouble of getting there was forgotten in a delightfully long stay. Mail was carried in pouches and the stage driver was responsible for its safe delivery. To facilitate this object, the driver iisually went armed, and was seldom molested. Among the early drivers and proprietors might be mentioned John H. Wisdom, who in 1863 warned Romans of the approach of Col. Streight's raiders, and Esom Graves Logan, J. R. Powell, Jos. H. Sergeant and other old timers.

Connections were made by stage with more remote points, such as Athens, Covington, Milledgeville, Macon and Augusta. Atlanta did not appear until Dec. 23, 1843, when it was incorporated as Terminus.* Her name was changed to Marthasville, and then by an act approved Dec. 29, 1847, it became Atlanta.** Nine years before a village sprang up on the site of Atlanta, Romans had had a vision of a "terminus" on their own particular spot. Rome was the frontier outpost of Cherokee Georgia, as far as the rest of the state was concerned. It was the connecting link between "Old Georgia" and "Old Tennessee," the clearing house for the cotton, corn, wheat and produce of the rich Coosa Valley and the northeastern Alabama towns.

Rome's strategic position was perhaps best realized by William Smith, who in 1836 was elected to the State Senate with the idea that he might have a bill passed at Milledgeville which would cause the proposed State Railroad to stop at Rome instead of at some point in Tennessee, which later became

Chattanooga. The people were not ready for such a radical step, however. The Steamboat Coosa had come all the way up from Greensport, Ala., had given the natives a good fright, and this was enough of transportation improvements for a long time. When Col. Smith offered for re-election, he was defeated by James Wells. Col. Smith bided his time, unloosed a new supply of political thunder and defeated Mr. Wells in 1838. Success still did not come, and in 1839 he was defeated by Jos. Watters, who served two years and then was defeated by Col. Smith in 1841. For three years, through 1843, Col. Smith pushed this project and others. He was given strong assurance that Rome would be made the terminus of the road, which would certainly have caused the place to boom like a mining town of the far W^est. Such a strong fight was made by Col. Smith during these years that an association of citizens at Chattanooga invited him to come there to live in a handsome home that would cost him nothing. He was too strongly committed to the place of his adoption, and continued the fight for Rome.

When success seemed certain. Col. Smith and another founder of the town, Maj. Philip W. Hemphill, built a steamboat in anticipation of the tremendous trade that would be created. The hull of the boat was made by William Adkuis, father of Wm. H. Adkins, of Atlanta, formerly of Rome. Tt was eased into the Oostanaula with appropriate ceremonies and her flag raised, bearing the name of her projector, William Smith. The n"'.achinery was not installed for a time, possibly due to a delay in delivery, or the desire of the own-

**Acts, 1847, p. 50. It was by this act that Rome advanced from the status of town to that of city, and the city limits were extended to include all territory in a radius of half a mile from the courthouse.

Something- went wrong at Milledgeville. The Whiteside interests at Chattanooga, augmented by a faction in Georgia who thought better of the Chattanooga terminus, proved too strong for the Cherokee Georgia contingent. The bill as passed included Chattanooga. Rome was to be isolated to some extent ; the road was to pass 16 miles away, through Cass County, from Marthas ville northwestward.

Col. Smith smiled his acquiescense, but there was no estimating his disappointment. One night the William Smith sank, at the point where the Central of Georgia trestle crosses the Oostanaula. Prattling tongues said Col. Smith bored holes in her bottom. He would never talk about it much, be- } ond saying that the action of the Legislature had greatly crippled Rome. He did not try to raise the boat, and up to 25 years ago her muddy hull could still be seen at "low tide."

In these days of slave labor, limited transportation facilities, heavy crops and lack of industrialism, the thoughts of the upper classes naturally turned to politics. The newspapers printed four pages of six columns each once or twice a week. The advertisements were usually small and the other space must be filled up. When people married, they remained married, and a divorce was a rarity and considered a disgrace. There were a good many fights with knives in grog shops, and an occasional duel, but news-gathering facilities had not been developed, and the papers were consequently filled with "views." Every editor was a savior of the country, and spread-eagle literary efiforts readily found their way into the newspapers from politicians or statesmen. Presidential and Gubernatorial messages were printed in full and were considered choice morsels for the head of the house. Greer's Almanac furnished weather predictions for everybody. Politics often consumed a page or two, and communications on topics that today are of much less consequence often ran into two or three columns. As for the women, they religiously read "Godey's Ladies' Book," an eastern publication which met needs like the Ladies' Home Journal of today.

It is not necessarily a reflection on Rome that in the first 26 years of her existence, from 1834 to 1860, she elected more men to Congress than has the Rome of the 57 years from 1865 to 1922. A new country always develops rugged leadership and the fearless expression of opinion that goes with a daily fight for existence. In this early period Rome sent four men to Congress. They were, in order. Judge John H. Lumpkin, who had previously served his uncle, Governor Wilson

Lumpkin, as secretary:, and had gone to the legislature in 1835 ; Thos. C. Hackett, Judge Lumpkin's law partner, who succeeded him ; Judge Augustus R. Wright, who had removed to Rome in 1855 ; and Judge Jno. W. H. Underwood who was a member of the Georgia delegation which walked out of Congress early in 1861 without taking the pains to resign. Only two men living in Rome at the time of their election have since been sent to Congress - Judson C. Clements and Judge Jno. W. Maddox.

Judge Lumpkin came near putting Rome on the map as the residence of the Governor of Georgia ; that is, assuming he could have b.een elected over the eloquent and polished Benjamin H. Hill. Also, it is likely he would have been the War Governor. On June 24, 1857, the Democrats met at Milledgeville to nominate a candidate to oppose the new American or Know- Nothing party. Lumpkin led the balloting for some time, l)ut he could not get the necessary twothirds, and in a stampede, the nomination went to Jos. E. Brown. Alfred H. Colquitt, later Governor, also missed it narrowly. In the election held later. Brown defeated Hill, the American party nominee, by about 10,000 popular votes.

This convention attracted the leading men of the state, and Rome's representatives were Judge Augustus R. Wright, who on one ballot received five votes ; Judge jno. W. H. Underwood and Daniel S. Printup. At all such gatherings Rome was prominently put forward. Her leading men went to the national conventions on an equal footing with the large cities of the state ; and on numerous occasions Governors, Senators and Congressmen came to Rome to seek the advice of these nol)le Romans. Among the Governors were Chas. J. Mc- Donald, Herschel V. Johnson and Jos. E. Brown. When Judge Lumpkin died in the summer of 1860 at the Choice House, he was in company with a group of statesmen.

Quite often the Romans suited the convenience of their political friends ; quite often also they wrote a note saving, "Come up and let us talk it over." The Choice House veranda was a capital place for these gatherings, but occasionally a dignitary accepted an invitation to a private fireside and was treated to social courtesies which had nothing to do with politics.

John H. Lumpkin was the candidate of North Georgia, which section vigorously claimed the right to have the Governor. Lumpkin had been a congressman and a judge of the Superior Court and was a gentleman of excellent ability.

Dr. Miller, though a physician, won the soubriquet of "The Demosthenes of the Mountains" in his innumerable political encounters, for which he had the same passion that the Irishman is popularly believed to have for a "free fight." Deeply versed in constitutional law and political lore, a reasoner of rare power and as fine an orator as we have ever had in Georgia, capable of burning declamation and closely-knit argument, he was the peer on the stump of any of the great political speakers of the last -halfcentury in Georgia.

Unfortunately for him, he had two perilous peculiarities - a biting sarcasm that delighted in exhibition of its crushing power, and that spared neither friend nor foe, and a contemptuous and incurable disregard of party affiliations. He never in his life worked in harmony with any party or swallowed whole any single party . platform. And no man ever had more stubborn independence and self-assertion.*

Judge Wright, of Rome, was one of the brightest thinkers and most sparkling orators we had, but an embodied independent.** - Judge Underwood was a racy talker, a fluent, effective speaker and a good lawyer, with a portly, fine presence and manner; he would have made a far more commanding figure in Georgia politics, even, than he has with the possession of a greater quota of stability.*

An evidence of the manner in which Romans kept pace with the poHtical trend is furnished in the following letter, dated at Rome, Jan. 18, 1854, from Judge Lumpkin to Howell Cobb :**