Franklin Township (part 5 of 19)

In the centre of the Cherokee towns, taken by Christian's troops, was found a circular tower, rudely built and covered with dirt, thirty feet in diameter and about twenty feet high. This tower was used as a council house and as a place for celebrating the green corn dance and other national ceremonials. Within it were beds, made of cane, rather tastefully arranged around its circumference. Each tower hsul a single entrance, a narrow door. There was neither window nor chimney.

the rapid growth and enlargement by which they had becfn^ for five years, so signally distinguished. But the remarkable miccess that had followed the unaided efforts of some of the stations, to repulse the assailants and to defend themselves, left little ground of apprehension for the future. Not one emigrant deserted the frontier or crossed the mountain for safety. On the other hand, the campaign that had been carried into the heart of the enemy's country, had done more for the new settlements than the mere security it afforded from present assault or future invasion. The volunteers who composed the command of Christian were, many of them, from the more interior counties of North-Carolina and Virginia. In their marches they had seen and noticed the fertile vallies, the rich uplands, the sparkling fountains, the pellucid streams, the extensive grazing and hunting grounds, and had felt the genial influences of the climate of the best part of East Teii^ nessee. Each soldier, upon his return home, gave a glowing account of the adaptation of the country to all the purposes of agriculture. The story was repeated from one to another, till upon the Roanoke and the Yadkin the people spoke familiarly of the Holston, the NoUichucky, the French Broad, Little River and the Tennessee. Particular places were selected, springs designated and points chosen as centres for future settlements. A flood of emigration followed to strengthen, build up and enlarge the little community already planted across the mountain.

Notwithstanding these accessions to their strength, the frontier people continued their accustomed vigilance. A garrison was still maintained in Fort Henry. The military command of the country was in the hands of Col. Arthur Campbell, of Washington county, Virginia, under the belief that the settlements were included within the limits of that state. Col. Campbell ordered Captain Robertson to keep the Watauga people assembled in two places for mutual protection and safety - he designated Patton's and Rice's Mills as the most suitable points, on account of the weakness of the settlement below the fort, and of the danger to which 'they might soon b^ exposed.

Lettbe From Colomel R0Bbst80N Iti

by the authorities of Virginia that four hundred men, under the command of Col. Evan Shelby and Major Anthony Bledsoe, should be stationed on the south-western frontiers, at such places as would most effectually protect the inhabitants against the Indians. A part of the Cherokees were known to be still hostile - their towns had been destroyed and their country laid waste, but their warriors had survived, and some of them still panted for revenge, and had resolved to repudiate any participation in the contemplated treaty.

A letter is preserved from Col. Charles Robertson, Trustee of the Watauga Association. In it will be found some information never before published. It follows :

Sir : The many hostilities committed by the Cherokee and Creek IncBrqs on this frontier, since the departure of the gentlemen delegates bom this county, merit vour Excellency's consideration. I will give myself the pleasure to in/orm you of the particulars of this distressed place, and of our unhappy situation. There have been several murders committed lately, and on the 10th of this instant one Frederick Calvatt was shot and scalped, but is yet living ; and on the day following Capt. James Robertson pursued the enemy with nine men, killed one and retook ten horses, and on his return in the evening was attacked by a party of Creeks and Cherokees, who wounded two of his men. Robertson returned the fire very bravely, but was obliged to retreat on account of thrir superior numbers, still kept the horses and brought them in. On the 27th of March last. Col. Nathaniel Guess brought letters from the Governor of Virginia, which letters were sent by an Indian woman to the Cherokee nation, soliciting them to come in, in eighteen days, to treat for peace ; accordingly there came a party of about eighty-five fellows, (bat none of the principal warriors that had first begup the war,) and at their arrival the commanding officer at Fort Patrick Henry sent for me to march some troops to that garrison, as a guard during the treaty. Accordingly I went, and on the 20th ult. the talks began, and the artides of the treaty were as follows : first, a copy of the governor's ktter was read to them, promising them protection, such as ammunition, provision, and men to build forts, and guard and assist them aguDst any nation, white or red ; and in return the Commissioners required the same from them, to which the Indians replied, they could not %[fat against their Father, King George, but insisted on Col. Christian's liromise to them last fall, that if they would mak% a peace they should lie neutral and no assistance be asked from them by the stj^tes. The ComnuBsioners then asked some of them to go to Wilhamsburgh, not as hos- tages, but to see their goods ^delivered, to obviate any auspicion of falae reports. A number of about ten agreed to go ; the Commiasioners then told them that Virginia and South-Carolina gave them peace and protection, and Nor^-Carolina offered it : to which the Indians reptied, they heard the tklls from South -Carolina, and they and the talks from Virginia were very good. The Indians then promised to try and bring in the Dragging Canoe and his party, (a party that lies out, and has refused to come in, but says they will hold &st to Cameron's talks,) and they stall made no doubt but they could prevail on him, and said that he had sent his talk with them, and what they agreed to he would abide by. But the Little Carpenter, in private conversation with Capt Thomas Price, contradicted it, and said that the Canoe and his party were fighting Capt. Robertson a few days before ; and the last day of the talks there amved an express from Clinch River, informing us of two men bdng killed, to which the Indians replied, to keep a sharp look out, for there were a great many of their men out ; and several of their women present declared that the talks was before the time to get guns and ammunition and continue the war as formerly. Accordingly they demanded them, which was the finishing of the talk, and in sixty days they were to come in to treat and confirm the peace, and if they could not bring in the Dragging Canoe, they send word laying the blame of the late murder on the Creeks.

This, sir, is a true state of the whole proceedings of which I have the honour to inform your Excellency, conscious you will take every prudenlt method for our security.

But the Cherokee nation at large was reduced to great want and suffering. Their national pride being humbled and their martial spirit subdued, they made overtures of peace. Two separate treaties were made. The one at Dewitt's Corner with Commissioners from South-C&rolina and Georgia, by which large cessions of country on the Savannah and Saluda Rivers were made. The other was held, according to the agreement made between Col. Christaia and several of the chiefs of the Over-hill Towns, at Long** Island. It was conducted by Waightstill Avery, Joseph VTinton and Robert Lanier, Commissioners on the pairt of North-Carolina, and Col Preston, Col. Christian and Col. Evan Shelby on the part of Virginia, and the Head-men and warriors for the C&erokee Indians. By this treaty BrownV line was established as the boundary line between the cont»

Chick Amaugas Rbfu8B To Sign The Tbbat7

Dufing the progress of the negotiation, the Commissioners r^roached the Cherokees ^ith a breach of good faith, on aOcouRt of some massacres that had been perpetrated duriBg the suspension of hostilities. They excused themselves by ascribing these murders to the Chickamaugas, a tribe settled on a creek of that name, whose chieftain, the Dragging Ga^ noe,,had refused to accept of peace on the terms offered by CoL Christian.

The whole treaty and the proceedings during the negotia^ tion» are found in Haywood, Appendix, page 488, and onward. It 18 deemed to be sufficient here to give the boundaries as agreed upon between North-Carolina and the Cherokees, as fbniidm Article V of the treaty.

That the boundary line between the State of North-Carolina and the said Over-hill Cherokees shall forever hereafter be and remain as idbwB, (to wit:) Beginning at a point in the dividing line which darinff this treab^ hath been agreed upon between the said Over-hill Cberokees and the State of Virginia, wnere the line between that state and North-Carolina (hereafter to be extended) shall cross or intersect liie aune, running thence a right line to the north bank of Holston Biver at the mouth of Cloud's Creek, being the second creek below the Warrior's Ford, at the mouth of Carter's V allev, thence a right line to . the highest point of a mountain called the High Rock or Chimney Top, fiom £enoe a right line to the mouth of Camp Creek, otherwise called ^ M<^Nama's Creek, on the south bank of Nolichucky River, about ten miles or thereabouts below the mouth of Great Limestone, be the same more or less, and from the mouth of Camp Creek aforesaid a south-east course into the mountains which divide the hunting grounds of the middle settlements from those of the Over-hill Cherokees.

The Commissioners of North Carolina appointed Captain James Robertson temporary agent for North-Carolina, and in written instructions directed him to repair to Chota in company with the warriors retoming from the treaty, there to reside till otherwise ordered by the governor. He was to discover if possible, the disposition of the Dragghig Canoe towards this treaty, as also, of Judge Friend, the Lying Fish and others, who did not attend it, and whether there was any danger of a renewal of hostilities by one or more of these chiefs. He was also to find out the conversations between the Cherokees and the southern, western and northern tribes of Indians. He was to search in all the Indian towns for persons disaffected to the American cause, and have them brought before some justice of the peace, to take the oath of fidelity to the United States, and m case of refusal to deal with them as the law directed. Travellers into the Indian nation without passes, such as the third article of the treaty required, were to be secured. He was immediately to get into possession all the horses, cattle and other property, belonging to the people of North-Carolina, and to cause them to be restored to their respective owners. He was to inform the government of all occurrences worthy of notice, to conduct himself with prudence and to obtain the favour and confidence of the chie& ; and in all matters witb respect to which, he was not particularly instructed, he was to exercise his own discretion, always keeping in view the honour and interest of the United States in general, and of North-Carolina in particular. These instructions were dated on the same day the treaty was signed, the 20th of July, 17*77. The commissioners addressed a letter to the chiefs and warriors of the Middle, Lower and Valley towns, on the 21st of July, informing them of the treaty of peace which they had just signed, and of the intention of the oomimssioners to recommend to the governor the holding of a treaty with them, of which he should give due notice to them of the time and place. They promised protection and safety to the chie& and warriors who should attend it, and a suspension of hostilities in the meantime, and they requested that the messengers who should be sent from North-CaroUna to- their towns, might be protected from insult, be permitted to perform their business, and to return in safety.

In April of this year an act was passed by the Legislature ( of North-Carolina, for the encouragement of the mili- ( tia and volunteers in prosecuting the war against that part of the Cherokees who still persisted in hostilities. At the same session an act was passed for the establishment of courts of pleas and quarter sessions, and also for appointing and commissioning justices of the peace and sheriffs for the several courts in the district of Washington, in this state.

No frontier community had ever been better governed than the Watauga settlement. In war and in peace, without legislators or judicial tribunals, except those adopted and provided by themselves, the settlers had lived in uninterrupted harmony - acting justly to all, offering violence and injury to none. But the primitive simplicity of patriarchal life, as exhibited by a small settlement in a secluded wilderness^ uncontaminated by contact with the artificial society of older communities, was forced to yield to the stem commands of progress and improvement. The hunter and pastoral stages of society were to be merged into the agricultural and commercial, the civil and political. Hereafter, Watauga, happy, independent, free and self-reliant, the cradle of the Great West, is merged into and becomes a part of North-Carolina I

Participation Of Her Pioneers In The Revolutionary War

The general assembly of North-Carolina in November, aeventaen hundred and seventy-seven, formed Washington district into a county of the same name, assigning to it the boundaries of the whole of the present great State of Tennessee.* By an act passed at the same session, establishing Entry Takers' offices in the several counties, ** lands which have acomed or shall accrue to the. state by treaty or conquesty^ are subject to entry, &c.t

At the same session of the assembly, provision was made for opening a land-office in Washington county, at the rate of f<H*ty shillings per hundred acres, with the liberal permission to each head of a family to take up six hundred and ibrty acres himself, one hundred acres for his wife, and the same quantity for each of his children. The law provided that the Watauga settlers should not be obliged to pay for their occupancies till January of 1779, and then for any surplus entered above the quantity before mentioned, the purchaser was required to pay five pounds per hundred.^

The facility of taking up the choice lands of the country^ induced great numbers of persons, principally those without moans^ to emigrate to the frontier. A poor man, with seldom more than a single pack-horse on which the wife and infant were carried, with a few clothes and bed-quilts, a skillet and a small sack of meal, was often seen wending his way along the narrow mountain trace, with a rifle upon his shoulder - the elder sons carrying an axe, a hoe, sometimes an auger

*For the botmdiries of Washington connty, and all counties subsequently cneled out of it, aee Appendix at end of volume. t IredeU*a Rmriaal, page 292, chap. I, sec. 3. tHajwood.

and a saw, and the older daughters leading or carrying the smaller children. Without a dollar in his pocket when he arrived at the distant frontier, the emigrant became at once a large land-holder. Such men laid the foundation of society and government in Tennessee. They brought no wealth with them - but what was far better, they bad industrious and frugal habitSy they had hardihood and enterprise, and fearlessness and self-reliance. With such elements in the character of its pioneers, any community will soon subdue the wilderness to the purposes of agriculture.

Hitherto emigrants had reached the new settlements upon pack-horses and along the old trading paths or narrow traces that had first been blazed by hunters. No wagon road had been opened across the mountains of North-Carolina to the West. The legislature of this year appointed commissioners to lay off and mark a road from the court-house of Washington county into the county of Burke. After that road Was openedt emigrants of larger property began to reach the country, and some of the settlements assumed the appearance of greater eomfort and thrift. The first house covered with shingles was put up this year. It stood a few miles east of the present Jonesboro', near *'The Cottage," the residence of J. W. Deaderick, Esq.

Under the provisions of an act passed for encouraging the militia and volunteers to prosecute the war against the Indians, the militia of Washington county was, for the greater part of this year, in the service of the state. This enabled every able-bodied man between eighteen and fifty years of age to secure the lands he wished to own. It had the further effect of keeping the frontier well guarded. Companies of rangers were kept upon the most exposed points to scour the woods and cane-brakes, and to pursue and disperse small parties of ill-disposed Indians who, hovering about the settlements, occasionally killed and plundered the inhabitants. Under the protection of these rangers, the settlements were widened and extended down Nollichucky below the mouth of Big Limestone, and down Holston to the treaty line. Indeed, the frontiers were so well guarded that the Indians considered their incursions as perilous to themselves as they could

John Carter was appointed Colonel of Washington county, 1*1*1*1 \ ^^^ ^^ ^^^ execution of his duties as commandant, his ( authority had been interfered with by men acting under the orders of General Rutherford. Bringing this subject to the notice of Governor Caswell, Col. Carter uses this independent language: ''Your Excellency may be assured that I will do everything in my power for regulating the militia, for the defence of our frontier, and for the benefit of the United States, but if my dignity is to be sported with under those circumstances, I have no need of your commission as commanding officer for Washington District.

''N. B. I have just received intelligence of the Little Carpenter being at the Long Island, with twenty-five or thirty young warriors. They declare the greatest friendship, and say they have five hundred young warriors ready to come to the assistance of Virginia and North-Carolina when called for, if to fight the English or any Indians that want war with the white people of these two states.'^

During the summer of this year the Indians invaded the Kentucky settlements. On the 4th of July two hundred of them appeared before Boonesborough and commenced one of the most memorable sieges in the annals of border warfare. It continued till September, although relieved by a reinforcement of forty riflemen from Holston. During the siege an Indian was killed, and upon his body was found a proclamation by Henry Hamilton, British Lieutenant-Governor and Commandant at Detroit, in which he offered protection to such of the inhabitants as would abandon the cause of the revolted colonies, but denounced vengeance against those who should adhere to them. Captain Logan, with a select party of woodsmen, left the fort by night and set out for Holston to procure further supplies and reinforcements. With a sack of parched corn for their fare, Logan's party, travelling by night, on foot, by unfrequented ways, and concealing themselves in secluded vallies by day, eventually succeeded in making the journey of two hundred miles, appealed to the patriotism of the pioneers of Tennessee, and retnmed to the relief of the beleaguered forts with supplies and one hundred riflemen.*

During this summer two of the spies that were kept out in WB i advance of the settlements, viz, Henry Reynolds and ( Thomas Morgan, discovered the Warm Springs on French Broad. They had pursued some stolen horses to the point opposite, and leaving their own horses on the north bank, waded across the river. As they reached the southern shore they passed through a little branch, the tepid water of which attracted their attention. The next year the Warm Springs were resorted to by invalids.

The frontier people had been so far relieved from apprehension of Indian hostility, as to dispense during the summer of this year, with a portion of the guards heretofore maintained for their protection. These were disbanded and returned to the quiet pursuits of planting and working their crops. They were lulled into a false security and had neglected to take the usual measures of protection and defence, which the exposed condition of the border settlements demanded. This relaxation of their ordinary watchfulness and care, invited aggression and a renewal of the outrages and massacres which had been before experienced. The settlements being thus thrown off their guard, a portion of the militia discharged and little or no regular armed force being at hand, another source of annoyance and injury presented itself. The tories from the disaffected counties of North- Carolina and other states, had come in great numbers to the frontier, and there combining with thieves and robbers, prowled around the feebler neighbourhoods, and for a time committed depredation and murder with impunity. Their number was considerable, and they boasted that they were able to look do>yn all opposition and to defy all restraint.

In this emergency we have again to mention another instance of self-reliance, so characteristic of the pioneer people. A combination of lawless men had been formed, formidable alike for their number and for their desperate character. The

Bummart Punishment 07 T0Eib8

The law-abiding and honest people of the country took the affair into their own hands, appointed a committee, invested it with unlimited power, and authorized it to adopt any measure necessary to arrest the growing evil. The names of this committee of safety are not given, but it is known that under its direction and authority two companies of dragoons, numbering about thirty each, were immediately organized and equipped, and were directed to patrol the whole country, capture and punish with death all suspected persons, who refused submission or failed to give good security for their appearance before the committee. Slighter offences were atoned for by the infliction of corporeal punishment ; to this was superadded, in cases where the offender was able to pay it, a heavy fine in money. Leaders in crime expiated their guilt by their lives. Several of these were shot ; some of them at their execution disclosed the names and hiding places of their accomplices. These were in their turn pursued, arrested and punished, and the country was in less than two months restored to a condition of safety, and the disturbers of its quiet preserved their lives only by secrecy or flight.

Isam Yearley, a loyalist on Nollichucky, was driven out of the country by a company of whigs, of which Captain Wm. Bean, Isaac Lane, Sevier and Robertson, were members. The same company afterwards pursued a party of tories, who under the lead of Mr. Grimes, on Watauga, had killed Millican, a whig, and attempted to kill Mr. Roddy and Mr. Grubbs. The latter they had taken to a high pinnacle on the edge of the river, and threatened to throw him off. He was respited under a promise that they should have all his property. These tories were concealed high up Watauga in the mountain, but Captain Bean and his whig comrades ferretted them out, flred upon and wounded their leader, and forced them to escape across the mountain. Capt. Grimes was hung after King's Mountain battle, in which he was taken prisoner.*

* Othen of Bean's company were Joseph Duncan, John Condley, Thomas Hardiman, Wm. Stone, Michael Massingale, John and George Bean, Edmond Bean, AqnOla and laiac I^me, James Roddy, and Samuel and Robert Tate.

The occasion for this summary mode of preserving order and promoting the welfare of the people^ having thus been removed* the committee laid down its functions and ceased to exist It had accomplished the purposes for which it had been created, and the extraordinary powers with which the sovereign people had invested it, were surrendered, and justice was again administered through the regular channels*

The exercise of these rigorous and sanguinary measures may be» at this day, viewed by some with a degree of disapprobation and regret This feeling* however, will be qualified by a recollection of the peculiar condition of the new community in tirhich they transpired, and the circumstances :of the general country at the period of their adoption. Wicked and unprincipled men had chosen to commit their ontrages and depredations upon infant settlements* feeble* immature and just germinating into political life. They Jbad selected, too, a period for perpetrating their crimesi when the whole energies of their patriotic countrymen across the mountain were called into requisition in support of the conflict for Independence ; and it is a proud reflection* that in these times of trial and embarrassment, patriotism* enlarged and lofty, was the sentiment of the pioneers of Tennessee. Their courage never quailed, and their energies never faltered amid the gloom that enveloped their Atlantic countrymen. Under these difficulties at home^ under such discouragements abroad, did the patriots of Nollichucky and Watauga discharge their high duties to themselves and to i their bleeding country. The tories were hunted up and punished or driveiR from amongst them, while the refugee whigs were cordially welcomed, and found shelter and protection in these distant retneats.

The energetic conduct of the people and the patriotic impulses that engendered it, received also the cordial sanction and concurrence of the legal tribunals of the country. In some instances the action of the county courts may have assumed or encroached upon the legislative prerogative. Some ex* tracts from the Journals of the first courts held in the country, may not be uninteresting to the curious* and are here preserved:

Fib8T Records Of Washington County

"Washington Cottnty, Feb. 23. - Coubt Journals. - At a oonrt befl^nn and held for the county of Washington, Feb. 23, 1778, Presenti John Carter, Chairman, John Sevier, Jacob Womack, Robert Lucas, Andrew Greer, John Shelby, George Russell, Wm. Been, 2^hariah Isbell, John McNabb, Thomas Houghton, William Clark, John McMahan, Benjamin Gist, John Chisholm, Joseph Willson, Wm. Cobb, James Stuart, Michael Woods, Richard White, Benjamin Willson, James Robertson and Valentine Sevier, Esqs. On Tuesday, next day, John Sevier was chosen Clerk of the county; Valentine Sevier, Sheriff; James Stuart, Surveyor; John Carter, Entry-Taker ; John McMahan, Register, ; Jaoob Womack, Stray-Master and John McNabb, Coroner.

" Wm. Cocke, by W. Avery, moved to be admitted Clerk of WAhington county, which motion was rejected by the Court, knowing that John Sevier is entitled to the office.

In Teansic. f defendant be imprisoned during the present war with Great Britain, and the Sheriff take the whole of his estate into custody, which must be valued by a jury at the next court - one Iialf of said estate to be kept by said Sheriff for the use of the State, and the other half to be remitted to the family of defendant'*

At term of Washington Countv Court, " On motion of K Dunlap, State Attorney, that J. H., for his ill practices in harbouring and abetting disorderly persons who are prejudicial and Inimical to the Common Cause of Liberty, and frequently disturbing our Tranquility in Genera], Be imprisoned for the term and time of one year. . ** The Court duly considering the allegations Alledged and objected against the said J. H., are of opinion that for his disorderly practices as imiresaid, from time to time, and to prevent the further and future practioe <^ the same pernicious nature, do order him to be imprisoned for the term of one year, <fe Is, accordingly, ordered into the custody of the Sheriffi" * m

^ On motion of £. Dunlap, Esq., that a sum of money of fifteen hundred pounds, current money due from R. C. to said J. H. for two negroes, be ret«ned in the hands of said C, as there is sufficient reason to believe that the said H.'8 estate will be confiscated to the use of the State for his nnsdemeanorB, Ac.

** The Court on taking the sanae under consideration, do Nominate and Appoint John Seyier, Jesse Walton and Zachariah Isbell, Esqs., for the ameaaid purpose."

The second term of the Washington County Court was held May 25, 1778^ at the house of Charles Robertson. Ephraim Dunlap was admitted as Attorney: Valentine Sevier was appointed Sheriff*; John Sevier, Jesse Walton and Zachariah Isbell, entered into bond for faithful performance of duties as Commissioners of Confiscated Estates ; Spruce McCay was admitted as Attorney.

The first settlers in the Greasy Cove were Webb, Martin and Judd. ' The large bottoms on the NoUichucky were then dense masses of cane. Webb discovered, in a cane-brake^ a company of Indians. They followed him to his house, and intimated to him that they would not permit him to stay there unmolested. He returned to Virginia and brought back to his settlement additional emigrants, and they were allowed to form a considerable neighbourhood without molestation ;^t higher up, above this, on Indian Creek, Mr. Wm. Lewis, ^^ wife and seven children, were killed by the Indians, and his house was burned. One of the sons escaped, and a daughter was taken prisoner and was afterwards ransomed for a gun. The Indians were pursued by a company of troops commanded by Nathaniel Taylor, but were not overtaken till they, crossing French Broad river, reached the inaccessible retreats beyond it.

To counteract the intrigues of the British agents, and the wicked influence of disafl!*ected Americans who had taken refuge in the Cherokee nation, a Superintendent of Indian

Affairs was directed by Gov. Caswell to repair to their towns and reside among them. Captain Robertson was selected for that station. He carried, from the governor, a talk for the Raven of Chota,%> be delivered to that chieftain and his nation by the hands of the agent and Col. McDowell. By this embassy the governor acknowledged the receipt of a peace talk from Savanuca, and gave assurances that he was pleased with it and desired further correspondence with him, and promised to use every effort for the preservation of peace and to inj9ict adequate punishment on all who should violate it. He further added that, if any of the Indians were kept in captivity by the whites, they should be restored. But these conciliatory measures were misunderstood by the deluded savages. Savanuca and some of the more aged chiefs were disposed to peace, but were unable to repress the warlike attitude of the Dragging-Canoe and his hostile tribe, the Chickamaugas. This tribe of the Cherokees, at first, occupied the borders of Chickamauga Creek, but afterwards extended their villages fifty miles below, on both sides of the Tennessee.

The passage of this river through the several ranges of the Cumberland Mountains, forms one of the most remarkable features in American topography. It is unique, romantic and picturesque - presenting views at once variegated, grand, sublime and awful. At the Great Look Out or Chattanooga Mountain, commences a series of rapids, where, in its tortuoas windings along the base of several mountain ranges, the Tennessee River, contracted into a narrow channeU hemmed in by projecting cliffs and towering precipices of solid stone, dashes with tumultuous violence from shore to shore, creating, in its rapid descent over immense boulders and masses of rock, a succession of cataracts and vortices. Beautiful and interesting in the extreme to the beholder, these rapids constitute a formidable obstacle to navigation, which, even yet, is not entirely overcome by the agency of steam. Cherokee tradition is prolific of accident and disaster to the navigation of the aborigines. It is fabled that a fleet of IndiiEtn canoes, rowed by Uchee warriors, and destined for an invasion of the Shawnees, at the mouth of the Ohio, was engnlphed in the Whirlpool, now known as the Sack. Civilization, skill and experience have diminished these obstacles to commerce and navigation, bat three quarters of a century since it was an achievenient of no ordinary kind to pass tiurough them, though at high tide. Even now, the voyageur must be fearless and vigilant.

If the channel of the river presented dangerous physical impediments, its environs held those of another character, not less formidable. Along those foaming rapids and on either side of the river, the shores are wild, elevated and bold, in some places, scarcely leaving room for a path separating the stream from the adjacent mountain, with here and there a cove running back from the river into the heights which surround and frown down upon it, in sombre solitude and gloomy silence. In these mountain gorges were fastnesses, dark, forbidding and inaccessible. Their very aspect invited to deeds of violence, murder and crime. No human eye could witness, no vigilance detect, no power punish, no force avenge them. A retreat into these dreary seclusions, stimulated to aggression, as they furnished a perfect immunity from pursuit and punishment.

One of the secret resorts of the free-booters who infested this region, was an immense cavern still known as the Nica-jack Cave. It is situated in the side, or end rather, of Cumberland Mountain, at a point near the present depot of the Nashville and Chattanooga Rail Road, and about thirty-six miles below Chattanooga. Its main entrance is on the Tennessee River. The cave has been thus described by another : '' At its mouth it is about thirty yards wide, arched over head with pure granite,Hhis being in the centre about fifteen feet high. A beautiful little river, clear as crystal, issues from its mouth. The distance the cave extends into the mountains has not been ascertained. It has been explored only four or five miles. At the mouth the river is wide and shallow, but narrower than the cave. As you proceed further up the stream the cave becomes gradually narrower, until it is contracted to the exact width of the river. It is beyond this

Into this vast cavern, for the purposes of concealment and murder, the banditti of the " Narrows" retired with their spoils and their victims. The place now enlivened and enriched by the genius of Fulton, and in view of the Steamer and Locomotive, was then the dismal and gloomy retreat of savage cruelty and barbarian guilt.

These impregnable fortresses of nature were as yet unoccupied by the sons of the forest. The hunter avoided atid was deterred from entering them. The Indian, in his canoe, glided swiftly by them, as if apprehending that the evil genius of the place was there to engulph and destroy him. It remained for American enterprise to see and overcome them.

About 1773 or 1774, some families in West Virginia and North-Carolina, attracted by the glowing accounts of West Florida, sought a settlement in that province. They came to the Holston frontier, built their boats, and following the stream, reached Natchez by water. Necessity drove them to employ Indians and Indiah traders, as pilots through the dangerous passes of the Tennessee River. Occasionally a boat was either by accident or design shipwrecked, at some point between the Chickamauga Towns and the lower end of the Muscle Shoals. Its crew became easy victims of savage cruelty - its cargo fell a prey to Indian cupidity. As these voyages increased, and the emigrants by water multiplied from year to year, so did the Indian settlements all along the rapids, also extend. The Chickamaugas were the first to settle there, and to become depredators upon the lives and property of emigrants. Conscious of guilt, unwilling to withhold their warriors from robbery and murder, they failed to attend with the rest of their tribe at treaties of peace, and refused to observe treaty stipulations when entered into by their nation. They broke up their old towns on and near Chickamauga, removed lower down on the river, and laid the foundation of several new villages, afterwards known as the Five Lower Towns - Running Water, Nicajack, Long bland Villages, Crow Town, and Look Out, which soon became populous, and the most formidable part of the Cherokee nation. They were situated near the Great CrosBing on Tennessee, where the hunting and war parties, in their exoursions from the south to the north, always crossed that 8l;ream. To this point congregated, with fearful rapidity, the worst men in all the Indian tribes. Murderers, thieves, pirates, banditti, not of every Indian tribe only, but depraved white men, rendered desperate by crime, hardened by outlawry and remorseless from conscious guilt, fled hither and confederated with barbarian aborigines in a common assault upon humanity and justice, and in defiance of all laws of earth and heaven. These miscreants constituted for a number of years the Barbary Powers of the West - the Algiers of the American interior.

They had become veiy numerous, composing a banditti of more than one thousand warriors. These had refused the terms of peace proposed by Christian, and had perpetrated the greatest outrages upon the whole frontier. The Chiokamauga Towns were the central points from which their detachments were sent out for murder and plunder, and where guns^ and ammunition, and other supplies, were received from their allies in Florida. It was determined to invade and destroy these towns. North-Carolina and Virginia, in ooi^junction, ordered a strong expedition against them, under the command of Colonel Evan Shelby. It consisted of one thousand volunteers from the western settlements of these two states, and a regiment of twelve months' men under the \ command of Col. John Montgomery.* At this period ( the two governments were much straightened in their resources on account of the existing war of the Revolution, and were unable to make any advances for supplies or trans-

* When General George Rogers Clarke^ in 1778» was planning his celebrated expedition to Kaskaskias^ Vincennes, etc., in the Illinois eountry, Major W. B. Smith was despatched to the Holston settlements to recmit men for that serfioe. It was desired by the government of Virginia that the .troops shoold be raised west of the Bloe Ridge, so at not to weaken the Atlantic defence. Smith raised four companies on Holston. Montgomery's regiment was intended as a reinforcement to Clarke, and was temporarily diverted from that object, and opportunely was at hand to assist in the reduction of the Chickamaugas. Montgomery had recently letnmed from Richmond, whither he had gone in charge of M. Rocheblave, the commaodant of Kaaknskias.

Kaval Aamamsnt Dbscbnds Houtton

portation necessary for this campaign. All these were procured by the indefatigable and patriotic exertions, and on the individaal responsibility, of Isaac Shelby.*

The army rendezvoused at the mouth of Big Creek, a few miles above where Rogersville, in Hawkins county, now stands. Perogues and canoes were immediately made from the adjacent forest, and, on the 10th of April, the troops embarked and descended the Holston. So rapid was the descent of this first naval armament down the river, as to take the enemy completely by surprise. They fled in all directions to the hills and mountains, without giving battle. Shelby pursued and hunted them in the woods - killed upwards of forty of their warriors, burnt down their towns, destroyed their com and every article of provision, and drove away their great flocks of cattle.t

In this sudden invasion Col. Shelby destroyed eleven of their towns, besides twenty thousand bushels of corn. He also captured a supply of stores and goods valued at £20,000, which had been provided by his majesty^s agents for distribution, at a general Council of the Northern and Southern Indians, that had been called by Governor Hamilton, of Detroit, to assemble at the mouth of Tennessee.;]:

Evan Shelby commanded 350 and Col. Montgomery 150 men, on the Chickamauga expedition. Their pilot was named Hudson. The boats turned up the Chickamauga Creek ; near the mouth of a branch an Indian was taken prisoner. With him as their guide, the troops waded out through an inundated cane-break, and entered Chickamauga, a town nearly one mile long; Dragging Canoe and Big Fool were its chiefs. The Indians, five hundred in number, astonished at the sudden invasion of their towns by an armament by water, made no resistance and fled into the mountains. The town was burned. John McCrosky, late of Sevier county, took a party and followed the flying Indians across the river, and dispersed a camp of them which he found on Lauiel

Creek. Another party took Little OwPs Town, and others were in like manner taken and burnt Besides the other 8p<^8, Shelby took 150 horses, 100 eattle and great quantities of deer skins, owned in part by a trader named McDonald. These were all sold at vendue. Isaac and all the other sons of Gol. Evan Shelby, were out on this campaign.

This service performed, the troops destroyed or sunk their little vessels and the supply of provisions that was in them» and returned home on foot In their march they suffered much for the want of provisions, which could be procured only by hunting and killing game. They returned on the north side of the Tennessee, passed by the place since known as the Pos^Oak-Springs, crossed Emery and Clinch a little above their confluence, and Holston some miles above its junction with. French Broad. These were the first troops that had seen the richest lands of the present Hamilton, Rhea, Roane, Knox, and the north part of Jefferson counties, and seen as they were in all the beauty and verdure of May, it is not strange that a new and increasing current of emi* gration was at once turned to this beautiful and inviting country.

About the time of the expedition of Shelby to Chickamauga, Gov. Hamilton was attempting to form a grand coalition between all the northern and southern Indians, to be aided by British regulars, who were to advance and assist them in driving all the settlers from the Western waters. In the prosecution of this object be bad advanced from Detriot and re-captured Vincennes, and contemplated an expedition against Kaskaskias, where he expected to be joined by five hundred Cherokees and Chickasaws. Shelby had destroyed the towns and killed the warriors of his allies at Chicka* mauga, and the coalition of the southern and northern Indians was thus entirely prevented.

Col. Evan Shelby, the commander of this expedition, has been elsewhere mentioned, as an officer at the Kenhawa battle. He had been before in the military service of Virginia, as a captain of rangers under Braddock, and led the advance under General Forbes when f^ort DuQuesne was taken by that ofiicer. After the successful expedition to

The Legislature of North-Carolina, this year, laid off and 1779 i established Jonesborough as the seat of justice for C Washington county. John Wood, Jesse Walton, George Russell, James Stewart and Benjamin Clerk, were appointed commissioners to lay out and direct its buildings. This was the first town in what is now Tennessee. Jonesboro' was so called after Willie Jones, Esq., of Halifax, N. C, a friend to the growth and prosperity of the western counties. He was an active patriot and statesman in the days of thfe Beyolution, as well as before and after. He was an intelUgenty useful and honest legislator, exercising great c&ndour and independence.*

Commissioners were appointed this year to run the boundary between Virginia and North-Carolina. This was. the more necessary, as lands near the line had not been entered in the proper offices, and many of the settlers did not know to what jurisdiction, civil or military, they belonged. At the October sessions of the North-Carolina Legislature, a new county was laid off. It was called, in honour of a general then commanding in the army of the United States, Sullivan.

Sullivan county Records show that in February, 1780, the county court met at the house of Moses Looney. A commission was presented, appointing as Justices of the Peace Isaac Shelby, David Looney, William Christie, (Christian T) John Dunham, William Wallace, and Samuel Smith; John Rhea was appointed Clerk ; Nathaniel Clark, Sheriff till court in course.

Isaac Shelby exhibited his commission from Gov. Caswell, dated Nov. 19, 1779, appointing him Colonel Commandant of the county ; D. Looney, one of same date, appointing him Major. Ephraim Dunlap was appointed State Attorney, and Jphn Adair, Entry-Taker.

Anthony Bledsoe had lived, in 1769, at Fort Chisel, and, in a short time after, with his brother Isaae and the Shelbys, removed further west, into what is now.SuIlt^an connty. His station was not far from Long Island. He was in the battle of the Flats.

After the repulse of Sir Peter Parker from Charleston, the Southern States had a short respite from British attack and invasion. The conquest of the states was thereafter attempted from north to south. But that order was, from this IY79 ( time, inverted, and his migesty's arms were directed '( against the most isK>uthem of the states. On the 29th Dec, 1778, Savannah, the capital of Georgia, was taken, and 0oon after British posts were established as far into the interior aa Augusta. General Lincoln, who commanded the southern department, sent a detachment of fifteen hundred North- Carolina militia, under command of Gen. Ashe, to oblige the teeoiy to evacuate the upper part of Georgia. The detachment was surprised by Geiieral Provost and entirely defeated. By this victory of the British, their conmiunication witfi their friends, the tories, in the back country, and with their allies the Cherokees, across the mountains, was restored. The effect of this was soon felt upon the frontier.

Frequent conferences were held with the Cherokees to induce them to farther outbreaks upon the western settlements. The Indians invaded the country soon after and attacked Boilston's house, on the frontier, with the loss on the part of the assailants of four warriors killed and a number wounded. Daring the attack, Williams and Hardin were killed. The enemy was driven off*. They were pursued by George Doberty, Joseph Boyd and others, but escaped.

Other mischief was attempted, but the scouts and lighthorse companies guarded the frontier so vigilantly, that little iigury was sustained by the settlers. The apprehension of danger kept up the military organization of the new country, made the inhabitants familiar with the duties of camp life, inured them to toil and exposure, deprivation and endurance, and kindled into a flame that martial spirit, which in the course of the next year they were called upon to exhibit with such advantage to the country and such honour to themselves.

Fitkther Explobatiok Of Cumbe&Land

Stopping the order of current events, we return to the ( further exploration and settlement of that part of Ten- ( nessee west of the Cumberland Mountain. By the treaty of Watauga, in March 1775, the Cherokees had ceded to Richard Henderson & Company all the lands lying between the Kentucky and Cumberland Rivers. Although that treaty had been repudiated by the proclamations of Lord Dunmore and Governor Martin, and settlements upon the ceded territory had been inhibited, the Company, regardless of consequences, proceeded to take possession of their illegal purchase* The spirit of emigration from Virginia and North-Carolina was aroused, and pioneers were anxious to lead the way in effecting settlements.

Boon and Floyd and Callaway opened the way, and Benjamin Logan, who resided some time on Holston, soon followed ; and with a host of other valiant and enterprising men erected fortSy built stations, repelled, with unsurpassed heroism and self-sacrifice, hostile invasion, and contemporaneously with the pioneers of Tennessee laid the foundations of society and government in Kentucky.

A portion of Henderson's purchase on the Lower Cumberland, was within the supposed boundary of North-Carolina* It was at first reached through the old route by the way of Cumberland Gap, and explorers continued to pass through it on their way to what is now called Middle Tennessee. Amongst others, Mansco * renewed his visit in Nov., 1775, and came to Cumberland River, in company with other hunters of the name of Bryant. They encamped at Mansco's Lick. Most of them became dissatisfied with the country, and returned home. Mansco and three others remained and commenced trapping on Sulphur Fork and Red River.

But finding themselves in the neighbourhood of a party of Blackfish Indians, they deemed it essential to their own safety to ascertain where they were encamped and what was their number. Mansco was selected to make the discovery. He came cautiously upon their camp on the river, and standing behind a tree was endeavouring to count them. He could see but two, and supposed the rest were out of camp, hunting.

At the moment when he was about to retire, one of the Indians took up a tomahawk, crossed the stream and went upon the other side. The other took up his gun, put it upon his BhQulder, and came directly towards the place where Mansco stood. He hoped the advancing Indian would go some other way, but he continued to come in a straight line towards the spot where he lay concealed^ and had come within fifteen steps of him. There being no alternative but to shoot him Mansco cocked and presented his gun, and aiming at the most vital part, pulled trigger, and fired. The Indian screamed, threw down his gun and made for the camp ; but he passed it and pitched headlong down the blufi* dead, into the river. The other Indian ran back to the camp, but Mansco outran him, and picking up an old gun tried to shoot, but he could not get it to fire, and^e Indian escaped. Mansco broke the old gun and returned in haste to his comrades. The next day they all came to the Indian camp, found the dead warrior, took away his tomahawk, knife and shot-bag, but could no^ find his gun. The other Indian had returned, loaded his horses with his furs, and was gone. They pursued him all that day and all night, with torches of dry cane, but could not overtake him. Returning to Mansco's Lick^ they soon after began their journey towards the settlements on New-River, but were detained four weeks by snow, which was waistdeep. After that melted, they resumed their journey and arrived safe at home.

Thomas Sharp, Spencer and others, allured by the fiattering accounts they had received of the fertility of the soil, and of the abundance of game which the country afforded, determined to visit it. They came, in the year 1776, to Cumberland River, and built a number of cabins. Most of them returned, leaving Spencer and Holliday, who remained in the country till 1779.

Captain De Mumbrune who, as late as 1823, lived in Nashville, hunted in that country as early as 1775. He was a native of France. He fixed his residence, during the summer, at the plajse since known as Eaton's Station. He saw no Indians, during that season, in the country, but immense numbers of buffalo and other game. In February, 1777, he arrived^ after a trip to New-Orleans, at Deacon's Pond, near where Palmyra now stands, and found there six white men and one white woman, who, in coming to the country, had taken water where Rockcastle River disembogues into the Cumberland, and descended it, hunting occasionally upon its banks. In their excursions they had seen no Indians, but immense herds of buffaloes. One of their companions, William Bowen, had been overran by a gang of these animals, and died from the bruises he received. John Duncan and James Ferguson were of this .company. They afterwards went down the river, and were cut off at Natchez, in 1779.

A settlement of less than a dozen families was formed ) near Bledsoe's Lick, isolated in the heart of the ) Chickasaw nation, with no other protection than their own courage, and a small stockade inclosure.*'

About the same time, a number of French traders advanced up the Cumberland River, as far as ^'the Bluff,'' where they erected a trading post and a few log cabins, with the approbation of the Chickasaws.f

The Lower Cumberland continued to be visited and explored farther. Richard Hogan, Spencer, HoUiday and others, came this year from Kentucky in search of good landfl, and with the intention of securing some for themselves as permanent settlements, they planted a small field of corn in the spring of 1778. This first plantation, in Middle Tennessee, was near Bledsoe's Lick. A large hollow tree stood near the Lick* In this Spencer lived. He was pleased with the prospects for further settlement which the situation afforded, and could not be induced to relinquish them and return home, as HoUiday in vain persuaded him to do. The former, however, determined to leave the wilderness, but having lost his knife, was unwilling to undertake bis long travel without one with which to skin his venison and cut his meat. With back-woods generosity and kindness, Spenoer accompanied his comrade to the Barrens of Kentucky, put him on the right path, broke bis knife and gave him half of it, and returned to his hollow tree at the Lick, where he passed the winter. Spencer was a man of gigantic stature, and passing one morning the temporary cabin erected at a place since called Eaton's Station, and occupied by one of Captain DeM umbrune's hunters, his huge tracks were left plainly impressed in the rich alluvial. These were seen by the hunter on his return to the camp, who, alarmed at their size, immediately swam across the river, and wandered through the woods until he reached the French settlements on the Wabash.

Nearly ten years had now elapsed since the germ of a 17M i civilized community had been planted in Upper East I Tennessee. No settlement had yet been permanently fixed on the Lower Cumberland. A hunter's camp, and the lonely habitation of Spencer, were all that relieved the solitude or lightened the gloom of that western wilderness. But the cheerlessness of barbarian night was about to be dissipated by the dawn of civilization and improvement. In the early spring of 1779, a little colony of gallant adventu* rers, from the parent hive at Watauga, crossed the Cumberland Mountain, penetrated the intervening wilds, and pitched their tents near the French Lick, and planted a field of com where the city of Nashville now stands. This field was at the spot where Joseph Park since resided, and near the lower ferry. These pioneers were Captain James Robertson, George Freeland, William Neely, Edward Swanson, James Hanly, Mark Robertson, Zachariah White, and William Overhall. A negro fellow also accompanied them. To their number was added, immediately after their arrival at the Lick, a number of others conducted by Mansco, who had ten years before visited, and explored, and hunted in the country. These emigrants also planted corn preparatory to the removal of their fam^ilies in the succeeding autumn. Captain Robertson, during the summer, went to the Illinois to purchase the cabin rights from General Clarke. After the crop was made, Overhall, White and Swanson, were left to keep the bufialoes out of the unenclosed fields of corn, while the rest of the party returned for their families.

Mansco, Frazier, and other early hunters and explorers, upon their previous return to the older settlements, had diflused an account of the fertility of the Cumberland lands, the abundance of game and the salabrity of the climate. This account was now confirmed and extended, by the experiment that had been made by the parties under Robertson and Mansco, in planting and raisigg a crop. Cumberland became the theme of eager conversation in every neighbourhoody and great numbers prepared to emigrate to this land of Aiture plenty and of promise. Under the lead of Mansco» several families removed and settled at Mansco's Lick, Bledsoe^s Lick, and other places. John Rains and others, in October of this year, leaving New River, on their way to Kentucky, were persuaded by Captain Robertson to accompany him to the French Lick. Assenting to this proposal, they were soon joined by several other companies of emigrants - the whole amounting to two or three hundred, many of them young men without families - some of them took out cattle and othw domestic animals. The route pursued was by Cumberland Gap, and the Kentuc\cy trace to Whitley's Station, on Dick's River ; thence to Carpenter's Station, on the waters of Green River ; thence to Robertson's Fork, on the north side of that stream ; thence down the river to Pitman's Station ; thence crossing and descending that river to Little Barren, crossing it at the Elk Lick ; thence passing the Blue Spring and the Dripping Spring to Big Barren ; theaee up Drake's Creek to a bituminous spring ; thence to the Maple Swamp ; thence to Red River, at Kilgore's Station; thence to Mansco's Creek; and from there to the French Lick.

The inclemency of the season, the great number of the emigrants, the delay inseparable from travelling over a new route, part of it mountainous, all of it through a wilderness, without roads, bridges or ferries, prevented the arrival of the Cumberland colonists at their point of destination till the beginning of the year 1780. The winter had been intensely cold, and has always been remembered and referred to as the cold winter by all countries in the northern hemisphere, between the thirty-fifth and seventieth degrees of latitude, and is decisive of the chronology that fixes the arrival of these emigrants in seventeen hundred and eighty.* The Cumber-

1780 \ ^^^^ ^^^ found frozen over. Snow had fallen early ( in November, and it continued to freeze for many weeks after the emigrants reached the bluff. Some of them settled on the nort^ side of the river, at Eaton's Station, -where Page afterwards resided. These annals would be imperfect without their names. Some of them are given from Haywood. They are Frederick Stump, Senr., Amos Eaton, Hayden Wells, Isaac Roundsever, William Loggins, and - Winters. The names of others are not recollected. Here they built cabins, cleared ground and planted corn. The cabins were built with stockades from one to the other, with port holes and bastions. But most of the company crossed immediately after their arrival, over the river upon the ice» and settled at the Bluff where Nashville now stands. They were admonished by the existing condition of things in Kentucky on one side, and the hostilities many of them had witnessed from the Cherokees on the other, that their settlement could not long escape the aggression of the savages around them. They prudently erected block-houses in lines - -the intervals between which were stockaded - two lines were built parallel to each other, and so were other two lines, the whole forming a square within. Freeland's Station, where McGavock since resided, was at this time also erected. Here were also block-houses and stockades. Mr. Rains settled the place since known as Deaderick's plantation. Among the emigrants that built their cabins at the bluff, were some from South-Carolina. These were John Buchanan, Alexander Buchanan, Daniel Williams, John Mulherrin, James Mulherrin, Sampson Williams, Thomas Thompson, besides others whose names are not given. While Robertson and his co-emigrants were thus reaching ( Cumberland by the circuitous and dangerous trace ( through the wilderness of Kentucky, others of their countrymen were undergoing greater hardships, enduring greater sufferings, and experiencing greater privations upon another route, not less circuitous and far more perilous, in aiming at the same destination. Soon after the former had left the Holston settlements, on their march by land, several boats loaded with emigrants and their property left Fort Patrick Henry, near Long Island, on a voyage down the Holston and Tennessee, and up the Ohio and Cumberland. The journal of one of them, ** The Adventure," has been preserved.* It was kept by Col. John Donelson, the projector of the enterprise. His grandson. Captain Stockley Donelson, who resides near **the Hermitage," in Davidson county, has the original journal still in possession. The details of so new and remarkable an adventure by water, are full of interest, and the journal is, therefore, given entire.

Journal of a votaqe, inteoded by God^s permission, in tho good boat Adventure, fix)m Fort Patrick Henry on Holston River, to the French Salt Springs on Cumberland River, kept by John Donaldson.

DtomJber 22, 1779. - Took our departure from tho tort and foil down the river to the mouth of Reedy Creek, where we were stopped by the fall of water, and most excessive hard frost ; and after much delay and maoy difficulties we arrived at the mouth of Cloud^s Creek, on Sunday evening, the 20th Febuary, 1780, where we lay by until Sunday, 27th, when we took our departure with sundry other vessels bound for the same voyage, and on tho same day struck the Poor Valley Shoal, together with Mr. Boyd and Mr. Rounsifer, on which shoal we lay that afternoon and succeeding night in much distress.

M<mday^ February 28/A, 1780. - In tlie morning the water rising, we got off the shoal, after landing thirty persons to lighten our boat In attempting to land on an island, received some damage ano lost sundry articles, and came to camp on the south shore, where we joined sundry other vessels also bound down.

March 2d, - Rain about half the day ; passed the mouth of French Broad River, and about 12 oVIock, Mr. Henry^s boat being driven on the point of an islandf by the force of the current was sunk, the whole cargo much damaged and the crew's lives much endangered, which occasioned the whole fleet to put on shore and go to their assistance, but with much difficulty bailed her, in order to take in her cargo again. The same afternoon Reuben Harrison went out a hunting and did not return that niffht, though many guns were fired to fetch him in.

^Hday, Zd. - Early in the morning fired a four-pounder for the lost man, -eat oat sundry persons to search the woods for him, firing many guns that

Saturday^ 4th. - Proceeded on our voyage, leaving old Mr. HamHn with some other vessels to make further search for his lost bod ; iboit ten oVlock the same day found him a considerable distance down the river, where Mr. Ben. Belew took him on board his boat At 8 e*clod, P. M., passed the mouth of Tennessee River, and camped on the sowUi shore about ten miles below the mouth of Tennessee.' -

Sunday^ 5ih. - Cast off and got under way before sunrise ; 12 oMock passed the mouth of Clinch ; at 12 oVlock, M. came up with the CliDch River Company, whom we joined and camped, the evening proving rainy.

Monday, Gik, - Got under way before sunrise ; the mominff proving ver}' fogpry, many of the fleet were much bogged - about 10 o clodc Iw by for them ; when collected, proceeded down. Camped on the north shore, where Capt Ilutching's negro man died, being much froeted in his feet and legs, of which ho died.

Tuesday, Itk. - Got under way very early, the day proving veiy windy, a S.S.W., and the river being wide occasioned a high acA, insomuch that some of the smaller crafts were in danger; therefore came to, at the uppermost Chiccamauga Town, which was then evacuated, where wo lay by that afternoon and camped that night The wife of Ephraim Peyton was hero delivered of a child. Mr. Peyton has gone through by land with Capt Robertson.

Wednesday, 8th. - Cast off at 10 oVlock, and proceed down to an Indian village, which was inhabited, on the south siae of the river ; thej insisted on ub to *' come ashore,'' called us brothers, and showed other signs of friendship, insomuch that Mr. John Caffrey and my son tlien on board took a canoe which I had in tow, and were crossing over to them, the rest of the fleet having landed on the opposite shore. After thej had gone some distance, a half-breed, who called himself Arcbr Coodjr^ with several other Indians, jumped into a canoe, met them, and advised them to return to the boat, which they did, together with Ooodj and several canoes which left the shore and followed directly after him. They appeared to be friendly. After distributiMr some presents among them, with which they seemed much pleased, we observed a number of Indians on the other side embarking in their canoes, armed and painted with red and black. Coody immediate!? made «^ to his companions, ordering them to quit the boat, which Uiey did, himself and another Indian remaining with us and tellipg « «<> off matanUy. We had not gone far before we discovered a DamDerot Indians armed and painted proceeding down the river, «- Jj ^T^y ^^ mtercept ns. Coody, the half-breed, and his companioB,*"**^'^^ tor some time, small island. Here they again i«^'«fi?liT tbe^nl^^^^^ '^''u'^^ ^ brothers, and oUser^nng the boats BtaaAjgoJ ^J;^/>PP<^'te channel, told us that " their side of the river w» bettw lor boats to pass.- And here we must regret the unfortunate death of joung Mr. Pajne, on board CapL Blackemore^s boat, who was mortally wounded by reason of the boat running too near the northern shore opposite the town, where some of the enemy lay concealed, and the more tragical misfortune of poor Stuart, ^is family and friends to the number of twenty-eight persons. This man had embarked with us for the Western country, but his family being diseased with the small pox, it was agreed upon between him and the company that he should keep at some distance in the rear^ for fear of the infection spreading, and he was warned each iiiffht when the encampment should take place by the sound of a horn. AAer we had passed the town, the Indians having now collected to a considerable number, observing his helpless situation, singled off from the rest of the fleet, intercepted him and killed and took prisoners the whole crew, to the great grief of the whole company, uncertain how sooA they might share the same fate ; their cries were distinctly heard by those boats in the rear.

We still perceived them marching down the river in considerable bodies, keeping pace with us until the Cumberland Mountain withdrew them firom our sight, when we were in hopes we had escaped them. We were now arrived at the place called the Whirl or Suck, where the river is compressed within less than half its common width above, by the Cumberland Moimtain, which juts in on both sides. In passing through the upper part of these narrows, at a place described by Coody, which he termed the ^' boiling pot," a trivial accid(int had nearly ruined the expedition. One of the company, John Cotton, who was moving down m a large canoe, had attached it to Robert Cartwright's boat, into which he and his family had gone for safety. The canoe was here overturned, and the little cargo lost. The company pitying his distress, concluded to halt and assist him in recovering his property. They had landed on the northern shore at a level spot, and were going up to the place, when the Indians, to our astonishment, appeared immediately over IIS on the opposite clifl&, and commenced firing down upon us, which occasioned a precipitate retreat to the boats. We immediately moved ofi^ the Indians lining the bluffs along continued their fire from the heights on our boats below, without doing any other injury than wounding four slightly. Jennings^s boat is missing.

We have now passed through the Whirl. The river widens with a placid and gentle current ; and all the company appear to be in safety except the &mily of Jonathan Jennings, whose boat ran on a large rock, projecting out from the northern shore, and partly immersed in water immediately at the Whirl, where we were compelled to leave them, perhaps to be slaughtered by their merciless enemies. Continued to sail on that day and floated throughout the following night.

Thursday^ Qlh. - Proceeded on our journey, nothing happening worthy attention to-day ; floated till about midnight, and encamped on the northern shore.

Friday^ lOth. - This morning about 4 o'clock we were surprised by the cries of ^ help poor Jennings," at some distance in the rea;. He had discovered us by our fires, and came up in the most wretched condition. He states, that as soon as the Indians discovered his situation they turned their whole attention to him, and kept np a most galling fire at his boat. He ordered his wife, a son nearly grown, a young man who accompanied them, and his negro man and woman, to throw all his goods into the river, to lighten their boat for the purpose of getting her ofl^ himself returning their fire as well as he could, being a good soldier and an excellent marksman. But before they had accomplished their object, his son, the young man and the negro, jumped out of the boat and left them. He thinks the young man and the negro were wounded before they left the boat.* Mrs. Jennings, however, and the negro womam succeeded in unloading the boat, but chiefly by the exertions of Mrs. tfennings, who t out of the boat and shoved her ofi^ but was near fiilling a victim to er own intrepidity on account of the boat starting so suddenly as soon as loosened from the rock. Upon examination, he appears to have made a wonderful escape, for his boat is pierced in numberless nlaces with bullets. It is to be remarked, that Mrs. Peyton, who was tne night before delivered of an infant, which was imfortunately killed upon the hurry and confusion consequent upon such a disaster, assisted them, being frequently exposed to wet and cold then and afterwards, and that her health appears to be good at this time, and I think and hope she will do well. Their clothes were very much cut with bullets, especially Mrs. Jennings's.

Saturday, 11 th, - Got under way after havinje distributed the fiimily of Mrs. Jennings in the other boats. Rowed on quietly that day, and eneamped for the night on the north shore.

Sunday, 12 tk, - Set out, and after a few hour's saihng we heard the CTQwing of cocks, and soon came within view of the town ; here they fired on us again without doing any injury.

After running until about 10 o'clock, came in sight of the Muscle Shoals. Halted on the northern shore at the appearance of the shoals, in order to search for the signs Capt. James Robertson was to make for us at that placQ. He set out from Uolston early in the fall of 1779, was to proceed by the way of Kentucky to the Big Salt Lick on Cumberland River, with several others in company, was to come across from the Big Salt lick to the iipper end of the shoals, there to make such signs that we might know he had been there, and that it was practicable for us to go across by land. But to our great mortification we can find none - from which we conclude that it would not be prudent to make the attenapt, and are determined, knowing ourselves to be in such imminent danger, to pursue our journey down the river. After trimming our boats in the best manner possible, we ran through the shoals before night. When we approached them they had a dreadful appearance to those who had never seen them before. The water being high made a terrible roaring,

The negro was drowned. The son and the young man swam to the north side of the river, where they found and embarked in a canoe and floated down the river. Tlie next day they were niet by five canoes full of Indians, who took them prisoners and carried them to Chickainaiiga, where they killed and burned the young man. Thev knocked Jennings down and were about to kill him, but were

Erevented by the friendly mediation of Rogers, an Indian trader, who ransomed im with g(K)d3> Rogers had been taken prisoner By Sevier a short time before, and had been releasea ; and that good office he requited by the ransom of Jen- irhax^ oonld "be heard at eome distaooe among the drift-wood heaped firightfall J upon the points of the islands,' the cuirent running in every poesible direction. Here we did not know how soon we should be dashed to pieesB, and all our troubles ended at once. Our boats frequenUj dragged on the bottom, and appeared constantly in danger of striking. They warped as much as in a rough sea. But by the hand of Providence we are now preserved from this danger also. I know not the length of this wonderful shoal ; it had been represented to me to be 25 or 80 miles. If so, we must have descended very rapidly/ as indeed we did, fot we passed it in about three hours. Came to, and camped on the northern shore, not fat below the shoals, for the night.

Tuesdajf^ 14th, - Set out early. On this day two boats approaching too near the shore, were fired on bv the Indians. Five of the crews were wounded, but not dangerously. Came to camp at night near the mouth of a creek. After kindling fires and preparing for rest, the company were alarmed, on account of the incessant barking our dogs kept up ; taking it for granted, that the Indians were attempting to surprise us, we retreated preeipitately to the boats; fell down the river about a mile and encamped on the other shore. In the morning I prevailed on Mr. Caffrey and my son to cross below in a canoe, and return to the place ; which they did, and found an African negro we had left in the harry, asleep by one of the fires. The voyagers returned and collected their ntensib which had been left.

Wednnday, 16th. - Got under way and moved on peaceably the five following days, when we arrived at the mouth of the Tennessee on Monday, the 20th, and landed ort the lower point immediately on the bank of the Ohio. Qur situation here is truly disagreeable. The river is very high, and the current rapid, our boats not constructed for the purpose of stemming a rapid stream, our provision exhausted, the crews almost worn down with hunger and fatigue, and know not what distance we have to 00, or what time it will take us to our place of destination. The scene 18' rendered still more melancholy, as several boats will not attempt' to ascend the rapid current Some intend to descend the Mississippi to Natches ; others are bound for the Illinois - among the rest my son-inlaw and daughter. We now part, perhaps to meet no more, for I am determined to pursue my course, happen what will.

Tuektay, 2l8t. - Set out, and on this day laboured very hard and got but a little way ; camped on the south bank of the Ohio. Passed the two following days as the former, suffering much from hunger and &- tigue.

Friday, 24th. - About 3 o'clock came to the mouth of a river which I thought was the Cumberland. Some of the company declared it could not be - ^it was so much smaller than was expected. But I never heard of any river running in between the Cumberland and Tennessee. It I4>pewed to flow with a gentle current We determined, however, to make the trial, pushed up some distance and encamped for<he night

Omobeiland. I lia?6 dierived great amftanoe from a «inaU aquaee aaU whidi was fixed up oa the day we left the iQQUth of the river j^Da&d to prevent any ill-e&cta from sudden flaws of wind, a man was stationed at each of the lower comers of the sheet with, directions to give way whenever it was necessary.

JW4ay, BUi. - Set out this day, and after running some distance, met with Col. Richard Henderson, who was running the line between Virgy nia and North-Carolina. At this meeting we were much rejoiced. He gave ua every information we wished, and further informed us that he had purohased a quantity of com in Kentucky, to be shipped at the Falls of Ohio for the use of the Cumberland settlement We are now withofit Iwead, and are compelled to hunt the buffido to preserve life. Worn out with btiffue, our progress at present is slow. Camped at night near the mouth of a little river^at which place and bek>w there is a handsome bottom of rich land. ;Here we found a pair of hand-mill stones set up for grinding, but appeared not to have been used for a great length of time.^:

Proceeded on quietly until the 12th of April, at which j^me we came to the mouth of a little river running in on the north side, by^Moses Ren« foe and his company called Red River, up which they intend, to settle. Here they took leave of us. We proceeded up Cumberland, nothing happening material until the 23d, when we reached the first settlement on the north side of the river, one mile and a half below the Big Salt lick and called Eaton's Station, after a man of that name, who with several other families, came through Kentucky and settled there.

Monday, April 24^.-^This day we arrived at our journey's end at the Big Salt Lick, where we have the pleasure of finding Capt Robertson and his company. It is a source of satisfaction to us to be enabled to restore to him and others their families and friends, who were entrusted to our care, and who, sometime since, perhaps, despaired of ever meeting again. Though our prospects at present are dreary, we have found a few log cabins which have been built on a cedar bluff above the Lick, by Capt Robertson and his company.

With The Colonists At Thb Bluff

The rfames of these adventurous navigators and bold pioneers of the Cumberland country are not, all of them, recollected; some of them follow: Mrs. Robertson, the wife of James Robertson, Col. Donelson, John Donelson, Jun., Robert Cartwright, Benjamin Porter, James Cain, Isaac Neely, John Cotton, Mr. Rounsever, Jonathan Jennings, WilHam Crutchfield, Moses Renfroe, Joseph Renfroe, James Renfroe, Solomon Turpin, Johns, Sen., Francis Armstrong, Isaac

Lanier, Daniel Dunham, John Boyd, John Montgomery, John Cockrill and John Cafirey, with their respective families ; also, Mary Henry, a widow, and her family, Mary Purnell and her family, John Blackmore and John Gibson. . These, with the emigrants already mentioned as having arrived with ^bertson by the way of the Kentucky trace, and the few that had remained at the Bluff to take care of the growing crops, constituted the nucleus of the Cumberland community in 1780. Some of them plunged, at once, into the adjoining forests, and built a cabin with its necessary defences. Col. Donelson, himself, with his connexions, was of this number. He went up the Cumberland and settled upon Stone's River, a confluent of that stream, at a place since called Clover Bottom, where he erected a small fort on its south side. The situation was found to be too low, as the water, during a freshet, surrounded the fort, and it was, for that reason, removed to the north side.

Dr. Walker, the Commissioner on the part of Virginia, for running the boundary line between that state and North- Carolina, arrived at the Bluff. He was accompanied by Col. Richard Henderson and his two brothers, Nathaniel and Pleasant Col. Henderson erected a station also, on Stone's River, and remained there some time, selling lands under the deed made to himself and partners by the Cherokees, at Watauga, in March, 1775, as has been already mentioned. He sold one thousand acres per head at ten dollars per thousand. His certificate entitled the holder, at a future time, to further proceedings in a land office.* The purchase of ^ Transylvania in America," as made by Henderson and his associates, without any authority from the states of North-

Carolina and Virginia, was, in itself, null and void, so far as it claimed to vest the title of lands in those individuals. The associates could be recognized only as private citizens, having no right to make treaties with or purchase lands from the Indians. This treaty was, however, considered as an extinguishment of the Indian title to the lands embraced within the boundaries mentioned in it. The legislatures of the two states, for this reason, and as a remuneration for the expenditures previous and subsequent to the treaty of Watauga, allowed, to the Transylvania Company, a grant of two hundred thousand acres from each state.

One of the great sources of Indian invasion and of hostile instigation, had been broken up by the capture of the British posts on the Wabash and in the Illinois country, and the captivity of Colonel Hamilton, who was now a prisoner at Williamsburg. Many of the western tribes had entered into treaties of peace and friendship with Col. Clarke, which presaged a temporary quietude to the frontier people. The repeated chastisements of the Cherokees by the troops under Sevier and Shelby, seemed, for a time, to secure the friendship of that nation. The news of this condition of western affairs gave a new impulse to emigration, and the roads and traces to Kentucky and Cumberland were crowded with hardy adventurers, seeking home and fortune in their distant wilds. This rapid increase of population exhausted the limited supply of food in the country, and a dearth ensued. Corn, and every other article of family consumption, became remarkably scarce. The winter had been long and exceedingly cold. The cattle and hogs designed for the use of the emigrants in their new settlements, had perished from starvation and the inclemency of the season. The game in the woods was, from like causes, poor and sickly, and, though easily found and taken, was unfit for food. This scarcity prevailed throughout the whole frontier line for five hundred miles, and was aggravated by the circumstance that no source of supply was within the reach of the suffering people. In the neighbouring settlements of Kentucky, corn was worth, in March, of 1780, one hundred and sixty-five dollars a bushel, in continental money, which price it main-

Bxpqbkd Condition Of The Colomt

Such were the circumstances under which the pioneers of the Lower Cumberland formed the first permanent 'white settlement in Middle Tennessee. Their position was that of hardship and danger, toil and sufiering. As has been well said by anotherf in reference to Kentucky : they were posted in the heart of the most favourite hunting ground of numerous and hostile tribes of Indians on the north and on the south ; a ground endeared to them by its profusion of the finest gamOf subsisting on the luxuriant vegetation of this great natural park. It was, emphatically, the Eden of the Red Man. Was it then wonderful, that all his fiercest passions and wildest energies, should be aroused in its defence, against an enemy, whose success was the Indian's downfall ?

The little band of emigrants at the Bluff were in the centre of a vast wilderness, equi-distant from the most war-like and ferocious tribes on this continent - ^tribes that had frequently wasted the frontiers of Carolina, Virginia and Pennsylvania, with the tomahawk and with fire, and that were now aided, in the unnatural alliance of Great Britain, by the arts and treasures furnished by the agents of that government. To attack and invasion from these tribes, the geographical position of the Cumberland settlers gave a peculiar exposure and a special liability. Three hundred miles of wilderness separated them from the nearest fort of their countrymen on Holston. They were, perhaps, double that distance from their seat of government in North-Carolina, while all the energies of the parent state were employed in the tremendous struggle for Independence, in the cause of ^hich she had so early and so heartily engaged. This forlorn situation of the settlement at the Bluff became more perilous, as it was so accessible by water from the distant hostile tribes. Descending- navigation could bring, with great rapidity, the fleets of canoes and perogues, from the Ohio and its western tributaries, loaded with the armed warriors of that region ; while upon the Tennessee River, with equal celerity, the Cherokee and Creek braves could precipitate themselves to the different landings on that stream, and co-operating wtth their confederates from the north, unite in one general stroke of devastation and havoc. Had this been done at the period of the iSrst emigration, the Bluff settlement could have been annihilated. Happily, the protracted and inclement winter that inflicted its inhospitable severity and such great hardships upon the first emigrants, protected them from attack, by confining their enemies to their towns and wigwams. Early in January, a small party of Delaware Indians came from the direction of the Cany Fork, and passed by the head of Mill Creek, and encamped on one of its branches, which has since been called Indian Creek. The Indians proceeded to Bear Creek of Tennessee, and continued there during the summer. At this time they offered no molestation to the whites. Before the next irruption of the Indians, time was given for the erection of defences, and Robertson's second colony was planted - consisting, like the first at Watauga, of intrepid men and heroic women - ^fit elements for tlie foundation of a great and fiourishing state. And here, at the Bluff, with its little garrison and rude stations - ^in the centre of a wide wilderness, and overshadowed by the huge evergreens and the ancient forest around it - ^amidst the snows, and ice, and storms of 178O5 was fixed the seat of commerce, of learning and the arts - the future abode of refinement and hospitality, and the cradle of empire.

When the first settlers cam© to the Bluff in 1779-'80, Haywood says the country had the appearance of one which had never before been cultivated. There was no sign of any cleared land, nor other appearance of former cultivation. Nothing was pr^ented to the eye but one large plain of woods and cane, frequented by buffaloes, elk, deer, wolves, foxes, panthers, and other animals suited to the climate. The lands adjacent to the French Lick, which Mansco, in 1769, when he first hunted here, called an old field, was a large open space, frequented and trodden by buffaloes, whose large paths led to it from all parts of the country and there concentred. On these adjacent lands was no under-growth nor cane, as far as the water reached in time of high water. The country as far as to Elk River and beyond it, had not a single permanent inhabitant, except the wild beasts of the forest ; but there were traces, as everywhere else, of having been inhabited many centuries before by a numerous population. At every lasting spring is a large collection of graves, made in a particular way, the whole covered with a stratum of mould and dirt, eight or ten inches deep. At many springs is the appearance of walls enclosing ancient habitations, the foundations of which were visible whenever the earth was cleared and cultivated - to these walls entrenchments were sometimes added. The walls sometimes enclose six, eighty or ten acres of land, and sometimes they are more extensive. We have thus traced the stream of emigration from the Atlantic to the West We have seen a few enterprising and adventurous men, clustering together on the banks of the remote and secluded Watauga, felling the forest, erecting the cabin, forming society and laying the foundation of government. We have seen the plain and unpretending emigrant from the Yadkin, and his hunter associates, combining the .wisdom and virtue of the pioneer condition, and providing laws and regulations suited to the wants of the new conununity around them. We have seen the patriotism and chivalry of the extreme western settlement rally at the sound of danger. Leaving their own frontier exposed, they magnanimously returned to the defence of a sister colony, and on the rugged Kenhawa, met and repulsed the savage invader. We have seen Robertson negotiate an enlargement of his border, and effect a peaceable extension of the settlements. We have seen the fortress erected, the station built, and the enemy repulsed. We have seen armaments by land and water boldly penetrate to the centre of the warlike Cherokee nation, and the soldiery of the Watauga bivouac upon the sources of the Coosa. The first settlement in Tennessee planted, defended, secure and prosperous, we have seen its founder and patriarch lead forth a new colony, through another wilderness, to experience upon another theatre, new privations, and undergo new dangers, and perform new achievements upon' the remote Cumberland. There, for the present, we shall leave them, and return to the eastern settlements. Here was the cradle of the great State of Tennessee, where itg infancy was spent and its early manhood formed. The vigorous shoots sent out from the parent stem - the colonies that have gone abroad from the old homestead- and peopled the great West - have ever been worthy of their ancestry. Their rapid growth and enlargement, their miexampled profrperity and achievement, are noticed with feelings of parental ibodness and pride. In no spirit of senile, arrogance is the daim upon their filial piety asserted for veneration and regard to their East Tennessee forefathers. Through them our piond state claims to be one of the ^Id lliirteen,'* and to be identified with them in the cause of independence and freedom.

On a preceding page, it has been mentioned that the ciq;>ital of Georgia was in the possession of the British, and that their posts had been extended up the Savannah River, as high as Augusta. Simidtaneously with the arrival of the enemy in G^rgia, was that of Gmieral Lincoln in South- Carolina, and the war of the Revolution was at onoe^transferred fit>m the Northern to the Southern States.

It was hoped that by the co-operation of our generous ally, France, all that had been lost in the south Would be lecovered at a single blow ; and that by the combined forces of Lincoln and Count D'Estaing, the army under Provost, and then concentrated at Savannah, would be captured. That place was attacked on the 8th of October, but the result blasted all the high hopes of the combined armies ; and their failure was the precursor of the loss of Charleston and the reduction of the Southern States. D'Estaing soon after left the coast. The southern army was nearly broken up ; sickness had diminished the number of the Carolina regiments, while those from the north were daily becoming weaker, by the expiration of the term of their enlistment The quiet possession of Georgia by the enemy, brought to their aid many of the Indians, and of the loyalists who liad fled from the Carolinas and Georgia and taken refuge among them. These were now emboldened to collect from all quarters, under cover of Provost^s army. These either united with it, or joined in formidable bodies to hunt up and destroy the whig inhabitants. M^y of these were forced, in their turn, to forsake their plantations, and transport their families beyond the mountains to the securer retreats of Wa^ taagaand Nollichucky. It became evident that all that wasr wanting to complete British ascendancy in the South, was the possession of Charleston. Should that metropolis, and the army that defended it, be captured, the reduction of the whole state, and probably of North-Carolina also, would ensue. To attain these objects, ten thousand chosen men, with an immense supply of arms and munitions of war, were landed, on the eleventh of February, 1780, on John^s Island, the command of which was taken by Sir Henry Clinton. The assembly of South-Carolina was in session ; and though the regular troops in the state did not then amonnt to one thousand men, and the defences of the city were in a dilapidated or unfinished .condition, it was resolved with one voice to defend the capital to the last extremity. Grovemor Rutledge was invested with dictatorial powers, and measures were taken to hasten the arrival of reinforcements from the interior of the state and from North-Carolina. The besieged at no time amounted to four thousand men, and yet had to defend an extent of works that could not be well manned by less than ten thousand. Besides, they were badly furnished, and, before the siege was over, were even suffering for food. Yet the defence was protracted, under every discouragement and disadvantage, from the 29th of March to the 12th of May, when General Lincoln found himself obliged to capitulate. The fall of the metropolis was soon after succeeded by the rapid conquest of the interior country, and, from the seacoast to the mountains, the progress of the enemy was almost wholly an uninter* rapted triumph. The inhabitants generally submitted, and were either paroled as prisoners, or took protection as British subjects. A few brave and patriotic men, under gallant and indomitable leaders, remained in arms, but were sarprised and cut to pieces by Tarleton and Webster, or, for security from their pursuit, withdrew into North-Carolina. The march of the enemy was continued towards the populous whig settlements, and garrisons were established at prominent points of the country, with the view of pushing their conquest still farther into the interior. Sonth-Garolina was considered a sabdaed British province, rather than an American state, and Sir Henry Clinton, believing the conquest Qomplete, invested Lord Comwallis with the chief command, and sailed for New- York.

** But^ in the midit of the general Bnbmisrioii of the inhabitants, there Mmained a few unoonqneraUe Bpiiits, whom nothing but death ooold qnelL These were Sompter, Marion and Williams, m South-Carolina, and Clarke and Twiggs, m Georgia. The three last had never submitted, and were ever in motion, harassing and waylaying the enemy. But their force was seldom ccNttiderable. Sumpter and Marion, after ths capitulation of Charleston, had retired into North-Carolina, to recruit their commands and gather the means ot carrying on that partisan warfrie in which they afterwards became so conspicuous.'' *

When Georgia was overrun by the British, Colonel Clarke, ^ ( with about one hundred of his valiant but overpowered ( countrymen, sought safety in the remote settlements on the Watauga and Holston. Here their representations of the atrocities perpetrated by the loyalists induced many of the frontier men to return with Clarke and retaliate the injuries he and his associates had suffered. Clarke thus reinforced, approached the British camp, placed his men near the road that lead to it, and sent forward a small detachment of his men to draw out the enemy into his ambuscade. The stratagem succeeded. On the approach of the British and loyalists, Robert Bean, of Watauga, fired at and killed the commanding officer. Many of his men suffered the same fate. The enemy was repulsed, and in their retreat before Clarke several were killed, while he sustained the loss of but a single Georgian. Here began a lasting friendship between the Georgians and the Western settlet«.