PHELAN
HISTORY
OF
TENNESSEE
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iver
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River
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Powell's River
River
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.
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| Great Iron Mountain
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A Map of the
TENNASSEE GOVERNMENT
formerly part of
NORTH CAROLINA,
taken chiefly from Surveys
by Gene D.Smith & others.
Philadelphia.
8
[EPAD CREA
ETURAZIN
7
135
37
31285
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE
THE MAKING OF A STATE
BY
JAMES PHELAN

AGRICULTURE
COMMERCE
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1888
Copyright, 1888,
BY JAMES PHELAN.
All rights reserved.
The Riverside Press, Cambridge:
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.
04 J208 PM
Nedlass
20
DEDICATED TO H. M. DOAK,
OF NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE.
DEAR MR. DOAK, Your great-grandfather, Samuel
Doak, built upon Tennessee soil the first school-house erected
in the Mississippi Valley. His influence has, in a meas-
ure, left an impress upon the entire social fabric of this
State. You yourself are a native born Tennessean. You
have been in turn a brave soldier and a worthy citizen.
As a journalist, as editor-in-chief of the Nashville Ameri-
can in Middle Tennessee and the Memphis Avalanche in
West Tennessee, you have liberalized the minds of the people
of our State, and elevated the tone of public discussion.
You have filled many positions, and all with efficiency,
honor, and dignity. Your friends see in you a noble type
of the true Tennessean. You have taken deep interest in
the preparation of this work. You are one of my dearest
friends. We have been associates in business. It has
seemed to me, in view of these things, to be both natural
and appropriate that I should dedicate to yourself this,
the first attempt to write a History of Tennessee covering
a later period than the earliest settlement of the State.
Please accept this dedication as a tribute of respect and a
pledge of friendship.
JAMES PHELAN.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER
1
I. THE FIRST APPROACH OF POPULATION
II. THE FOUNDING OF THE HOUSEHOLD
III. THE WATAUGA ASSOCIATION FORMED
IV. THE REVOLUTION AND INDIAN WARS
5
20
32
38
V. ANNEXED TO NORTH CAROLINA, AND LIMITS DE-
FINED
46
VI. NEW COUNTIES FORMED
52
VII. KING'S MOUNTAIN
57
VIII. SEVIER'S INDIAN WARS
63
IX. CEDED BY NORTH CAROLINA.
X. STATE OF FRANKLIN FORMED
67
76-
XI. STATE OF FRANKLIN
81-
XII. END OF THE STATE OF FRANKLIN
93
XIII. FIRST SETTLEMENTS ON THE CUMBERLAND
105
XIV. JAMES ROBERTSON
118
XV. DAVIDSON COUNTY .
130.
XVI. TROUBLE WITH THE INDIANS
. 139
XVII. TERRITORY AND NICKOJACK EXPEDITION
XVIII. SPANISH INTRIGUES
146
. 163
XIX. MANNERS, CUSTOMS, And Mode of Life
XX. ADMISSION TO THE UNION.
XXI. TENNESSEE INSTITUTES
XXII. LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT
XXIII. RELIGION IN TENNESSEE .
XXIV. SCHOOLS
XXV. SEVIER TO CARROLL
XXVI. BANKS OF TENNESSEE
169
186
•
190
. 203
215
233
•
241
. 258
vi
CONTENTS.
XXVII. INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS
276
XXVIII. CARROLL, HOUSTON, AND CONSTITUTIONAL CON-
VENTION
296
XXIX. WEST TENNESSEE
303
XXX. MEMPHIS
312
XXXI. SOUTH MEMPHIS AND FORT PICKERING
339
XXXII. JOHN A. MURRELL AND THE REIGN OF DIS-
ORDER
346
XXXIII. RISE OF THE WHIG PARTY
357
XXXIV. POLK AND CANNON
XXXV. THE FIRST WHIG VICTORY.
XXXVI. POLK AND JONES IN 1841
876
383
393
XXXVII. POLK AND JONES IN 1843
406
XXXVIII. THE GREAT WHIG CONVENTION OF 1844.
413
XXXIX. THE DOWNFALL OF THE WHIGS AND SECESSION
424
LIST OF AUTHORITIES
446
INDEX
463
•
INTRODUCTION.
ALTHOUGH the annals of Tennessee are not filled with
accounts of the revolutions which have changed the com-
plexion of the world, yet her history, in addition to the
interest which it possesses for her children as giving an
account of the achievements of their ancestors, has one
claim upon the attention of the thoughtful student of his-
tory which is peculiarly her own. In it can be studied, as
under a glass and in an hour, the process of development
which in other States is either imperfectly displayed or is
spread over a long stretch of time, the periods of which
are indistinctly understood, or marred by extraneous and
disturbing causes. In the Thirteen Colonies the chief
causes of disturbances were the cupidity of colonial propri-
etors and the despotism of rulers. In the younger States,
excepting Kentucky, and perhaps Vermont, the line of
advancement began at or after a point where the full
development of American principles had been attained.
In Tennessee we have within the limits of a century a
picture of national life as complete as that of England
through its two thousand years, or that of Rome from the
kings to the emperors. We can study the process by
which wildernesses were turned into gardens, and observe
the stages of development from primitive rudeness to civ-
ilization and refinement, from disorganization to organ-
ization; from the absence of all law, through all the
grades of a complete system of laws imperfectly obeyed,
to a time when a community of nearly two millions of
2
INTRODUCTION.
people live together in the bonds of a sober, industrious,
and law-abiding citizenship. In a study of her annals we
shall find that her instruments were often uncouth, that
her progress was often slow, that many blunders were com-
mitted, and that there was much violence and frequent
shedding of blood for evil and disgraceful causes; but
those of us who are proud of our native State shall also be
rewarded by finding at times, and often in most unexpected
places, exhibitions of those qualities which constitute what
is most noble and admirable in the human character.
The history of a State, judged by the political discus-
sions between aspirants for state offices, is merely a result-
ing incident of the history of the United States. There
have been in the history of Tennessee questions of local
policy important enough to cause division among the voters
of the State. But, apart from the state debt, the time
and attention accorded the discussion of this class of ques-
tions has been altogether insignificant in comparison with
the overwhelming importance attached to questions of
national politics. The reason of this is neither hard to
find nor of remote origin. The ultimate decision of all
local questions is in the immediate power of the State.
Any mistake can easily be rectified, and results can be
promptly changed. But the case was and is different in
national affairs. Here the State is but one of many factors,
and any decision involving its welfare is more permanent
in its nature and less liable to be changed, should a change
be desirable. This is the main reason. In addition to
this, there is more fascination in the discussion of a ques-
tion which occupies the minds and hearts of forty mil-
lions of people than in the discussion of a question which
merely involves one and one's neighbor. This being the
case, a state history cannot entirely ignore national politics.
But the opposite extreme is more vicious still. The real
history of a state, especially Tennessee, is to be found
within its own limits. Each State having an organized
INTRODUCTION.
3
government, an advanced state of society, a general diffu-
sion of knowledge, and a measurable quantity of commer-
cial prosperity, has necessarily had stages of development,
or, in other words, a history. There was a time when those
who inhabited the geographical division now called Tennes-
see dwelt in log-cabins, and ate from wooden plates with
iron knives and horn spoons. They attended the worship
of God either in the open air or in a large barn. They
wore cotton cloth spun by the women of the family and
woven at home, or brought from beyond seas to Charleston
in ships, and from Charleston across the mountains on
pack-horses. The men as a rule wore caps made of the
skins of the raccoon, generally with the tail hanging down.
behind. The head-dress of the women was a kind of bon-
net made of calico sewed on strips of whalebone or white
pine, which stuck forward six or eight inches beyond the
face. All articles of feminine adornment were of the sim-
plest materials. The men used muskets which a Kaffir of
the present day would not think fit for decent savages.
Coffee, sugar, and tea, the staples of the housewife of this
date, were considered precious and costly luxuries. Every-
thing was rude and primitive. Let a stranger compare this
picture of ninety years ago with what he will see in walking
through Main Street in Memphis on a bright spring morn-
ing, and, remembering the words of the Psalmist on the
shortness of human life, let him reflect that there are men
in the State enjoying a green old age who were then living
and breathing human beings. Even the least reflective
mind, remembering these things, will picture to itself the
contrast, and will realize that the interval between then and
now has been rife with changes, and that the present is in
some way, and under the influence of some law of devel-
opment, the logical sequence of that past. This law of
development, its processes and its results, form the real
history of Tennessee. It is the story of this history which
I have attempted to narrate without going unduly into
4
INTRODUCTION.
detail, and not passing over wholly in silence the individ-
uals who have been the factors of this law, or the occasional
adventures which surround them with the golden light of
a mediæval romance. This story, if accurately and im-
partially told, the author imagines may not be altogether
without interest; showing to the outside world the justice
of this State's claim to a place of honor among the com-
monwealths of the Union, and recalling to the minds of
her children the fact that their forefathers were men of
brave hearts, of pure ambition, and of great achievements,
worthy to be ranked among the noblest of those who,
by undaunted courage, calm foresight, and liberal states-
manship, founded in the midst of danger, solitude, and
even desolation, the empire which is now greater than all
the rest. National politics in such a narrative play a sub-
ordinate though important part. It gives a certain tinge
to the history of a State, a certain mixture of light and
shade, which must be taken into reckoning. But national
history is treated of only where it directly affects or is
directly affected by the State. Even slavery, which in-
deed profoundly influenced the social life of this as well
as all other Southern and Southwestern States, was always
a national and never a state issue.
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
CHAPTER I.
THE FIRST APPROACH OF POPULATION.
THE history of Tennessee as a distinctive individuality
begins with the erection in 1769 of William Bean's cabin,
near the junction of the Watauga and Boone's Creek, in
East Tennessee, or, as it was then, in the western part of
North Carolina. In this cabin, the most important and
the best known if not the first of those which were built,
we find the germ of a future political organism. From
now on, there is a new and an independent growth. Be-
fore this, though there are mentions of matters which took
place upon the soil of what subsequently became Tennes-
see, there was nothing coherent or consistent within to
meet the activity of the organized and restless world with-
out. The fort which La Salle, returning from the voyage
which he vainly hoped would add new lustre to the crown
of the Grand Monarch, built on the Chickasaw Bluffs and
to which he gave the name of Prud'homme, was, apart
from the association of ideas, of no more importance in
the history of Tennessee than the death of an Indian
chief, or the significance of the mysterious symbols on
a piece of wampum. Even the trading post which he
attempted to establish there, and the treaties of commerce
1
1 Ramsey (p. 39) says that this fort was built on the first Chickasaw
Bluff. It was the fourth.
6
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
which he entered into with the resident Chickasaws dwindle
into insignificance when viewed in the light of subsequent
failure which left no trace behind. Of the same nature
is the fact that a few years earlier a Canadian missionary
named Marquette, with several companions, descended the
Mississippi River "to plant the banner of France side by
side with that of Spain on the Gulf of Mexico;" and that
Marquette's journal describes several bank elevations which
correspond very nearly with what is now known as the
Chickasaw Bluffs, and an island, the description of which
leaves no doubt of its identity with President's Island, of
infamous notoriety in the annals of local criminal jurispru-
dence.
But adventurers like La Salle and Marquette merely
saw the western borders of the State. Tennessee was dis-
tant from the coast line from which its future population
was to come. Hence, like all interior regions, it was exempt
from the visits of European adventurers and the white
race, until the increase of population, by confining the
more restless spirits of the original colonies, caused them
to overflow the boundaries of social limitations and the
barriers of daily life to seek new homes in the wilderness.
The interval from the grant of Queen Elizabeth to Raleigh
until the erection of William Bean's cabin was the period
of preparation for this overflow. Before taking up the
history of Tennessee it will be profitable to review, how-
ever succinctly, the events which fill the period from 1584
to 1769, or such part of them as throw light upon the sub-
sequent development of the then unformed State.
There is a tradition, founded upon ingenious supposition
and a certain superficial resemblance of topographical
features, that De Soto, on that wonderful march of con-
quest and discovery which is at once the brightest and
the saddest page in the history of American colonization,
entered the eastern part of the then undistinguished dis-
trict which now bears the name of Tennessee, and, turning
THE FIRST APPROACH OF POPULATION.
7
westward across the continent, continued his progress until
it finally brought him to the banks of the Mississippi. It
is even conjectured that the village near which he encamped,
to which the Indians gave the name Chisca in honor of
their chief, and which stood on a high embankment, oc-
cupied the site of the present city of Memphis, which is
known in the familiar language of the present day as the
City of the Bluffs. This may be true. But it is a matter
of speculation. We know indeed that De Soto crossed a
tedious range of mountains, that he came into a region of
country rich in harvests and thickly settled, full of val-
leys, brooks, rivers, and forests, and that after many days'
marching, during which he passed through the provinces
of some tribes of Indians who are known to have inhabited
parts of this State, he came to the banks of the Missis-
sippi River. Several laborious attempts have been made
to establish the exact line of this march by the aid of
topographical maps of the present day and contemporane-
ous accounts of De Soto's adventurous course, but without
satisfactory result. It is not impossible that the great
Spanish captain, who had seen so many of the wonders of
the young world, may have trod upon the soil of Tennessee.
Imagination must do the rest. Queen Elizabeth, whose
generosity towards Raleigh was not less tempered with pru-
dence than her generosity towards the Bishop of Ely, gave
him by royal patent the right to discover, view, and take
possession of such remote heathen and barbarous lands
not possessed or inhabited by Christian people as to him
should seem good. In pursuance of this gracious allow-
ance, Raleigh at his own expense made three several at-
tempts to colonize what is now Virginia and North Caro-
lina, but failed signally in all. A later attempt under
James having been more successful, the attention of the
Londoners for London furnished the motive-power of
colonization was called to the southern coast line, and
resulted in a rapid influx of emigrants to the new settle-
8
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
ments. The grant of 1630 to Sir Robert Heath having
been forfeited, another charter was granted to another
company. Charles II., in 1663, careless of the condition
of the colonies, ignorant of their growing wealth, and
eager to repay substantial services rendered him during the
dark days of his exile and the doubtful days of the Res-
toration without sacrificing the means of royal dissipa-
tion, granted to Clarendon, General Monk, Lord Ashley,
and others, all of the New World that lay between the
thirty-first and thirty-sixth parallels of latitude, and subse-
quently increased his profuse munificence by so extending
the grant as to include all between 36° 30' and 29°. The
northern line of Tennessee ran substantially with the 36°
30' parallel. The proprietors, conforming to the spirit of
the grant and actuated no doubt by the clear and lumi-
nous intellect of the statesman-like historian who was one
of them, as well as by the vacillating and brilliant Shaftes-
bury, applied to Locke, who with Spinoza was to revolu-
tionize the intellectual methods of Europe, to frame a
form of government for the new colony. In compliance
with this request, Locke devised a scheme which was hailed
by the intellects of Oxford and the coffee-houses as the
"Grand Model" of what a government should be, but
which, for practical purposes, was not much superior to
that in which, the law-making power being vested in bar-
bers, official rank and social grades were dependent upon
the growth of the beard and the color of the hair. The
Grand Model still remains as an enduring monument of
the kinship of human wisdom and human folly.
infant colony never fully adopted it, and the attempts
of various successive governors to introduce it were the
cause of almost uninterrupted internal dissensions for
twenty years. Finally, during one of the domestic rev-
olutions which, though as a rule bloodless, were violent
enough to delight a Jacobin, it was completely subverted
and then abrogated. In 1719 the government passed
The
THE FIRST APPROACH OF POPULATION.
9
from the hands of the proprietors into those of the king,
and South Carolina and North Carolina, being separated
about this time, both became independent royal colonies.
The relations existing between the colonies and the In-
dians were on the whole variable, and liable to quick and
violent changes. At times the colonies would unite with
one tribe to chastise or exterminate another. A combina-
tion of this kind between the Cherokees and the colonies
against the Tuscaroras was the cause of the migration of
the latter to the northern lakes. A few years later we
find the Cherokees themselves at the head of a conspiracy
of all the adjacent tribes, having for its object the com-
plete annihilation of the colonists. During this time were
sown the seeds of hatred which subsequently produced
many a harvest of rapine and butchery. Nor were the
Indians the most dangerous or the most malignant foes of
the colonies. While the English were spreading into the
interior, and securing themselves as they went by the build-
ing of villages and forts and the extension of agriculture,
the Spaniards had been gaining firm foothold in Florida,
and the French in the Mississippi Valley. It was the bitter
complaint of the colonists to the mother country during
the Cherokee-Catawba conspiracy, that St. Augustine was
used by the Spaniards as a point for the distribution of
guns and ammunition to the hostile tribes. England did
nothing to stop the outrage. A hundred years later, the
Spaniards adopted the same method of harassing the
United States during the War of 1812. It was a Ten-
nessean who put a stop to it. He caught two of them and
shot them.1 The French especially, after having planted
themselves upon the banks of the northern lakes, had
succeeded in founding a new empire at the mouth of the
Mississippi, and, borne along by the inspiration of con-
quest caught from the victorious arms of Luxembourg and
1 Arbuthnot and Ambrister claimed to be British subjects, but were
in Spanish service.
10
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
Turenne at home, were already dreaming of uniting the
North and the South in one grand Western dominion,
confining the English and the Spanish to the narrow strip
of land actually occupied by them at that time. Their
plan was boldly conceived, but the history of the Western
hemisphere has been an exemplification of the difference
between conquest and colonization. The idea of La Salle,
Talon, and Montcalm was to take the Mississippi River,
which was even then a theme of wonder and admiration,
as a centre, and, gradually subduing the adjacent territory,
to extend the French sway across to the Pacific Ocean.
The first necessity of this plan was of course the downfall
of the English. The general outline of the method to be
adopted for the carrying out of this scheme was to estab-
lish trading posts along the banks of the Mississippi and
its tributaries, to make treaties of friendship with the
natives where possible, to exterminate or overawe them
where treaties could not be brought about, and to instigate
their allies to continual warfare against the English. In
pursuance of this plan forts were erected at the mouth of
the Kentucky, on the Ohio, at the mouth of the Wabash,
at the meeting of the Ohio and the Mississippi, on the
Chickasaw Bluffs, near the mouth of the Arkansas, and on
the Cumberland. There were probably as many more at
other points, with these as centres. The instruments for
the accomplishment of their object were bribery, artifice,
cunning, and cruelty. The colonies, fearful of the en-
croachments of their old and dreaded enemy, adopted the
policy of their antagonists, and the friendship of half-
naked savages, who danced war dances and painted their
bodies to frighten their enemies, became an object of eager
rivalry between the two most powerful and enlightened
races on the globe. The English secured the Creeks and
Cherokees, the French, the Choctaws and minor tribes.
The Chickasaws, who inhabited the region of Memphis and
North Mississippi, remained neutral. The contest went in
THE FIRST APPROACH OF POPULATION.
11
favor of the English from the first. They not only made
treaties of peace with them, but took advantage of the
Indians' fear of their villages being attacked by the French,
during their absence on the war-path, to erect forts among
them, and create permanent settlements to hold them to
their professed allegiance to King George, the Great
Father. The French under Bienville, finding the neutral-
ity of the Chickasaws as great an obstacle in their way
as active hostilities would have been, made an expedition
against them, but were repulsed. A repetition of the at-
tack shortly afterwards under the same commander, who
made the Memphis Bluffs-called Fort Assumption
his camping point and basis of supplies, ended literally in
smoke, for, according to Bancroft, "in the March of next
year a small detachment proceeded towards the Chickasaw
country; they were met by messengers who supplicated
for peace, and Bienville gladly accepted the calumet.”
-
During this time the English were gradually extending
their forts toward the Catawba region and the beautiful
valley of the Appalachian range. Fort Dobbs, situated
probably in Rowan County, North Carolina, was built in
1756. In 1758 Colonel Bird built a fort opposite Long
Island, on the banks of the Holston. Fort Prince George
was built about the same time on the Keowee, a tributary
of the Savannah. These brought the tide of emigration
to the base of the hills which skirt the eastern extremity
of Tennessee; and Fort Loudon, which was built on the
Little Tennessee, near the mouth of the Tellico, by Andrew
Lewis at the instigation of Lord Loudon, governor of
Virginia, brought it across the mountains and fairly into
the boundaries of the State. Fort Loudon was garrisoned
by royal troops, and the Cherokees, regarding it as a pro-
tection against the vengeance of the French, offered dona-
tions of land to artisans as an inducement to come there.
The warfare between the English and the French which
raged in all parts of the world was too far from the region
12
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
of East Tennessee to affect it otherwise than indirectly.
In addition to this, in all parts of the world, the armies of
England, under the administration of the Great Commoner,
were uniformly victorious. The power of the French was
broken in both hemispheres. They were confined in
America to their Canadian possessions in the north and to
the delta region of the Mississippi in the south. With the
capture of Fort Du Quesne the French disappeared as an
important factor in the difficulties which beset Virginia and
the Carolinas, but left as a discordant legacy a feeling of
bitter hostility between the Indians and the colonies, which
filled the annals of that time with sickening and uninterest-
ing details of vengeance, rapine, and butchery.
The immediate cause of the outbreak of hostilities was
the killing of several of the friendly Cherokees who had
assisted in the reduction of Fort Du Quesne. Having lost
their horses, the Indians supplied their loss from a herd
which they found running at large in some part of Vir-
ginia. The exasperated Virginians, regarding them as
horse thieves, captured and put several of them to death.
The Cherokees retaliated, and in a few weeks the horrors
of an Indian war had broken loose. Fort Loudon, which
was manned by twelve cannon, was captured, and, in defi-
ance of the terms of capitulation, those in it were massa-
cred.¹ Fort Prince George was besieged, and was saved
only by an accident. All the whites who at the beginning
were unable to reach some adjacent fort or station were
massacred. Troops were sent from the north and from
the seacoast. The Cherokees were eventually defeated
at Etchoe by Colonel Grant, a British officer.
It appears to have been the history of those times that
each successful Indian war brought the victors — the
whites were always successful - an accession of population
as well as of dignity and honor. The peace which followed
1 For an interesting account of this event by I. Christe, an eye-
witness, see Nashville Politician, 15th September, 1847.
THE FIRST APPROACH OF POPULATION.
13
Grant's victory attracted the attention of the New World,
from St. Augustine to Salem, to the new settlements, and
crowds of emigrants came pouring in from Europe and
the older colonies. In a few years they were scattered
up and down the banks of the rivers, and through the
valleys of all the western part of North Carolina and
Virginia. But as yet no permanent foothold had been
gained in Tennessee since the destruction of Fort Loudon.
An active trade was carried on between the white man
and the Indian, but no plow had entered the soil. Forts
were built as they were demanded by the necessities of
military or civil life. Fort Loudon and other forts on
Tennessee soil were of the former class. Fort Prince
George was demanded by both, and from the battle of
Etchoe in 1761 until 1769 the region around it became
gradually covered with cow-pens, or, as the Texans of the
present day say,
"ranches" little fields of corn and the
cabins of settlers. The greater part of the most desirable
land had been taken possession of. It was no longer easy
to get on a horse, ride a few miles, and select a site for a
cabin in the midst of grass, meadow, water, game, and fer-
tile soil. The country was not yet thickly enough settled
to repay the tillage of any but the most exuberant fields.
Each settler who arrived at Fort Prince George, with his
little store of household goods on one or two pack-horses,
was advised to go farther west. After a few days' rest,
he went, leaving the next comer to follow and go farther
than himself, lapping one over another. Hence, after
the victory of Grant over the Cherokees, the wave of emi-
gration, which the destruction of Fort Loudon had caused
to recede, may be said to have risen up the sides of the
Alleghanies.
Occasionally a party of hunters passed over in search
of game and adventure. As early as 1748 a party of
Virginians, with Dr. Thomas Walker at their head, had
penetrated the distant wilds, and given the name of Cum-
14
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
berland to the mountains, the river, and the gap which
still bear it, in honor of the royal duke of England.¹
About 1761 a party of nineteen penetrated to the present
Carter's Valley, and left in the geography of Tennes-
see the name of Wallen's Creek and Wallen's Ridge, in
honor of their leader and as souvenirs of the expedition.
Daniel Boone, whose solitary figure and long unerring rifle
are forever identified with the early history of the South-
west as the type of all the finer qualities in the pioneer
character, was also among those who first at this time ven-
tured into the wilds of the unexplored West. The Wallen
party returned several years in succession in pursuit of
game, each year venturing farther into the interior. In
1764 Daniel Boone and Sam Callaway made an attempt
to explore the country, and gather some details of its to-
pography for practical purposes. Two years later Colonel
James Smith explored the region beyond the Holston
and south of Kentucky, and his account of its richness
and beauty gave increased impetus to the flow of emigra-
tion.
Nor were the Indians insensible to the danger which
now threatened them. No particular tribe could establish
a clear title to the valleys of the Cumberland and the
Holston, and the vast tracts between the Ohio and the
Tennessee. The treaty of Paris in 1763, which the ser-
vility of a minister had negotiated for the stupidity of a
master, but which, as the legacy of Pitt's powerful and om-
niscient management, brought rich gains to the territory
of England, gave the sovereignty of the region east of the
Mississippi to George III. The Indians had never been
acknowledged as independent sovereigns by any European
power, and no mention was made in the treaty of those
1 This is variously attributed to the Wood and to the Wallen party
and to Governor Spotswood, who crossed the Appalachian range
about thirty years earlier, and whose attendants, having found a
horse path, Cumberland Gap, were called Knights of the Horseshoe.
THE FIRST APPROACH OF POPULATION.
15
tribes who claimed to be independent of all European
control, some of whom had been allies of France. The
apprehension of the Indians being excited by the frequent
incursions of the whites, a proclamation of King George,
in 1763, prohibited the granting of lands to any one in
the region west of the mountains, or beyond the sources
of those streams which emptied into the Atlantic, and
no private person was to presume to purchase from the
Indians themselves. The proclamation contained these
significant words: "If the Indians should be inclined to
dispose of their lands, the same shall be purchased only
for us in our name, at some general meeting or assembly
of the Indians to be held for that purpose, by the gov-
ernor or commander-in-chief of our colony respectively."
Traders were required to obtain licenses from their respec-
tive governors.
In 1766 the cession which was foreshadowed in the
proclamation was obtained. The Iroquois, whose posses-
sion embraced the region of country around Lake Erie and
Lake Ontario and the waters of the St. Lawrence, and who
composed the Five Nations, appear to have made some
claim to the section of country between the Ohio and the
Tennessee. This title, however, was purely one of con-
quest and of the vaguest description. Their union and their
superior organization, which attracted the attention of the
earliest French writers, gave them a terrible advantage in
the endless warfare that raged among the original tribes,
and enabled them literally to sweep unobstructed through
vast regions of country with the same ease that a European
army finds in attacking the Bedouins of the desert. It
was for a time a repetition of the history of Wessex. But
moving armed bodies across a country, and dispersing an
occasional horde of assailants, is by no means a conquest
of the country. They had no doubt destroyed or expelled.
many smaller tribes who inhabited that country, as the
Cherokees had destroyed and expelled the Uchees. The
16
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
country itself had never been subdued, and the original
inhabitants returned after each raid, as untrammeled as
before, acknowledging no master and paying no tribute.
Certainly that part which is now Tennessee was never
under their domination. The region of the Holston and
the Cumberland and the Tennessee was regarded by the
Cherokees, the Creeks, the Miamis, the Choctaws, and the
Chickasaws as a kind of common hunting and fighting
ground. It was inhabited by none of them, because none
of them could hold it. That the Iroquois laid claim to it
by conquest alone is evinced by the words of their envoys,
who according to Ramsey are reputed to have said, "All
the world knows that we conquered all the nations residing
there and that land; if the Virginians ever get a good
right to it, it must be by us." The deposition of George
Croghan, a deputy superintendent of the Indians who had
lived among them for thirty years, was taken 1781, in order
to fix the limits of certain Indian claims. In this he said,
"The Six Nations claim by right of conquest all the lands
on the southeast side of the river called Stony River." ¹
This is clear proof of how flimsy was the title upon which
the Iroquois rested their claim. It was merely a piece of
gasconade on the part of the Six Nations, which was taken
advantage of by the colonists to excuse the occupation
which would have been effected without the permission of
their grantors, had permission been denied.
On the 5th of November, 1768,2 the Six Nations, in
convention assembled, passed to the king of England
their title to the tract of land beyond the Blue Ridge
Mountains and down to the Tennessee. This embraced
the best and the fairest portion of this State. It gave a
pretext to the colonists, but it utterly failed to quiet the
title in so far as the claim of those in interest was con-
cerned. The ratification of the few Cherokees who hap-
1 The Great Miami.
2 Haywood says 1776, but erroneously.
THE FIRST APPROACH OF POPULATION.
17
pened to be present when the cession was made, and who
very prudently acknowledged, though as indirectly as pos-
sible, the right of the Six Nations to the country in ques-
tion, was never regarded by the tribe itself as of the least
validity. An attempt was made in 1768, during the pen-
dency of the negotiations between the English and the
Six Nations, to extinguish the claims of the Cherokees
themselves by purchase. By a treaty which was con-
cluded with them at Hard Labor, in South Carolina, in
1768, it was agreed that the boundary line of Virginia
on the southwest should be a line "extending from the
point where the northern line of North Carolina intersects
the Cherokee hunting grounds, or about thirty-six miles
east of Long Island, in the Holston River, and thence
extending in a direct course, north by east, to Chiswell's
mine, on the east bank of the Kenawha River, and thence
down that stream to its junction with the Ohio." A di-
viding line was run, but failed to take in all settlements
which had actually been made, and a new treaty was en-
tered into in order to accomplish that purpose.
This was the beginning of a mournful repetition which
still continues at the end of what has aptly been termed
"a century of dishonor." Provincial governments had
been issuing land grants and land warrants for mili-
tary services against the French and their Indian allies,
and their owners were in no mood to be bound by the
restrictions even of a proclamation from beyond the sea.
Where a trader had the opportunity of buying a tract of
five thousand acres of the richest land in the richest part
of the globe for a pair of blankets and a rifle, it required
something more than an edict which he knew to be without
power of enforcement to interrupt the bargain.
Having fixed the limits of encroachment, and seeing
them daily disregarded, the Indians became jealous, full
of revengeful fear, and bitterly exasperated. Each addi-
tional encroachment they regarded as an injury, each hunt-
18
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
ing party as an insult. From the Miami to the Tennessee,
they were aroused to a sense of the danger which was im-
pending. As usual, the red man was brought face to face
with the white man, each filled with relentless determina-
tion, and each recognizing in the other the impossible ele-
ment of coexistence. As usual, the former, after a brave
and despairing contest and superhuman desperation,
yielded stubbornly but surely to the fate which to him
meant passing away from the face of the earth. Even
then the leading minds among the tribes, those who saw
beyond the chasing of the deer and the trapping of the
beaver, and whose mental vision was not circumscribed by
the orgies of the war dance and the preparations for the
war path, realized the mournful destiny of oppression and
dishonor and eventual annihilation which the future con-
cealed from less penetrating sight. Oconostota was one
of this class. He was brave, with all the impulse and
daring of his race, and as noble as the unlearned ideas of
his people would permit in a heart which found its ideal
in the panther and the leopard, — fearless, bloodthirsty,
and relentless, stealthy of foot, quick of stroke, and sharp
of fang. At the treaty of the Sycamore Shoals, where
Daniel Boone, Colonel Richard Henderson, and others had
collected the Indians to buy from them the tract between
the Kentucky and the Cumberland rivers, Oconostota
predicted the fate of his tribe in a speech which, to Bushy
Head and his people of to-day, must be like the remem-
bered words of the prophet to the children of Israel dur-
ing the days of their bondage. In words full of the
imaginative glow and the pathetic eloquence of Indian
oratory, he drew a picture of the gradual encroachments
of the white people, impelled by an insatiable thirst for
land, and the gradual yielding of those who had once pos-
sessed all the country of America as a great, free, and
powerful people.. "This is but the beginning," he said.
“Whole nations have passed away, and there remains not
THE FIRST APPROACH OF POPULATION.
19
a stone to mark the place where rest the bones of our an-
cestors. They have melted like the snow before the rays
of the sun, and their names are unrecorded, save in the
deeds and the charters of those who have brought destruc-
tion upon them. The invader has crossed the great sea
in ships; he has not been stayed by broad rivers, and
now he has penetrated the wilderness and overcome the
ruggedness of the mountains. Neither will he stop here.
He will force the Indian steadily before him across the
Mississippi ever towards the west, to find a shelter and a
refuge in the seclusion of solitude. But even here he will
come at last; and there being no place remaining where
the Indian may dwell in the habitations of his people, he
will proclaim the extinction of the race, till the red man
be no longer a roamer of the forests and a pursuer of wild
game." But the best words and the best actions of the
fated race have never availed against that irresistible and
unpitying personification which is called the spirit of civ-
ilization. Oconostota himself signed the treaty against
which he made his eloquent protest.
CHAPTER II.
THE FOUNDING OF THE HOUSEHOLD.
IN 1769 the waves poured over the mountains which
had so long stemmed their tide, and carried with them the
germs of a new dynasty of people among the republics
of the earth. In 1769 we meet with William Bean's
cabin and the beginnings of the Watauga Association.
The first small beginnings of the Watauga settlement
were made at a time peculiarly fortunate. The Indian
warfare, which made Tennessee as dark and bloody a
ground as Kentucky itself, had exterminated nearly all
of the Indian race in the neighborhood of the Watauga.
The Shawnees existed only in small, wandering detach-
ments, and were, for the most part, hidden away in the
lofty recesses of the Cumberland mountains. The Creeks
of the Cumberland region had been massacred, almost to
a man, by the Cherokees. These, emboldened by contin-
ued success, had made an incursion into the country of the
Chickasaws and had been repulsed with terrible slaughter.
The Chickasaws, indeed, were kindly disposed, but were
too far away either to injure or assist the infant settle-
ment. For the time being, and until the Cherokees had
recuperated sufficiently to make war upon the new race,
the chief danger arose from bands of roving Indians.
The great thoroughfare of Indian travel was along the
range and through the valleys of the Cumberland and the
Appalachian mountains. The stream of emigration hav-
ing once begun, it kept on with the force of the incoming
tide, each wave rising higher, rushing farther, and spread-
THE FOUNDING OF THE HOUSEHOLD.
21
ing broader than the one preceding it. A party of explor-
ers in 1769 noticed, on their return along the banks of
the Holston, that there was a cabin on every desirable
site they passed, where only six weeks previous no sign
of human habitation had been visible. Captain William
Bean, from Pittsylvania County in Virginia, advanced far-
ther into the wilderness than any one who had preceded
him, and his son Russell was the first white child born in
Tennessee. Each month, each week, brought new set-
tlers. They spread daily down the Watauga, up the north
fork of the Holston, down the Holston through the valley
between the Watauga, and the north fork-from valley
to valley, from creek to creek. More than a century has
passed since the first ten families of whom Haywood tells
came from the neighborhood of the present site of Raleigh
to begin life anew on the banks of the Watauga, but the
figures of the old emigrants are still as distinct and as
clear-cut to us as to the sentinel who paced in front of the
bastions of Fort Prince George, watching their anxious.
faces and listening to their eager cries as they rode slowly
up on their way-worn horses to make inquiries about the
unknown country they were seeking. They were not he-
roes or heroines to themselves, neither had they any idea
of founding a great empire. They recognized in them-
selves merely commonplace people, actuated by common-
place motives. They thought to improve their condition,
and they were willing to run what risks might come to
them from the casualties of tomahawk and rifle, for the
sake of the experiment. But to us, who see them through
a lapse of time which in our history wraps them in the
mists of a hoary antiquity, they are a picturesque group
filled with great motives and suggestive of great ideas.
Those earlier days are far away. Our Anglo-Saxon pro-
genitors who lived upon the sandy marshes of the Baltic
do not appear so distant. Almost every book of those
days tells us of what they did, how they did it, and how
22
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
pro-
they dressed, in short, how they acted their part. We
can see them all, from the solitary hunter who follows on
foot the blazed path to the group whose number makes a
cavalcade. As a rule they come in groups for mutual
tection, and perhaps, also, despite their fearless indiffer-
ence, for mutual encouragement. The household goods.
are borne on the backs of horses, called pack-horses, and
consist, as a rule, of a few cooking utensils, a wooden
trencher for kneading dough, several small packages con-
taining salt and some seed corn, a flask or two of medi-
cine, wearing apparel, a wife, and generally a baby at the
breast. If of a luxurious turn of mind, fortune and
the last crop of tobacco permitting, a little sugar and
coffee, or perhaps, indeed, unexcised tea, were added, or a
flitch of bacon, as a relief from "dry jerk" or deer's meat,
smoked or sun-dried; sometimes even a peck or two of
meal or flour, especially if the master and head man was
fortunate enough to have an extra pack-horse. Their
daughters walk beside the mother on the horse, and the
sons are with the father a few paces in front. Each of
them has a rifle on his shoulder, or dropped forward in the
bend of the arm. The rifle, however, is but an unsatis-
factory weapon in close quarters. The long-barreled
horse-pistol is regarded as a child's weapon, capable at
most of disposing of one Indian when the question is of
dozens. The foe for whom all these preparations are
made has himself supplied the requisite armor. The belt
around the waist holds on one side a tomahawk, on the
other a scalping-knife. The head is covered with a fur
cap; if inclined to be a little affected, the tail of the ani-
mal furnishing the cap is allowed to remain and hangs
down behind, reminding one strongly of the costume of
the gentleman whose morning walk was described by the
two poets of the Lake. The body is covered with a hunt-
ing shirt, which allows all manner of variations in the
matter of fringe and savage embroidery. It is loose and
THE FOUNDING OF THE HOUSEHOLD.
23
The legs
rather bagging, allowing free use of the arms.
are incased in buckskin "leggins" up to the thigh, where
they are met by the breech-cloth. This is a kind of cloth
which is passed between the legs, and the ends of which
are passed under the girdle before and behind, and allowed
to hang down. Some of the old writers say this idea was
gotten from the Indians. Others say the suggestion came
from the baby on the arm of the mother who rides the
horse. The feet again pay tribute to Indian ingenuity,
for they are incased in moccasins, each made of a single
piece of dressed buckskin, as if it had been laid upon the
ground with the foot placed upon it, and then drawn up
around the leg, being cut and sewed so as to make it fit
both foot and leg. Thus accoutred, the wearer is ready
to encounter any reasonable vicissitudes of weather and
all the vicissitudes of a frontier life. If a cow and a few
pigs are added to his outfit, the future founder of the
commonwealth regards his lot as one peculiarly fortunate.
Having arrived at his place of destination, the new-
comer selects a site for his cabin, according to the relation
he occupies towards those in whom the title vests. Fre-
quently, but also erroneously, he imagines himself on
Virginia soil. In this case he is entitled to buy for a
song six hundred, afterwards a thousand, acres of land,
and one hundred each for his wife and children, provided
he lives on the land. If not in Virginia, he is on Indian
soil, and he thinks he can both take and keep. North
Carolina has no interest in the matter, and is, at all
events, too indifferent ever to raise the question.
Having, therefore, selected his location, he and his family
set to work to do what is to be done, quickly and with
good-will. He is in the midst of a wilderness so deep and
so vast that the echoes from the strokes of his axe sound
as if they came from the bowels of the mountains that
rise up in blue perspective to the east and the north. Be-
fore him runs the Watauga, a bright little stream that
24
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
melts away into the gloom of the surrounding forest. He
is far away from any source of assistance, except perhaps,
some one no stronger than himself; and for all that the
skies are so blue, and the woods are so green, and the
splendor of the sun so gorgeous on cloud and on hilltop,
the ruthless foe whom he is wronging may be lurking just
beyond his ken in the shadow of the oak, or hidden in
the tangles of the vine. At any moment he may hear a
sound like the screaming of a panther, then the hoot of
an owl in daytime, and then a wild burst of human sound
that is terrible even to those who, in the security of the
frontier forts of to-day, pay to hear it as a tickling of
their curiosity. If his cabin is not built, if he has not
the security of his palisades, his venture is for nothing.
His spirit is likely to rise into the hidden eternities from
the smoke of a fire-heap and without a scalp. The chil-
dren as a rule there are children are set to clearing
away the wild brush in a glade as nearly open as can be
found, and piling it up in heaps where it can be burnt.
The father, and the sons if old enough to work, cut down
trees, so as to serve the double purpose of clearing the
land and building the cabin. If there is not force suffi-
cient to build one of hewn logs, it is built of long poles
on which the bark is allowed to remain, the roof being
covered with grass and bark and brush and the like. If
possible, a cabin of hewn logs is preferred. Trees from
eight to sixteen inches in diameter are cut down so as to
present on two sides as much flat surface as is consistent
with the maximum strength and power of resistance.
Having been cut into logs from ten to sixteen feet long,
and so notched at the end as to fit into each other, they
are built into the cabin, apertures being left for doors,
windows, and chimney. The largest oak to be found-if
cypress, ash, or pine cannot be had-is laboriously and
slowly split with mauls and wedges into shingles an indefi-
nite number of feet long. These are called clapboards.
THE FOUNDING OF THE HOUSEHOLD.
25
Next comes the labor of the floor. Logs are split in two
parts, and the flat part of each half is hewn as smooth as
possible. These are allowed to rest on the ground, mak-
ing the celebrated puncheon floor. Frequently the floor
is mother earth, with perhaps a covering of pine-tree nee-
dles or oak leaves. The floor having been laid, the sides
of the cabin are built up the requisite height. The roof
is either level, or one side is lower than the other, or it is
gabled by erecting ridge-poles running the length of the
cabin. The clapboards are laid on in rows, each one being
held in place by weights. The chimney, which is built
outside the house, is of rock, if it is to be obtained. If
not, the lower part is of heavy logs cut the proper length
and thickly plastered on the inside with a mixture of clay,
in which hay or hog bristles or the hair from tanned deer-
skins has been put to temper it. From a point sufficiently
high to be beyond the flames, the chimney is made of
small billets of oak with alternate layers of mud, hence
called "dirt and stick" chimneys. The chimney grows
smaller as it goes higher. This done, the cracks between
the logs of the cabin are filled with pieces and blocks of
wood, and these in turn are covered over with the plaster
both inside and out until the walls are thoroughly weather
and bullet proof. The door is of oaken clapboards pinned
to crosspieces, as also the window. The fireplace is of
rock and pebbles or plastered and burnt clay. A tongue
having been fastened in the chimney for pot-hooks and
kettle, the cabin is ready for use.
The furniture is not less primitive than the cabin. It
consists of a bedstead, a washstand, a few three-legged
stools, a table perhaps, a water bucket, a gourd dipper,
and pegs about the walls for hanging clothes, rifles, game,
and the like. Partitions are made by suspending deer
and bear skins, if the number and the size of the family
require it. If the roof is gabled, an attic is often added.
by covering the top of the cabin with clapboards. The
26
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
chief covering for the family in cold weather is rarely a
blanket, often the skins of deer and bear and occasionally
buffalo, tanned so as to be soft and supple. The mat-
tresses are generally of the same material. The fare con-
sists of game, which is abundant and delicate. Bread is
made of corn, beaten as fine as possible in an improvised
mortar, or ground in a hand mill, if one has been bought.
When traveling parched corn supplies the place of bread.
Frequently bread was not to be had, and instances are
still remembered of hunters and settlers who for months
went without eating anything but meat.
If corn could be obtained, and after the first crop, the
lack of it was rarely felt again, unless through the inroads
of the Indians, or the accidents of nature, it was made
into dough on a "trencher," and either baked in the ashes
and called "ash-cake," or baked before the fire and called
"Johnny-cake "a corruption of "Journey-cake," from
the ease with which it could be made. The corn itself
could also be made into mush, and where the cow had
prospered, mush and milk was the favorite diet, for sup-
per, especially. A delicious syrup was frequently gotten
from the maple. Butter was supplied by the fat of bear's
meat or the gravy of the goose, and there are still living
old hunters who declare that the finest Jersey butter of
Columbia does not equal in savor the "goose-fat” of the
olden days. Coffee was made from parched rye and dried.
beans; tea was supplied by the sassafras-tree. Cisterns
and wells were unknown. The water supply from moun-
tain brooks and valley streams was sufficient for all uses.
The location was chosen with reference to the convenience
of running water, for the builder always had before his
mind the possibility of a siege, when it might be with
danger of life or limb that water must be obtained. This
very reason, however, soon caused the boring of wells
within the palisade or picket fence, with which the settler,
in imitation of his forefathers, who lived upon the banks
THE FOUNDING OF THE HOUSEHOLD.
27
of the Weser, surrounded his cabin and frequently his
garden. This latter, called "truck-patch," was laid off for
cultivation as near the cabin as practicable. Generally
there was a vacant space behind the cabin, over which a
shed was built to ward off the rain and the rays of the
sun when the housewife was ironing. The washing was
done at the spring except in times of danger, and the
clothes were thrown across the fence pickets to dry. The
"truck-patch" and the "out-houses" were behind the
washing shed. All trees within gunshot of the cabin, large
enough to conceal the body of an Indian, were carefully
cut down. A shed was built in one corner of the yard
for the horses and the pigs, which were allowed to run at
large during times of peace, to grow fat upon the mast
which was either plentiful or scant or just middling. They
were trained to return to the cabin at eventide and seek
shelter from wolves and the depredations of the bears.
It was even said that hogs became so astute as to appre-
ciate when Indians were in the woods, and old settlers
were fond of relating how the return in midday of some
unusually precocious pet sow was a warning, never disre-
garded and never falsified, of the neighborhood of the
dreaded "redskins."
After the inner economy of his household had been or-
ganized, the pioneer turned his attention to that task, the
most important of all, which has secured his ascendency
in the land of his adoption in every part of the globe.
The method of clearing when carried on by a small family
was a tedious process. It must not be supposed, however,
that clearing land meant stripping it of all growth. It
meant getting it in such a condition that the necessary
requirements of husbandry could be fulfilled. The first
step taken was to deaden the large trees, generally in the
autumn or winter before the sap had begun to rise. This
was done by cutting with the axe a belt or girdle around
the tree so as to break through the bark. This caused the
28
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
tree to wither and decay. Those which were too large to
haul away were burned by having small "kindling wood"
heaped about them. They burned sometimes for weeks
without interruption. Fire was one of the greatest instru-
ments for clearing, and frequently, when a long drought
had rendered the forests combustible, they were fired to
facilitate the clearing of the land upon which they stood.
Many statutes were passed against this practice, and heavy
penalties were prescribed for it. In some localities more
thickly settled than others, neighbors rendered each other
mutual assistance. In this case, the trunks of very large
trees were cut down, "chopped" into logs, rolled together,
and set on fire. Hence the phrase, "log-rolling" in the
vocabulary of our political commonplaces. After the
trees were disposed of, the undergrowth was cut down,
carried together in heaps, and burnt. The land was im-
mediately put under cultivation to destroy the underbrush,
which would otherwise come up and redouble the labor of
clearing. The crop the first year was poor, though, where
the land was fertile, interspersed with "patches of likely
growth." The next year the decay of roots had probably
progressed far enough to allow the land to be ordinarily
well plowed. When this was done, the work of clearing
was practically accomplished. Time and an occasional
storm and a few strokes of the axe, aided by a little fire,
did the rest. The pioneer was now a settler, and had per-
fected the organization of the elemental germ of the state.
His nearest neighbor was probably five to ten miles
away. In the fall, after his crop had been gathered, they
occasionally met on bear and deer and wild turkey hunts.
The community of danger and of interest drew them to-
gether. As we recall the times in which they lived, we
can see them stride across the stage with their long rifles,
loose hunting-shirts, moccasined feet, and fur caps, in stal-
wart pursuit of the game which abounds in the forests, cast-
ing cautious, but not fearful glances to either side as they
THE FOUNDING OF THE HOUSEHOLD.
29
move through the overhanging trees. Or perhaps we see
a canoe glide swiftly down one of the numerous creeks
that empty into the Holston, above whose sides emerge
two broad shoulders, which bend backwards and forwards
in swift alternation as the boat swirls onward.
But as yet, although we see the type, and although we
can live as one of the class, no individual figure has come
within the range of our vision. Even the oft-mentioned
William Bean is scarcely more than a shadow umbra
nominis. We find his name among the Council of Thir-
teen of the Watauga Association (spelt Been), and he
appears occasionally during the Indians wars, but this is
all. Even the sad fate of his wife throws no light upon
him. At times, a presence becomes manifest, but only for
a second, and then it is quickly swallowed up in the gloom
of the surrounding indistinctness. Daniel Boone appears
in the background, and we watch him for a second as he
cuts a few misspelled words upon the trunk of a tree com-
memorative of a bear just killed, which perhaps had given
unusually much to do; or we follow him as he arrives
at Bean's cabin near a creek which bears his name, and
spends a night with that adventurous pioneer. But
straightway he is gone, to subdue the beautiful region
which surrounds the fairest town of the commonwealth he
founded, and only returns to listen to the eloquent protest
of Oconostota, and to help Colonel Henderson juggle the
Indians out of all that region which lies between the Ohio,
the Tennessee, and the Cumberland, "including all its
waters to the Ohio River." There is nothing individually
heroic in the spectacle — it is the group which gives breadth
and color and intensity.
The reports brought back to the older settlements in
Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina created an
eager desire to enter into a land so beautiful, so fertile,
and so easily obtained. Emigrants even came from the
banks of the Susquehanna, and from the thriving towns
30
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
of the north, to take possession of a country which more
than fulfilled the promises of the Lord to his chosen peo-
ple. Hunting and exploring parties, which had first at-
tracted attention to the new country, continued to pass
and repass the gradual growth of cabins in the east, on
their way to and from the interior. In June, 1769, a
party penetrated beyond the valleys at the foot of the
Stone and Bald mountains into the Cumberland region
of Middle Tennessee. A month previous, Daniel Boone
and two others, one of whom was killed, had passed
through East Tennessee into Kentucky. In June, 1770,
Colonel James Knox, at the head of a small party called
the "Long Hunters," from the length of their absence,
explored the region of country around the junction of the
Cumberland and the Ohio, and the lower bend of the
Cumberland. From now on, these parties come and go
in rapid sequence. Parties of surveyors and their guards,
sent out from Virginia to locate warrants and royal grants
in Kentucky, made the Watauga settlement a place of
rest and refreshment, some of them even remaining per-
manently. Disturbances in both North and South Car-
olina, resulting from the oppressive measures which fol-
lowed resistance to the Stamp Act and other illegal
modes of taxation, increased the number of emigrants.
In 1770 James Robertson came from North Carolina,
and in him we find for the first time a figure of Tennessee
history standing before us in the life. His is one of the
great names and one of the heroic figures in the annals
of the State. He returned, after having raised one har-
vest, but came back the year following as a permanent
settler upon the banks of the Watauga. About the same
time a party of new-comers settled in Carter's Valley, in
the neighborhood of where Rogersville now is, being the
advance guard of the column which was gradually over-
running the country from Wolfs Hill near the present
site of Abingdon towards the southwest. Two of them
THE FOUNDING OF THE HOUSEHOLD.
31
opened a store in the valley. A year later a man named
Jacob Brown settled with several families on the Nolli-
chucky, and also opened a store to barter ammunition,
whiskey, trinkets, and the like with the Indians for land.
This was the last formed of the three original settlements
from which all future development radiates. Though
weak at first, consisting of a few cabins, the accession of
inhabitants gradually gave strength, and we find among
those whom the treachery of Lord Dunmore had hoped to
sacrifice at the battle of Kanawha, in 1774, a company
of fifty Tennesseans, commanded by Evan Shelby. The
political agitation in North Carolina having assumed for-
midable proportions, Governor Tryon attempted to repress
the Regulators, as they termed themselves, and at the bat-
tle of the Alamance killed over two hundred of them.
This caused such an influx of new-comers to the young
settlement that it enabled them to put themselves upon
a firmer basis. Wherever several cabins were built to-
gether in a cluster they were called stations, and in each
station was a fort, generally formed by running palisades
from one cabin to the other. The earliest forts were the
Watauga Fort and Fort Gillespie, for the protection re-
spectively of the Watauga and the Nollichucky or Brown
settlement, and one in Carter's Valley.
i
CHAPTER III.
THE WATAUGA ASSOCIATION FORMED.
THUS far had the settlements progressed, when a trouble
arose as regards the State to which they owed allegiance.
Those who had settled north of the Holston had preempted
their lands under the laws of Virginia. But Colonel
Anthony Bledsoe, a surveyor and Indian fighter of the old
times, discovered that the extension of the line beyond the
Steep Rock, the Virginia and North Carolina boundary
line, would leave the Carter's Valley as well as the Nol-
lichucky and Watauga settlements in North Carolina.
When this became patent, those who had purchased land
from Carter and Parker, and others who had originally
purchased from the Indians, attempted to remedy the
defect in their title by refusing to hold under them, and
claiming their lands as original settlers. It was only after
many acts of legislation that the confusion of titles was
eventually reformed.
But a still more serious trouble than this was impending
over the infant communities. About 1769 Colonel Donel-
son had made a treaty with the Indians by which Virginia
bought what was called the western frontiers. By this
treaty it was supposed that the Watauga region went to
that colony. Believing themselves in Virginia, the Wa-
tauga people supposed themselves governed by Virginia
laws, and looked to that State or Colony for protection
against Indian aggressions and the raids of horse-thieves.
There was no desire to acknowledge the sovereignty of a
State from whose oppression the majority of them had
THE WATAUGA ASSOCIATION FORMEDFOR
33
.
just fled. In addition to this, North Carolina itself took
no steps looking to the exercise of any authority over the
settlements, many of which had been made in violation of
the provisions of the treaty with the Cherokees at Loch-
aber in 1770. It had everything to lose, and nothing to
gain, by recognizing them as being on North Carolina ter-
ritory, which recognition would carry with it the obliga
tion of protecting them against the inroads of the Indians.
The Watauga people, therefore, owing no allegiance to
Virginia, and being unable to render any to North Carolina,
were for the moment elevated in the annals of America to
the dignity of a new and independent colony. That they
were worthy cannot be doubted by any one who observes
the ease, assurance, and moderate self-restraint with which
they began to select from the old storehouse of English
law and precedent such material as was necessary for the
primitive structure they desired to raise. Regarding
themselves as beyond the pale of North Carolina law, and
following the precedents of two thousand years, they or-
ganized a government which, like all governments formed
by the Anglo-Saxon race or those inheriting their tradi-
tions, was adapted to the actual needs of those for whom
it was framed, without theories, without abstractions, with-
out generalizations, without any provision for any future
contingency not clearly imminent. An association was
formed and articles of association entered into. These
indeed have been lost, yet material enough has come down
to us to enable us to reconstruct, with some degree of as-
surance, the first scheme of government ever devised for
the inhabitants of Tennessee soil. It was simple but
efficient.
Having assembled in general convention, like the in-
habitants of the old New England towns, a committee of
thirteen was elected as a kind of general body for legis-
lative purposes. The executive and judicial power was
lodged in five commissioners elected by the thirteen from
34
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
There was a
their own body. The five commissioners elected one of
their number chairman, who was ex officio chairman of the
committee of thirteen. A clerk was elected by the com-
mittee. Among the most important legislative functions
performed by this body was the establishment of instru-
ments for the recording of deeds and wills. The laws of
Virginia were adopted as far as applicable.
sheriff and an attorney. The sessions of the court were
held at stated periods. The committee appear to have
been conscious of their anomalous position, and carefully
refrained from taking any steps that could embroil them
with the legislatures of the older colonies. When dealing
with people who were non-residents of their district, they
took care to avoid any necessity for the exercise of physi-
cal force by requiring them to give bond, so as to proceed
against their property, instead of their persons, if the con-
tingency arose. The suits of plaintiffs refusing to give
bond were dismissed. It is not possible to establish the
date of the formation of the association, but it was most
probably in 1772. The names of the committee-men at
the time of the petition to North Carolina were John
Carter, Charles Robertson, James Robertson, Zach Isbell,
John Sevier, James Smith, Jacob Brown, William Bean,
John Jones, George Russell, Jacob Womack, and Robert
Lucas. William Tatham was clerk pro tem. The name
of the regular clerk is unknown. Felix Walker, subse-
quently a member of Congress from North Carolina,
Thomas Gomley, William Tatham, and even John Sevier
were at various times incumbents of the clerkship.
At first only the two original settlements lived under the
articles. In 1775 the Brown or Nollichucky settlement,
being composed for the most part of Tories, was com-
pelled by the Watauga people and a band of Virginians
from Wolfs Hill, who had heard of their lukewarmness
towards the Revolutionary cause, to take the oath of
"fidelity to the common cause," and from that time on
THE WATAUGA ASSOCIATION FORMED.
35
became identified with those who had framed the articles
of association. Until 1776, the date of the petition to
North Carolina for annexation, the history of the three
settlements generally known in Tennessee history by the
collective term of Watauga Association is in the main
the history of the increase of population, the building of
cabins, and the tilling of the soil. But few events of im-
portance beyond this occurred, and we have only the bold
outlines which are dimly visible like the highest peaks of
a mountain range on a misty day.
In 1772 a line was run between Virginia and the Chero-
kee hunting-grounds. This followed the 36° 30' line of
parallel, and hence left the members of the association on
Cherokee soil. Alarmed by finding that the title to the
lands they had entered in the belief they were entering
Virginia lands were still in the Indians, and not looking
to North Carolina to take any decisive steps in their favor
as against the latter, the members of the association,
through James Robertson and John Boone, obtained a ten
years' lease from the aboriginal owners of the land upon
which they had settled. An incident which occurred at
the making of this lease is worthy of mention as an illus-
tration both of the times and the men. After the lease
had been made, it was celebrated by gymnastic festivities
and races, in which both the whites and the Indians took
part. Late in the evening a crowd of ruffians from
Wolfs Hill, Virginia, wantonly slew one of the latter.
The Indians immediately withdrew with dark faces and
clouded brows, and those who knew the temper of their
blood were in no doubt of a prompt retaliation. Antici-
pating a general war, and appreciating the dangers to the
settlements which would result, involving perhaps their
complete destruction, James Robertson made a long jour-
ney to the Indian nation, met their chief warriors in
council, pacified their anger, and propitiated them by de-
nouncing the perpetrators of the outrage as hostile to the
f
36
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
whites. This mark of condescension had its effect, and
the danger was for the time averted.
On the 17th of March, 1772, Colonel Richard Hender-
son, Colonel Nathaniel Hart, and Daniel Boone succeeded
in getting a general council of the Indians together at
Sycamore Shoals on the Watauga, and purchased from
them a tract of country already alluded to, between the
Kentucky and the Cumberland rivers. This was the cel-
ebrated Transylvania purchase. It suggested to the Wa-
tauga people the feasibility of perfecting their own pre-
carious tenure. In spite of their friendly relations with
the Indians, the settlers, who, like true Englishry, as Mr.
Freeman calls them, had a strong desire to have the occu-
pation of the lands they held sanctioned by acquiring an
outstanding adverse title, which they held in no esteem
whatsoever so long as it was adverse, were uneasy about
the possible results which might follow the termination of
their lease. Among the causes of apprehension was the
fact that many men of distinction, among them several
lawyers, were buying the reversion from the Indians.
Two days after the Transylvania treaty, the Watauga
people took advantage of the opportunity, and it may be
added the treacherous generosity of the Indians, to pur-
chase from them the fee of the land which they themselves
held as lessees. The Indians made a deed to Charles
Robertson, who afterwards made individual deeds to the
occupants, who still further perfected their title by patent-
ing the same in the Watauga land office, of which James
Smith was clerk. Carter and Parker, of the Carter's
Valley settlement, whose store had been robbed and
destroyed by the Indians, received from them in payment
of their losses an increase of territory extending from
Cloud Creek to Chimney Top Mountain, paying in addi-
tion to the estimated worth of the store and its contents
a nominal consideration, which was advanced by Robert
Lucas. Jacob Brown increased his purchase by buying
THE WATAUGA ASSOCIATION FORMED.
37
from them a tract of land beginning at the Chimney Top,
and running to Camp Creek, and thence to Brown's line,
which was subsequently made the dividing line between
the Indians and the settlers. The consideration which
he paid for a body of land equal to one half of Hawkins
County of the present day was tên shillings.
CHAPTER IV.
THE REVOLUTION AND INDIAN WARS.
ON September 5, 1775, the Continental Congress met
in Philadelphia. On the 19th of April, 1776, the battle
of Lexington was fought, and immediately the colonists
found themselves on the threshold of a war with more
dangerous and powerful antagonists than a few hundred
Indian braves. On the 10th of May, George Wash-
ington was elected commander-in-chief of the American
forces, and the war of independence was fairly begun.
The part which North Carolina took in the preliminary
stages of the Revolutionary war was at once bold and un-
compromising. As early as the 25th of August, 1774,
a provincial congress assembled at Newbern, in defiance
of a proclamation of the royal governor, who bitterly de-
nounced their proceedings as derogatory to the authority
of the king. They promulgated the doctrine which was
then regarded as radical and revolutionary, but which is
now one of the rudiments of nineteenth century politics,
that no person should be taxed without his consent, and
declared illegal and oppressive the taxes on tea and other
articles, which the English Parliament had levied. Mem-
bers were elected to represent North Carolina in a general
congress, to be held in Philadelphia in September. One
of the delegates was William Hooper, of Orange County,
who was among the first, if not the first, of those who de-
clared for total separation of the colonies from England,
at a time when only a redress of grievances was generally
contemplated. The colonial assembly met at Newbern,
THE REVOLUTION AND INDIAN WARS.
39
now called New Berne, and despite the governor's indig-
nant remonstrance passed resolutions approving the meas-
ures of the Philadelphia Congress. A few days later the
flight of Governor Martin left the government in the hands
of the people. This is the governor who pronounced the
treaties between the Indians and Henderson and the Wa-
tauga people violations of the law, and null. On the 20th
of May, 1775, the people of Mecklenburgh passed the cel-
ebrated Mecklenburgh resolutions, which laid the founda-
tion of the Declaration of Independence of the year follow-
ing in form, in substance, and almost in phrase. Among
the names signed to these resolutions was that of Thomas
Polk. But while these preparations were being made for
the impending contest in the mother State, the little set-
tlements beyond the utmost range of the mountains that
fringed her western borders were founding a new common-
wealth, and growing steadily in strength and in self-con-
fidence. The area of cleared land grew larger from day
to day. The road from Wolfs Hill, and the road which
led by Fort Prince George, were crowded by incoming emi-
grants. The woods echoed with the sound of human
voices. The prattle of children was daily heard in regions
which, till then, were familiar with no other sounds than
the pattering of a falling acorn, the bark of a squirrel, the
hoot of an owl, or the scream of a panther. Each band
of new-comers brought a cow, or a horse, or a few pigs, or
barnyard fowls as the means of comfort, and as the
nucleus of future wealth. The growth of population
rivaled the wonders of Cadmus. Despite the ravages of
wild beasts, and the deadly diseases which followed the
breaking of the surface of new soil, and the assassinations
committed by roving bands of Indians, and accidents by
field and flood, increasing numbers literally sprang from
the soil. Cabins came up like fungi, and the thirst for
land and wandering out which has made the history of
1 See List of Authorities.
40
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
the Anglo-Saxon race the history of colonization gave a
steady, unwavering impulse to the inflow. We have no
statistics, but the probable population of the three settle-
ments in 1776 was about six hundred.¹ Some time in
1775 or 1776, the citizens of the infant settlements which
had been formed and others which were being formed gave
to the district of country in which they lived the name of
Washington District, in honor of the commander-in-chief
of the American armies. During the excitement of the
colonial difficulties the District of Washington had taken
a lively interest in the impending conflict, and “in open
committee acknowledged themselves indebted to the united
colonies their full proportion of the continental expenses."
Their position was one peculiarly exposed to all the worst
influences that exist in an unsettled state of society, espe-
cially when a weaker and less compact territory offers a
place of refuge to the criminals of one larger and more
powerful. Fugitives from justice in Virginia and North
Carolina fled to the District of Washington, and relying
on the lack of judicial organization and the fear felt by
those in power of trespassing on the authority of the
larger colonies, they escaped, if not detection, at least
arrest. The articles of association made no provision for
the punishment of those who denied their validity. As a
result murderers, forgers, horse-thieves, and all classes of
criminals fairly infested the new settlements. The doors
of the settlers, who were proverbially hospitable, were
always open to those who craved a meal and a pallet.
Often the host would awake in the morning to find not.
merely his guest but his horse gone, and with it perhaps
all the powder and lead to be found in the cabin. One
is compelled to admire the self-restraint the old settlers
evince in their declaration that "murderers, horse-thieves,
and robbers have escaped us for want of proper authority."
1 This estimate is based upon a careful comparison of the names of
those who composed Shelby's company at Kanawha and the names
signed to a petition for annexation in 1776.
THE REVOLUTION AND INDIAN WARS.
41
The history of that period gives no finer example of the
natural aptitude of those who inherit English traditions
for self-government, and the least imaginative mind, fol-
lowing the gradual stages of the evolution of old Anglo-
Saxon ideas of government, can easily hear on the banks
of the Watauga and among the hills of the Cumberland
echoes of the voices which were raised at Runnymede.
In addition to these troubles, their frontier position and
the neighborhood of the Cherokees exposed the people of
the district to the double danger of British and Indian
hostilities. Their loyalty to the cause, however, was
never shaken, though often severely tested.
On one
occasion they compelled all the Tories in the district to
take the oath of allegiance to the Continental Congress.
Many of them had fled there hoping to find a place of
refuge from the oppressive measures of the colonies, which
required of them a test oath of loyalty. But the war for
independence cannot be said ever to have actually found a
battle-field on Tennessee soil. Its effects could be seen
and felt, and frequently the war itself swept along its con-
fines. But the actual suffering which came to those who
then inhabited the District of Washington was either the
result of their own seeking, as in the battle of King's
Mountain, or it came from the policy of the British agents
who incited the Indians to make war upon the adherents
of the American cause. The intrigues of a Scotchman.
named Alexander Cameron were peculiarly fruitful of dis-
astrous results. In 1776 the inhabitants of the district
were suddenly warned of an impending outbreak on the
part of the Indians. It appears that Cameron, under the
direction of John Stuart, the British superintendent of
Indian affairs in the south, assembled the chiefs of the
Cherokees, and bribed them with arms, ammunition, and
promises of plunder, to make war on the colonies. The
plan was to attack the District of Washington, destroy the
inhabitants to a man, and then invade Virginia and the
42
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
Carolinas. A friendly Indian squaw first gave warning
to the settlements, and enabled them to put themselves
in a posture of defense. An open communication from
Henry Stuart, a brother of John Stuart, at that time a
resident agent among the Cherokees, to the Tories of the
district confirmed the news and increased the alacrity of
the people. This communication and the apprehension of
the dangers it threatened to those who refused to return
to their allegiance to King George were followed by the
reports of traveling traders, which the settlers, knowing
the ways of those who travel and trade, required them to
swear to in due form of law. The plan of attack sug-
gested a more than Indian mind. Seven hundred warriors
were to make the attack in two divisions of equal strength
and each division was to attack one of the two impor-
tant forts, which were the Watauga fort and Fort Heaton.
The Watauga committee took prompt and energetic meas-
ures to meet the threatened invasion. Runners were sent
through the settlement to give notice to all who were
isolated to abandon their houses and repair to the protec-
tion of the forts. The forts themselves were strengthened
and provisioned. Those too weak to hold, among them
Fort Lee,¹ were dismantled and destroyed.
1 There is some confusion in reference to these forts and their
names. Ramsey makes Fort Gillespie and Fort Lee distinct. In a
letter written 6th April, 1793, and published in the Knoxville Gazette,
we find the following statement: "Others fortified themselves at
Amos Heaton's, now Sullivan's Old Court House, and those in Wa-
tauga and Nollichucky posted about thirty volunteers under Captain
(now General) James Robertson, just above the mouth of Big Lime-
stone, where Mr. Gillespie lives. Shortly after this party took post
and before they had completed their fort (called Fort Lee) four
traders escaped." The people then fled again, leaving about fifteen
volunteers behind, who, being joined by about the same number in
their rear, CC
were thus compelled to fortify near the Sycamore Shoals
on Watauga, on much weaker ground than they had vacated." It is
evident that Fort Lee was abandoned after Sevier wrote the letter
dated at that fort.
THE REVOLUTION AND INDIAN WARS.
43
Officers were elected, and companies were organized.
Petitions for aid were sent to Virginia. The destiny of
the settlements was at stake. The Virginians had seen
with pleasure a bulwark gradually rising between them-
selves and the ferocity and cruelty of Indian warfare.
This bulwark was now to be put to the test; its fate might
involve their own and aid was promptly furnished. Five
companies were raised in the border counties, and marched
to Fort Heaton. Having arrived there, a council of war
was held, and Captain William Cocke, at whose suggestion
the fort had been built, urged immediate action. His sug-
gestion was acted upon, and it was decided to march out
at once and meet the Indians, signs of whose near ap-
proach had been discovered and reported by the scouts.
An advance guard was thrown forward, which came in
contact with a scouting party of Indians and drove them
back. Some hours later the main body of the Indians.
came up, and Thompson, the officer in command, gave the
order to engage them. The battle which ensued, though
of short duration, is remarkable as being among the first
attempts ever made by the Indians to adopt the civilized
plan of fighting a battle. They made a direct attack,
charging over open ground, and their chief, Dragging
Canoe, a savage Napoleon, attempted to break through the
centre of Thompson's command and then crush his flanks
in detail. The Indians, however, have never had the abil-
ity, which comes only from organized training, of stand-
ing direct fire, and on this occasion they fled after a few
volleys, leaving dead on the field about twenty-six men,
including Dragging Canoe himself. During the fight oc-
curred one of those sanguinary hand-to-hand conflicts, the
accounts of which fill the annals of that time, and which
is here given entire, as an example of all the rest. It is
copied from Ramsey, who appears to have had it from
Moore himself. "Moore had shot the chief, wounding
him in the knee, but not so badly as to prevent him from
standing. Moore advanced towards him, and the Indian
44
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
threw his tomahawk but missed him. Moore sprang at
him with his large butcher knife drawn, which the Indian
caught by the blade, and attempted to wrest from the hand
of his antagonist. Holding on with desperate tenacity to
the knife, both clinched with their left hands. A scuffle
ensued in which the Indian was thrown to the ground, his
right hand being nearly dissevered and bleeding profusely.
Moore, still holding the handle of his knife in the right
hand, succeeded with the other to disengage his own toma-
hawk from his belt, and ended the strife by sinking it in
the skull of the Indian." Among those who took part
in this battle, called the battle of Island Flats, was Isaac
Shelby, who was present as a private and volunteer. The
other division of Indians was under a crafty chief named
Old Abraham. He was to attack Fort Lee, but the Nol-
lichucky inhabitants, fearing their fortifications were not
sufficient, had broken them up and retreated to Watauga,
leaving crops and stock open to the attack of their enemies.
The garrison was only forty men strong, but they were
under the command of an officer not less resolute, not less
fertile in resources, not less cool in the presence of danger,
than the Englishman who, three years later, gained immor-
tality and an English peerage by the defense of Gibraltar
against equally overwhelming odds. The achievements of
one were viewed with wondering admiration by the civili-
zation of the world. The achievements of the other,
though not less worthy of all honor and renown, were per-
formed under the shadows of a primitive forest in a fron-
tier fort, against unrecorded savages. James Robertson
deserves for his memorable defense of the Watauga fort a
place not less illustrious in the annals of Tennessee than
that accorded to Lord Heathfield in the annals of England.
More than three hundred Indians were held at bay by less
than forty men capable of active service, and despite strata-
gems, and all the arts and cunning of an Indian warfare,
midnight attacks, and daily onslaughts, were eventually
compelled to raise the siege and retire. This defense of
THE REVOLUTION AND INDIAN WARS.
45
the Watauga fort is deserving of special mention in the
history of Tennessee as the first display on Tennessee soil,
and for the people of Tennessee, of that martial prowess
to which a Tennessean may call attention with justifiable
pride, and of which he may say without any feeling of
provincial exaggeration or gasconade that it has, as a
whole, never been surpassed by anything recorded in the
histories of the world's warfares.
Although defeated in their attacks on the infant settle-
ments, the Indians renewed the war in another quarter
and invaded Virginia. Angered by what was regarded as
a flagrant outrage, it was determined to strike terror to
the hearts of the Cherokees by invading their country with
an overwhelming force. Their estimated population was
two thousand. North Carolina and Virginia both sent
bodies of troops, and these in conjunction with the settlers
formed what in those days was regarded as a large force.
The country of the Cherokees was laid waste, and they
were compelled to sue for peace. The proper blow had
been struck at the proper time. The implacable Indians
were taught that the boasted sanctity of their strongholds
could be violated with impunity. Town after town, the
most secluded, the most distant, the most thoroughly
guarded, was taken and razed to the ground. But little
mercy was shown and but few prisoners taken. The In-
dians were glad to make treaties of peace and cessions of
territory. The boundary line agreed upon between the
Cherokees and North Carolina was so run as to leave the
District of Washington in possession of the latter.
The law of development that the end of each successive
Indian war brought an addition of population was again
exemplified after the Cherokee war. The troops from the
colonies were charmed with the natural advantages of the
country they had seen in passing through the Watauga
country, and their accounts, doubtless highly colored,
painted an Eldorado, which drew to the new settlement a
rapid influx of adventurous pioneers.
CHAPTER V.
ANNEXED TO NORTH CAROLINA, AND LIMITS DEFINED.
THE Watauga people had hopes, when the articles of
association were adopted, of being able eventually to form
an independent government, governed as the older colonies.
were governed, by royal governors. When the disagree-
ments between the colonies and the mother country arose,
they modified their views to the new order of things, and
regarded themselves as a distinct though as yet inchoate
state. But their weakness, and the dangers which re-
sulted from Indians and horse-thieves, bands of despera-
does who sold stolen horses to the Indians, rendered the
protection of some more powerful state necessary for
their welfare. They had not the material to construct the
machinery of government, nor the strength to set it in
motion. They petitioned North Carolina for annexation
in 1776. Their petition was granted. It was signed by
the committee of thirteen, and many others. The pro-
vincial congress of North Carolina met at Halifax in No-
vember, 1776, and Charles Robertson, John Carter, John
Haile,¹ and John Sevier were delegates from Washington
District, Watauga settlement. Five in all were elected,
but only four took their seats. At this session a bill of
rights and a state constitution, one modeled upon an Eng-
lish statute declaratory of the common law, the other upon
the common law itself, were formally adopted. It is sig-
nificant that in the declaration of rights is the following
clause: "It [the boundary line of the State] shall not be so
1 Haywood says Hill.
ANNEXED TO NORTH CAROLINA.
47
construed as to prevent the establishment of one or more
governments westward of this State by consent of the legis
lature."
After the annexation of the Washington District the
old form of government was allowed to stand until the
spring of 1777. An act was then passed establishing
courts of pleas and quarter sessions, and also a bill for the
appointment of justices of the peace, and sheriffs for the
several courts in the District of Washington. In Novem-
ber of this year, 1777, the District of Washington became
Washington County. It was made a part of the Salisbury
judicial district, and the act establishing it is noteworthy
as being the first determinate expression of the geographi-
cal outlines of Tennessee.
From 1777 until the disturbances of eight years later,
the history of Tennessee was a part of the history of
North Carolina. The policy of the mother State, for such
it had now become, was to open the new territory to settle-
ment, and to encourage emigration. In several counties
offices for the entry of lands acquired by treaty or con-
quest" were established, and a land office was opened in
Washington County. The land system of Tennessee is
founded upon that of North Carolina, and the general
outlines are the same in both States. The earlier laws of
Tennessee modified the North Carolina system, and the
later laws have modified the earlier.
The system of Carolina was in many respects the
result of a peculiar combination of the rigidity of English
and the laxity of American ideas of landed proprietorship.
In many points the grants of land in North Carolina, be-
ginning with the charter of Charles II., to the colonial
proprietors give the student of history numerous exam-
ples of the continuity of popular institutions, and serve
as chains of tradition to link the present and the past.
With the change of those details which need to be
changed for the sake of the larger example, the conquest
48
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
and settlement of England by the Saxons is the conquest
and settlement of Virginia and the Carolinas by the
English. A comparative study, however, of the two
stages of history, though interesting and rich in material,
lies beyond the measure of proportion of such a work as
this. Still, a proper comprehension of the earlier system
of North Carolina, with its paraphernalia of grants, char-
ters, deeds, entries, certificates, bounties, entry-takers,
land-agents, and charts, is not without value for an intel-
ligent investigation into the gradual growth of Tennessee
from a state of barbarity to a state of civilization, to
enable the mind to bridge the interval from the time
when the country was inhabited by a few tribes of Indians
with small tent-spread villages scattered here and there
along the banks of the rivers and on the plateaus of steep
mountains, from which scarcely a film of vapor ascended,
to the time when its surface is covered by the houses,
towns and cities, roads and railroads, and its skies are
darkened by the smoke that arises from the industries of
nearly two millions of people. When the government of
North Carolina passed out of the hands of the proprietors,
and their title was extinguished, this extinction carried
with it all that region of country west of the Appalachian
Mountains, which as yet lay beyond the Ultima Thule of
colonial geography, known only by the vague tissue of sur-
mises which had grown like cobwebs around the old and
half-forgotten traditions of De Soto's ill-starred expedition.
Occasionally a trader would pass over the range. Fre-
quently he disappeared never to return. If he did return,
he brought with him pictures of a primeval Eldorado
which caused a stir of excitement for the moment, and
were then quickly forgotten in the struggles of colonial
life. The accounts of Marquette, Hennepin, Allouez,
Membré, and Anastaste Douay detracted nothing from
the prevailing ignorance. The North Carolinians re-
garded the western country very much as one of the less
ANNEXED TO NORTH CAROLINA.
49
active litigants in Jarndyce against Jarndyce might have
regarded the estate in question, having in it indeterminate
possibilities, but too remote to form any basis of imme-
diate action. The extinction of the English title gave
this title to North Carolina, but until her own children
had in a manner rushed into it, and suddenly founded a
new commonwealth, and then applied for a recognition
of their importance and the work they had performed,
the parent State made no movement implying a knowl-
edge or desire of proprietorship. After the annexation
an entry-taker's office was opened in the recently erected
Washington County, and Tennessee was thrown open to
the land system of North Carolina. But however simple
the system, the early history of this State is filled with
accounts of the troubles and conflicts which arose in ref-
erence to lands and claims of preemption and doubtful
grants. The frequent changes of government, together
with the lack of interest in the frontier settlements, occa-
sioned a state of confusion which required act after act
for its disentanglement. Those who had settled beyond
the Steep Rock and entered their lands under the laws of
Virginia had incessant conflicts with those who, when
the running of the line threw them into North Carolina,
made haste to enter the lands under the laws of that
State. Sometimes five or six claimants would appear for
the same land, -one claiming under grant from the
lords proprietors, one under executor's sale, one under an
unrecorded grant from Lord Granville's office, one who
wished to enter the lands under the laws of North Caro-
lina, and one in possession. The various treaties with the
Indians and the little regard paid them by the settlers
added to the causes of confusion. In 1778 an act was
passed declaring null and void all entries made on the
hunting-grounds of the Indians. Grants of land were
the means adopted for rewarding the soldiers who had
fought the war for independence, there being no money
50
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
having a marketable value in the treasury. In 1780 an
act laid off a certain tract of land for bounty purposes,
but when in 1782 the grants were made, it was found that
"sundry families had before the passing of the said act
settled on the said tract of country," and it became
necessary to allow them to "retain their entries to the
usual limit of 640 acres.
>>
There were several causes which tended to produce this
confusion, but the main cause of all was the ignorance
that existed in the minds of those who were the centres
of government as to the limits of their territory. They
appear to have known the grant of Charles II. by repu-
tation alone, and it is doubtful if any members of the
earlier government, except Lord Granville, attempted to
fix in his own mind the limits of the land which was sub-
ject to the laws of North Carolina. In the act of 1777,
which formed Washington County, the boundaries are
specified as running to the Mississippi River.
No clearer proof of dense ignorance could be adduced
than this act. John Sevier had virtually forced the an-
nexation upon North Carolina, and the legislature, their
minds filled with the great struggle which was going on,
passed this as they would have passed any act to satisfy
the importunities of a bold, persistent, and active advocate,
who asked no money, and promised them soldiers. The
grant of Charles II., which was the only claim of North
Carolina upon the country in question, extended to the
Pacific coast-line. Their title to the land west of the
Mississippi was as good as their title to the land east
of it.
It is a remarkable fact that Sevier alone of all the men
of his times inhabiting what subsequently became Tennes-
see had a definite idea of what should be the logical limits
of the future State. These limits were not recognized in
1 The words of the grant are: "West in a direct line as far as the
South Seas."
ANNEXED TO NORTH CAROLINA.
51
the statutes of North Carolina, except the one drawn most
probably by Sevier and in the cession to the United States.
The act of cession cedes a certain district in direct terms,
and by implication allows the United States to follow their
pleasure in reference to the rest. When the constitution
was framed, the limits of the State were fixed according
to the ideas of Sevier of twenty years before. It is
necessary to bear in mind the confusion of boundary lines
resulting from the encroachments of the settlers upon the
Indians, and the recognition of the rights of the latter by
the home government, in order to have a clear view of the
gradual formation and making of the State. The general
groundwork was the same in all cases. Indian lands
were taken possession of and improved.
entered into hostilities, and were eventually defeated and
compelled to sue for peace. Treaties were made and
increased territory given the whites, and new boundary
lines established which were soon again overstepped. Act
after act was passed to legalize usurpations, and all the
worst features of civilization were brought into play to
win a field for the foundation of a government, the forma-
tion of which called forth all that is noble and admirable
in the character of man.
The Indians
:.
CHAPTER VI.
NEW COUNTIES FORMED.
AFTER the formation of the county of Washington
immediate steps were taken to attract emigration, and a
land office was opened. Another aid to emigration was
the improvement of the road into Washington County from
North Carolina. Commissioners were appointed to survey
and lay off a road from Washington County Court House
into Burke County, and the new road, allowing the pas-
sage of vehicles, materially increased the inflowing stream
of population. But if the frontier position of the settle-
ments brought them increase of population, it also brought
the elements of lawless violence, which were expelled from
more settled communities. In 1778 bands of Tories, who
were said to have combined with the robbers that infested
the country, inflicted heavy losses on the settlers by con-
tinuous thieving and highway robbery, sometimes accom-
panied by personal violence, and even murder. Finding
the agents of the law inadequate to their protection, the
militia having been disbanded, the old Watauga pioneers,
whose self-reliance had been in no wise weakened by the
lapse of time and the successive prosecution of Indian
wars, again devised means to restore order to the troubled
settlements, and selected from among themselves com-
mittees, to whom they gave power to adopt any measures
they saw fit, to put a stop to the evil. The evil was great,
the remedy was adequate. Two companies, thirty each,
were organized and set immediately to work. All suspi-
cious persons were arrested. The mere fact of arrest was
NEW COUNTIES FORMED.
53
a proof of guilt, which was all but conclusive. The
prisoner who "failed to give a good account of himself,"
or to give security for his appearance before the committee,
was summarily dealt with, shot, hanged, whipped, branded,
or drowned, according to circumstances. A heavy fine.
was the lightest punishment inflicted. A few purchased
freedom with infamy, and as the price of liberty betrayed
the names of their associates. The punishments were
severe, and ruthlessly inflicted. The forger was branded,
the murderer was whipped, the horse thief was hanged.
It is needless to say that in a short time law and order,
according to the Watauga idea of what constituted law
and order, were restored. True to tradition, the vigilance
committee was dissolved, or dissolved itself, as soon as its
work had been performed.
The main strength of the Tories and robbers (the terms
were almost synonymous in the backwoods) being broken,
the individual offenders were left to the regular tribunals
of the country, who it is to be feared exercised power that
would have made Lord Strafford himself stand aghast.
One indictment, the caption of which has been preserved,
is against the defendant, "in toryism." The judgment
of the court was that the culprit be kept prisoner until
the termination of the war then raging, and that one half
of his goods, which must be valued by a jury at the next
court, "be kept by the sheriff for the use of the State,
the rest to go to the family of the offender." Ramsey,
with unconscious irony, says, "the court thus exhibited a
marked instance of judgment and mercy in the same order,
combining patriotism with justice and humanity."
another occasion a certain J. H., " for his ill practices in
harboring and abetting disorderly persons who are prej-
udicial and inimical to the common cause of liberty, and
frequently disturbing our tranquillity in general," is by
the court" duly considering the allegations alleged and
objected against the said J. H. imprisoned for the term of
On
54
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
one year." This action was taken on motion of E. Dunlap,
state attorney. The most remarkable exercise of power
by this remarkable court is the order granted upon motion
of this same E. Dunlap that the property of one H. be
retained in the hands of some debtor because "there is
sufficient reason to believe that the said H.'s estate will be
confiscated to the use of the State for his misdemeanors,
etc." The humorous records of the judiciary show noth-
ing equal to this. The settlers had scarcely restored order
before they were again called on to invade the territory
of their implacable foes. The Chickamaugas, a tribe of
the Cherokees of peculiar ferocity and daring, who had
formed a settlement on the Tennessee about fifty miles
below the creek which bears their name, were notorious
above all the aboriginal inhabitants of Tennessee soil for
their fierceness, their treachery, their love of danger, their
daring exploits, and their implacable hatred of the pale-
face. In the general councils of the nation they were
the first to call for revenge, and the last to consent to the
treaties by which the white race attempted to put some
moral facing upon their spoliation of the red. They
eagerly accepted the gifts which tickled their fancy with
the tinsel of color, or alleviated the squalid discomfort of
their miserable wigwams. But gratitude was an emotion
which had never stirred the heart of a Chickamauga
brave. In bands of two and three they would lurk on the
outskirts of the white settlements, and frequently one of
them under the guise of a desire to trade, would gain
admittance to the cabins of the settlers. He used the
opportunities which hospitality had offered to observe
the easiest ingress, and would return the night following
with his associates, to burn the cabin, scalp its inmates,
plunder its contents, and escape into the pathless wilds of
of the Cumberland Hills before pursuit could be organ-
ized. At times they came in larger bands and wrought
greater destruction. They dwelt upon the banks of the
NEW COUNTIES FORMED.
55
river above the rapids, where the current had cut numer-
ous gorges through the mountains. The vulture's nest
was not regarded as half so secluded, as half so hedged in
with security by the safeguards which steep ascents and
narrow paths and cavernous cul-de-sacs had thrown
around them. Their incursions were quiet, stealthy, and
terrible, their retreat was the flight of the fox to his hole.
In 1779 Virginia and North Carolina determined to
destroy their settlements. The leader chosen was Evan
Shelby, who had served under Braddock at Fort Du
Quesne, and who with fifty Tennesseans had withstood
the impetuous assaults with which the fearless chief of
the Indians, Cornstalk, had vainly attempted to break the
line of the Virginians at Point Pleasant during the
Kanawha campaign. Shelby lacked the brilliant rapidity
of action which made the name of Sevier an evil omen
to the Cherokees, but he was peculiarly fitted to the task
assigned him. He was eminently cautious, and he under-
stood the habits of the Indians, as the trapper under-
stands the habits of the beaver. He was given about two
thousand men, part of whom had originally been designed
for the western service under John Montgomery, who was
marching to join Colonel Clark in his expedition against
Vincennes and Detroit. Haywood gives to Isaac Shelby,
the son of Evan, the credit of furnishing the army trans-
portation and supplies. Shelby descended the river in
canoes and pirogues from the mouth of Big Creek, and
came upon the enemy with the swiftness and silence
learned from the Indians themselves. He took them
completely by surprise. They were unable to offer resist-
ance. They fled to the woods without striking a blow.
Shelby destroyed their towns and their crops and carried
off everything of value which could be carried off, includ
ing large supplies which the British had collected at that
point for distribution among their allies. Shelby was
promoted to a generalship in the Virginia military
service.
56
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
In the same year a new county was taken from Wash-
ington, and named in honor of General Sullivan. Among
the first commissioned justices of the peace was Isaac
Shelby, who was also appointed colonel of the county
militia. In this year also was laid out the first town of
the State. Jonesboro, named after William Jones, a
North Carolina statesman, was made the county seat of
Washington County, and John Wood, Jesse Walton,
George Russell, James Stewart, and Benjamin Clark
were appointed commissioners to make a plat of the
ground, erect public buildings, and to sell lots. The
unchinked and clapboarded cabin which had served as the
temple of justice for the old Watauga people was ordered
to be torn down and in its place it was suggested should
be built a court-house of hewn logs, and with shingled
roof. In 1783 a new county was formed from Wash-
ington County and named Greene, in honor of General
Greene, and two years later Greeneville, the county seat,
was laid off. This, however, was after the termination of
the war.
CHAPTER VII.
KING'S MOUNTAIN.
THE part played by the inhabitants of Tennessee in the
war for independence was active, and in one instance
decisive. Their operations were chiefly of a desultory,
guerrilla kind, under the leadership of Sevier, who had
been commissioned colonel-commandant of Washington
County, and Shelby, who held the same position in the
newly formed county of Sullivan.
Their distant and inaccessible position among the fast-
nesses of the mountains and hidden away among the
valleys of the Holston was eminently favorable for a sud-
den attack, a quick blow, and a hasty retreat. In 1780
Governor Rutherford of South Carolina issued a requisi-
tion on Washington and Sullivan counties for one hun-
dred men each. Two companies were promptly raised,
but too late to render any assistance to Charleston, for
whose defense they had been required. Shortly after,
however, twice the number called for joined McDowell,
who was trying to stem the advance of Cornwallis through
South Carolina. McDowell was one of the first of the
guerrilla captains who so often have redeemed the bitter-
ness of defeat by expeditions of personal daring, and
substituted quickness of movement, dauntless courage, and
unexpected attack for the more ponderous operations of
regular warfare. He had under him Clark, Williams,
Sevier, and Shelby, all of whom were brave to reckless-
ness, as fertile in resources as Sumter, and as stealthy as
the swamp-fox. McDowell, after the formation of his
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
troops, detached Clark, Sevier, and Shelby to attack and
disperse a force of Tories who, under Patrick Moore, had
intrenched themselves in a fort on the Pacolet. Within
less than twenty-four hours, although Moore was twenty
miles distant, they had performed their mission and
returned. Shelby and Clark not long after this had a
brush with Ferguson himself, the gallant, fearless, and
unfortunate hero of King's Mountain, and withdrew with
small loss before a force four times their strength under a
leader who combined the noblest qualities of Cornwallis
and Tarleton both as soldier and commander. During
the latter part of the year, Shelby, Clark, and Williams
were sent to scatter a party of Tories on the Enoree.
They pushed forward rapidly from McDowell's encamp-
ment on Broad River, made a wide détour around Fergu-
son's camp, who lay between McDowell and the Tories.
with a large force with which he had vainly been attempt-
ing to bring McDowell to a decisive battle, and riding
hard all night, arrived about daybreak within a short
distance of the enemy's camp. The Tories fled without
offering resistance, and the Americans were pressing them
hotly, when a farmer informed their leader that a large
body of regular troops was near with reinforcements for
the enemy. Retreat was impossible. The men were tired,
the horses were jaded. Breastworks were hastily impro-
vised. Preparations were made for a desperate resist.
ance. In a short time Colonel Innes of the British army
arrived with six hundred regulars and a rabble of Tories.
He immediately attacked and put to flight a small detach-
ment of troops, which had been thrown forward to try to
prevent his crossing the Enoree. The Americans held
their position and drove back the assailants time after
time. They were just begining to yield before the stub-
born onslaughts of the British, when Innes was danger-
ously wounded. His fall was the signal for retreat to the
Tories, and their flight demoralized the regular troops.
KING'S MOUNTAIN.
59
The Americans saw their opportunity and seized it. They
won a decided victory, and captured two hundred of
Innes' men. The Tories all escaped.
The victors, flushed with success and eager for new
exploits, were on the point of making an incursion towards
the sea-coast, for the double purpose of harrying the
Tories and avoiding Ferguson, when they received the
news of the defeat of General Gates at Camden, and the
probable downfall of the American cause.
Advance was
impossible, and Ferguson's neighborhood rendered retreat
hazardous and difficult. Their fears of danger from this
source were not without foundation. Ferguson sent a
detachment after them, well accoutred, and mounted on
fresh horses. The Americans were incumbered with two
hundred prisoners. A forced march alone held out pros-
pects of escape to the captors. The prisoners were distrib-
uted among the men, one prisoner to three horsemen, who
carried him in rotation. In this way they marched two
days and one night without intermission, and thus eluded
pursuit and reached the mountains in safety, where they
were joined by McDowell himself. The defeat of Gates
and the misfortune of Sumter cast a cloud of apprehen-
sion over the spirits of the partisan leaders, and Mc-
Dowell's command was dissolved, he and his men crossing
the mountains with the mountaineers.
The next movement of the Watauga people was made
under Sevier and Shelby. They raised a body of five
hundred troops with the hope of surprising and over-
powering Ferguson, who was making threatening demon-
strations against the settlements of the border. They
induced Colonel William Campbell of Virginia to join
them. Campbell had under him a body of four hundred
men, and Sevier and Shelby, to gain his hearty coöpera-
tion, elected him commander of the united forces. Under
his leadership, and after having received reinforcements.
sufficient to give them about fifteen hundred men, they
60
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
performed one of the most brilliant feats of the war.
Ferguson was at Gilbert-town when he heard of the
impending onslaught of the enraged mountaineers. He
had threatened to burn their houses and destroy their
settlements unless they returned to their allegiance, and
had advanced as far as Gilbert-town in the apparent
execution of his threats. Campbell's command consisted
of four hundred Virginians which he had raised, about
five hundred men under Sevier and Shelby, about four
hundred under Colonel Cleveland, of Wilkes County,
N. C., and nearly four hundred under James Williams
from South Carolina. Ferguson was almost entirely
dependent upon Tory troops. Appreciating the danger
of an encounter between a body of men smarting under
defeat and notorious for their bravery and a body of men
notorious for their lack of it, Ferguson manoeuvred to
gain time for reinforcements to arrive from Cornwallis, to
whom he wrote praying for assistance. He retreated from
Gilbert-town to the Cowpens, crossing the main Broad
River and again at Dear's Ferry, and pushed forward
to King's Mountain, hoping to unite with Cornwallis.
Campbell pursued him without intermission, stopping but
once for refreshments, in the face of a driving rain that
drenched his men to the skin. Ferguson had selected his
position with admirable foresight. It was a compara-
tively isolated point, whose crest could not be approached
from any side without encountering the direct fire of
those on top. One who had been in the wars of Napoleon
praised the skill of the officer who selected a place for
which nature had provided such strategic advantages.
Ferguson himself gave it the name of King's Mountain
in honor of his sovereign, and declared that all the
"rebels out of hell" could not drive him from it. Camp-
bell's plan of attack was to surround Ferguson on all
sides and prevent him from concentrating an army. The
two regiments of Shelby and Campbell himself were sent
KING'S MOUNTAIN.
61
Fer-
directly up the sides of the mountain to divert the enemy,
while Sevier and the rest surrounded them. Ferguson,
finding himself in the midst of a baptism of fire, unable
to keep his men steady, realized the hopelessness of resist-
ance. But his courage was as desperate as his generalship
was skillful. Time after time he rallied his men. The
well-practiced aim of the American marksmen mowed
them down. He charged with the bayonet, but his men.
refused to follow. He ordered them to mount and rode
himself along the line, but they fell as fast as they
mounted, and the survivors finally refused to move.
guson had only been wounded in the hand. He carried a
silver whistle as a signal of encouragement to his soldiers.
Resistance became hopeless. De Peyster, his second in
command, prayed him to surrender, but he refused. A
white flag was raised and he pulled it down. A second
time it was lifted and he cut it down. De Peyster again
entreated him to surrender, but he declared he would
never surrender to a damned set of banditti." The
Americans soon noticed that the whistle was the centre of
the most active resistance, and in a few minutes afterwards.
it was silenced forever. Ferguson was killed and De Pey-
ster almost immediately surrendered. All the British were
captured, about eight hundred in all, and fifteen hundred
stands of arms. The wagons and supplies were burnt, and
fearing Cornwallis, who was in Mecklenburgh County
near the Catawba, the mountaineers made a forced march
and escaped to the mountains. They had, however, struck
a decisive blow, and the battle of King's Mountain has
always figured in American history as the turning-point
of the war for independence. It came after the disas-
ters of Charleston and Savannah and Camden, and was
the cause that the advocates of American freedom did
not despair of the republic. It threw Cornwallis back
upon his base of supplies in South Carolina, and it forced
the evacuation of North Carolina. Time was gained for
62
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
ance.
hope, for thought, for reorganization, for renewed resist-
The battle of King's Mountain connects the history
of Tennessee with Bunker Hill and the ancient history
of the United States. A sword and a pair of pistols
were by the General Assembly of North Carolina voted to
Sevier and Shelby for their part in this memorable affair.
A more substantial recognition of their services was the
resolution passed by the General Assembly in February,
1781, calling on them by name to urge those who had for-
merly served under them again to take up arms for their
native State and the common cause. But the latter were
unable to heed the call. They were in the midst of a war
with the Indians, and could not leave their homes. Subse-
quently General Greene entered into correspondence with
Sevier with a view to securing the Watauga soldiers for
his army. Eventually Sevier raised two hundred men
and joined Marion. Later still, Shelby and the Sullivan
County men joined their old friends under the Swamp
Fox, and both took part in the closing scenes of the great
war.1
1 Ramsey's indignation is excited by a sneer of Sims, that Shelby
and his men left Marion before the object of the war was attained.
This was scarcely a matter of reproach in view of the fact that the
war was generally regarded as practically at an end, that Shelby's
men had only been enlisted for sixty days, that they had already
overstayed their time by several weeks, and that the Indians were
threatening their homes with destruction. In addition to this, a
large number of them actually did stay.
CHAPTER VIII.
SEVIER'S INDIAN WARS.
AFTER the battle of King's Mountain in 1780, Sevier,
whose ever watchful eye was never allowed to wander
from the settlements of which he may have been considered
in lawyer's phrase the guardian ad litem, sent forward
a messenger to ascertain the condition of those at home
and the attitude of the Indians. He was informed that
a large body of them were preparing to invade the set-
tlements. He at once marched hurriedly home, made
preparations for organizing a large force, and taking with
him a company of a hundred men, pushed forward the
day after his return to meet the main body of the invad-
ers. He came upon them at Boyd's Creek and routed
them. The promptness of the act saved the settlement
from an Indian warfare and made their country the field
of battle. He formed a camp on French Broad and waited
for reinforcements. He crossed the Little Tennessee, and
burned every town between the Hiwassee and the Tennessee
rivers, including Chilhowee. At Tellico a treaty of peace
was made as to the adjacent villages; but Sevier had
passed through all the phases of Indian warfare, and he
understood all the intricacies of Indian subtilty and In-
dian cunning. From Tellico he pushed forward to the vil-
lage of Hiwassee and found it deserted. He destroyed it.
He pushed forward to the Look-Out towns, the scattered
villages where dwelt the bulk of the Chickamaugas, and
destroyed them. He also destroyed all crops and sup-
plies and drove off or killed all living animals. From the
64
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
Chickamauga towns he continued his march southward
towards the mouth of the Coosa and to the flats of pine
and cypress that are found upon its lower banks. He
found it a country of surpassing beauty and filled with
clusters of wigwams, known to the earlier chroniclers as
towns. They had not expected to be approached by the
whites. Sevier had a large force under him. Perhaps
years might elapse before the opportunity would be so
favorable for striking a blow-one which would crush
and annihilate. He laid his hand heavily upon them. It
was a barbarous mode of warfare. This he knew. No
one, indeed, was more generous and kind-hearted than he.
In many respects he is one of the heroes of our history, a
veritable Knight Templar. But this was not a contest of
knight errantry. It was the grim struggle for existence.
The fittest alone could survive. If his mode of warfare was
barbarous, he was waging war against barbarians, brave,
cruel, relentless, and treacherous, without any of the things
which civilization gave except its engines of destruction.
Sevier was not the man to trifle with his task. Indian
incursions could only be stopped by exterminating the In-
dians. Hence he tried to exterminate them. General
Sheridan in the valley of Virginia was not more thorough.
Every grain of corn was destroyed. Everything which
could be used was burned, broken, or carried away. Every
wigwam received the torch. Every boat was sunk. Noth-
ing was spared except a few helpless human lives. A
British agent was shot and his body left unburied. But
few prisoners were taken; enough to exchange, but no
more. The Indians soon made peace. Sevier, however,
knew that the end would never be until the Indians were
no more, and he established and garrisoned stations or
forts along the frontier.
The year following, depredations were committed upon
the settlements by bands of Indians from a region where
Sevier had not before penetrated. He immediately col-
SEVIER'S INDIAN WARS.
65
lected a force to invade their country again. He pene-
trated to the head-waters of the Little Tennessee and sur-
prised and captured a town called Tuckasejah. He slew
fifty Indian braves and captured a large number of women
and children. Following his invariable rule of warfare,
he destroyed all their corn and burnt all their villages.
The settlement of the country was progressing with steady
regularity. When Sevier returned from his campaign of
1780 against the Indians, he found along the banks of
the French Broad numbers of new cabins and tracts of
freshly cleared lands. The limits of the three original
settlements were being broadened. The lines of division
established by treaty for Indian lands were being over-
stepped, and each encroachment excited the same feelings
of revenge and hatred which had already made red the
annals of American colonization. The frontier settle-
ments had no desire to put a stop to them. The State
was unable to do so. North Carolina was forced by the
logic of circumstances to adopt the same line of policy
towards the Indians which the United States have since
adopted. Individual settlers were allowed to encroach
until they became too powerful to remove, and gifts and
treaties were then resorted to in order to remove the In-
dians. In 1782, Governor Martin, in a letter to Colonel
Sevier, says: "I am distressed with the repeated com-
plaints of the Indians respecting the daily intrusions of
our people on their lands beyond the French Broad River.
The Indian goods are not yet arrived from Philadelphia,
through the inclemency of the late season; as soon as
they will be in the State, I shall send them to the Great
Island and hold a treaty with the Cherokees." This was
in 1782, in the spring. In the autumn of the same year,
the Indians still complained to Governor Martin that
the people from Nollichucky were daily pushing them out
fo their lands, and that they had built houses within
one day's walk of their towns. They said with pathetic
66
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
directness and simplicity, "We don't want to quarrel with
our elder brother; we therefore hope our elder brother
will not take our lands from us that our father gave us
because he is stronger than we are. We are the first peo-
ple that ever lived on this land; it is ours, and why will
our elder brother take it from us?" They complained
that those who encroached had not been removed, and they
pray that Colonel Sevier, "who is a good man," be sent to
have them all removed. But those who encroached were
not removed, the goods were not sent, and in the same.
month Sevier retaliated for some minor aggression of a
few straggling Chickamaugas by again invading the Cher-
okee country with rifle and flame.
But not all recorded events of those times were of such
evil complexion. The better instincts which nature has
implanted in every human bosom occasionally asserted
themselves, and in the general gloom we occasionally catch
glimpses of things that are gentler and more humane. On
one occasion the supply of corn in the Nollichucky settle-
ment gave out. Two adventurous oarsmen went down in
canoes for the purpose of bartering supplies and trinkets
for maize. They reached a village called Coiatee in safety
and went ashore. They were stopped by some Indians,
who received them with evident surprise and suspicion,
still further increased by finding rifles hidden under some
clothing in the boat. It is probable that Jeremiah Jack
and William Rankin would never have related the adven-
ture but for the interposition of Nancy Ward, the same
who had saved the settlement on a previous occasion. She
succeeded in placating the Indians, who, with the impulse
of children, went to the opposite extreme, loaded the canoe
with corn, and sent them rejoicing to their friends.
CHAPTER IX.
CEDED BY NORTH CAROLINA.
ABOUT this time the District of Salisbury was divided
by the General Assembly, and Washington and Sullivan,
with several other counties, were made a new district by
the name of Morgan District. A court of oyer and ter-
miner and general gaol delivery was directed to sit at
Jonesboro for Washington and Sullivan counties. John
Sevier was clerk. The General Assembly of North Caro-
lina in 1783 gave a renewed impulse to emigration by
reopening the land office which had been closed in 1781.
In 1784 the settlement had been extended to Long Creek.
The court of quarter sessions of Washington County in
this year gave permission to erect a mill on that stream.
In the same year we meet with cabins along the banks of
the Little and Big Pigeon, and a few settlers had even
ventured as far as Boyd's Creek. The class of emigrants
now coming in was better provided with the initial mate-
rial for wealth and prosperity. The new road into Burke
County allowed the passage of wagons. Men of greater
family and of larger means could settle in the new coun-
try. Houses were built at greater distances from the forts,
which till then had been the centres of population as well
as religion and learning. An "old field school" appeared
here and there, and occasionally the traveler, as he passed
a log cabin, could see a row of tawny heads and hear the
cosmopolitan hic-hæc-hoc which betokened the first glim-
mer of mental activity in a community where "book
larnin" was ranked infinitely below wood-craft, and where
68
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
an accurate aim with the rifle was more ardently appre-
ciated than a thorough knowledge of classical antiquities.
The friction which comes from the rubbing together in
daily contact of many minds and characters was begin-
ning to furbish the people. The feeling of dependence in
local affairs which precedes the desire of independence in
the larger section was strong. It was gradually embra-
cing settlement after settlement, creeping from fort to
fort, from valley to valley. There was a recognized diver-
sity of interests existing between the young and unnamed
settlements and the older community of North Carolina.
People began to recall the time when the Watauga Asso-
ciation was a kind of sovereignty, and when its members
dreamed of having its head appointed by the King him-
self. The consciousness which in the individual is called
the beginning of manhood, but which in a people is called
rebellion or independence according to the point of view
of the historian, was gradually stealing out from Jones-
boro through the valleys and along the hills among all the
people. They began to recognize that North Carolina did
nothing for them but dispose of their lands for its debts.
All the rest was accomplished through agents and with
material furnished by the settlers. But as yet this feeling
was dormant. It was soon aroused into life and activity.
It has already been pointed out that the Watauga set-
tlement occupied a peculiar position in the colonial history
of this country, and that like Connecticut it grew into a
determinate form of government free from extraneous
control or influence. But Connecticut had succeeded by
the wise policy of its controlling forces in becoming an
independent unit. The Watauga settlement, unable to
cope with the hostile forces around it, had been compelled
voluntarily to surrender its autonomy in order to find pro-
tection in union with a larger and a stronger organization.
But the surrender, although voluntary, failed to accom-
plish the effect it was designed to accomplish. The old
CEDED BY NORTH CAROLINA.
69
Watauga people, remembering the achievements of Sevier
and Shelby and the glory of King's Mountain, and recog-
nizing no adequate return, felt sore and belittled. They
were keenly alive to any lack of appreciation, and North
Carolina was too strongly immersed in troubles of its
own to have much thought of a handful of men beyond
the mountains.
In the April session of 1784, the General Assembly of
North Carolina, in accordance with the recommendation of
Congress itself as well as with the dictates of a far-seeing
and enlightened statesmanship, imitated the example of
Virginia and New York, and ceded to the United States
all the territory which is now the State of Tennessee.
This of course included all the settlements. The condi-
tion of the cession was its acceptance by Congress within
two years. Until Congress should have accepted the ceded
territory, the jurisdiction of North Carolina over it was
to remain in every respect the same as heretofore. The
Hillsboro land office was closed. North Carolina was
in reality weary of the empty honor of having as a part
of herself a territory which paid no taxes, which made
constant requisition for supplies, which demanded almost
a standing army for its protection, and which expected to
be reimbursed for the expenses incurred in defending
itself. The relations were not unlike those which now
exist between England and Canada.
When the question of cession was first broached, it was
accepted by the four representatives of the western coun-
ties at Hillsboro, as well as by those who proposed it as
the natural and legitimate solution of a complex problem.
No one apparently dreamed of opposition on the part of
the settlers themselves, and the news of the passage was
first brought to the settlement by the representatives who
had voted for it. There is no reason to think that the
Watauga people had any objection to the cession. On
the contrary, they desired a dissolution of the irksome
70
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
bonds which bound them to North Carolina, and were ripe
for dissolution. The objection was against the manner of
cession and its conditions. Those most interested were
not consulted, though this might have been pardoned in
view of the fact that their representatives were present
and consenting. But the main cause of complaint was
that North Carolina had left them without any form of
government for two years. Some pretended to believe
that no provision had been made for asserting the sov-
ereignty of the State during the interval. But all knew
that whatever may have been the provisions of the bill,
the reality was a worse state of things than had existed
before.
A storm of indignation swept through the entire settle-
ment. The Watauga pride had been cut to the quick.
North Carolina was bitterly reviled, and the most extrav-
agant denunciations of her ingratitude and tyranny were
heard. No terms of reproach were too severe, no threats
were regarded as foreshadowing steps towards an impos-
sible revenge. Even the most unprejudiced, even those
who regarded the popular indignation as in a measure a
ridiculous ebullition of local vanity, were alarmed by the
impending contingency of two years of lawlessness and
disorder. The impression was general and well founded
that North Carolina would trouble herself but little about
the administration in a section which was soon to pass
from her control. The most pressing evil was the lack
of a proper judiciary or of an available militia organiza-
tion. The Superior Court alone had jurisdiction of fel-
onies, and no judge for the western district had ever been
appointed. Only a brigadier-general could call out the
entire militia of a district, and there was at that time no
brigadier-general. An Indian war was always an impend-
ing contingency. There was no adequate military organi-
zation, no method of compulsory enlistment, no means of
collecting taxes. It was confidently expected, and with
CEDED BY NORTH CAROLINA.
71
reason, that the country would again be the resort of the
thriftless and the lawless - the vagabond and the assas-
sin. The people regarded themselves without govern-
ment, and, true to the traditions of their race, they sought
the solution of the difficulty in their own resources. As
naturally as they spoke the language of England, they
turned to the laws of England.
It is one of the noteworthy facts in the history of insti-
tutions that the possessors of English tradition always
begin with the first primal germ of local self-govern-
ment at hand, be it court leet, court of quarter sessions,
township, county, school district, or military company,
and build upward. The Watauga people had nothing so
convenient as the militia companies, and they began with
them as representing a more minutely varied constituency
than the county court. Each company elected two rep-
resentatives, and the representatives so elected in each
county formed themselves into a committee, and the three
committees of Washington, Sullivan, and Greene counties
met as a kind of impromptu or temporary legislature, and
decided to call a general convention to be elected by the
people of the different counties. This convention met on
the 23d of August, 1784, at Jonesboro. John Sevier was
elected president, and Landon Carter, secretary. John
Sevier is the most prominent name in Tennessee history,
and within these limits and upon this field he is the most
brilliant military and civil figure this State has ever pro-
duced. Jackson attained a larger fame upon a broader
field of action, and perhaps his mental scope may appear
to fill a wider horizon to those who think his statesmanship
equal to his generalship.
But the results he accom-
only in so far as
Sevier, however,
plished affected the history of Tennessee
it formed a part of the United States.
was purely a Tennessean. He fought for Tennessee, he
defined its boundaries, he watched over and guarded it in
its beginning, he helped form it, and he exercised a decisive
72
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
influence upon its development. It is safe to say that
without Sevier the history of Tennessee would in many
important respects not be what it now is.
He came of a Huguenot family named Xavier, though
his immediate ancestors were from England, and the infu-
sion of French blood gave him all the vivacity, impet-
uosity, ardent sympathies, and suave bearing which are
popularly supposed to be characteristic of that nation. In
personal appearance he was rather tall, erect, and even
when young inclined to robustness. He had the quick
flash of eye and the hasty temper of the impetuous char-
acter. He excelled in the manly accomplishments of the
age and surroundings in which he lived. As a horseman
he had no equal, and he was fond of showing his craft to
the best advantage by riding an animal of temper and
mettle. In the art of Indian warfare he had no equal,
and he never met a reverse. Mad Anthony Wayne was
not a greater terror to the Indians of the Miami than was
Sevier to the Indians of the Cumberland and the Tennes-
see. His rule of tactics was extreme caution in the ab-
sence or concealment of the enemy, reckless impetuosity
in their presence.
Governor Blount on one occasion de-
clared that "his name carried more terror to the Chero-
kees than an additional regiment would have done." To
his men he evinced that suave cordiality and well-judged
familiarity characteristic of all the great captains of the
world. His enthusiasm, his personal daring, his resolute
quickness, his knightly disposition, made him the idol of
his soldiers and his neighbors. His tenderness to his wife
and his generosity to his children were proverbial. His
house was always open, and nearly all of his expeditions
against the Indians were partly at his own expense or the
expense of the family. He was popularly known as "Nol-
lichucky Jack," and the grim mountaineers worshiped him
with an extravagance of adoration. They loved him
with a warm, almost intense, personal regard which had
CEDED BY NORTH CAROLINA.
73
grown from the time when with Robertson he successfully
defended the Watauga fort against the largest band of
Indians that had ever invaded the settlement, to the time
when he had crushed them at Boyd's Creek. Sevier was
not skilled in the learning of books, but of the life around
him he was a thorough master. He could read the woods
and the rivers, and the minds and the thoughts of men,
and he knew how to use his knowledge. This was suffi-
cient. But it must not be thought that he lacked the
rudiments of education. He could write well and forcibly,
and though a "spelling bee" of the present day might
have put him to the blush, he could spell as well as the
average. His chief claim to a higher order of ability is
justified by his clear vision of the present needs of his
people, and of the future requirements of the State whose
greatness he foresaw. He was one of the Committee of
Five in the Watauga Association. He saw the necessity
of a union between Watauga and North Carolina until
the former had sufficient strength to maintain itself
against outward encroachments. He wrote the petition
for annexation, and he secured its adoption by the Con-
gress of North Carolina. He saw the necessity of keep-
ing the British troops from the young settlements. If
Ferguson had once passed the Appalachian chain he
would have been met with fire and sword. His very mode
of warfare made manifest his statesmanship. Of all the
men of his time, he alone foresaw and had a determinate
idea of the limits of the future State. He foresaw and
denounced the ruinous restrictions with which Jay's prop-
osition in reference to the navigation of the Mississippi
would cripple the commerce of the Mississippi valley and
of the young State about to be formed between North
Carolina and the Great River. He recognized what should
be the logical enlargement of the three original settle-
ments. He realized the necessity of a sure and compact
growth, and he advocated only such purchases from the
74
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
Indians as could be secured by settlement when purchased.
He was frequently termed by the Indians "Treaty Maker,'
and he figured in every treaty of importance which was
made until the appearance of Andrew Jackson upon the
stage of state history.
It is partly due to the latter that Sevier has been over-
clouded. Jackson appeared when Sevier had practically
accomplished the work, and he reaped the reward. Jack-
son was a bitter man in his temper, relentless and unfor-
giving. Sevier was a school-boy in disposition, oscillating
between the tear forgot as soon as shed and the sunshine
of the breast.¹ He could harbor no malice. He was
quick and self-assertive in defense. Jackson was quick
and self-assertive in attack. The former was a leader
in battle, the foremost of his soldiers. The latter was a
leader in war, and his soldiers to him were implements
of war, to attack here, to retreat there, to storm a strong
hold, to carry a height, to hold a fort. Sevier was a
great fighter, Jackson was a great general. The writer
has given more space to the character of Sevier than he
perhaps would otherwise have been able to do in a work
of this size because of the undeserved neglect into which
he has fallen in popular esteem. Jackson is a popular
figure both in history and among the people. Sevier is
almost entirely unknown to the great mass of the people
of the State, whose reading goes no farther than the mag-
azine and the newspaper. But among historians the re-
verse holds good. Parton has all but ruined Jackson's
reputation among the thoughtful. Sumner sinks him al-
most to the level of a guerrilla chief" and a cross-road
politician. But Sevier has been treated with remarkable
indulgence by historians and writers. Haywood, Wheeler,
Flint, Ramsey, Monette, and others all recognize differ-
ent points in his character, his mind, and his career to
praise and exalt. To say that he was in his sphere a
1 Gray.
66
CEDED BY NORTH CAROLINA.
75
statesman of the first order of ability, and that as a war-
rior he was excelled by none who engaged in the same
mode of warfare, and that he never lost a battle, claims
for him a high place among the great men of the world.
Only he acted on a small stage. There can be no doubt
that he is the greatest figure in Tennessee history, and
there is as little doubt that outside the mountains and val-
leys of East Tennessee he is, from a popular standpoint,
as little known as if he had been one of the shepherd
kings of Egypt.
When the convention at Jonesboro elected him leader
of the movement to form a new State, they did so with a
full recognition of his character. He was known as one
who stormed his way through the world, and when he ac-
cepted the leadership, those who knew his fiery resolution
realized the crisis which had called him to the front. The
deputies felt with general satisfaction that the impending
responsibility had been shifted upon shoulders amply able
to bear it. An intimation of his ability to act well the
part assigned him was the conservative reluctance which
he evinced to proceed to extreme measures.
He favored
the end aimed at most heartily, but he reprobated too
great haste.
After North Carolina removed the most
crying of the grievances complained of by the western
people, and after it became apparent that provision had
been made for maintaining at least the semblance of sov-
ereignty until Congress accepted the cession, Sevier ad-
vised a cessation of the movement. When his advice was
disregarded, he threw all hesitation aside, and, like the
Southern Unionist at the South when the war began,
entered into the contest with earnest zeal.
CHAPTER X.
STATE OF FRANKLIN FORMED.
THE data upon which rests our knowledge of the history
of the State of Franklin are so meagre that it is impos-
sible to follow accurately the progress of events. It is
supposed that the convention which met at Jonesboro
adopted the resolution to form a "separate and distinct
State, independent of the State of North Carolina, at this
time." 1
William Cocke was appointed on a committee,
either at this or a subsequent meeting, to prepare a plan
of association. The one reported was simple and directly
suited to the exigencies of the case. Provision was made
for the calling of a future convention in which representa-
tion was to be according to companies. It was further
resolved that clerks having the bonds of public officers
should hold the same until some mode should be prescribed
for having their accounts fairly and properly liquidated
with North Carolina. Those holding public moneys were
required to render due account of them. The first symp-
tom of internal dissension became manifest in the action
of Samuel Doak and Richard White, who entered their
protest against both these resolutions because, in their
opinion, contrary to law.
The plan of holding a convention to form a constitu-
1 A discrepancy between the names of the members who were
elected to the first Jonesboro convention and those who voted for
this resolution seems to indicate that this action may have been taken
at a subsequent convention. The proceedings were found in manu-
script among the papers of Rev. Samuel Houston, but bear no date.
STATE OF FRANKLIN FORMED.
77
tion and provide a name for the new State was then
adopted, and Jonesboro appointed as the place of meeting.
Each county was to send five delegates. The meeting
adjourned, having fairly inaugurated the contest with
North Carolina, which still claimed jurisdiction until the
expiration of the two years, and whose pride was aroused
by the proceedings of the Watauga people. But in the
mean while opposition began to develop itself. John Tip-
ton grew lukewarm. Some were opposed to any steps
being taken at all, and a great many were opposed to any
movement in the direction of separation until all reason-
able means had been exhausted in an attempt to accom-
plish the separation from the parent State in the more
legitimate channels of peaceful agitation. The natural
reverence for established institutions, the fear of violent
or radical change, anticipations of unforeseen evils, per-
sonal reasons of self-interest dependent upon the existing
order of things, a lack of local sensitiveness, all tended
to create a party more or less opposed to the movement
just inaugurated. Their opposition was still further in-
creased by the action of the legislature of North Carolina,
which repealed the act of cession, formed the western
counties, including Davidson, into a judicial district by the
name of Washington District, and appointed an assistant
judge and an attorney-general for the Superior Court to
be held at Jonesboro. The militia of Washington Dis-
trict was formed into a brigade, and John Sevier was ap-
pointed brigadier-general.
For a time it was supposed that this would terminate
the agitation in favor of a new State. Even John Sevier
thought this was the end. In a letter to Kennedy of
Greene County, he says:
"I conclude this step will sat-
isfy the people with the old State, and we shall pursue no
further measures as to a new State." But the revolution
could not be turned backwards. There had been too much
neglect on the part of the mother, or, as many now said,
78
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
the step-mother State. Many of the reasons which justi-
fied the secession of America from England justified the
secession of the western counties from North Carolina.
One chief cause of indignation was the fact of being
ceded to the confederacy. It must not be forgotten that
the United States of America were then a collection of
independent States, not unlike the principalities which
professed a nominal allegiance to the descendants of Fred-
erick Barbarossa, bound together only by treaties which
could not be enforced. The general government pos-
sessed none of the attributes of administrative strength.
The public debt at the close of the war amounted to
$42,000,000, and Congress was unable to pay even the
interest upon it. Over $300,000,000 in bills of credit
had been issued during the first few years of the war, and
in 1780 they had ceased to circulate. It was considered
a double disgrace to be the slave of an imbecile.
When the new convention met John Sevier was elected
president, and F. A. Ramsey, the father of the historian,
was elected secretary. A plan of government was drawn
up and adopted and ordered to be submitted to the action
of a convention chosen by the people, which was to assem-
ble in the latter part of the year at Greeneville. In the
mean time, however, it was deemed expedient to make pro-
vision for a temporary form of government, and delegates
to the legislature of the new and as yet unnamed State
were ordered to be elected according to the laws of North
Carolina. This legislature met in the early part of 1785,
and was the first legislative body that ever assembled in
this State. The name of the speaker of the Senate was
Landon Carter, and of the clerk, Thomas Talbot. The
speaker of the House of Commons, so called, was Wil-
liam Cage, and of the clerk, Thomas Chapman. John
Sevier was elected governor. David Campbell was elected
judge of the Superior Court. The state officers were sec-
retary of state, treasurer, surveyor-general, attorney-gen-
STATE OF FRANKLIN FORMED.
79
eral, and brigadier-general of militia. The governor
was given a kind of cabinet, called Council of State.
County courts were established in both old and new coun-
ties. Greene County was divided into three, and two new
counties, Caswell and Sevier, erected. A new county,
Spencer, was also taken from Sullivan and Greene, and
Wayne from Washington. Justices of the peace were
appointed. Taxes and poll taxes were levied, and were
allowed to be paid in the products of the country at a
fixed valuation. Raccoon and fox skins were valued at
one shilling and six pence. Clean beaver skins, six shil-
lings. Bacon well cured, six pence per pound. Good
country-made butter, one shilling per pound. Good dis-
tilled rye whiskey, two shillings six pence per gallon. The
salaries of the officers were to be paid in kind or in money
of the State of Franklin. Over twenty articles were enu-
merated and valued, and were such as would pass from
hand to hand almost as readily as currency. Acts were
passed for the promotion of learning in the county of
Washington, to establish a militia, to procure a great seal
for the State, to direct the method of electing members
of the General Assembly, to ascertain the value of gold
and silver, foreign coin, and the paper currency in circula-
tion in North Carolina, and to declare the same a lawful
tender in the State of Franklin, to ascertain the salaries
of the public officers, to ascertain the power and authori-
ties of the judges of the different courts and the like.
Governor Sevier, wishing to have his hands free for the
contest which he saw impending, at once assembled the
Cherokees in order to make treaties with them by which
their depredations might be obviated, at least until the
difficulty with North Carolina had been definitely settled.
Hé met them at the mouth of Dumplin Creek, on the
north bank of the French Broad. The Indians ceded all
the lands south of the Holston and the French Broad to
the dividing ridge between Little River and the Tennes-
80
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
see, and Sevier promised to prevent any further encroach-
ments upon them. He made a speech deprecating and
deploring the animosities existing between the white and
the red man. In addition to this, nearly all who had held
county offices under North Carolina were continued in the
enjoyment of their honors.
CHAPTER XI.
STATE OF FRANKLIN.
WHEN the news of the separation reached North Caro-
lina, Governor Martin sent Major Samuel Henderson as
a kind of confidential agent to the new State to learn the
true extent of the disaffection. But before Henderson's
return, Governor Martin received an official declaration
of independence signed by the Governor and General
Assembly of the new State. Martin, in reply, issued a
manifesto to the inhabitants of Franklin, in which he
calmly and dispassionately reviews and refutes the vari-
ous causes of discontent which had been advanced to
justify separation. One of the most decisive had been
the failure of the government to send goods promised the
Indians in payment of their lands, in consequence of
which failure the latter had committed serious depreda-
tions. The goods in question had merely been delayed
by the act of cession, and would be delivered in due time.
The hostilities of the Indians were attributed to provo-
cations given by the settlers, notably the murder of one
of their chiefs by Hubbard. The manifesto closed with a
threat: "North Carolina's resources are not yet so ex-
hausted or her spirits damped but she may take satisfac-
tion for this great injury received, regain her government
over the revolted territory, or render it not worth possess-
ing." The name of the chief to whose murder Governor
Martin alluded in his manifesto was Untoola or Gun Rod.
To the whites he was known as Butler. The circumstances
attending his death have been preserved, and give us a
vivid picture of one phase of the life of those days.
82
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
There lived in Watauga a man by the name of James
Hubbard, a wild, vindictive character, whose parents had
been murdered by the Indians whilst he was a boy, and
the passion of whose life was an unending and deadly
revenge. He was just such a character as we are familiar
with in the highly-wrought sketches of Mr. Sylvanus
Cobb and the "New York Weekly." Hubbard possessed,
in an eminent degree, the coolness, courage, and wily cun-
ning of the white man turned savage. He could practice
and had practiced for years, and successfully, the strate-
gies of single-handed warfare, and excelled the boldest
and shrewdest of the race he hated. The Indians knew
him and feared him more than any man of his time, not
excepting, perhaps, Simon Kenton and Daniel Boone. In
an encounter with Butler, Hubbard had disarmed him,
and harboring, perhaps, an unusually bitter hatred, had
taken his weapon from him and sent him back to his peo-
ple. This was a disgrace so degrading, so humiliatingly
low, that a white man cannot adequately grasp its extent.
The death of him who had caused the disgrace could alone
wash it even partially out. During a cessation of hostili-
ties between the Cherokees of the upper towns and the set-
tlers, corn became scarce. The influx of emigrants had
been too rapid. Several parties visited the Indian towns
to obtain a supply, — among the rest, Hubbard and a com-
panion. Hubbard selected the village of which Butler
had been chief, hoping perhaps to gloat over him in his
degradation. Butler heard of his approach and quietly
slipped away from Citico with a friend. He met Hubbard
and his companion leading their horses, which were heav-
ily laden with articles to be bartered for corn. Butler
and his companion were on horseback, the former, armed
with a double-barreled rifle. As soon as Hubbard saw the
two approaching, he put his associate on his guard. As
Butler rode up he demanded, with an air of insult, the
object of the visit to his people's country. Hubbard,
STATE OF FRANKLIN.
83
appreciating the need of the settlers for corn, and desiring
to avoid anything which would bring on a renewal of hos-
tilities, answered civilly that he had come to buy corn, and
showed an empty sack. He at the same time drew forth
a bottle of whiskey, and invited Butler and his friend to
take a drink. Butler made no reply, but gazed at his
enemy with burning eyes. No other word was uttered.
In showing the bag and taking out the bottle, Hubbard
had leaned his rifle against a small tree near him, hoping
to propitiate Butler by this act of confidence. The latter
now attempted to ride up to Hubbard, evidently with the
design of getting between him and his gun. Hubbard
quietly laid his hand upon the muzzle of his rifle. He
turned calmly towards Butler as if to invite his attack by
his own composure. There was an air of lofty assurance
and of self-confidence in his manner which reminded the
savage of the former contest. Blind with rage, he aimed
a blow at his enemy, who adroitly avoided it. Butler then
raised his gun and fired. Hubbard caught the sight and
the line of the bullet and bent his head to one side. The
bullet cut a scar in his temple. Butler had immediately
wheeled his horse, and was eighty yards distant when
Hubbard pulled his trigger. Butler fell from his horse
wounded but not dead. His companion escaped. Hub-
bard, who was brave but not generous, raised his foe and
leaned him against a tree. Having failed to extract any
information from Butler, and irritated by his taunts, he
cleft his skull with his rifle barrel. The Indians retal-
iated, and to this, rather than the stoppage of the goods,
Governor Martin attributed the Indian hostilities.
The temperate tone of Governor Martin's manifesto
gained new adherents for the cause of North Carolina,
but the general sentiment of the people still turned
towards independence as the least of several evils.
admitted that permanent connection with North Carolina
was out of the question. If ceded by North Carolina the
All
84
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
1
public lands would go to enrich the federal treasury. If
admitted as an independent State or Colony with the rest,
these would accrue to its own benefit. This reason out-
weighed all others for the time, and the large majority of
the people remained firm in their position, despite Gov-
ernor Martin's manifesto. Having assumed this attitude,
they felt in some degree irritated by the threats he had
uttered. Sevier's reply to Martin's manifesto was ad-
dressed to Governor Caswell, his successor. It was deci-
sive, direct, and uncompromising. Without indulging in
the rhetorical generalities which distinguish most official
documents of that day, he stated forcibly and clearly the
views of the question which obtained in Franklin, and an-
swered categorically the arguments in Martin's manifesto.
Governor Caswell's reply ¹ was well calculated to allay
irritation by waiving any further discussion of the ques-
tion until the meeting of the North Carolina Assembly.
As regards the distribution of goods intended for the In-
dians, Governor Caswell expressed his readiness to dis-
tribute them in case the militia under Sevier's command
be placed under his control. Sevier in his reply ignored
this proposition, but informed the governor of North Car-
olina that the legislature of the State of Franklin had
appointed a commissioner to wait upon the North Carolina
Assembly. The people of the new State had not ceased
their preparations, and by the time the assembly of North
Carolina met, had strengthened and rendered more com-
pact their internal organization. An attempt was made
at this time by the inhabitants of Virginia along the
Washington District border, to secede from Virginia and
unite with the new State, but it was frustrated by the
prompt action of Patrick Henry, who was then governor.
In the mean time an active discussion was carried on in
the young State, relative to the proposed form of constitu-
tion. A committee appointed at the last convention had
1 Caswell succeeded Martin.
STATE OF FRANKLIN.
85
drawn up a constitution, which was, no doubt, intended to
inaugurate a radical departure in American constitutional
history. But when made public, it met with universal
objection. It is too long to be given in full, and occupies
too small a position in the history of institutions to deserve
more than a cursory review. It was a visionary scheme,
without coherence, and possible only in the minds of those
who had an imperfect understanding of the science of
government. It is sufficient to say that there was to be
but one legislative body, and that only land-owners were
eligible. Lawyers, ministers of the gospel, and doctors
were ineligible. The name of the State was Frankland.
A university was to be erected, endowed with lands, and a
tax laid on every pound of indigo carried out of the State,
every barrel of flour, and every hogshead of tobacco.
These were the chief innovations and caused its defeat.
The very name of Frankland sounded odd and strange.
Why so many checks and counter-checks, it was asked?
Why should there be no senate? Why should doctors be
excluded from the legislature? Lawyers are supposed to
be the best judges of law, why should they be excluded
from law-making? These and countless other objections
caused the overwhelming rejection of the new constitu-
tion, and when the convention assembled at Greeneville,
in November, 1785, it was at once voted down. Sevier
proposed the constitution of North Carolina, under which
the State was being organized, and it was adopted with a
few slight changes. The name of Franklin was retained
in honor of Dr. Benjamin Franklin. The next step taken
was to appoint William Cocke, afterwards senator from
Tennessee, and one of the most eloquent orators of the
Southwest, to present the constitution to Congress with a
memorial requesting to be admitted as a State. How-
ever, Congress ignored both the message and the mes-
senger. Shortly after the adoption of the constitution for
the new State, the North Carolina Assembly met at New-
86
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
bern and passed an act of oblivion in favor of those who
would return to their allegiance, and invited the revolted
counties to send representatives to the General Assembly
of the parent State. The moderate tone of this act tended
greatly to allay irritation, and increased the favorable im-
pression made by Governor Martin's manifesto and Gov-
ernor Caswell's letter. The reaction had set in, and rea-
sons, which in the first moment of excitement had been
regarded as of no importance, were now brought forward
as new, unimpeachable by fair-minded logic, and conclu-
sive upon all but fools and office-holders. In Washington
County a senator and two representatives to the North
Carolina General Assembly were elected on the third Fri-
day of August, 1786. The names of those voting were
enrolled, and from now on, says Haywood, opposition to
the new State "put on a more solemn and determined
aspect than it ever had done before." John Tipton was
elected senator, and James Stuart and Richard White
were elected to the House of Commons.
Tipton, even before his election, had gradually been
coming forward as the leader of the North Carolina party.
He had been one of the inaugurators of the new move-
ment, and had been a member of nearly every meeting
of elective delegates until the absolute formation of the
government of the new State. He was a member of the
convention of fifteen which had drafted the unfortunate
constitution of the State of Frankland. This change of
mind may have been caused by the logic of events, but it
is more probable that the change was due to his jealousy
of Sevier. The two men can scarcely be compared. Tip-
ton was indeed a brave man, but he lacked intellectual
force. Envy of Sevier's popularity was the ruling motive
of his character. He was vindictive, relentless, and even
malignant. One of the last acts of his official life was
an attempt to destroy the reputation for honesty of Sevier,
at that time governor of Tennessee. He lacked the ardent
STATE OF FRANKLIN.
87
generosity and fiery impetuosity of the latter, though his
anger was quickly and easily inflamed. He felt peculiarly
fitted for command and the leadership of great enter-
prises. He had experienced the bitterness of seeing
Sevier, year after year, called to take the lead in all civil
as well as military crises. His hatred of Sevier was In-
dian-like in its intensity, and his threat to have him shot,
after the collapse of the State of Franklin, was made with
the determination of having it carried out. He was de-
terred only by appeals to his reason and his self-interest.
He always thought of Sevier as one who had warped his
career and reaped the reward which else would have fallen
to his own share. After Robertson's departure, there was
none who could have contested the leadership of the
frontier with Tipton but Sevier.
When Sevier, upon receipt of his commission as briga-
dier-general of the newly erected district, stood upon the
steps of Jonesboro court-house and advised the people
to return to their allegiance, Tipton stood firm to the cause
of the new State. But when Sevier, yielding to the dic-
tates of his own inclinations and the persuasions of his
friends, returned to the cause which it was popularly sup-
posed he had deserted, Tipton wavered. When Sevier
was elected governor of the new State, his rage knew no
bounds. He allowed himself to be hurried into extrem-
ities of resistance to the new government which frequently
caused the shedding of blood and possibly loss of life.
He held court at Buffalo near Jonesboro, under the au-
thority of the parent State. On one occasion, he entered
the court-house at Jonesboro, captured the records, and
turned the justices out of doors. He broke up a court sit-
ting in Greeneville, under the authority of the new State.
He had a personal altercation with Sevier on the streets
of Jonesboro. When elections were held for the General
Assembly of North Carolina, he was elected senator in
the expectation of at last entering upon a career where he
88
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
would no longer be thwarted by the magnetism of manner
and the brilliancy of mind which the populace loved and
admired in his rival.
ess.
After the election of Tipton, the contest became more
spirited, though only those in high office appear, as a rule,
to have taken a tragic view of it. To the people it was
rather a matter to be decided by moral influence than an
appeal to the ultimate arbitrament of force. The conflicts
were for the most part with the fists, frequently resulting
in minor mutilations. The sheriffs of the opposing fac-
tions were selected with reference to their physical prow-
There is no authentic record of death resulting from
this cause. Bishop Asbury speaks of having heard of it,
but nothing more definite has come down. Still, the con-
fusion and anarchy were no less than if there had been
frequent and deadly brawls. It was a daily occurrence
for one faction to rob the other of the records of their
county. Many valuable papers and deeds were thus lost.
Marriages solemnized under the laws of one party were
not recognized as valid by the other.¹ Executors and ad-
ministrators were in despair, not knowing which court to
account to. No one knew where to apply for probation
of wills, the approval of bonds, the recording of deeds,
the paying of taxes. As a result no taxes were paid at
all. The new State, needing a medium of exchange hav-
ing a more widely recognized element of negotiability
than raccoon and beaver skins, gave Charles Robertson
1 The State of Tennessee subsequently passed an act making valid
marriages contracted under the authority of the State of Franklin.
This perhaps is the origin of the statement made by several writers,
that North Carolina passed an act to legalize the unions entered into
by the earlier settlers, or "children of the forest," who, without law
or gospel, agreed to live together as man and wife. No such act
was ever passed by North Carolina, and I have been unable to find any
proof of the existence of such unions. Preachers were among the
earliest comers, as for instance, Cummings, Doak, Balch, Carrick,
and Houston.
STATE OF FRANKLIN.
89
liberty to coin $30,000 in specie. War was levied against
the Indians, and all the attributes of absolute sovereignty
exercised. But the difficulties surrounding the new gov-
ernment were steadily growing greater and more decided.
The reaction was more pronounced than ever, and the
supporters of Sevier's administration remarked with acri-
monious chagrin that the defection was most injurious.
among those who had helped found the young State.
Sevier finally appointed Cocke and Campbell, the most
able and respected of his adherents, commissioners to
treat with the legislature of North Carolina for a separa-
tion, and to devise some means of extricating the new
Commonwealth of Franklin from the increasing dangers
which threatened its existence. Sevier sent them with a
mild and civilly worded address to the Governor of North
Carolina, but in no respect wavering in his attitude of
determination to preserve the separate independence of
the State which had made him its governor.
Judge Campbell, having suffered some personal injury,
was unable to go, but sent a kind of diplomatic document
in his stead, in which he reviewed the arguments of both
sides, and urged the confusion which would arise in mat-
ters of litigation that had been decided by the courts of
Franklin.
Cocke, however, made his way to Fayetteville, and,
according to the custom of English parliamentary usage,
was allowed to appear at the bar of the House of Com-
mons of North Carolina and plead the cause he had come
to represent.
Those who dwell with pleasure only on the grand and
the sublime, and who see sublimity and grandeur only in
the stupendous and the overpowering, will find Cocke's
appearance before the legislature of North Carolina a very
tame and colorless affair. It affected only a few thousand
mountaineers beyond the Alleghanies. But to the true
imagination, which sees grandeur in ideas, and sublimity
{
90
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
in the destiny of a people, it will indeed seem to be one of
the finest and most suggestive spectacles in the annals of
American States. Cocke's speech had been carefully pre-
pared, and it was feelingly delivered. In itself it deserves
a high rank among the forensic displays of an age fertile
in orators distinguished for the force, brilliancy, and pas-
sion of their oratory. The circumstances under which he
spoke were full of contrasts. Many of his hearers were
fresh from the battle-fields of the Revolution, where they
had vindicated the principles for which he now sued. He
pleaded the cause of a people, who, from small begin-
nings, had grown into a commonwealth, untried perhaps,
and occupying a circumscribed province, but compact, self-
reliant, and eager to vindicate its right to form a new
State among the republics of the western world. They
had gone into the wilderness; they had met and conquered,
almost single-handed and alone, the fiercest and most war-
like of the tribes who inhabited the Valley of the Missis-
sippi. They had extorted the admiration of the greatest
of American orators,¹ by their unflinching courage on
every field of battle and against every foe. They had
risked their lives to redeem from foreign subjection those
who were now refusing them the right of making their
own laws and regulating their own affairs. They had
been as a bulwark for the Mother State against the at-
tacks of a foe whose craft, cunning, and bloodthirsty
barbarism were the terror of the American people. He
dwelt upon every point whose emphasis would appeal fa-
vorably to any passion, sentiment, or thought of his hear-
ers, the reasons which had actuated those who had
formed the new State, the dread of Indian hostilities, the
neglect of the parent State, the conditional cession. He
reviewed the position of those who in North Carolina had
made the cession and then retracted it and pointed out its
inconsistencies throwing the Watauga people heedlessly
1 Patrick Henry.
STATE OF FRANKLIN.
91
away without their consent, and now demanding that they
return against their will, granting them the right of becom-
ing a State and then denying that they were able to become
one. He dwelt upon the distance of the Franklin people
from the home government, their exposed position, the im-
possibility of exercising promptly and efficiently the func-
tions of government from the capitals of North Carolina,
the failure of that State to provide the means of defense
against either internal dissensions or external dangers.
Indians were not of the number of those who issue decla-
rations before commencing hostilities and observe the
usages of civilized warfare. In the midst of peace, in the
gathering of harvests, the war-whoop is often heard when
least expected. But two courses were open. Either let
the parent State provide with the necessary generosity for
the urgent needs of the colony they held in the trammels
of an unwilling union, or let her give them free play for
the exercise of those qualities which had won them pros-
perity and given them strength without external aid,
counsel, or suggestion. Judging the future by the past,
he would not hesitate to say that the first was an improb-
able contingency. It remained for them to decide upon
the second.
Cocke's eloquence, however, failed to accomplish the
object of his mission. He modified, perhaps, the eager-
ness of the sentiment which demanded expiation for the
insult to offended sovereignty, and gained a few minor
concessions, but nothing more. The General Assembly at
once passed an act of oblivion, such as had been passed
once before, and also allowed those who had suffered in-
juries by decisions respecting property incompatible with
justice to have their common law remedy. Certain pro-
visions were made as to officers in the revolted counties.
Those in office at the time of the revolt who were still in-
cumbents were continued, but all others who had accepted
office under the State of Franklin were displaced, and
92
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
their positions were to be filled by appointments. The
general indignation of the older inhabitants was excited
by this last clause, as those who held offices under the
State of Franklin were, as a rule, those who had been
most conspicuous in the Indian and Continental wars.
Judge Campbell, in a letter to Governor Caswell, says:
"The majority of the people of Franklin proclaim, with
a degree of enthusiastic zeal, against a reversion to your
State. Indeed, I am at a loss to conjecture whether your
Assembly wished us to revert; if so, why did they treat
the old faithful officers of this country with so much con-
tempt? Officers who have suffered in the common cause,
who have been faithful in the discharge of the trust re-
posed in them, have been displaced without even the for-
mality of a trial."
Evan Shelby was to be commander of the brigade. All
taxes due and unpaid in the disaffected counties since
1794 were remitted. As a measure of conciliation, this
last was the happiest stroke of policy possible under the
circumstances, but as a measure of statesmanship it was
a fatal blunder. This was among the first instances of
that remission of taxes which became a standing feature
of legislative history in Southwestern States deriving
their laws and institutions from North Carolina. An
overflow, a severe hurricane, a pestilence, any cause was
sufficient to call forth from the afflicted locality a petition
to be released from bearing its portion of the general
burdens of government.
CHAPTER XII.
END OF THE STATE OF FRANKLIN.
ONE of the first acts of the legislature of Franklin had
been to erect several new counties, one of which, lying
west of the north fork of the Holston, had been taken
from Sullivan County and named Spencer. The General
Assembly, ignoring the nomenclature of its trans-Alpine
or trans-Appalachian rival, had erected the same district
or division of territory into a county and given it the
name of Hawkins. After the remission of taxes, the
North Carolina officials in Washington, Sullivan, and
Hawkins Counties, both elective and appointive, gained a
decided accretion of strength, and although the Franklin
organization still continued, its adherents became dis-
heartened, and either avoided conflicts with the North
Carolina or Tipton men, or entered into the contest with
much less eagerness and acridity than before. In Greene
County, where Sevier then resided, no one was found
willing to accept a North Carolina commission, and there
alone the State of Franklin held undisputed sway.
There were still elements, however, of sufficient strength
to leave the crisis one of imminent danger. The North
Carolina legislature had adjourned, having passed such
measures as it was supposed would quiet the agitation.
But no provision had been made for the contingency of a
failure. Practically the attempt to quell the revolt had
failed. It would now be nearly a year before the reas-
sembling of the North Carolina General Assembly; and
those whose interests were at stake, and who foresaw, with
94
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
feelings of the deepest apprehension, a continuance of the
disorder and conflicts of the last year, welcomed with
eager satisfaction a proposition of compromise, by which
means a modus vivendi might be established until the
meeting of the next General Assembly. The terms of
the compromise had not been formulated, but the senti-
ment in favor of a compromise of some sort was so strong
that even Sevier, to whom compromise was almost a degra-
dation, was forced to yield to the popular clamor. This
willingness received a strong impulse from the fact that a
more compact form of union among all the States seemed
imminent. Evan Shelby, a son of the hero of Kanawha¹
and lately appointed brigadier-general of the militia under
North Carolina, was made the arbitrator, upon the sugges-
tion of Governor Caswell. He and Sevier, with other
and inferior officers, met on the 20th of March, 1787, and
drew up articles of compromise. There was to be a ces-
sation of all litigations not absolutely essential. The peo-
ple were to pay taxes to the officers of either government.
The jails of Franklin were also to receive prisoners com-
mitted by North Carolina justices, as if committed by
Franklin justices. The western counties were to send
delegates, with such instructions as they saw fit, to the
next General Assembly of North Carolina, and to abide
by the decision of that body in the matter of separation.
This was signed by both Sevier and Shelby and sent to
Governor Caswell. But those who held office under com-
missions from the governor of North Carolina were un-
willing to recognize the validity of a compromise emanat-
ing from no legal tribunal and unsupported by any display
of force. Confident of ultimate victory and hoping to
reap the rewards of office, they repudiated the action of
Shelby, and collected taxes, issued process, and exercised
jurisdiction without regard to the policy of the measure
or the dangers which might result from embittered popu-
1 The older writers frequently spelled this Kenhawa.
END OF THE STATE OF FRANKLIN.
95
lar feeling. The Franklin people retaliated in like man-
ner, and the very measures which had been expressly
designed to allay popular disturbance increased the vehe-
mence of feeling and the hostile energy of the antagonists.
After the failure of the compromise became apparent,
those in military command, not knowing what to expect,
and perhaps not unwilling to reap some renown in so im-
portant a crisis, consulted together to devise some means
of protecting the country. Tipton, Maxwell, and Hitch-
ings, colonels respectively of Washington, Sullivan, and
Hawkins, met at the house of Shelby on the 4th of May,
1787. In a kind of memorial addressed to Governor
Caswell and written by Shelby himself, but which ignored
the articles of compromise, they accuse the Franklin peo-
ple of what, in the impeachment of an individual, would
be called high crimes and misdemeanors.¹ They request
that one thousand troops be sent, and suggest that Vir-
ginia, whose border counties had been on the verge of
a similar secession, would be willing to coöperate with
North Carolina.
Governor Caswell's reply to this was couched in a tone
of dignified rebuke, and whilst abating in no respect the
position of Carolina as insisting on a return to allegiance,
he points out the proper measures to be adopted, to avoid
the shedding of blood, to bring about an eventual settle-
ment of the difficulty, and to induce the discordant ele-
ments to join together against the dreaded and treacherous
foe, who along the lower banks of the rivers and in the
depths of the forests was plotting a war of extermination.
against them. This letter to Shelby, which was a fine
rebuke both to his unreasonable fear and to the rhodo-
montades of Hitchings,2 was accompanied by an address
1 Shelby's action in this matter is inexplicable. There is no proof
that the Franklin party had violated the terms of the agreement.
2 In a letter to Shelby, of April 12, 1787, he had said, "Cocke's
party are getting very insolent. I expect in a few days I shall be
96
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
to the inhabitants of the four counties. In this he urged
them to unite against the common foe, to abide by and
maintain the laws of the sovereignty to whom they owed
allegiance, and to await with patience the time when they
may have so increased in wealth and numbers as to jus-
tify a separation. He added these significant words: "It
is my opinion that it may be obtained at an earlier day
than some imagine, if unanimity prevail among you."
This was in reality the coup de grace.
The Franklin, or, as it had now become, the Sevier
party, which had been losing the moral support of the
more thoughtful population, and with this the strength
of cohesion, greeted in this address of Governor Caswell's
an opening for retreat. It was published on the 21st of
May, 1787. On the 1st of March, 1788, Sevier's term of
office as governor of the State of Franklin was to expire.
This date may be regarded as the definite ending point
of the State of Franklin. It was apparent to all except
Sevier that the end was near. But the native energy of
his character was stimulated by the bitterness which ex-
isted between Tipton and himself. Sevier cast about for
some method to restore the failing courage of his friends.
The State of Georgia, as early as 1784, had turned wist-
ful eyes towards the country beyond the Tennessee River,
and especially towards the Great Bend. Various attempts
by various States and land companies had been made to
take possession of this region but had been frustrated by
the Indians. Sevier utilized this desire to form an alli-
ance with Georgia, and agreed with that State to unite
in first putting down a threatened uprising of the Creeks,
and then in occupying the Great Bend of the Tennessee
River. He expected this alliance to lend strength and
dignity to his commonwealth. The emissary who per-
fected these arrangements was Major Elholm, one of
obliged to try their number." Shelby had inclosed this with the
memorial to Governor Caswell.
END OF THE STATE OF FRANKLIN.
97
Pulaski's band, and a man of courage, experience, and
address. In the mean time the adherents of North Caro-
lina were growing stronger, and even in Greene County
delegates were elected to the North Carolina legislature.
The North Carolina county courts in Washington, Sulli-
van, Hawkins, and even Greene had practically exclusive
jurisdiction. Sevier's alliance with Georgia put him in
a condition to request the mediation of that State. The
original States possessed many more attributes of sover-
eignty than at present, and this stroke of diplomacy was
not so fanciful as it would now appear. In fact, the clos-
ing scenes of the State of Franklin finely illustrate the
fertility of Sevier's resources.
But all failed. A brilliant
campaign against the Indians might restore confidence
and unite the people in opposition to the unreasonable
tyranny of the parent State. This, too, was frustrated
by the action of the federal Congress, which appointed
three commissioners, one each for Georgia, North Car-
olina, and South Carolina, to treat with the Indians
and to allay hostilities. This was the death-blow to Se-
vier's hopes and to his government. His most intimate
friends deserte dhim, and even Campbell accepted the
position of judge of the Superior Court of Washington
District under North Carolina. Sevier tried to induce
Evan Shelby to accept the governorship of Franklin as
the one man who could carry the movement successfully
forward.¹ Shelby declined. Sevier, bearing up against
the world in arms, cast about for some refuge, and there
are reasons for believing that at this time he entertained
an idea of utilizing the enthusiasm of his troops by a
campaign against the Spanish possessions in the valley
of the Mississippi, in order to frustrate the negotiations
then pending, the prevailing impression being that Jay's
project of resigning the navigation of this stream to the
Spaniards for a term of years would be accepted by Con-
¹ MS. letter of Sevier in Tennessee Historical Society Library.
98
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
gress. It was in keeping with the boldness and brilliant
decisiveness of his character to regard as neither chi-
merical nor audacious an enterprise so full of danger,
and so wide-reaching in its results. In a letter written
about this time, he says:
66 Take my word for it, we shall
be speedily in possession of New Orleans." Emanating
from this, a report gained currency at the national capi-
tal that Sevier designed a withdrawal from the bands of
the Federal Union in order to establish a new empire in
the Southwest. An investigation was ordered but nothing
treasonable was discovered. It is a matter of conjecture,
but perhaps the ignis fatuus which lured the unstable
and splendid ambition of Burr to a sad and untimely end
may also have danced for the first time, even though fleet-
ingly, before the eyes of the great Tennessean.
The last session of the legislature of Franklin was held
in September, 1787. Several acts were passed, one for
taking possession of the bend of the Tennessee, one open-
ing a land office and directing the officers to receive peltry
instead of money. The most important was one authoriz-
ing the election of two representatives to attend the legis-
lature of North Carolina and make proper representations.
Members were elected in all the counties to the North
Carolina legislature. Greene County sent David Camp-
bell and Daniel Kennedy; Washington County sent John
Tipton, James Stuart, and John Blair; Hawkins County
sent Nathaniel Henderson and William Marshall; Sulli-
van sent Joseph Martin, John Scott, and George Max-
well. There was one county which sent James Robertson
and Robert Hays, but whose formation has not yet been
described. This was Davidson County. The assembly of
North Carolina, to which the above-mentioned delegates
were elected, passed acts of pardon and oblivion, directed
all suits under the revenue laws to be dismissed, and
granted an extension of time for the assessment of prop-
erty. Sevier was left a solitary figure upon the dismem-
END OF THE STATE OF FRANKLIN.
99
bered wreck of the ship of his State. His friends ad-
vised him to yield. He hesitated.
He hesitated. His pride was strong
in him, and the pangs of defeat were increased tenfold
by the exultation of his implacable enemy. At one time
he besieged the house of Tipton. There is no reason to
believe he intended personal violence. He probably
wished to subject him to the humiliation of imprison-
ment at the very moment of his success. But a worthier
impulse restrained him. A show of resistance by Tipton,
threatening the loss of life, forced him to retire. Sevier
was still reluctant to yield. Having been ordered to lay
down his arms, he set off on an expedition against the
Cherokee Indians which occupied several months. Upon
his return Governor Johnston ordered Judge Campbell to
arrest him on a charge of high treason. Campbell fail-
ing to comply, a North Carolina judge issued the warrant.
Sevier did not conceal himself. At first no attempt was
made to arrest him. He happened to be in Jonesboro
during the presence of General Martin. Tipton heard of
his whereabouts, collected a small guard, and arrested him
next morning at the house of a friend, where he had spent
the night. Tipton, with a pistol in his hand, repeatedly
threatened to shoot him, had him handcuffed and placed in
prison. Sevier was sent under guard to Morganton, North
Carolina, to be tried. On the way he attempted to escape
and was fired upon by one of the guards. It was often
said that this man had received orders from Tipton to kill
Sevier during the journey, but no proof was ever pro-
duced to substantiate the charge, beyond the assertions.
of Sevier's friends that another of the guards informed
Sevier of the fact. The rescue of Sevier in the midst of
his trial by a party of his friends was one of the romantic
episodes of border life. A thorough-bred horse owned by
Sevier was held in front of the court-house, whilst Nathan-
iel Evans and James Cozby went inside. Seeing these
two, Sevier realized the situation. Cozby stepped in front
WorM
100
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
of the judge, and in a loud voice asked if he was done with
that man, pointing towards Sevier. In the midst of the
confusion produced by this unexpected interlude, Sevier
made a dash for the door, sprang upon his horse, and was
soon far up the mountain road, where he was joined by a
party of friends. This was the end of all attempts to
bring him to trial, which in fact never had any motive
power beyond that supplied by Tipton's hatred. Sevier
returned to his old home, and, despite a law which deprived
him of the privilege of holding office under North Caro-
lina, was elected to the senate of North Carolina from
Greene County. Upon his arrival at Fayetteville, an act
was immediately passed removing his disabilities in spite
of the efforts of Tipton, who was present as a member
from Washington, and who opposed its passage with all
the relentless and narrow-minded fierceness of his nature.
In the course of the debate, Amy, the member from Haw-
kins County, angered Tipton by alluding to the ill-feeling
existing between Sevier and himself. A challenge was
the result, but a duel was prevented by the interposition.
of friends. Roddy, a member from Greene County, rep-
rimanded Amy for his hasty language, and alluding to
Tipton's irascible disposition, suggested to Amy that he
should pursue a course that would "soothe him." The
day following, Roddy was selected to conduct the debate.
During the discussion, Roddy unwittingly made some
remark that rendered Tipton almost frenzied. He sprang
towards Roddy like a panther, and seized him by the
throat. During the confusion which ensued, Amy ex-
cited a roar of laughter by yelling to Roddy across the
hall, "Soothe him, colonel, soothe him."
Sevier was immediately appointed brigadier-general of
the western counties over Tipton's head. These counties
were organized as a congressional district, and the year
following Sevier was elected without opposition to repre-
sent in Congress the very district in which he had been
END OF THE STATE OF FRANKLIN.
101
arrested for treason. Tipton gave up the contest against
his irrepressible enemy. He had neglected no weapon of
attack, and he had been foiled in the use of all. He had
had a fieri facias issued against Sevier's property. He had
tried to capture him with the avowed intention of hang-
ing him. He had the credit of hiring an assassin to kill
He
him while on his way to North Carolina for trial.
had fought against his readmission to the privileges of
North Carolina citizenship. But in all things he failed.
From now on Sevier steps forward into the fuller life, the
clearer light of state history, and his figure grows larger
and in a sense more resplendent as he advances. Tipton,
on the contrary, recedes. He holds office, but nothing
Years afterwards we still find him giving vent to
his implacable hatred in the proceedings against Sevier
for speculating in fraudulent land warrants.
more.
From what standpoint soever we regard the Franklin
movement, the sympathies of the Tennessean verge to-
wards Sevier's party as naturally as the sympathies of the
American verge towards the ultimately unsuccessful Puri-
tan movement in England. After all is said, Sevier was
for Tennessee, and that which was treason to North Caro-
lina was recognized and honored as patriotism towards
Tennessee, when finally the State was formed. Tipton
was never forgiven for his position in the struggle.
Sevier was the first governor of the State of Tennessee,
as much because he had been governor of Franklin as
because he was worthy the honor.
One effect of the dissolution of the Franklin govern-
ment was to leave the region of Tennessee which had
been erected into Sevier County without any form of gov-
ernment. Sevier County was that part of the Indian
hunting-ground which had been reserved for the Indians.
by the act of Carolina of 1783, and which the State of
Franklin had obtained by the Dumplin Treaty. With its
usual negligence and indifference, North Carolina took no
102
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
steps towards any assumption of sovereignty over the
country, not recognizing as valid the Franklin Treaty, and
not regarding it as a matter of any importance. Thrown
upon their own resources as the Watauga people had for-
merly been, like them the Sevier County people made pro-
vision for securing to themselves the inalienable rights of
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The basis of
their self-government was the company. Each company
elected two delegates to a general committee who regulated
the affairs of the settlement according to the laws of North
Carolina. One of the articles of the association was,
"United application shall be made to the next session of
the Assembly of North Carolina to receive us into their
protection and to bestow upon us the blessings of govern-
ment." The similarity of surroundings and the coinci-
dence which exists between what we know of the articles
of association of both the Watauga and the Sevier County
communities leaves little doubt that the latter, which have
been preserved, were a close copy of the former. But the
Watauga people, through Sevier's assistance, had gained
admission to the government of North Carolina. The
Sevier people failed, and were compelled to rely upon
themselves until 1794, when they became a county of
the Territory.
Viewed from the standpoint of that day, the attempt to
form the State of Franklin was perhaps one of the most
important movements in the early history of the United
States, and at one time it was feared that the contagion of
the example would spread and involve the country in end-
less turmoil and perhaps destruction. Properly to appre-
ciate its importance, it must be borne in mind that Spain
held the Lower Mississippi Valley, that her emissaries
were scattered all through the Indian villages, that her
trading posts were on the banks of every important river
which emptied into the Mississippi, that she claimed the
exclusive navigation of what might be called the very
END OF THE STATE OF FRANKLIN.
103
artery of American commerce, that her agents were un-
scrupulous, and as a rule able, and that the minds of her
statesmen were still filled with dreams of a splendid
empire in the beautiful and exuberant valley which re-
ceives as in a basin the fertilizing streams which are fed
by the waters that fail to reach the Pacific on one side,
and the Atlantic on the other. All hopes of realizing this
dream as against those who spoke the tongue of England
having disappeared, the possibility arose in its stead of
making common cause with those not satisfied with the
newly won independence, and uniting under the flag of
Spain the thinly settled and rapidly growing settlements
of the Southwest. The attempt to form the State of
Franklin was one expression of the prevailing discontent.
with the existing order of things. But there is not one
scintilla of evidence for the belief that it ever verged
towards Spain. The implication of Blount, the territorial
governor of the State, in no wise implicated the people of
Tennessee. We have seen that Sevier was suspected of
going to the opposite extreme. The general government
at this time was weak and impotent, unable to control
those who acknowledged its authority, and without any
means of enforcing respect from those who defied it. If
Burr had made his attempt then, it is possible that his
dream of a Southwestern empire would have been in some
shape realized. Such a movement after the formation,
or rather after the reorganization of the United States
scarcely excited a passing comment. But under the Con-
tinental Congress it was viewed with feelings of the deep-
est concern by all interested in even the remotest degree.
The people of western Virginia, fired by the example
of their near neighbors, with whom they felt a community
of interests, oppressed by three years' unpaid taxes which
they hoped to evade by secession, and urged, no doubt, by
the prospects of a great State of which they would be the
greatest part, began an agitation of the question of se-
104
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
cession from the parent State and a union with the new
State of Franklin. Arthur Campbell, who had already
figured conspicuously in the war for independence and in
the invasion of the Indian country, proposed a form of
government based on that of Virginia and North Caro-
lina, with every prospect of seeing this object attained.
Patrick Henry, who was at that time governor of Vir-
ginia, was alarmed by the extent of the disaffection, and
at once removed from office those who favored the move-
ment. The agitation went so far as to cause a memorial
to be addressed to Congress, requesting the formation of a
new State. The limits of the new State, as outlined by
Arthur Campbell, were to embrace, in general terms, the
western counties of Virginia, a part of Kentucky, Ten-
nessee, Georgia, Alabama, and the northern part of Mis-
sissippi. This plan, however, never attracted serious sym-
pathy, and fell to the ground when the State of Franklin
was at the height of its prosperity. This idea has never
died. In the debates at Nashville, immediately preced-
ing the war, the proposition was frequently made that
East Tennessee should be allowed to remain in the Union
as a separate State. One member proposed to call the
projected State, Franklin.
CHAPTER XIII.
FIRST SETTLEMENTS ON THE CUMBERLAND.
DURING the interval which had elapsed from the time
when the first cabin was built upon the Watauga to the
events narrated in the last chapter, in another part of the
State and under circumstances of equal difficulties and
dangers, another settlement had been formed and had,
after years of a gloomy and bloody probation, finally
grown strong and prosperous. The early history of East
Tennessee is essentially the early history of Middle Ten-
nessee. In each the beginnings were the same. In each
we have the same details of Indian butchery, desultory
warfare, and savage incursions. The Watauga articles of
association find almost an exact parallel in the articles.
of agreement or compact of government on the Cum-
berland. In some instances the same persons figured in
both Robertson, Lucas, Tatum, and Isbell. In both we
find the same self-reliance, the same niggardly neglect
on the part of the parent State. In one particular alone
is there a decided difference. The Watauga people, liv-
ing almost in the shadow of the great range of mountains.
which separated their country from North Carolina, had
but to ascend its sides in order to look down into the val-
leys and across the plains of the older State. But the
Cumberland settlement was more than six hundred miles
distant from the seat of government. Its forts were built
upon the banks of a stream, the waters of which even-
tually swept past the city whose possession made the
Spanish claim to the exclusive navigation of the Missis-
106
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
sippi a tangible reality and an ever-present threat.
Natchez and New Orleans, both in the hands of vindic-
tive enemies, aliens in laws, religion, and language, were
the natural markets of those who dwelt upon the Cum-
berland as well as those who dwelt upon the Illinois and
the Wabash. The Spaniards appreciated their advan-
tages, and they made such use of them as the short-sighted
mind and the narrow forehead ever make of the accidents
of fortune. This brought the Cumberland settlement in
direct contact with the complications of international
politics, and its growth was materially influenced by the
diplomatic struggles of Europe and America. At first,
too small to be of measurable importance in the scale of
negotiations, it soon grew into recognition as the centre
of disturbance, and became successively the object of Span-
ish malignancy and the cause of Spanish obsequiousness.
The unrelenting ferocity of Indian vindictiveness was in-
stigated by the agents of Mero and Carondelet, and the
weapons of war were supplied from St. Augustine and
New Orleans. Having sustained the integrity of its
foundation, and grown beyond the power of savage war-
fare to destroy, the settlement was now approached with
offers of gifts, and with fair words. The shallow brain,
which had failed with force, now learned a lesson of
Æsop, and attempted to accomplish by gentleness what it
had failed to accomplish by harsher means.
But through
it all, against the cunning of the savage, against his fero-
city and his onslaught, against all the weapons of his war-
fare, and not less against the bloodthirsty cruelty of the
Spaniard, and in the midst of the tissues of his diplo-
macy and specious bribery, one mind had guided the des-
tiny of the people of Middle Tennessee, and had proved
himself superior to all attacks and above all the vicissi-
tudes of fortune. The region of country now known as
Middle Tennessee formed a part of Charles II.'s grant,
and apart from the boundary lines of Indian treaties has
FIRST SETTLEMENTS ON THE CUMBERLAND.
107
1
always been included in the same geographical limits with
East Tennessee. Even the Franklin people invited the
Cumberland settlement to become a part of the new
State. But until James Robertson, in 1779, planted corn
on the bluffs of the Cumberland River, this part of the
State was known to trappers and traders alone. In 1748
the same Dr. Thomas Walker whose name has already
been mentioned is said to have passed through the Cum-
berland Gap, and penetrated to the waters of the river
which takes its name from the mountain. Some histo-
rians accord Walker the honor of having given this name
to the geographical nomenclature of America. After
this, and during the time of its commercial ascendency in
the South, France had a station on the present site of
Nashville. In 1766 Colonel James Smith, in conjunc-
tion with several others, one of whom was named Stone,
attempted to explore the entire region of country between
the Ohio and the Mississippi. Stone River still bears wit-
ness to the expedition, which was the first authentic ex-
ploration of that region of country. The accounts which
Smith brought back to the older settlements created a
fury of explorations, and each succeeding year saw an in-
crease in the numbers of those who penetrated deep into
the wilderness to hunt, to trap, and to trade.
The chronicles of those times have not preserved full
records of each expedition, nor perhaps would they pos-
sess more than a factitious interest if we had them. Each
party came for the same purpose, each encountered virtu-
ally the same adventures, and each departed as it had
come, leaving behind no vestige which remains. As yet
there had been no breaking of the soil, no dropping of
corn, no felling of trees. The hunter who found in the
abundance of game an ample reward for the danger of
its pursuit spread the fame of the region far and wide.
The same glowing descriptions which caused a flood of
emigration to pour over the western mountains of North
108
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
Carolina now attracted general attention to the country
around the "Salt Licks of the West." Even in those
days an additional interest in the new country was excited
by the accounts of the natural advantages it offered for
trade and commerce. In 1769 or 1770 Mansker and a
party of hunters had laden boats with furs and bear meat,
the chief marketable commodities of the trapper, and, de-
scending the river to Natchez, bartered these for articles
of merchandise. On the voyage downward they saw the
celebrated French Lick, and all around were herds of
buffaloes. The woods resounded with their bellowing and
the uproar of their battles. They also saw several de-
serted forts, which seemed to them the unwritten legend
of an extinct race.¹ Mansker returned several times
after this. Once he was accompanied by Isaac Bledsoe
and Joseph Drake, who gave their names to Drake's Lick
and Bledsoe's Lick. Mansker's Lick was named for Man-
sker himself. In 1775 De Mumbreun, or De Mumbrune,
built a cabin at Eaton Station. In 1777 he made a trip
to New Orleans. Another party of hunters descended the
Cumberland in 1777, and made their way by water to
Natchez.
But in 1778 the first settler of Middle Tennessee ap-
pears in the figure of a trapper who came with a party of
hunters from Kentucky to take possession of and secure
permanently a part of the wilderness whose beauty and
fertility were apparent to the least perceptive eye, and
whose promise of future wealth found more than an ear-
nest in the swift flowing river that ran through its midst.
This was at a time when steamboats were as yet unknown,
and when flatboats and canoes were looked upon as the
natural means of inland navigation. But of all who
1 One of Mansker's party was named Stone, and Haywood attrib-
utes to him the origin of the name of Stone River. Putnam spells
this name Mansker. This is the name as signed to the articles of
agreement, but in Haywood it is Mansco.
FIRST SETTLEMENTS ON THE CUMBERLAND.
109
66
came, Spencer was the only one who had a clear and well-
defined idea of the object of his mission as the fore-run-
ner of civilization. His companions at first entered into
the spirit of the enterprise, and assisted him to plant a
small field of corn." The dangers, however, which sur-
rounded the undertaking were too great, and all but Spen-
cer quailed before them. They returned to Kentucky,
leaving him behind. It is told as a touching instance of
the generosity and fearlessness of the man, that he broke
his knife in two parts and gave one to Holliday, who had
lost his own and feared to make the journey without one.
Spencer had taken his abode in a large hollow tree near
Bledsoe's Lick, which served the double purpose of pro-
tection and concealment. Here he remained throughout
the entire winter. He saw no one and heard not the
sound of a human voice. It is related as historically
true that he passed once not far from the cabin in which
dwelt a hunter in the service of De Mumbreun, and that
the hunter, seeing the imprint of his enormous foot, be-
came frightened and fled through the wilderness to the
French settlements on the Wabash. This, however, is of
doubtful authenticity and originated probably in later
years, when the size of Spencer's foot had become one of
the standing subjects of jest to the early settlers of Nash-
ville. But in Spencer's sojourn and the small crop of
corn we find the embryonic germ of Nashville and Mid-
dle Tennessee. His gigantic figure, alone in the midst of
endless forests, wandering and hunting throughout their
vast depths, the herald of a coming civilization, cool,
courageous, and self-reliant, going to sleep at night by
a solitary camp-fire, with the hooting of owls and the
screaming of panthers around him and with no assurance
of the absence of a deadlier foe, is one of the most pic-
turesque in the history of Southwestern pioneers. In the
early part of 1778, Spencer's hollow tree and a hunter's
hut here and there on the banks of the Cumberland were
110
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
the only signs of human life where Nashville now stands.
Within less than a year the same place was green with
the growth of newly planted corn and alive with the
activity of pioneer life.
It is not always an easy task to appreciate the causes
which lead to any particular train of events, and to fix
clearly in the mind the exact moment of each minor
departure. We see the rain, but not the rising of the
mist, the toppling of the clouds, the electric spark, and
the rushing together of the drops. We cannot see, or
perhaps we do not try to see. As we examine the chroni-
cles of the earlier state historians, we can easily deter-
mine the date and even the character of the first settle-
ment of Middle Tennessee.1 This much is of authentic
record. But what led to this going into the wilderness,
the various causes which gradually brought about this
effect, are hidden in a mist of indistinctness, and we
can only see the broader objects that enable us to infer
the landscape whose details glimmer in our sight. In
1778 James Robertson was one of the most popular
figures on the Watauga. He had acquired such fame as
could be acquired on such a field. His defense of Fort
Watauga had eclipsed the fame of the most brilliant of
the frontier leaders, and his name was familiar to Rich-
mond and Charleston. Neither honor nor riches were
lacking. Why should he again face the dangers of a
frontier settlement? This and numberless other questions
of the same nature, the writers of those days fail to an-
swer. One cause, in fact the chief cause, of our imper-
fect knowledge of our earlier history is the lack of all
literary activity. Haywood's history only comes down to
within twenty years of the time he wrote, and Ramsey's
¹ When the phrase Middle Tennessee is used, it applies to the
Middle Tennessee of the present. Until the formation of the West-
ern District, afterwards West Tennessee, all the region west of East
Tennessee was known as West Tennessee.
FIRST SETTLEMENTS ON THE CUMBERLAND.
111
work was published in 1853. The life of the people is
clearly before us. But the individual is hidden from us.
There were no Pepys, no Walpoles, no Wraxalls to tell us
how people lived and spoke and acted, when off the stage
of history. We have no vivid pictures, no historical
groups. History deals with details. The important
events make chronicles. The diary which John Donelson
kept of the wonderful cruise of "The Adventure" is a
solitary exception, and enables us to see with present eyes
the scenes he describes. Bishop Asbury's diary contains
more suggestive matter than direct information, and his
observations are all made from the standpoint of a faith
which, though pure and noble, destroys half the historical
value of what he has left. It is therefore impossible for
us to watch the gradual growth of the desire again to try
the western wilds as it developed in the minds of the first
who made the attempt. We cannot see them sitting by
the evening fire and planning the coming venture. Their
thoughts, their hopes, their desires are merely matters of
conjecture. Our records of the ancient history of Tennes-
see are scanty and imperfect, and the first settlement of
Nashville is a part of the ancient history of this State.
The results we can follow closely and accurately, but at
times we lose the intellectual process which produced it.
The gradual enhancement of lands as the result of its
occupation by communities of the white race was one of
the economic truths of that day as well as of the present.
It was a force whose action within certain limits was cer-
tain and invariable. Frequently, therefore, the price to
be paid for land was the ordeal of Indian warfare which
preceded the time of tranquillity and security which was
sure to follow. It was the desire to better his condition,
not the innate love of danger and hair-breadth escapes,
which led Daniel Boone into the wilderness. That he
was a brave man and that he possessed some of the
requisites of heroic greatness, cannot be doubted or
112
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
denied. But the theory which has found popular accep-
tation and has passed into the traditions of the present
as a historical fact, that Boone was a kind of a philan-
thropic forerunner of civilization with a bucolic fondness.
for solitude and communion with nature, is without the
least foundation. The immortal lines in which Byron
gives to "Daniel Boone, backwoods-man of Kentucky,"
one of "the great names which in our faces stare," and
places him among those who are "beyond the dwarfing
city's pale abortions, because their thoughts had never
been the prey of care or gain," are poetical enough, but
they are not true. Daniel Boone was a land speculator
and the agent of land speculators, and in the expressive
phraseology of the present day would be called a "land-
shark." He entered land enough in Kentucky to have
made him wealthy if he had but known how to perfect his
title. He obtained numerous grants from Spain which he
lost by his negligence. The poverty of his old age, which
appeals to the sentimental imagination of this generation,
was not the result of indifference but of ignorance.
The earlier annals of the West and Southwest are filled
with accounts of the attempts made by different men of
note to gain vast estates in regions which have since become
great commonwealths. Washington and Madison and
Randolph are among the number. But the scheme which
surpassed all others in breadth and activity was that which,
according to the biographers of Boone, was suggested by
the celebrated pioneer to those who composed the Transyl-
vania company. Colonel Richard Henderson was at the
head of this association, and, with the assistance of Boone,
purchased from the Indians the country which lies within
the natural limits of the Ohio, the Kentucky, and the
Cumberland rivers. This purchase was made by Boone
and Henderson at the Sycamore Shoals Treaty, held on
the Watauga on the 17th of March, 1775. The price
paid for what now constitutes the larger part of three
FIRST SETTLEMENTS ON THE CUMBERLAND.
113
States was about $50,000 worth of blankets, rifles, beads,
and other trinkets. This purchase is important in the
history of Middle Tennessee as having included the Cum-
berland country, and as being one of the immediate causes
which led to its settlement. The inducements held out to
actual settlers by the Transylvania company were greatcr
than those held out by the State. Henderson's purchase
extinguished the Indian title, but according to the legis-
lative construction of Virginia and North Carolina, it
failed to vest it in him or his company. It is impossible
to establish the chain of events which caused Robertson
to lead a settlement to the Cumberland, but there is no
doubt that the main cause was found in the desire of
Henderson especially that Robertson should assist him in
securing the western portion of his lands, or perhaps it
would not be too expansive to say empire. The treaty and
the purchase had been declared illegal and void by the
governors of Virginia and North Carolina, but there still
remained some hope that Henderson could perfect his
title. The latter persuaded large numbers of inhabitants
in the older States to emigrate to the new country, and
we find Donelson and others from Virginia acting in con-
cert with Robertson, in 1778, or perhaps earlier.
An agreement of some sort was made, the general out-
lines of which were that Robertson and a party under
him should first go by land to the Cumberland and make
ready for the arrival of the others. Corn was to be
planted, cabins erected, and stockades prepared. Donel-
son was to come by water from Fort Patrick Henry on
the Holston, by way of the Tennessee and up the Cum-
berland. Robertson was to leave signs at a certain place
on the Tennessee which should indicate to Donelson that
all was well and that he could come through the country.
The wives of Robertson's party, including Robertson's
wife, were to come with Donelson.
In pursuance of this agreement Robertson, late in 1778,
114
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
with a party of eight, including one negro, set out across
the mountains through the Cumberland Gap, and trusting
to paths of wild animals, which at times enabled them to
penetrate the intricate forests, finally came to the banks
of the Cumberland at the French Lick, so called from
the French trading post, which had been erected there
years before by permission of the Chickasaws. Imme-
diately upon his arrival, Robertson compelled his party,
who were eager to make the best of their priority of
choice in order to obtain the best sites for cabins and the
most fertile lands, to take the precaution of which he
alone foresaw the necessity. Shortly after the arrival of
Robertson's company, they were joined by another under
Casper Mansker, the old trapper. The new settlers at
once made ready for the emergencies of their situation,
and planted a crop of corn near Sulphur Springs. Rob-
ertson, having seen the settlement well under way, started
on foot for Kaskaskia, a frontier post which Colonel
George Rogers Clark had recently captured, and which he
made the centre of his operations against the British and
their Indian allies. It was currently reported that he, as
the western military representative of Virginia, had the
power to sell the so-called cabin-rights which allowed to
every actual settler a thousand acres of land around his
cabin. The line had not been run and it was not yet
certainly known whether French Lick and the adjacent
territory were a part of Virginia or North Carolina.¹
Robertson made satisfactory arrangements of some kind
with Clark and returned to French Lick, bringing with
him a large party of new settlers. They were on their
way to Kentucky under the leadership of John Rains,
who, yielding to Robertson's persuasions, returned with
him. Rains has the credit of "being the first man to in-
troduce neat cattle and horses upon the west side of the
Cumberland River and into Middle Tennessee." Some
1 This was determined the spring following.
FIRST SETTLEMENTS ON THE CUMBERLAND.
115
of the new settlers built a fort on the east side of the
river, several miles below French Lick. This was Fort
Eaton. Shortly after the arrival of Rains, came a party
of South Carolinians, who were the third addition to the
original Robertson party in the space of a few months.
These additions became so constant as to form almost a
steady stream. The most important of those which fol-
lowed, and who are peculiarly worthy of mention in a his-
tory of the formation of this State, was that under John
Donelson, whose trip in a boat called "The Adventure,"
from Fort Patrick Henry to French Lick, reads like a
chapter in one of Mayne Reid's novels. The journal of
the voyage which Donelson kept has been preserved, and
gives a vivid and life-like reproduction of the events of the
trip. The caption is, "Journal of a Voyage intended by
God's permission, in the good boat Adventure, from Fort
Patrick Henry, on Holston River, to the French Salt
Springs on the Cumberland River, kept by John Donel-
The party consisted of "men, women, children,
and negroes." Their number is not known. Among them
were James Robertson's family, a wife and five children.
In addition to the Adventure, which carried a sail, there
were several canoes and other craft, so that the whole
constituted a miniature fleet. The Adventure left Fort
Patrick Henry on the 22d of December, 1779. It did.
not get fairly under way until the latter part of February,
having been detained at various points by low water, hard
frost, and running aground.
son.”
The last entry in Donelson's diary is the following:
“Proceeded on quietly until the 12th of April, at which
time we came to the mouth of a little river running in on
the north side, by Moses Renfroe and hist
company called
'Red River,' upon which they intended to settle.¹ Here
they took leave of us. We proceeded up Cumberland,
nothing happening material until the 23d, when we reached
1 This was the beginning of Clarksville.
116
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
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 fami-
lies, came through Kentucky and settled there.
66
Monday, April 24th. This day we arrived at our
journey's end at the Big Salt Lick, where we have the
pleasure of finding Captain 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
intrusted to our care, who some time since, perhaps de-
spaired 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 Cap-
tain Robertson and his company."
This diary of Donelson's is one of the most valuable
documents in the annals of this State. The style is clear,
direct, and in a manner unobtrusive. Although there is
little color in the narrative, it brings before us in sharp
outlines the wonderful adventures of his voyage. It has
been frequently reproduced, but it has never lost its fresh-
ness of interest. There is nothing in Cooper to surpass
it. But its chief historical value lies in the fact that it
enables us actually to grasp as a tangible reality the
dangers and difficulties which beset the earlier settlers of
the State. The same things which occurred to Donelson
and his party on water were occurring to others on land
from Vincennes to the Gulf. The long and wearisome
repetition of Indian butcheries and scalpings and burn-
ings and torturings fails to give us so clear an under-
standing of what it meant to go into the wilderness and
found a new community as this simple record of the
Adventure. It is not a matter of surprise that the de-
scendants of Donelson himself occupied a large place in
the subsequent history of the State. We cannot refuse
him a hearty admiration for his coolness, his undaunted
determination, his unpremeditated modesty. We find in
FIRST SETTLEMENTS ON THE CUMBERLAND.
117
him a worthy sire of the wife of Andrew Jackson. We
find in this ordeal a worthy preparation for the develop-
ment of those traits which alone could invade and conquer
the wilderness. The trip was productive of good results,
and in one instance wrought its own retribution. With
Donelson was a family which had small-pox. It was in
charge of a man named Stewart. Being compelled to
keep at some distance from the rest, they were captured
and killed by the Indians. As a result, small-pox took
hold upon the latter and caused them to die by the thou-
sands. To this fact has been attributed the immunity
which gave the Cumberland settlements time to prepare
for the onslaughts which followed.
CHAPTER XIV.
JAMES ROBERTSON.
UPON the arrival of Donelson's party in their new
homes, they found those who had preceded them busy
with hoe and hammer. Donelson himself built a cabin
and stockade on Clover Bottom. Rains, according to Hay-
wood, "settled the lands since called Deadrick Plantation,"
about two miles below Nashville. A station was built on
the Bluffs, and received the name of Nashborough. Early
in 1779 Robertson had arrived at the Great Salt Lick with
the first settlers on the Cumberland. Donelson's party
arrived on the 24th of April, 1780. On the 1st of May
the compact of government was drawn up, and already
eight stations are mentioned as entitled to delegates among
the "Twelve Notables," or "General Arbitrators." Their
names are Nashborough, Gasper's, Bledsoe's, Asher's,
Freeland's, Eaton's, and Fort Union. In addition to these,
there were several cabins fortified with stockades able to
withstand a small body of Indians. In times of great
danger those who were scattered through the community
collected together in one of the central stations, which were
built generally in the form of a square, at the corners and
in the centres between the corners of which were heavily
built block-houses, with stockades running from one to
the other. The block-houses were provided with loop-
holes. The entrance to the station was a gate, built as
solidly as possible and fastened with a chain, but as much
exposed as practicable to the block-houses on the sides. A
single block-house built of heavy logs hewn into shape
JAMES ROBERTSON.
119
was capable of offering a good defense, and those who
were able built one in preference to the more fragile but
more easily erected cabins, which were built of smaller
logs, generally round poles.
Among the first and most important steps taken by the
new settlers was to supply that deficiency which is felt in
every community and which it is not too much to say the
English-speaking people have alone been able to supply
from their own resources. A form of government was
devised by the settlers, and, as in the case of the Watauga
Association, along the lines of precedents established by
the laws of their ancestors. We find the same incidents
of government in the Cumberland settlement which we
found on the Watauga, and which existed in some shape
or manner upon the banks of the Trent and the Ouse. The
articles of agreement are a modernized reproduction of
the powers and customs of the ancient court leet. The
outlines and details of the compact were suggested and
elaborated by Richard Henderson, the projector of the
Transylvania scheme, and James Robertson. Henderson
had instigated the Cumberland settlement. He had taken
up his residence with the first comers and had made liberal
disposition of the lands of his company, in order to attract
emigration. He postponed the payments until the States
of Virginia and North Carolina should have confirmed the
title he had obtained from the Indians. A man of broad
views and broader ambition, he aspired to found a new
State on the Cumberland. He had seen much of the
world, and he had a thorough appreciation of the genius
of the American people. He had formed the first com-
pact of government which was formed west of the Alle-
ghanies, and having placed his undertaking upon what he
considered a firm and republican basis, he had, with a
singular mixture of audacity and patriotism, applied to be
admitted to the confederacy as an independent State.
This was in 1775, when the uncertainty of the impending
120
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
war tried the nerves and tested the loyalty of many who
had less to risk than the Transylvania company or its
leader.
The compact of government was drawn up in May,
1780. More than one half of the compact is devoted to
the land office. The judicial and executive power was
vested in a body of notables or judges, or triers, or gen-
eral arbitrators, but was not to extend to capital punish-
ment. The members were elected by the forts.¹ These
articles were signed at Nashborough, May 13, 1780. Two
hundred and fifty-six names were attached. The rapidity
with which the settlement spread was phenomenal even in
an age when cities were built in a day, and states were
made in a year. The centre of population was Nash-
borough. Freeland's Station was a little to the north.
Eaton's Station was on the east bank of the river. Gas-
per's Station was several miles up the Cumberland, where
the little village of Goodlettsville lies. Asher's was not
far from Gallatin. Bledsoe's was near the Sulphur Springs
in the neighborhood of Gallatin, and Fort Union was
about six miles above Nashborough. These are those
entitled to elect members of the committee of general
arbitrators. But there were still others scattered at va-
rious points up and down the rivers and creeks. Donelson
had a fort on Clover Bottom called Donelson's or Stone's
River. The first party, which under the guidance of James
Robertson had settled at the French Lick, and even the
Rains party, were still pioneers. The settlement became
what the adventurers of that day called a settlement only
upon the arrival of Donelson's party in the Adventure.
The winter of 1779-80 was one of unprecedented sever-
ity. John Rains drove his cattle across the Cumberland on
the ice. The hardships had been a terrible ordeal even to
1 The provisions of this compact are elaborate and intricate and
full of interest. Those wishing to examine it in detail are referred
to Putnam, who gives it in full and who rescued it from oblivion.
JAMES ROBERTSON.
121
those whom experience had innured to the tests of cold
and hunger. But the intense coldness had not been an
unmixed evil. The news of the settlement had spread
to the Cherokees, the Choctaws, and the Chickasaws.
Even the nations of the Northwest heard with apprehen-
sion and bitterness that the hunting-grounds between the
Great Mountains and the Father of Waters had been
seized by the insatiate pale-face. The winter, however,
rendered the chase unprofitable, and the exposure too full
of suffering. The warriors of the nation were compelled
to seek the shelter of the wigwam. This gave the Cumber-
land people time to erect forts and stockades. Had an
attack been made, such as that which shortly after shook
the foundations of the new community, resistance would
have been useless.
But by the time the mild breath of spring had awakened
the sleeping life of the forests, and with it the slumbering
hatred of the Indians, preparations had been made which
enabled the infant settlement to develop into maturity in
the midst of a succession of horrors which has no equal
in the bloody annals of the Southwest. It is a
It is a profitless
task to repeat the dreary chronicles of ferocity and mur-
der and torture. The fact of the existence of these things,
and that the ground was cleared, the foundation stones.
fitted, is sufficient. This is the prominent event, and it
stands out with sufficient prominence. Haywood says the
first man killed was John Milliken, Putnam says Joseph
Hay. Both agree that it was in the spring of 1780, when
no one suspected danger. The first death hastened the
preparations for defense. The position of the settlement,
separated by three hundred miles of rough and perilous
travel from the nearest post, exposed it to continuous
attack from Cherokees, Creeks, and Choctaws. The at-
tacks of the enemy were more deadly because of their
nature. The unseen bullet came from an unexpected quar-
ter. There was rarely an open attack. But parties of
122
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
It was
hunters and isolated travelers were set upon.
dangerous to leave the protection of the cabin and the
stockade. In the autumn of the first year the corn crop
was a failure, and a bushel of it sold for $160 in continen-
tal money. The influx of emigrants, generally welcomed
as an addition of strength, was now regarded as an increase
of weakness. Bread was scarce and meat was difficult to
get. It was dangerous to hunt and starvation was immi-
The Indians even tried to drive the game from the
nent.
country.
The butchery of the Renfroe settlement at the mouth
of the Red River, which took place about this time, made
the stoutest hearts quail. Scarcely a day passed that did
not witness the death of some one of the settlers. Jona-
than Jennings, who had escaped the dangers of shipwreck
and even captivity, was killed above Nashborough. John
Donelson narrowly escaped the same fate. He had
planted corn on Clover Bottom and had gone with two
boats to gather it, when on his return the boat ahead of
his own was attacked. Only one negro and one white
man escaped.¹ Among the killed was a son of James
Robertson. But the last extremity still remained. Their
ammunition began to run short, and the miserable pioneers,
in the midst of desolation and deprivation, turned to flee
from a place where death stood upon the threshold and
where famine sat at their board. God's curse appeared
to them to have settled down upon the hills and the
valleys of the Cumberland. Every heart but one was
filled with fear, every heart but one longed for escape.
1 Putnam, upon what authority I have been unable to discover, says
there were two negroes in the boat; "the other negro or mulatto was
a free man, known as Jack Civil. He surrendered to the Indians,
went with them to the Chickamauga towns, near Lookout Mountain,
and then with the pirates and outlaws who settled the place on the
Tennessee River, which hath acquired notoriety as Nickajack or Nig-
ger Jack, unquestionably so named after this mulatto." This bit of
philology is altogether too fanciful.
JAMES ROBERTSON.
123
In every block-house the cry was for flight. It swept
through the settlement in a day. It was just such a
crisis as we meet with in all American colonies. And
the man is always found, equal to the historical exigencies
of the moment. In the history of Tennessee, James
Robertson is what John Smith is in the history of Vir-
ginia, what the younger Winthrop is in the history of
Connecticut.
Robertson is not a brilliant figure. Whatever may be
the qualities of character to which the term brilliancy is
properly applied, Robertson certainly did not possess
them. He lacked the mental alertness, the nervous
energy, the instinct of action which are characteristic of
genius. His thoughts were clear and luminous, in a word,
light-giving. His character was like his thoughts. He
never had a flash of inspiration. He could reason well,
he could act well. In the annals of the State, it is true,
he rises above the mists of common-place. The light
settles upon his head, but it never dazzles us.
In no
sense of the word was he great or talented. He lacked
the far-sighted calculation and the appreciation of eco-
nomic forces which made Sevier a statesman, however
circumscribed his field. He lacked the decision, the quick
insight, the cautious preparation, the dashing execution
which made Sevier a soldier. These are his limitations.
But if not great, he was admirable. There are characters
whom we love but whom we distrust. There are characters
whom we admire with even and impassionate serenity but
upon whom we rely with utter abandon. Robertson's
character was of this kind. It was well built, with solid
masonry and broad foundations. He is eminently trust-
worthy. We are filled with a kind of joyous admiration
of our humanity when we see blended in him so much
modesty and so much fortitude. He possessed rather for-
titude than bravery. The lack of fear was such a part of
his being that we learn to take it as a matter of course.
124
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
It was a part of the times and the people. But his forti-
tude lifts him to an altitude. It never wavers, it never
quails, it never retreats. This it is that makes him one
of the great figures of our history. Under peculiar cir-
cumstances his qualities of character, although in them-
selves not great, accomplished results which as a rule
greatness alone can accomplish. His fortitude and trust-
worthiness did for Middle Tennessee what the diplomacy
and generalship of Sevier did for East Tennessee. He
hastened its settlement by a number of years which can-
not be calculated. He had from the first been recognized
as the leader of the new settlement. Shortly after his
arrival, he had been made colonel, an office which gave
him command of the military equipment of the forts.
Upon the formation of the compact, he had been elected
chairman of the committee of general arbitrators. His
earlier experiences in Watauga bad prepared him for the
position he was called on to occupy as the Atlas of the
young settlement. In 1776 and later he had been com-
missioner for North Carolina among the Cherokees, and
during his sojourn among them he had acquired the
knowledge which gave him hope and strength to with-
stand the dangers which threatened the Cumberland
settlement.
When, therefore, the question of retreat was agitated,
he bore for the minute the destiny of Middle Tennessee
upon his shoulders. He argued, he entreated, he com-
manded. He infused his own unyielding spirit into some
of the hardier settlers and the task was half done.
"What of the lack of powder," he said; "I will go to
Virginia and to North Carolina, and I promise to supply
your needs." The offer was an offer to run the gauntlet,
but it was accepted. With one of his sons and a few
others who were unwilling for him to traverse the wilder-
ness alone, he departed. The incidents of the trip have
not been preserved, but it was heroic, and it saved the
JAMES ROBERTSON.
125
people of Middle Tennessee. He returned, after having
visited the Kentucky stations, with ample supplies of am-
munition. Even the overflow which swept away the last
remnant of corn in the fields and drove the game to the
hills was passed over as of little moment, and all hearts
were cheered by the example of one man, who, like the
old Roman, had not despaired of the little republic.
It may be true there is no Providence to touch the sub-
tile chords which control the movements of life; it may be
true that the divine mercy is only manifest in the action
of general laws through universal application. But there
are events which bring us so close to a realization of
some higher intelligence, that they well might stagger the
skeptical. An event of this kind is the saving of Fort
Freeland by James Robertson, a worthy instrument in
the hands of the Lord. Robertson arrived from his long
and dangerous trip to Kentucky in quest of powder, ou
the 15th of January, 1781. For weeks he had been sleep-
ing in the very shadow of death. The keenness of his
eye, the elasticity of his step, the quickness of his wit,
and most of all the quickness of his ear, were the instru-
ments which nature had given him in the unequal contest.
The hoot of an owl could awaken him from the deepest
sleep. The rustle of a leaf could reach his ear. Upon
his arrival the settlement was stirred with a double im-
pulse of gratitude to him, and a desire to hear what news
he had brought from the eastern world. They had
crowded eagerly around him to learn the fate of the Wa-
tauga people, and the fortunes of the war which shook
two worlds, but whose noise rarely penetrated the wil-
derness that engulfed them. After the long narration
and the repetition of details, the old settlers had retired,
and filled with thoughts of other things, had appointed
no guard to watch the fort. The moon was bright, not a
cloud in the sky. The light shone full upon the square
block-houses, the quadrangular space within, the upright
126
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
palisades that ran from house to house. The Indians
crept out from the shadow of the forest, and gliding
stealthily across the intervening space, one by one, sank
into the shadows of the upright pickets, until about fifty
had collected together. The gate was fastened by a chain,
and one, more agile than the rest, succeeded in gaining a
hold upon the clasp and loosened it. The noise awoke
Robertson alone of all within, and knowing the need of
quick alarm, he sprang to his feet with the cry of "In-
dians!" As his cry resounded through the fort, the In-
dians had thrown down the gate and dashed in. One
man rushed out only to be shot down. The settlers slept
rifle in hand, and they awoke ready for battle.
poured a deadly fire into the Indians who recoiled. Their
assailants were invisible and they could not return the
fire. They retreated towards the gate, firing as they
went. They killed a negro of Robertson's. But no fur-
ther harm was done. It added one more to the many
claims upon the gratitude of posterity of a brave and no-
ble leader.
They
The Indians retired but with increased hatred, with a
more relentless determination to subdue the infant settle-
ment. Their chief sent messengers from village to vil-
lage, along the banks of the Tennessee, through the
swamps and the cane-brakes of the Lower Ohio. Their
hopes were aroused, their cupidity was excited, their brav-
ery was appealed to. But they had been cruelly decimated
by Sevier and by disease. The small-pox had made havoc
among them. It was difficult to collect a large army. A
band such as that which under Old Abraham and Drag-
ging Canoe had invaded the Watauga settlement would
have been fatal to the Cumberland. Robertson would
have been unable to repeat the glorious defense of Fort
Watauga. On the 2d of April, 1781, the battle was
fought which decided the fate of the Cumberland settle-
ment. This was the "Battle of the Bluffs" so called. It
JAMES ROBERTSON.
127
ended in the complete discomfiture of the assailants, who
sustained severe losses. Among the curious incidents
of the battle was an attack upon the Indians by the dogs
This
in the fort, which had been trained to this end.
created a diversion which the whites turned to their ad-
vantage. The same party of Indians returned in the
evening and fired upon the fort from a distance, but were
dispersed by a shot from an old swivel which, for want of
lead, was loaded with gravel and stones.
The existence of the Cumberland settlement was prac-
tically assured by the "Battle of the Bluffs." Neverthe-
less, the dangers and the distress which surrounded the
individual were in a measure increased. The Indians
abandoned the hope of destroying the forts, but in the
lack of organized aggression they came in small bands.
to lay in wait, to surprise, to kill, to scalp, and then to
retreat. Those who labored in the field did so in hourly
expectation of attack, and sentinels were kept on guard
to warn of impending danger. If several were compelled
to be in the forest or at the springs, and a conference was
held, this was done by forming a small military square,
each man facing outward with his rifle cocked.
It was
in the very face of death to pass from one fort to another.
The name of a man who died a natural death has been
preserved. It was Robert Gilkey.
But the law of the survival of the fittest finds its exem-
plification. The dangers which surrounded the settlers
cultivated in them those faculties the highest exercise of
which offered the greatest hope of safety. The rustling
of a leaf might reach the ear of an Indian lurking in the
shadow of the forests. The pioneers learned to pass
through the woods even after the falling of the leaves,
with the swiftness of the deer, without crushing a leaf or
breaking a twig. The chances of warfare would rarely
give more than one shot. That shot seldom went astray.
Every sense was sharpened to the utmost limits of its
128
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
possibilities. There were those who could tell by the
report of the rifle to whom it belonged; the merest tyro
could detect the difference between the report of an In-
dian gun and of a gun in the possession of a friend. The
accuracy of the eye, the keenness of the ear, the quickness
of the body, the alertness of the foot, the nimbleness of
the hand, were weapons of defense. The marvelous tales
of Cooper sink into commonplace when compared with
the wonderful feats and adventures of Spencer and Ed-
mond Jennings, the son of the ill-fated Jonathan, and
Castleman and Rains and Mansker. Before the intro-
duction of powder, the Indian's weapons of warfare and
the chase were inadequate to his necessities. A natural
law of existence threw him upon the resources of his wit.
He became cunning, quick-witted, wily, supple of body.
Quick of apprehension, he learned a lesson from the
beasts of the field and the birds of the air. He could
imitate the hoot of an owl, the scream of a panther, the
bleat of a fawn, the gobble of a turkey, till the owl
would perch above his head, the panther creep from his
lair, the fawn run to meet its dam, the turkey to join its
mates. The art which the Indians had been transmitting
from generation to generation and perfecting through cen-
turies of practice, the white man learned in a few years.
And not only this, he went farther. Unable to determine,
when he heard the sound, whether it was the imitated or
the imitator, he studied the habits and the seasons of the
former, and knew when to expect the voice which nature
had given them. Here is a story of the brave-hearted
Castleman, told in his simple and picturesque way: "It
was in the dusk of the evening. The imitation of this
large bird of night was very perfect, yet I was suspicious.
The woo-woo call and the woo-woo answer were not well
timed and toned, and the babel-chatter was a failure; and
more than this, I am sure they are on the ground and that
won't begin to do. 'I'll see you,' says I to myself, and
JAMES ROBERTSON.
129
as I approached I saw something of the height of a stump
standing between a forked tree which divided near the
ground. Well, I know there can be no stump there; I
put 'Betsy' to my face — that stump was once a live In-
dian and he lay at the roots of those forked chestnuts.
And if he was ever buried, it was not far off.”
On one occasion old Mansker was "gobbled" up by an
Indian, such was the current phrase. But not being cer-
tain of the turkey, he became suspicious. Approaching
cautiously, he finally "located" his adversary. He was
behind a tree. Knowing that as a rule the Indian only
fires at close range, and knowing also that "Nancy” could
talk at long range, he made no sign of fear or attempt to
guard himself. He feigned to pass to the Indian's right.
As he expected, the latter attempted to follow him so as
to get within shooting distance. In a moment an opening
in the glade exposed the skulking body. A quick aim, a
word from "Nancy," and the Indian was on his way to
the happy hunting ground. Castleman once heard the
bleat of a fawn near him. The burden of identification,
in legal phrase, was always on the owl or the panther
or the turkey or the fawn. He saw a moving body and
simultaneously two guns were fired. The Indian fell
dead, but his bullet cut the fringe of Castleman's shirt.
CHAPTER XV.
DAVIDSON COUNTY.
THE cold and sleet and bitter winds which pierced
through the crannies of the well-aired cabins and block-
houses in the winter of 1781-82 again caused a discussion
of the possibility of removal. The weaker began to lose
heart. Murmurs of dissatisfaction were heard. But there
was never a serious danger of departure. Those who so
far had withstood the trials to which they had been sub-
jected would not brook the idea. "If we fail," said one,
"it must never be from cowardice." Bledsoe, the stout-
hearted surveyor, the shadow of whose destiny was already
lengthening toward him, pointed to the future.
"If we
perish here, others will be sure to come, either to revenge
our death or to accomplish what we have begun. If they
find not our graves or our scattered bones, they may
revere our memories and publish to the ages to come that
we deserved a better fate." The unfaltering rock-ribbed
fortitude of James Robertson put aside the suggestion
with a noble rebuke. "These rich and beautiful lands
were not designed to be given up to savages and wild
beasts. The God of Creation and Providence has nobler
purposes in view." The powder was again running short,
but the settlers resolved to use less and shoot better.
Nothing less than a bear, or a buffalo, or a buck was to
be shot down. The means of supplying the wants felt
were on hand if only a market could be found. The
skins and furs were filling the forts. The waters were
low, and it was difficult to get to Natchez and New
DAVIDSON COUNTY.
131
Orleans, impossible to get to Jonesboro except by land.
There was practically no method of communication with
the outside world, and the Cumberland heroes spent 1782
in strengthening themselves internally. The aggressions.
of the savages, owing to a treaty which Robertson had
made with them, were less incessant though still numer-
ous and deadly. Frequently they turned their attention.
towards the houses of the settlers. The Mauldins and the
Kilgores had established a fort called Kilgore's Station,
on the head-waters of the Red River, but were compelled
to abandon it shortly after it was erected and seek pro-
tection in the central forts. Emigration had not entirely
ceased, and occasionally small parties succeeded in travers-
ing the wilds between Jonesboro and Nashborough, as
Robertson had done under circumstances of equal danger.
Late in the autumn the question of desertion was again
brought forward, but Robertson again gave new heart to
the settlers, and they again determined to remain, this
time with enthusiasm. He called their attention to the
probable effect which the success of the Continental arms
would have upon their fortunes. In April, 1782, hostili-
ties ceased, and about six months later the Cumberland
people heard of the close of the war which gave America
its independence. Its effect was at once seen in the con-
ciliatory attitude of the Indians. They came to hunt,
they said, not to spill the blood of their white brothers.
With the advent of the new year came a revival of
old hopes and a renewal of old undertakings. The Gov-
ernment of Notables which, almost from its formation,
and certainly since the abandonment in 1781 of the dif-
ferent forts that elected members, had been allowed to
rust in its machinery, was again furbished and put in
operation. The return of many who had left in 1781 and
1782 gave new life to the settlement, and with this came
the desire again to establish some form of government.
On the seventh of January, 1783, the former manner of
132
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
proceedings "was revived, pursuant to the plan agreed
upon at our first sitting here." The forts had already
been rebuilt and reoccupied, and in accordance with the
design as originally planned, twelve men were elected to
meet at Nashborough, namely, Colonel James Robertson,
Captain George Freeland, Thomas Molloy, Isaac Linsey,
David Rounsevall, Heydon Wells, James Mauldin, Eben-
ezer Titus, Samuel Barton, and Andrew Ewin. Robert-
son was elected chairman of the committee. Andrew
Ewin, who afterwards became Ewing, was made clerk.
Putnam has preserved the records of the Committee of
Notables. They give us a fine view of the habits, cus-
toms, and modes of thought that prevailed in the Cum-
berland settlement. The committee exercised, practi-
cally, unlimited jurisdiction; required people to take the
oath of allegiance to the Continental Congress, engaged
six spies, who were to advise the settlement of the move-
ments of the Indians, organized the militia, restricted the
price of whiskey, regulated trade with the Indians, and
tried all manner of cases. We find records of suits in-
volving horses, negroes, hogs, machinery, notes of hand
(one for two cows) and the like, which enable us to
catch, in the process of formation, the ideas of govern-
ment entertained by our ancestors. It is worthy of note
that the caption of the records is "North Carolina, Cum-
berland District." The committee had once petitioned
the General Assembly of North Carolina, praying them
"to grant us the salutary benefits of government in all its
various branches." The aspirations which filled the old
Watauga people with the vain hope of becoming an inde-
pendent State never obtained any foot-hold among the
settlers of Middle Tennessee. A convention was held
and commissioners appointed with power to "join the
Franks" in their government, but nothing came of it.
They stood upon too slender a foundation to think of
aught but the actual present, which to them was full of
danger and trouble.
DAVIDSON COUNTY.
133
x
After this period the growth of the settlement was
rapid. The increase of population, however, for a time
merely increased the powers of resistance. The danger
was still great, and the chronicles of murder, mutilation,
and bloody reprisal repeat the same sorry and distressing
details. Land bounties, given to soldiers of the Revolu-
tion, were the immediate cause of increased emigration.
In 1783 James Robertson was elected a member of the
General Assembly of North Carolina, and through his in-
strumentality the Cumberland settlement was made a
county named Davidson, in honor of General Davidson,
a gallant soldier who had lost his life in the war. A
court of pleas and quarter sessions was also established
in the new county. A land office was opened at the same
session for receiving and recording entries of land. The
Henderson-Transylvania claim and title were not re-
garded. The original settlers or squatters were given
certain rights of preemption. Each head of a family re-
ceived 640 acres, and such improvements as had been
made previous to the first of June, 1780. Salt springs
and "licks" were reserved to the State. The formation
of the county transformed the mode of government more
in name than in substance. Isaac Bledsoe, Samuel Bar-
ton, Francis Prince, and Isaac Linsey were the first
magistrates, or justices of the peace. Andrew Ewing
was made clerk. A court-house was located at Nash-
borough, and a prison built. The court-house was made
of hewn cedar logs a foot square, the same which the
gigantic Spencer offered to throw one by one over the
bluff for a dollar a log. The court-room was eighteen feet
square, with a shed on one side. Both prison and court-
house, the building of which was let upon contract to the
lowest bidder, were to be upon a rock-foundation. The
formation of the county placed upon an equally solid
basis the settlement on the Cumberland.
After the establishment of Davidson County, the cur-
134
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
rent of Middle Tennessee history grows broader and
deeper, and its windings more intricate, though still ad-
vancing steadily toward independent Statedom. It is an
easy and interesting task to watch the gradual expansion
of the original forts and observe the gradations from Nash-
borough on the Cumberland to Nashville, the capital of
Tennessee. It was not until some years later that the
Cumberland settlement was drawn by the influence of
Spanish intrigue and the impulse of the laws of trade into
the intricacies of a wider channel of progress and action.
Occasionally, however, there is a premonitory symptom,
at times a diplomatic clash. When Robertson returned
from North Carolina after the adjournment of the General
Assembly, he found that already many of the old forts
were being rebuilt, and as the population increased, new
ones added. Isaac Bledsoe built a fort at Bledsoe's Lick.
Anthony Bledsoe built one about two miles distant.
Charles Morgan erected one on Bledsoe's Creek. The num-
ber increased steadily, in spite of renewed Indian attacks,
which fell at times like hurricanes of destruction upon the
citizens of the county. The discovery of the weakness of
the Continental Congress had dispelled the awe of the im-
placable savage.
In 1784 the town of Nashville, named in honor of
Colonel Nash,-like Davidson a revolutionary hero of
North Carolina,- succeeded the station of Nashborough.
Commissioners were appointed to survey the plat and lay
off about two hundred acres of land on the Cumber-
land Bluffs, near the French Lick, in lots each of one
acre, with convenient streets, lanes, and alleys, four acres
being reserved for public purposes. The condition of
each deed to the lots was the making of certain improve-
ments upon them within three years. The directors and
trustees were Samuel Barton, Thomas Molloy, and James
Shaw. The consideration, as recited in their deeds, was
"four pounds lawful money and the proviso and condi-
DAVIDSON COUNTY.
135
tion that the purchaser should build or finish within three
years on the lot, one well-framed log, brick, or stone
house, sixteen feet square at least, eight feet clear in the
pitch.
""
In 1785 it was enacted by the General Assembly of
North Carolina that "one judge shall be commissioned by
His Excellency the Governor for the time being, first
being elected by joint-ballot of the General Assembly for
this purpose, to hold a Superior Court of Law and Equity
in the said county, to be styled the Superior Court of
Law and Equity for the County of Davidson, twice in
each year in Nashville, to wit, on the first Monday of
May and the first Monday of November annually, to be
continued by adjournment for ten days, exclusive of Sun-
days." The judge was allowed a salary of fifty pounds.¹
The year following the General Assembly erected a new
county, taken from Davidson, and gave it the name of
Sumner.
An act was passed in 1786 for the protection of the
inhabitants of Davidson and Sumner counties.
It was
directed that a military body of two hundred men be en-
listed and formed for two years' term of service, under
command of major, captain, lieutenant, ensign, and four
sergeants, to be elected by the General Assembly.
The justices of the peace were authorized and required
to lay a tax payable in corn, pork, beef, or other species
of provisions for the support of the troops. A proper out-
1 Haywood says "they appointed a young man of the age of
twenty-four to be the judge of this court, who, upon mature re-
flection becoming fearful that his small experience and stock of legal
acquirements were inadequate to the performance of those great
duties which the office devolved upon him, chose rather to resign
than to risk the injustice to suitors, which others of better qualifica-
tions might certainly avoid." This is a most improbable legend.
Andrew Jackson, the young man in question, was born in 1767, and
in 1785 was only eighteen years old. In addition to this, he was not
admitted to the bar of Davidson County until 1789.
136
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
fit of clothing was supplied by the State as a bounty and
an offset against certain stipulated quantities of ammuni-
tion to be supplied by the recruits themselves.
"The
officers and privates were allowed the same pay and
rations (spirituous liquors excepted) as were allowed to
the militia officers and privates in the service of the State."
Not the least important duties performed by this corps
were the opening a road from the lower end of Clinch
Mountain to Nashville. The road is frequently men-
tioned in the early records, and each year provisions for
its improvement were made by North Carolina or Da-
vidson County. The most important of the duties of
the company were to conduct parties of emigrants to the
middle settlements. This frequently induced those who
arrived in East Tennessee on their way to Kentucky to
change their point of destination and proceed to Nash-
ville. The guard certificates which were issued in pay-
ment of these services became a kind of currency. Each
day saw the arrival of new settlers-the broadening of
the limits of civilization. Vegetables were grown from
seeds brought from the ports of Virginia and the Caro-
linas, and even from Philadelphia. John Donelson, the
year of his arrival, had planted cotton, and found that it
grew exuberantly in soil well exposed to the rays of the
sun. Corn always yielded an abundant harvest when the
accidents of Indian warfare allowed it to be properly cul-
tivated. A tobacco inspection was established in 1785.
In this year also arrived the first physician, preceding by
one year the arrival of the first lawyers, in Middle Tennes-
see, namely, Edward Douglas and Thomas Molloy. These
two rode the circuit of Davidson and Sumner counties
1
1 The fact that Andrew Jackson went to Nashville under such an
escort throws some doubt upon Parton's owl story, especially in view
of the fact that, according to this, the Indians allowed a party whom
they had surrounded to deliberately pack, mount, and move off
unmolested.
(
DAVIDSON COUNTY.
137
until eventually Tennessee County was erected. It is one
of the distinguishing features of American history that
the schoolmaster goes hand in hand with the preacher
and the dispensers of justice. In 1785 the legislature of
North Carolina- or rather James Robertson who repre-
sented Davidson County in the General Assembly of
North Carolina had passed an act appointing Rev.
Thomas B. Craighead and others a body politic under
the name of President and Trustees of Davidson Academy,
and two hundred and forty acres were granted near Nash-
ville for its support. From this origin has come the
Nashville University. In this year, also, we find traces
of another feature of American civilization more powerful,
perhaps, than all the rest. An act was passed forbidding
the distillation of spirituous liquors in Davidson County.
Among the reasons assigned was the preservation of
grain. Shortly after this, however, the first whiskey was
distilled from raw corn, and soon the Red Heifer became
one of the rallying points of the settlement. It stood
upon the bluff near Spout Spring in Nashville. The Red
Heifer was preceded but a few years by a corn mill and a
hominy pounder.” These were run by water-power,
and their invention, by a curious coincidence. originated
in the brain of a man named Cartwright. Before this,
hominy was made either by the hand pestle or by a so-
called spring pole, worked generally by horse-power. The
first application of water-power was a rude imitation of
the application of hand-power. "A trough was made
some twelve feet long and placed upon a pivot or
balance, and was so dug out, that by letting the water
run in at one end of the trough it would fill up so as to
overcome the equipoise, when one end would descend and
the water rushing out, the trough or log would return to
its equilibrium, coming down at the other end with a con-
siderable force, where a pestle or hammer was made to
strike with force sufficient to crack the grains of corn."
66
138
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
This was naturally a tedious process. Cartwright "con-
structed a wheel upon the rim of which he fastened a
number of cows' horns in such a position that as each
horn was filled by water from the little stream, its weight
turned the wheel so that the next horn presented its
open mouth to receive its supply of water-weight and thus
keep the wheel in constant revolution. To a crank was
attached the apparatus for corn-cracking." Two men
named Henderson and Wells have the honor of being the
earliest millers of Middle Tennessee. They were soon
surrounded by rival establishments. By the side of some.
of them stood frequently the immediate successors of the
Red Heifer.
Another evidence of the growth of population was the
establishment of a ferry across the Cumberland, above
the mouth of Sulphur-Lick Branch. Another infant in-
dustry which added to the comforts and increased the
solidity of the settlements was the manufacture of salt.
Up to 1789, all grants of land were expressly precluded
from embracing any salt springs-commonly called licks.
These were generally leased out to parties who were
under contract to manufacture specified quantities. A
part of the tax for the support of the guards was pay-
able in salt. In 1789 the salt springs were ordered sold,
except some reserved for public use, and those buying the
licks were free to manufacture as much as they saw fit.
Kettles had been brought from Jonesboro and furnaces
erected as early as 1785-86. Among others engaged in
this industry was the versatile Mountflorence, a French-
man, who was noted for his thrift, his enterprise, and his
politeness, and who was supposed to be in some mysteri-
ous and not very tangible manner connected with the
French government.
1 Putnam.
CHAPTER XVI.
TROUBLE WITH THE INDIANS.
BUT whilst the pursuits of agriculture and a small but
slowly increasing trade were broadening and deepening
the foundations of the future State, implacable hatred
was still burning in the breasts of the ancient owners of
the soil, and the rifle had not been allowed long to hang
upon the gun-racks in the cabins. The treaty which
Martin and Donelson, under commission from Virginia,
had made with the Indians, and through which important
cessions of territory were gained, had been disregarded
by the United States under that custom of law which
allows to sovereignty alone the right of despoiling the
native tribes of America. But the same results had prac-
tically been accomplished by the provisions of the treaty
made at Hopewell the 28th of November, 1785, and the
later treaty of January 10. The former was between the
United States and the Cherokees; the latter between
the Chickasaws and the United States. The Hopewell
Treaty had been received with outspoken disapproval by
the Cumberland as well as the Watauga people. William
Blount, then a member of Congress, declared against its
ratification. Lands which the Sycamore Shoals Treaty
of Henderson and the Treaty of Fort Stanwix had ob-
tained from the Indians had been entered and settled.
A great number of these settlers were declared by the
Treaty of Hopewell to be upon Indian ground. Those
who failed to move off were left to be punished by the
Indians as they might think proper. They were allowed
140
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
to arrest any person they might believe to have been
guilty of a capital offense, and "punish them in the pres-
ence of some of the Cherokees in the same manner as
they would be punished for like offenses committed on
citizens of the United States." The region of country
left the Cumberland settlement was that between the
Cumberland River and the boundary line of Kentucky.
The Piomingo Treaty of January, 1786, gave the Chicka-
saws all the country along the valleys of the Ohio and
the Mississippi to the northern boundary of the Choctaws.
The United States commissioners, in making these con-
cessions, had been guided by a sincere desire to put an
end to the bloody contests upon the frontier. They
hoped to conciliate the Indians and to withdraw them
from the influence which the whole frontier had now
begun to appreciate the malign influence of France and
Spain. But they failed. Scarcely had the treaty been
concluded, and before the recipients of the presents be-
stowed had worn the tinsel from their ornaments, the old
butchery again began. Peter Barrett was killed below
where Clarksville now stands, within the limits which
had been reserved for the Cumberland settlement by the
late treaty.
This was soon followed by other attacks
until the reign of terror, which the settlers vainly hoped
had been forever ended as a compensation for the indig
nities of the Treaty of Hopewell, was again restored.
One of the most determined opponents of that treaty had
been James Robertson, and he inveighed bitterly against
the parsimony of the mother State, which threw upon the
infant settlement the burden of bearing its own expenses.
for self-defense and the exigencies of frontier life. As a
representative from Davidson County, Robertson, in con-
nection with Bledsoe and William Blount, an avowed
friend of the Western people, had in 1786 drawn up a
memorial to the General Assembly, in which he set forth
in forcible and indignant language the condition of the
TROUBLE WITH THE INDIANS.
141
Cumberland settlement. He reviewed the persistent
cruelty of the Indians, the number they had massacred,
their threatened vengeance, and the danger undergone by
those who had ventured into the wilderness and made it
yield a revenue to the coffers of the State. He alluded
in feeling terms to the treaty between Spain and the
United States, which threatened to cut them off from all
market for their produce, and the added mortification of
seeing the Indians rendered more hostile by the influence
of Spain itself. "We call upon the humanity and justice
of the State to prevent any further massacres and depre-
dations of ourselves and our constituents, and we claim
from the legislature that protection of life and property
which is due to every citizen, and recommend as the most.
safe and convenient means of relief, the adoption of the
resolves of Congress of the 26th October last for the ces-
sion of western lands to the United States." But it was
the policy of North Carolina, founded upon the dictates
of self-interest, to make no outlay upon a province which
in the natural course of human events would soon be
beyond her control. All acts passed this session required
the expenditures for the Cumberland settlement to be col-
lected from the Cumberland people. When Robertson
returned to Nashborough he found the condition of the
people almost as desperate as at any time since the Bat-
tle of the Bluffs. In a few weeks after his return his
brother, Mark Robertson, was killed. Filled with grief
and resentment, he resolved to strike one blow that would
for a time at least put an end to the daily atrocities which
embittered and endangered the lives of his people. His
suspicions fell upon the Indians living near the Muscle
Shoals, at a place where a deep spring of cold clear water
gushed forth from the hidden recesses of the earth,
the pleasant and sleepy little town of Tuscumbia in Ala-
bama. Not knowing the intricacies of the forests, his
embarrassment was relieved by the offer of the services of
now
142
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
Toka, a friendly Chickasaw, and a friend of Toka. Hav-
ing made due preparation, he marched out from the sta-
tion with a well-trained band of one hundred and twenty
men. Another party was to go by water down the Cum-
berland and up the Tennessee to Colbert's Ferry, a cross-
ing place used by the Indians, with provisions, under the
command of David Hay. Pushing rapidly across the
country and through the cane-brakes that stood densely
upon the lower banks of the Cumberland, Robertson
arrived upon
the banks of the Tennessee River and con-
cealed his men until a favorable time for crossing should
arrive. Finding a large canoe upon the opposite shore,
a question arose as to who should swim the river to bring
it back. During the discussion a plunge was heard,
and Edmond Jennings, the brave and fearless son of the
unfortunate Jonathan Jennings, was in the water and
hidden by the darkness. Joshua Thomas, his inseparable
companion, immediately followed. They soon returned
with a canoe capable of carrying forty men. After some
mishaps Robertson finally arrived upon the other bank
with all his company. Marching towards the town, he
ordered his men to preserve the strictest silence. Toka
had predicted that as soon as the Indians saw them they
would run to their boats at the mouth of the creek that
emptied into the river some distance above the town.
Robertson sent Rains to intercept them with a small body
of men. Having made his preparations, the word was
given, and the little band rushed into the village. The
Indians were already in full retreat toward their boats,
but they lost in all thirty lives. The village was destroyed,
and Robertson left, taking with him a large quantity of
merchandise belonging to French traders whom he had
captured whilst trying to escape with the Indians. The
prisoners were released and the men returned to Cum-
berland, without the loss of a life, laden with the spoils
of the French traders. This is known as the Toka, or
TROUBLE WITH THE INDIANS.
143
less success.
Cold Water expedition. The party under Hay met with
It had one man killed and three wounded.
Coming almost immediately upon the heels of the Hope-
well Treaty, the Toka expedition created a profound sen-
sation throughout the Southwest, and Robertson felt called
on to write a justification of his course for the satisfaction
of the French at Illinois. The best justification was found
in a fact which he judiciously failed to mention, that the
depredations were stopped, though only for a few weeks.
Robertson immediately wrote a communication to the
Indians by a trader named Perrault, expressing his desire
to be at peace with them and offering terms of amity.
Their reply was an armed body of two hundred braves,
who, separated into bands of from three to five, restored
in tenfold degree the horrors of the earlier days of the
settlement. Robertson hastened the formation of the
battalion designed for the protection of Davidson County,
and placed it under the command of Captain Evans. But
it was discovered that the regularly organized troops,
many of them newly arrived emigrants and recruits from
the eastern settlements, were inadequate to perform the
duties expected of them. They were not equal to the
emergencies of Indian warfare and were therefore as-
signed to guard duty to escort incoming emigrants across
the country over the Clinch and Nashville road. The
men who were called on to meet the Indians were those
who had learned the lesson of experience. John Rains
and Castleman, Edmond Jennings and Josh Thomas
were worth a hundred dragoons.
John Rains was given command of troops raised in the
Cumberland country and made at different times three
expeditions against the Indians, each of which overawed
them, though only temporarily. The entire male popula-
tion of the western settlement were in arms and scoured
the forests in all directions. But the only good result was
to drive the Indians back to their villages. The evil was
144
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
merely checked for a short time. The depredations of
the Indians continuing, Robertson again made ready to
apply the corrective which the stern example of John
Sevier had demonstrated to be alone efficacious. He in-
vaded their country. But being met by a messenger who
brought assurance of friendship, and promises to refrain
from further molestation, and perhaps being also appre-
hensive of further complication with the Spanish, whose
traders he was likely to meet, he returned without striking
a blow. But upon a renewal of hostilities, Robertson and
Bledsoe visited Kentucky and made arrangements for a
joint invasion of the country of the Creeks. Not content
with invoking the aid of Kentucky, Robertson wrote an
urgent letter to John Sevier. Anthony Bledsoe also
wrote to "his excellency," suggesting the destruction of
the Chickamauga towns as the only hope of immunity, and
stating that an organized body of a thousand Creeks was
reported to be on the way to the Cumberland settlement.
But Sevier was at this time no longer governor. The
State of Franklin had been merged in the State of North
Carolina. Nothing daunted, however, Sevier headed an
expedition against the common enemy and created a diver-
sion which prevented the threatened invasion. The last
days of North Carolina's rule in Tennessee were full of mis-
ery for the people on the border. The Indians, both in
the east and in the west, kept up the old system of hostili-
ties, surprises, and massacres. The intrigues of Spain
added strength and persistency to their malignancy. There
was nothing to hope for from the parent State. The set-
tlements had grown in strength and were now become res-
tive under her niggardly neglect and chafed at the bonds
which held them. The State, it is true, made no attempts
to derive revenue from the new settlements, but she was
also equally particular to allow none of the charges of
their support or protection to fall upon herself. Recrim-
inations ensued and bitterness of feeling. North Carolina
TROUBLE WITH THE INDIANS.
145
accused the frontier people of bad faith in making out
their accounts. In turn the mother State was accused of
viewing with cold-blooded indifference the mutilations and
assassinations of her own children. The immediate pros-
pects of separation alone prevented the Cumberland peo-
ple from imitating the example of the Watauga and
Nollichucky revolutionists. Separation was equally de-
sired by those who lived on the shores of the Atlantic and
in the valleys beyond the Appalachian Mountains.
CHAPTER XVII.
TERRITORY AND NICKOJACK EXPEDITION.
THE immediate cause of separation was the example of
the other States and the prospects held out of relief from
debt. One of the leading ideas upon which the new gov-
ernment was founded was the assumption and payment in
full by the federal government of the unpaid state debts,
incurred by them during the war for independence.
North Carolina, which previously refused to enter the
Union, had in November, 1789, finally ratified the con-
stitution and become a member of the new government.
The act of cession was passed in December of the same
year, and ceded to the United States, the strong and
healthy successor of the feeble and inefficient Continental
Congress, "all right, title, and claim which this State has
to the sovereignty and territory of the lands situated
within the chartered limits of the State," west of a line
which is now the eastern boundary of Tennessee.
One condition of this cession was that all land so ceded
should be considered as a common fund for the use and
benefit of the United States of America, North Carolina
inclusive. Certain rights of entry were reserved and
provision made for the non-acceptance of the cession.
One of the most important conditions was one which in
the light of subsequent events was pregnant with sinis-
ter meaning: No regulations made or to be made by
Congress shall tend to emancipate slaves." It was also
provided that the territory so ceded should be laid out or
formed into a State or States, the inhabitants of which
TERRITORY AND NICKOJACK EXPEDITION. 147
were to enjoy all the privileges, benefits, and advantages
granted by the late Congress for the government of the
Western Territory of the United States. On the 9th of
January, 1790, Hamilton, the ablest and most brilliant of
the members of the first American cabinet, brought for-
ward his report on the settlement of the public debt. One
of the measures advocated was the assumption of the state
debts by the general government. Alarmed and excited
by the rapid strides towards what they regarded despotic
centralization, the anti-federalists put forth their whole
strength to defeat this recommendation. It was only
carried by a vote of 31 to 26, but before it had received
the concurrence of the Senate, seven members arrived from
North Carolina. Surrounded by friends who were eager
to defeat the measures of their opponents, and perhaps
persuaded that the relief from debt when so accomplished
was more dangerous than the burden of the debt itself,
they voted to reconsider the bill. The minority of five
had now become a majority of two and the measure was
defeated. Indignant at the short-sightedness which ham-
pered the broad results of his statesmanship, and unscru-
pulous in the use of political forces involving no moral
turpitude, Hamilton purchased the votes of the two anti-
federalists from the Potomac by fixing the final site of the
national capital on its banks, and thus carried trium-
phantly through the measures which his mature insight
recognized as alone possible to place the financial policy
of the young government upon a firm basis. On the 25th
of February, 1790, Samuel Johnston and Benjamin Haw-
kins, United States senators from North Carolina, signed
the deed of cession, which made Tennessee, as yet un-
named, a Territory of the United States. The act of
acceptance was approved April 2, 1790, and on May 26,
1790, was passed "an act for the government of the
Territory of the United States, south of the river Ohio."
The Territory being formed, it became necessary to find
148
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
a man capable of meeting the delicate requirements of the
governorship. Patrick Henry, who knew the stubborn
temper of the Western people, suggested and urged the
nomination of Mason of Virginia. But unfortunately
for Henry's nominee, there appeared a man singularly
fitted for the position by his character, his affiliations with
the inhabitants of the new country, his popularity among
them, his knowledge of Indian affairs, and his personal
intimacy with Washington himself. This was William
Blount of North Carolina, who received the appointment.
The choice could not have been more fortunate. It is true
he lacked the thorough knowledge of Indian character
which only came from personal contact and was too cred-
ulous. But he understood better than any man of his
day the diplomatic relations of the Indian tribes and the
United States, and was heartily in accord with those who
regarded the aborigines as blocks in the path of progress.
and civilization. He possessed in an eminent degree the
confidence of the people of the Territory. He appreciated
as no man of equal knowledge of law and government
appreciated the difference between the lack of social polish
and the sturdy spirit of independence which, though rugged
and uncouth, brooked no infringement of right and no
trespass on accepted custom. He had perhaps involun-
tarily caught something of the Old World elegance from
the foreign element which in those days thronged our
larger cities and was himself on occasions as stately,
dignified, and courtly as any of those who frequented the
salons of Paris, to pay light compliments to Madame
Recamier or to laugh at the saturnine witticisms of the
Encyclopedists. But he also possessed the soldierly cama-
raderie that embraces all noble spirits irrespective of
outward habiliments. His nomination was hailed with
universal satisfaction, and the machinery of the new gov
ernment started off without a jar. David Campbell, who
appeared to have a prescriptive right to the position, was
TERRITORY AND NICKOJACK EXPEDITION.
149
appointed judge.
Daniel Smith was made secretary.
When the General Assembly was organized, in 1794, the
members of the legislative council were Griffith Ruther-
ford, John Sevier, James Winchester, Stockley Donelson,
and Parmenas Taylor. In the east the Franklinites, or
"Franks," were generally appointed to office. Upon the
recommendation of Blount, Sevier was made brigadier-
general of Washington District and James Robertson of
Mero District.
The administration of Governor Blount is undistin-
guished by any event of great legislative importance. A
few counties were formed, among the number, Tennessee
County, the act for the establishment of which had been
passed by the General Assembly of North Carolina be-
fore the cession.
The seat of government was removed from Rogersville,
where it had been first located, to Knoxville, and with it
the "Knoxville Gazette," the first Tennessee newspaper,
which had received its name in anticipation of the
change. The proprietor, James White, the father of
Hugh Lawson White, laid off a town which he named
Knoxville, in honor of the secretary of war of Wash-
ington's cabinet. In 1792 Knox County was taken
from Greene and Hawkins counties, and immediately the
beginnings of a town began to appear at Knoxville, the
county seat. The three leading features of Governor
Blount's administration were the contests with the In-
dians, the gradual extinguishment of their title to lands.
in the limits of the present State, and the final triumph
of America in the diplomatic contests with Spain.
Indian hostilities came practically if not absolutely to
an end with the Nickojack expedition. The final extin-
guishment of the Indian title was not accomplished until
many years after Tennessee had become a State. But
the treaty of 1791 and its ratification in 1794 inaug-
urated the policy which was to control the future dealings
150
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
of the United States with the Indians. Treaties, how-
ever, merely secured the results which were assured by
the expedition against the lower towns. In the east, Se-
vier made various expeditions against the Indians, upon
each of which he destroyed their towns and their corn-
fields. Immediately upon his return from North Caro-
lina after his escape, he was called into active service.
During his absence General Joseph Martin attempted to
lead an expedition against the Cherokees, but his men,
accustomed to Sevier, lost confidence and forced him to
return. Scarcely had they arrived at Knoxville and dis-
persed when a body of Creeks and Cherokees fell upon
Fort Gillespie and destroyed it. Sevier precipitated him-
self upon them with the flight of an eagle, and took pris-
oners enough to release by exchange all white captives in
the Indian villages. In this way, Joseph Brown, at that
time a prisoner in one of the lower towns and the future
guide of the Nickojack expedition, was set free. Other
attempts of the Indians to break the power of the east-
ern settlements met with like fate. In 1793 occurred the
attack on Cavet's Station. The government at Washing-
ton had been trying to keep down all hostilities against
the Indians, fearing an interruption of the negotiations.
with Spain. After the attack on Cavet's Station, Daniel
Smith, the acting governor of the Territory, disregarded
the orders of Congress and gave the permission for which
the whole body of the people were clamoring — an organ-
ized invasion of their territory. John Sevier, reinforced
by large bodies of troops from the three districts of the
Territory, pushed immediately into the enemies' country.
He crossed the Little Tennessee and burnt Estimaula, one
of their largest villages. Expecting an attack from the
Indians who were lurking in the woods around their de-
serted villages, he formed his men in two parallel lines
along the banks of the Estimaula River. A midnight at-
tack resulted in the defeat of the Indians. Sevier ad-
TERRITORY AND NICKOJACK EXPEDITION.
151
vanced through the fairest section of the Indian territory,
burning and destroying as he went. Arriving at Etowah,
an Indian village situated in the vicinity of the present
town of Rome in Georgia, he came upon the retreating
forces of the Indians which had been augmenting as they
fled. Falling fiercely upon them with more than his usual
impetuosity, Sevier put them utterly to rout and over-
threw their power. This was the heaviest disaster which
had ever befallen the Indians, and with the fall of Eto-
wah came practically to an end the long line of Indian
massacres in East Tennessee, which had begun almost
with the building of William Bean's cabin. This was
Sevier's last campaign. On his return he was met with
enthusiastic applause by the people for whom he had
accomplished so much, and the Cumberland settlers sent
him messages of earnest gratitude.
In the west the entire administration of Governor
Blount, was filled with the annals of Indian warfare. On
the 20th of July, 1788, Colonel Anthony Bledsoe, the
brave old Indian fighter and surveyor, who had passed
unscathed through all the dangers and hardships of
pitched battles and frontier life, was assassinated in his
own cabin. Hearing his cattle rushing by his cabin, he
stepped out of his room and was shot. In 1789, Robert-
son, while working with several laborers in a field near
his house, was wounded in the foot by a shot from a
thicket of cane. In the pursuit which followed, Andrew
Jackson, a newly arrived lawyer, distinguished himself by
his reckless daring and cool presence of mind. Danger
was ever present. The fields could not be worked without
1 Parton confuses this event, which took place in 1789, with the
wound which General Robertson received in 1792. Andrew Jackson
figured in the former. The only pursuit in the latter year was that
by the Indians of General Robertson and his son Jonathan. In the
the first case, Robertson was wounded in the foot, in the second, in
the arm.
The latter wound was a running sore for many years.
152
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
guards on the outlook. Every step was, perhaps, a step
towards the grave.
We still have a general order of
Robertson's, dated April 5, 1789, calling on the militia
to be ready to march at any moment. The low under-
growth of cane offered an almost perfect shelter to a lurk-
ing foe, and it became necessary to destroy it along the
paths which ran between the various forts. In 1791,
about the time of the Holston Treaty, Robertson tried to
stay the hostilities of the Indians by a visit to their na-
But he soon found that the lull was merely tempo-
rary. Information came of a scalp-dance and war-orgie
among the Chickamauga-Cherokees, who acknowledged no
obligations of treaty. The Treaty of New York at which
Alexander McGillivray, the wonderful Talleyrand of the
Creeks, duped Washington and his representatives out of
$100,000 as a douceur for himself and an indefinite quan-
tity of blankets, dry goods, and hardware for his people,
had never been regarded by the Creeks as anything more
than an evidence of their finesse and of American credu-
lity. Americans made treaties, gained possession of the
land, and then violated the provisions of the treaties. For
lands, the Creeks substituted supplies of the things they
prized, and considered their policy not less laudable than
that of their white brothers. In 1792 the Creeks changed
their line of conduct, and actuated, no doubt, by the for-
eign traders, chiefly Spanish, who feared to see the trade
which they found so lucrative slip from their grasp, at-
tempted to gain advantage of the Robertson people by
diplomacy. Several of their chiefs called on Robertson
at Nashville, to smoke the pipe of peace in the big wig-
wam of their brother. The old soldier received them
with cordiality. He fed them bountifully, gave them
drink, and dismissed them with presents. But he kept
Rains and Jennings and Castleman and other escorts in
the woods. Having had some peace talks, Governor
Blount became elated and wrote to Robertson, "Watts
TERRITORY AND NICKOJACK EXPEDITION.
153
has sent me a peace talk, and a string of white beads. I
believe he is in earnest." He saw the near end of Indian
warfare. But Sevier possessed a clearer, a more pene-
trating vision. "The governor is too hopeful," he wrote.
"He hopes against hope." Even in the midst of these
friendly interchanges, Robertson continued his prepara-
tions for war, and organized anew the militia of three
counties Tennessee County having been recently added.
The regular militia was distributed among the various
forts for local duty. A reserve of five hundred men, ex-
empt from local duty, was kept constantly ready to serve
at a moment's notice. The military household of the dis-
trict was further strengthened by the presence of a body
of cavalry under Major Sharpe. Though under the im-
mediate command of the governor of the Territory, he
was required to act in conjunction with General Robert-
son, and being put in rank above the colonels of the dis-
trict, though only a major, was the cause of one of them,
Winchester, resigning.
In this year the settlers received an earnest of the
friendliness of the Creeks in the murder of the three sons
of Colonel Valentine Sevier, the brother of General Se-
vier. Valentine Sevier had settled at the mouth of the
Red River, near where the hilly and picturesque little
town of Clarksville now stands, and his sons, when killed,
were in a boat going up Cumberland River. But filled
with the courage of his race, Sevier strengthened his
fortification and remained at his post. This was but one
instance of the outcropping of the spirit which, over and
above the question of self-interest, introduced an element
of heroism and chivalric loyalty to a noble mission into
the desperate struggles which characterized the founding
of this State. A few months after the death of Sevier's
three sons and their companions, the Indians attacked
Zigler's Station, a fort on the west fork of Bledsoe's
Creek. During a time when one man dared not drink
154
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
from a spring unless another stood with a rifle cocked to
protect him, the night guards of a large station slumbered
at their posts. The Indians stealthily surrounded the
fort, opened the gate, and rushed in. Resistance was use-
less. They killed five people and captured about twenty
more. This disaster came heavily home to the settlers.
Never before had so many of their friends fallen at one
blow. The indignant troops clamored to be led against
the common foe. Robertson refused. It was against or-
ders, and the old settlers listened with incredulous aston-
ishment as they were told by one who never trifled, that
the governor of the Territory had forbidden any pursuit
of the Indians into their own country. This meant, of
course, the interdiction of all pursuit. Washington at
this time was engaged in an arduous diplomatic struggle.
The least jar might break the fine network of diplomatic
threads in which Jay was endeavoring to entangle the
Spanish authorities. The murder of a trader might bring
about a refusal on the part of Spain to allow to America
the free navigation of the Mississippi River. This re-
fusal meant something which was frequently heard in the
thriving young settlements of the Ohio valley, and even
in the senate chamber at Philadelphia, but not from the
persuasive lips of the American diplomat. On this ac-
count, for this reason, Blount was ordered by Knox, the
secretary of war, to allow no offensive operations beyond
the bounds of the Territory of which he was governor.
Blount in turn ordered Robertson to forbid all offensive
operations beyond the limits assigned the Indians by the
Treaty of Holston, that is, east of the ridges which divide
the waters of the Cumberland and the Tennessee. But the
people chafed. One John Edmiston organized a company
of his own to invade the Indian country, but was restrained
by an order of Robertson which compelled him to disband
his troops. In return for this, Robertson received an anon-
ymous letter from "a citizen of the new district," who
TERRITORY AND NICKOJACK EXPEDITION.
155
vented his spleen by wishing "Edmiston great success, and
you gone from hence and a better in your room. The
navigation of the Mississippi River was an important ques-
tion to the broad vision, the clear foresight, and the happy
statesmanship of Sevier. But to Robertson, with his
brother and his sons and his friends falling about him, and
with the marks of two bullets on his own person, it was
vague, shadowy, intangible. A burning fort and a dozen or
so scalped women and children were, on the contrary, an
absolute tangibility, a thing full of arguments, reasons, and
conclusions. It requires but little imagination to picture
the strain placed upon his sense of duty. It finally be-
came too great and he yielded. But in both it is no diffi-
cult matter to see that he was actuated by motives which
the most captious must allow to have been pure and
noble. Robertson's self-containment in one thing found
its reward. A Creek chief falsely reported to his tribe
a threat of Robertson's: "There has been a good deal of
blood spilt in our settlement, and I will come and sweep it
clean with your blood." Robertson was known among all
the Indians of the four nations as a man of his word in
peace and in war, and the Creeks thought it best to take
the initiative. From Lookout Mountain they sent friendly
talks to Governor Blount, filled with assurances of good-
will and abiding friendship. Blount was completely de-
ceived. On the 12th of September, before the arrival of
the messenger with the friendly talk, he sent an order to
Robertson to enroll as many men as possible for the pur-
pose of resisting the impending invasion. On the 14th
of September he sent directions to Robertson to "dis-
charge such part of the brigade of Mero District as may
be in service under my order of the 12th instant.
I
1 This, however, was merely a babbler's expression of the senti-
ment of discontent that prevailed generally throughout the entire
community, an impatience directed not against Robertson so much as
the authority that controlled his actions. Robertson himself shared
the same feeling.
156
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
heartily congratulate you and the District of Mero upon
the happy change of affairs. I really had dreadful ap-
prehensions for you." On the 16th he sends an express:
"The danger is imminent." Between the 14th and the
16th the lower Creek towns had declared war, and six
hundred Indians had crossed the Tennessee River to wage
a war of extermination. The spies reported danger be-
fore Blount's last message came. Notably, Abraham
Castleman had, made a circuit of the woods of more than
sixty miles, and returning predicted an impending inva-
sion. Blount's congratulations, however, had deceived
the people. Even Robertson, who had a high estimate of
Castleman's woodcraft and a very low estimate of Gov-
ernor Blount's, was perplexed. He sent out Rains and
Kennedy in one direction, Clayton and Gee in another.
The latter were never seen again. The former returned
and reported no traces of Indians to be found. Castle-
man was good-naturedly chided for his over-caution, and
John Rains looked with kindly malice at the old Indian
fighter as he drily continued his preparations for an elab-
orate war.
Castleman was right. The Creeks, Cherokees, and Shaw-
nees, to the number of six hundred, had stolen within
a few miles of the Cumberland settlement before their
presence was discovered. Their first point of attack was
Buchanan's Station, which was defended by only fifteen
available men.
But for some cause the attack of the en-
tire force was easily repulsed without the loss of a life in
the station. One of the Indian chiefs was killed in an
attempt to fire the buildings, and another was wounded.
The number of killed was not known. This is one of the
most remarkable incidents in the early border warfare of
the Southwest. So wonderful, indeed, that even some of
the pioneers believed in the direct interposition of Provi-
dence. Both Haywood and Ramsey agree in estimating
the number of the Indians at about six hundred. Blount
TERRITORY AND NICKOJACK EXPEDITION.
157
in a letter describing the attack says the Indians num-
bered from three to four hundred. An account of the
attack, published in the Whig "Review" of 1852, which
was founded on information derived from the Indians
themselves, agrees with these estimates in putting the
number of the assailants among the hundreds.
The repulse of the Indians by the Buchanan Station
people failed to cause even a temporary cessation of their
hostilities, and scattered in small bands through the set-
tlements, they wrought more mischief than when organ-
ized. Governor Blount, who had sufficiently clear ideas
of the exigencies of Indian warfare, and who among other
things had a block-house built at Southwest Point,¹ or-
ganized two regiments of militia and placed them under
the command of John Sevier. But scarcely had the
troops been properly formed when orders came from the
secretary of war to have them mustered out of service.
In 1793 another war broke out, in consequence of the
killing by John Beard and his party of several Indian
chiefs who had assembled at Knoxville by order of the
president to arrange some dispute in reference to bound-
ary lines. It was found impossible to get a court-martial
to punish Beard. The Cherokees retaliated, Henry's
Station was attacked and its inmates slaughtered. In
turn a company of riflemen under Doherty and Mc-
Farland invaded the Indian country and destroyed six of
their villages.
All during 1792 and 1793 the Cumberland settlement
still suffered from the effects of Indian warfare. In 1793
Abraham Castleman, whom the Indians called the "Fool
Warrior," with Eli Hammond and others, in direct viola-
tion of the orders of Congress and Governor Blount,
crossed the Tennessee River and made a raid into the
Indian country. The indignation of the frontier had
gradually grown too strong for restraint. The people, in
1 Near Kingston of this day.
158
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
the exercise of that right which in America is considered
superior to all written law, the right of self-defense, began
in a spirit of stern determination to make preparations for
a war of retaliation and invasion. General Robertson
raised troops in Nashville, Montgomery in Clarksville,
Miles and Ford in the region of country between these
two points. Major Ore who had been sent to Mero Dis-
trict by Blount with troops, immediately joined the enter-
prise. Kentucky was invited to lend aid, and Colonel
Whitly of that State, having brought to the rendezvous a
small body of troops, was given nominal command of the
combined forces. The expedition at first was called Ore's
Expedition. Ore was then in the service of the United
States, and it was hoped this would give the expedition
a certain appearance of authority. Both Ore and Rob-
ertson were acting contrary to orders. But the exaspera-
tion of the people was too great- delay was impossible.
The immediate cause of the expedition was the murder of
a man named Chew, with a party of fifteen, the assassina-
tion of two young Bledsoes, sons of Anthony Bledsoe, and
the murder of Major Winchester one of the magistrates
of Sumner County. The point of attack was the five
lower towns of the Chickamaugas, of which the most
noted was Nickojack. From this, the expedition received
its name of the Nickojack Expedition, by which it is still
known. For a long time, this expedition, which is the
most celebrated of all the incidents of early Indian war-
fare in Tennessee, received a kind of apocryphal notoriety
as being the first military exploit of Andrew Jackson
since his boyish rencontre with the British officer. Ram-
sey gives him the credit of having planned the entire
attack. But recent research has placed it beyond doubt
that Jackson was not present.
There is something suggestive of the fatuitous march
of events in a Greek tragedy, in the Nickojack expedition
and the fate of the lower Cherokee towns. Even the
TERRITORY AND NICKOJACK EXPEDITION.
159
element of prophecy was not lacking, and the destruction
which came was terrible, complete, and directly the result
of the fiercest passion for revenge. The situation of these
towns caught a certain air of picturesque grandeur from
the natural scenery around them. The two most important
were Nickojack and Running Water. They were situated
on a precipice which was all but impregnable. A deep,
broad, and dangerous river ran below. Beyond were the
dense forests, penetrated only by the paths which successive
generations of wild beasts had made, and the tall, inac-
cessible peaks of the Cumberland Mountains, down whose
dark and precipitous ravines it was supposed no horse.
could ever descend. The approach in the rear was im-
possible to all but friends, and the Indians exultingly
boasted that "Chucky Jack" himself would never be able
to reach them in their retreat. The eagle in his eerie,
the panther in his lair, could not be safer. Here dwelt
the fierce and implacable Chickamaugas, whose villages
above had been destroyed by Shelby, and who, learning a
lesson from the first surprise, had hoped to select a place
where Nature herself would keep eternal guard over their
women, children, and wigwams. Here, too, they had been
joined by all the elements of lawlessness which had been
outlawed by neighboring tribes as unfitted even for the
duties which the laxity of Indian customs imposed. In
addition to these had come some few of the white race
Ishmaels and outcasts from all the western world. Here
they returned to rest after their labors of war. From
here they could see the boats of traffic and emigration as
they dropped down the Tennessee from Knoxville and
Fort Henry on their way to Nashville, to Natchez, to
Lance de Grace, to New Orleans, and from here they
made the descents upon them which often brought them
rich returns of plunder, of scalps, and of revenge. In
1788 a party of emigrants had thus fallen into their
hands. It consisted of the family of a man named Brown,
160
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
on his way to Cumberland. Having treacherously and by
fair words gotten the party into their power, the Indians
slew all but the smallest children. These were reserved
for adoption into the tribe or for torture, as the accident
of the hour might suggest. One of the children, a half
grown boy, was held a prisoner for several years and
eventually released by exchange through the instrumen-
tality of John Sevier. Before his departure an old squaw
predicted that he would live to bring back an expedition
to destroy them all, and insisted on tomahawking the lad
to prevent the evil. The fear of Sevier, however, pre-
vailed. The boy of 1788 was a man in 1794, and being
urged by Robertson, he succeeded in discovering a horse-
path through the thick and almost impenetrable forest
and undergrowth that stretched between Nashville and
the lower towns.
On the sixth of September, 1794, General Robertson
ordered Major Ore to destroy the lower Cherokee towns.
Guided by Brown and a trusty half breed scout, the
troops advanced to the Tennessee, and arrived upon its
banks several miles below the mouth of the Sequatchie.
Rafts and floats were rapidly and silently constructed.
With the assistance of these and several hide canoes
brought for the purpose, the soldiers passed secretly and
swiftly over the river, in the early dawn, before the first
rays of sunshine had fallen upon the tree tops above them.
Some had been forced to swim, although the current of
the river, which is here about three quarters of a mile
wide, was strong and swift. Having all assembled upon
the opposite bank, the ranks were formed and the number
counted. There were five hundred.¹ The Indians were
as yet totally oblivious of their danger. The troops were
divided into two wings. The main body under Whitly
was to make a détour and attack Nickojack above; the
other, under Montgomery, below. The knowledge of the
1 Haywood says two hundred and sixty. I follow the official
report of Ore, which gives this number.
TERRITORY AND NICKOJACK EXPEDITION.
161
The soldiers,
topographical features of the ground obtained from the
former captive, to whom every path, every tree, every
knoll was familiar, was invaluable, and alone rendered
possible the complete surprise without which the expedi-
tion would, at least partially, have miscarried. Having
once ascended the narrow path and gotten upon the pla-
teau on which the town stood, without alarming its in-
mates, the main points of the campaign had been gained,
and the details were easy of execution. The silence of
death brooded over the little village.
chiefly those from the Cumberland settlement, gazed with
a sort of joyous exultation upon the unprotected homes.
and families of those who had often brought misery and
destruction upon their homes and their families. They
had come as destroyers and avengers. Two houses in a
field of corn were seen. Beyond these stood the village.
Here the first shot was fired, and orders were given by
Montgomery to push steadily forward to the main village,
about two hundred and fifty yards distant. Hurrying rap-
idly forward, the huts were found vacant.
ing the firing and being advised by Brown, sent him
back with a detachment of about twenty men to intercept
those who might try to escape from the mouth of the
creek that emptied into the river below the village. The
Indians, as soon as they heard the first firing, had hurried
to the landing where the canoes were fastened in the vain
hope of escape. But being warned in advance by Brown,
Montgomery's men hastened forward, and falling upon
them slaughtered them in pitiless rage as they came upon
them. Whitly, having placed his guards so as to prevent
any escape to the upper towns or any reinforcements from
them, came down upon them from the other side. The
surprise was complete — the destruction was thorough.
Running Water, a large village but strategically less im-
portant than Nickojack, was four miles higher up the
river. Having destroyed Nickojack and slaughtered its
Whitly, hear-
162
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
"
•
inhabitants, the troops pushed forward towards Running
Water, and although the inhabitants had made good their
escape, they razed it to the ground. The villages higher
up
the river than these were small and of little moment.
Their destruction could be accomplished when it became.
necessary. The utter annihilation of Nickojack and Run-
ning Water accomplished the objects of the raid, and the
brave old Cumberland settlers recrossed the river, exultant
and triumphant, flushed with victory and glutted with
revenge. This was not then regarded an ignoble passion.
To those who had lost a child, a wife, some relative, many
friends, it became a duty, and its gratification an expia-
tion. The Cumberland people looked forward to a long
period of quiet and peace. Now that entrance had been
obtained, the idea of perfect seclusion was gone. With
this went all hope of continuing successfully the old sys-
tem of warfare. The Indians who escaped, either joined
the Overhill Cherokees or moved lower down the river.
With the fall of Nickojack the question of Indian
depredations passed out of the daily thoughts of the Cum-
berland people. There were occasional murders and thefts
of horses, waylaying of trains of merchandise, and at times
captures of emigrant boats. Runners or scouts paid out
of the public funds, whose duty it was to pass from settle-
ment to settlement and keep an outlook for Indians, sur-
vived nearly to the Creek wars. But the dangers were
chiefly such as were natural incidents of frontier life and
an unsettled state of society, and were as frequently caused
by desperadoes and lawless white men as Indians. The
secretary of war wrote to Governor Blount, and Gov-
ernor Blount wrote a severe letter to Robertson, when
news of the destruction of Indian towns in the limits of
Indian territory arrived in Washington and Knoxville.
A correspondence ensued, and General Robertson offered
his resignation as brigadier-general of Mero District.
But here the matter ended. It soon passed from public
discussion and was forgotten.
CHAPTER XVIII.
SPANISH INTRIGUES.
.
IN Ore's report to Governor Blount of the destruction
of the Cherokee towns, we find the following significant
passage: "A quantity of ammunition powder and lead
lately arrived there from the Spanish government, and a
commission for the Breath, the head man of the town (who
was killed), and sundry horses and other articles of prop-
erty were found at Nickojack and Running Water, which
were known to have belonged to different people killed by
the Indians in the course of the last twelve months." In
the same letter he says, At Nickojack were found two
fresh scalps, which had lately been taken at Cumberland,
and several that were old were hanging in the houses of
the warriors as trophies."
The juxtaposition of the two articles of Spanish ammu-
nition and American scalps typifies the relative attitudes
occupied by the Indians towards the two nations who then
owned the region of country which is now the South-
west of the United States. By the treaty of 1762 Spain
came into possession of all territory held by the French,
west of the Mississippi River. By the treaty of 1783
Spain gained from England what was indefinitely known
as Florida, and claimed the ownership of all the country
east of the Mississippi up to the 31st degree of latitude.
Succeeding the French in their North American posses-
sions, the Spanish fell heir also to their policy. The
French, in their futile endeavor to unite the North Ameri-
can continent, of which they owned the two extremes of
164
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
north and south, connected their possessions by building
forts and trading posts through the vast valley of the
Mississippi. Between these they kept up a constant line
of communication. In this way Du Quesne had been
built, and St. Genevieve, Kaskaskia, Vincennes, Nachito-
ches on Red River, and St. Louis and Natchez on the
banks of the Mississippi itself. The Spaniards subse-
quently added Lance de Grace, now New Madrid in Mis-
souri. Du Quesne had passed into the possession of the
United States, but the old trading posts still remained
under the sway of the great bankrupt monarchy of the
Old World. In 1783 the statesmen of Spain were filled
with the same vain dreams which have raised up gorgeous
visions of a magnificent southwestern empire in the minds.
of the statesmen of four nationalities. Indeed, this idea
is almost indestructible. There is something in the geo-
graphical outlines, in the natural outlets of commerce, in
the resources of the soil, which suggests almost sponta-
neously a great empire in the region of country drained by
the Ohio, the Tennessee, the Arkansas, the Tombigbee,
the Red, the Sabine, and the Mississippi rivers. From
La Salle, who saw its primitive wonders and whose life
was the noble offering to the sincerity of his aspirations,
to Aaron Burr, the unstable and meteoric American in
whom the hope was treason, the finest, the broadest, and
the most statesmanlike minds of two continents have been
caught by the fascination of the thought.
Spain's intercourse with the Indians was directly subser-
vient to the scheme of extending her territory as far north
as the valley of the Ohio. This was the coveted prize,
but the means adopted for its attainment lie beyond the
scope of a popular history of Tennessee. It is one of
the romances of history. It is remarkable as being one
of the few instances where diplomacy accomplished great
results unaided by force. The various phases of the intel-
lectual contest, where the
keenest weapons were the wits
SPANISH INTRIGUES.
165
of statesmen and the most effective feints the subter-
fuges of diplomats, make one of the most entertaining
and absorbing pages of the world's history. But Tennes-
see was touched only at various points, and, in as far as
its own development was concerned, in no decisive man-
ner. A part of the present State was claimed by Spain,
but none of the region then settled.
A more dangerous claim, however, was the exclusive
navigation of the Mississippi River. The policy of the
Spanish governors who represented that country at Pen-
sacola and New Orleans was to attempt the extirpation of
the young and growing settlements by instigating the
Indians to continued hostilities, furnishing them ammuni-
tion for their purposes and playing upon their cupidity.
Failing in this, the next attempt was to act directly upon
the settlers themselves, first winning their friendship by
allowing their commerce special privileges in the naviga-
tion of the Mississippi River, and then exciting their fears
by threats of excluding them entirely from a trade which
they found lucrative. The name of Governor Mero was
given the Cumberland district as an expression of regard
and gratitude on the part of the Cumberland people for
favors extended their trading boats and the freight they
carried to Natchez and New Orleans.
The question of the navigation of the Mississippi River,
however, never resulted in exciting any feeling at all
friendly towards Spain. Any threats to exclude the Wa-
tauga or the Cumberland people from that river aroused
their earnest indignation. The intrigues of the Spanish
authorities were directed towards the estrangement of the
western settlements from the United States and their
ultimate union with Spain. Sevier and Robertson have
both been accused of complicity in these intrigues.
Letters of Robertson are extant which are proof conclu-
sive. But it is scarcely a matter of doubt that he was
merely trying to placate the Spaniards in hopes of pro-
166
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
tecting the settlement under his charge. Governor Mero
at New Orleans was the leading mind among the repre-
sentatives of Spain in the new country, and there is reason
to believe that his urbane and liberal character turned
with disgust from the policy which supplied the Indians
with the weapons of assassination and the means of de-
bauchery. Up to 1792, when he was succeeded by Car-
ondelet, a man of narrower mind and a smaller heart, he
used all available weapons of diplomacy to accomplish his
purpose, without the exercise of violence. Besides grant-
ing commercial privileges and exemptions, he attempted to
found an American colony on Spanish soil, at Lance de
Grace or New Madrid, west of the Mississippi River.
He held out glittering promises to those who would break
from the bondage of the weak government that languished
at the American capital, either to form a separate govern-
ment or to become a part of the Spanish Empire.
The policy of extermination was productive of the
bitterest results to the settlements. Generally the Ameri-
can frontier men only felt the effects of Spanish malig-
nancy in the acts of Indian hostilities, but occasionally they
came face to face with the evil influence in the persons
of Spanish traders. In a letter written by Robertson
and Bledsoe to Governor Caswell in 1787, they say, "It
is certain, as the Chickasaws inform us, that the Spanish
traders offer rewards for scalps of the Americans." The
only Indian of great ability among the aborigines at that
time was a Creek chief, Alexander McGillivray, who,
according to an enthusiastic Alabamian, was the greatest
man ever born on Alabama soil. Though not a Cherokee,
his influence among all the tribes was great, and around
1 Haywood, Ramsey, and Putnam speak indiscriminately of Spanish
and French traders. As a rule they were of French extraction, but
having come under the dominion of Spain, and having no national
principles or preferences, they were, for the purposes for which Gayoso,
Mero, and Carondelet used Indian traders, Spaniards.
SPANISH INTRIGUES.
167
him revolved the intrigues which involved the Indians in
the struggles between America and Spain. McGillivray
was one of the most remarkable products of his age.
Closely connected by blood with both races, he inherited
in a strangely incongruous degree the peculiarities of both.
His bearing was so winningly gracious, and so frankly cor-
dial, and his speech so clear and so fluent, that strangers
meeting him for the first time could only stare at him in
silent amazement. Living in the squalor of an Indian
cabin, he had accumulated what the finest gentleman in
Madrid would have regarded as wealth. Possessing the
manners and the education of a man of the world, he
took pride in cheap titles and badges of distinction which
the least philosophic white man of his day would have
deemed trivial if not contemptible. He hated all of
the race from which he derived the better part of his
blood, but he unhesitatingly and unscrupulously united
with all through whom he could accomplish his purpose.
His cupidity was marvelous, and was open to temptations
from the things which appealed to the Indian's fancy as
well as the things which excited the white man's love of
gold. He lacked all idea of moral rectitude both from
the Indian's and the white man's standpoint, and having
accepted a bribe from the United States, he at once notified
the Spanish authorities of his readiness to hear from
them. In 1784 he entered into a treaty with the Span-
iards looking to the total destruction of the Cumberland
settlement. For ten years he never relaxed his exertions
for the attainment of that object.
Robertson knew his influence among his people and the
Cherokees, and knowing also the magnitude of his vanity,
addressed him on one occasion a formal communication
full of vague flatteries in the hope that he could be in-
duced to exert his influence for peace. McGillivray
received his messengers with lavish hospitality and over-
whelmed them with praises of Robertson, and promises
168
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
•
of eternal peace. The presents offered he graciously ac-
cepted. Nothing was changed, however, in the status of
affairs.
The evil influence exerted by the Spaniards finally
came to an end with the opening of the Mississippi River
to the free navigation of both nations. The Nickojack
expedition of 1794, and the treaty of 1795, each removed
from Tennessee history a disturbing factor. But one
impediment remained in the presence of Indians on the
territory of the future State. These were removed grad-
ually and at various times as required by the exigencies
of progress in the making of the State.
CHAPTER XIX.
MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND MODE OF LIFE.
A DESCRIPTION of the manners and customs and mode
of life of those who inhabited Tennessee at the end of
the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth cen-
tury is, with minor modifications, a description of the
manners and customs and mode of life of those who, at
the present day in the far West, are still extending the
limits of civilization and laying the foundations of un-
named republics. The same general conditions exist,
the same desires for self-advancement, the same longing
for material prosperity and mental improvement, the same
instinct of self-government. We have passed the primi-
tive stage of our existence by a lapse of time which, com-
pared with the period of notable change in older commu-
nities, is scarcely worthy of historical notice, but which is
the interval separating youth and inexperience from age
and full-blown maturity in the history of the western
American States. With all the evidences of the most
progressive state of civilization around us, and being in
the very foremost files of time, it is difficult for us to
grasp as an actual state of society that in which our grand-
fathers and grandmothers lived. There is but a step
from the wild fox to the cotton-gin, an almost inapprecia-
ble point of time from the packhorse to the railroad.
With the change in material conditions has come a change
in habits of life, in social customs, in the very woof of
our daily existence. But we should not forget that this
change has been greater in the city than in the country.
170
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
As we pass in review the life of our near ancestors, as we
look into their cabins and follow them to their social
gatherings, those who know the present will be struck by
the points of resemblance between the things of that day
and what still remains in many of the rural districts of
this State, especially East Tennessee.
The population of Tennessee in 1790 is given in the
federal census of that year, as 25,691. In 1795, when
the census was taken under Governor Blount, the total
number of inhabitants was discovered to be 77,262. In
five years the population had more than trebled. Of these
only about 2,500 were in Davidson, Tennessee, and Sum-
ner counties. The emigrants who had come in since
the formation of the Territory, which had increased the
impetus of inflow, were, as a rule, in better circum-
stances than the old Watauga heroes. They also had less
dangers to encounter. Many were soldiers of the Revo-
lution who had come to locate their grants of land. Many
were families brought in by speculators who held lands
they were anxious to have cleared. Many came for vari-
ous other reasons. Some came from New England and
Pennsylvania, traveling down the ridge along which lay
the great highway of emigration. The greater number,
however, came from Virginia, by what was called the
Good-Spur route, passing through Western Virginia and
down the Holston valley. Others came across the Stone
and the Yellow Mountains. A wagon road had been
opened from Burke County to Jonesboro, but it was
not always possible to use wagons in traveling it. But
whether on foot, on horseback, or in wagons, they came,
and from early spring until late fall the road leading into
Jonesboro presented the appearance of a desultory pro-
cession. Arrived here, each party rested, mingled with
the people, distributed letters which they had brought,
gave the latest news from the sea-board, found out the
location of their lands, or the nearest and best road to
MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND MODE OF LIFE. 171
the place they were seeking, and then pushed resolutely
on, to Rogersville, to Greeneville, to Knoxville, or to some
of the intervening forts or stations. Perhaps they de-
sired to go to the Cumberland settlements. If so, they
made their way by land over the newly opened and level
road by way of the Clinch River, from the lower end of
Clinch Mountain, or they embarked at Fort Patrick
Henry, or Knoxville, to make the attempt by water. This,
however, not so often, on account of the river pirates who
made the voyage but little less dangerous than it had
been during the time of the five lower towns.
Compared with the actual dimensions of the State, the
portions then inhabited were but as tufts of civilization in
a Sahara of wilderness and barbarous solitude. If one
of the new-comers had been carried up so high as to have
a bird's-eye view of the settlements, he would have seen
little to please the fancy beyond the wilderness of natural
scenery. In the far west he would have seen on the
banks of the Mississippi where Memphis now stands a
small fort filled with a few Spanish officers and soldiers,
perhaps a drunken Indian in the door of a hut. Here
and there he would have detected isolated wigwams reach-
ing towards the south. Perhaps he might have seen
glimpses of the Great Natchez Trace, which led from
Nashville to the great trading emporium of the South-
west. After his eye had passed over miles of silent for-
ests, fields, and streams, he would have seen an irregular
collection of cabins and block-houses scattered up and
down the Cumberland and along the banks of the Caney
Fork, Stone River, and a few creeks that emptied into
the Cumberland in the neighboring district of country.
The whole settlement would not have covered much more
than forty miles square, and when the mouth of Red
River with its germ of Clarksville had been passed, wil-
derness and desolation would again have met the eye. In
the extreme east the sight would have been little more
172
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
gratifying. There he would have seen small wooden-
house villages and palisaded cabins scattered up and down
a half dozen valleys, beginning in a kind of point in Sul-
livan County, far away among the head waters of the Hol-
ston River, spreading out through valley and glen and
along river and creek, and gradually coming again to an
end at Southwest Point near the junction of the Clinch
and the Tennessee Rivers. Not quite one eighteenth of
the State was occupied.
If the condition of the highways of a country be taken
as an index of a country's prosperity, the condition of
Tennessee during these times was deplorable indeed. It
is a pardonable exaggeration to say that there were no
roads worthy the name. At first the line of emigration
advanced to the Watauga settlements by tortuous paths
leading over the Appalachian Mountains.
In some
places, where the forest was unusually dark and intricate,
an occasional tree was blazed along the line of travel.
The deserted campfires, with their heaps of ashes and
broken undergrowth, assisted those who followed in the
wake of more adventurous travelers. If rains or storms
came, shelter was sought under a neighboring tree or
ledge of rock. It was nothing unusual for a traveler
to lose his way. Returning from Tennessee to North
Carolina, James Robertson barely escaped with his life,
having lost his way. At times the declivities of the
mountains were so great that it became necessary to alight
from the horse and descend on foot. The first road which
was made by man was one for vehicles which ran from
Jonesboro court - house into Burke County, and the
chroniclers all observed that the number of emigrants
with some degree of wealth at once increased in a re-
markable degree. The roads which led from the various
settlements were long neglected. Even as late as 1797,
Bishop Asbury says sarcastically, "My horse hath the
honor of swimming Holston River every time I visit the
MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND MODE OF LIFE.
173
country." Nor were the rivers and ravines the only
sources of danger, for many an unwary traveler received
a blow under the chin from an overhanging limb, or had
his knee crushed against a tree, even where the roads
were best. When lost, the traveler had but three sources
of comfort—chance, Providence, and the instinct of his
horse, and in the absence of Indian violence it rarely
happened that he failed of all three. Among the most
romantic passages of our early history were the adven-
tures which befell those who traveled from East to Mid-
dle Tennessee. Up to 1787 the usual route of emigrants
was by way of the Kentucky wilderness in a direct
line from the east. But in 1787 the General Assembly
of North Carolina made provision for a troop of three
hundred men who were first to cut a road from the lower
end of Clinch Mountain in a direct line to Nashville, at
least ten feet wide, and then to act as guards for bands of
incoming emigrants. The starting point was Campbell's
Station, and it was customary to give public notice of the
time of departure.
As early as 1783, and in fact earlier, the western settle-
ments began to turn their attention to the improvement
of the roads connecting the various forts and stations.
In 1783 a road which had been previously laid out was
ordered cleared from Mansker's Station to Nashville. The
undergrowth of cane was so great that it was dangerous
go from one fort to another, and as a measure of pre-
caution this was gradually cleared away.
to
The general topography of the country was primitive
and barbarous. Bishop Asbury in his Journal, makes
constant allusions to the gloomy scenes through which he
passes. Tyger's Valley he calls the "Valley of Distress."
This he reached “after crossing six mountains and many
rocky creeks and fords." The Gap he compares to "the
shades of death in the Alleghany Mountains." On an-
other occasion a Mrs. Scott was four days in traveling
two miles through a declivitous thicket.
174
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
To add to the hardships which continually beset the
traveler, he was frequently deprived of the comforts even
of a shelter for his head. After the destruction of Nick-
ojack, occasional log-cabin taverns were found scattered
along the line of travel, and their number increased after
the admission of Tennessee to the Union. But the ac-
commodations were inferior even by comparison, and the
host, as a rule, was a distiller of whiskey and kept a tip-
pling house for the sale of his own beverages. If no
tavern could be found, the traveler was thrown upon the
mercy of the first human inhabitant of a cabin, and this
was rarely denied. The traveler was expected to sleep
on his own bedding, generally a blanket and his own
clothes, receiving perhaps a bundle of straw or a little
flax to eke out his rest. The beds usually given by
tavern keepers to emigrants were filthy beyond descrip-
tion, and when the night was cold the unlucky traveler
was often caught in a dilemma, one of whose horns was
a bad cold, the other, the itch. There is a tradition
which still survives among wags, that a traveler was once
rudely ejected from one of these inns because of his ob-
jection to the towel. The irate host was unable to brook
the squeamish conceit of one who objected to a towel
which fifteen others had used without a word of com-
plaint. Often as many as a dozen and even more were
crowded into a room twelve by ten feet. If fortunate
enough to go to bed by himself it was no guarantee that
he would be without one, possibly two bedfellows when he
awoke. The fare was generally sufficient to satisfy the
appetite, but luxuries were not to be had. Tea, coffee,
and sugar had to be supplied by the traveler. The host
gave him always bread (in the earlier days made of
pounded corn), butter, and milk, occasionally pork, ba-
con, beans, eggs, potatoes, mush, rice, and in season, a
few vegetables. Fresh meat depended upon the chances
of the last hunt. The tavern rates in Greene County
MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND MODE OF life. 175
in 1785 were as follows: Diet, one shilling; liquor, half
pint, six pence; pasture and stable, six pence; lodging,
pence; corn, per gallon, eight pence; oats, per gallon,
six pence.
four
But the seed had been sown and it fell upon good soil.
Both the eastern and the western settlements throve.
The question of survival was gradually being answered
in favor of the fittest. People were spreading all through
the eastern valleys, and from there to the middle of the
future State, with the exception of the narrow strip of
Indian ground which cut into it like a pair of scissors in
a sheet of paper. In the forts the various phases of life
came most distinctly to view, and the contrasts were most
sharply defined. The log cabins were still there, but they
were more scattered. The seven original forts on the
Cumberland were still there they had been necessary
and might be again, but they were, with the exception of
Nashville, gradually dissolving and spreading: The block-
houses still had their port-holes, their projecting roofs,
their moats or ditches, but the cabins reaching out through
the country were putting on a neater appearance. When,
in 1777, J. W. Deadrick had built a cabin a few miles
from Jonesboro, and covered it with shingles, it was re-
garded as a pleasant innovation. But shingles now began
to vie with clapboards. Piazzas began to divide the cab-
ins. Round poles disappeared and the logs were hewn
more carefully and plastered more neatly. About 1796
frame houses began to appear. In 1800 Bishop Asbury
stayed in Knoxville at the house of Francis Ramsey, the
father of the historian. This house was built of stone.
The public buildings showed an advance beyond the
round-pole, log court-house, in which the old Watauga
heroes assembled and legislated. In 1784 a court-house
was ordered to be built in Jonesboro, the floor of which
was to be neatly laid with plank. "Shingles were used
on the roof." To the court-house was now joined a jail in
176
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
the same style of architecture. In the deeds to purchas-
ers of lots in Nashville, it was specified that they should
shortly erect on the lot one well-framed, log, brick, or
stone house, sixteen feet square at least, eight feet clear
in the pitch. Brick and stone houses were therefore
among the near probabilities, and soon ceased to be mat-
ters of curiosity. Occasionally glass windows were seen
where formerly the wooden-hinge shutter had been, but
these were brought from long distances and were still rare
and costly. Not seldom the glass was broken by the ig-
norance of those who attempted to frame it.
•
The improvements on the inside had kept pace with
those on the outside. Puncheon floors were rapidly disap-
pearing, the plank floors were clean and dry, there was an
increase in the articles of furniture. Formerly the mas-
ter of the house had made the tables, chairs, benches, and
boxes with his own tools. But here and there a success-
ful trip to Natchez and back had introduced pieces of var-
nished furniture. On every hand were seen evidences of a
new era; new clothes, new utensils and articles of lux-
ury. Up to 1792 the commercial intercourse with the
outside world had been of the most meagre description,
more especially in the west. At times a peddler came
through with a pack-horse or two, over the Virginia or
North Carolina mountains, from Charleston, or Rich-
mond, or Philadelphia, but he generally disposed of what
he had brought in Washington, Greene, and Sullivan
counties. In Nashville, the Indians or French traders
were the only resource. Sometimes they came peacefully,
more frequently, however, by force. It was often hinted
in the letters and dispatches of those days that the Cum-
berland people were much more willing to organize expe-
ditions against the Indians who traded with Natchez and
New Orleans than those who did not. The Coldwater
expedition had brought the settlement a rich harvest of
"taffia, sugar, coffee, cloths, blankets, Indian wares of all
MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND MODE OF LIFE. 177
sorts, salt, shot, Indian paints, knives, powder, tomahawks,
tobacco, and other articles suitable for Indian commerce."
A part of the sugar and coffee was returned to the cap-
tured traders, but none of the dry goods. As early as
1780, or perhaps a little earlier, a man named Daniel
Broadhead had established a "dry goods store at the
Ohio Falls, and shortly afterwards James Wilkinson
opened a store at Lexington, Kentucky. In 1783 Lard-
ner Clark followed their example at Nashville, and kept
a mixed stock of pins, needles, buttons, and the simplest
dry goods for women and whiskey for the men.
In 1786
a train of ten pack-horses loaded with merchandise ar-
rived at Nashville. This was regarded as a great acces-
sion of luxury and wealth.
The necessities of their situation, however, forced the
Cumberland people to extend the operations of their com-
merce, and we soon find them in Natchez and New Or-
leans, and occasionally a few at Kaskaskia and other
northwestern points. Steamboats appeared on the Mis->
sissippi River in 1812. Up to that time the means of
transportation on water were slow, cumbersome, and often
dangerous. The keel-boat, the ferry-boat, the Kentucky-
flat, were used for heavy freight. These were preceded by
the pirogue, and even the skiff in which traders carried
down tallow, furs, buffalo robes, deer, and hides to Natchez
at first, and later, to New Orleans, and in which he
brought back groceries, simple dry goods, such as chintz
and calicoes, and plain domestics, hunting shirts, pins,
needles, and a few articles of personal adornment. The
trip from Nashville down the river and back was neither
pleasant nor safe, but if successful, it was always profit-
able. The chief source of danger was, naturally, the In-
dians, incited often by the Spanish and French traders,
whose jealousy of all encroachments upon their trade was
always on the alert. But another source of annoyance
was the so-called pirates, gangs of outlaws, and despera-
178
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
does of all nations who infested the Mississippi River,
from New Madrid down, and who preyed indiscriminately
upon all who fell in their way. It was first a subject of
mutual suspicion between the Spanish and Americans,
and each were ready to see in the other the causes of the
depredations. As early as 1782 Thomas Molloy had sent
a letter to the Spanish governor, denying a report which
was being circulated through the western world, that the
Cumberland settlement was the home of those who made
the navigation of the river unsafe. In the same year the
Committee of Notables laid restrictions upon those who
desired to trade with the Indians, requiring a bond and
previous permission. In January, the year following, one
James Montgomery was bound over to appear at the next
term of the court. He was suspected of being a river
pirate. The most dangerous band of pirates was that under
a desperado named Colbert, and "Colbert's Gang" was one
of the terrors of that day. One reason for the prompt
action taken by the Notables of Nashville was the desire to
preserve amicable relations with the Spanish in order to
enjoy the advantages of their market. This was one of
the threads of diplomacy by which Governor Mero had
hoped to draw the people of Tennessee into the conspiracy
which was to establish a southwestern empire under Spain's
protectorate. The cause of this failure was not to be found
in any lack of appreciation on the part of the Tennessee
people of the necessities of their commerce. It resulted,
however, in keeping them constantly jealous of any action
looking to their exclusion from the Mississippi River, and
an invasion of the Spanish region of America was always
a smouldering contingency, which the least accident might
fan into flame. The people of Tennessee would not brook
the Jay Treaty, and Jackson's vote against Washington in
the House of Representatives was chiefly the result of the
suggested terms of this treaty.
With the disappearance of Spain from New Orleans, a
MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND MODE OF LIFE.
179
new life was breathed into both settlements of Tennessee,
chiefly the Cumberland, and the increase of trade kept
pace with the influx of population. The pirogue now
gave way to the larger boats, and constantly shipments of
corn, dried beef, tobacco, whiskey, which was now being
distilled on a large and increasing scale, flax, tallow, hides,
skins, and furs were sent down the Cumberland, Tennes-
see, and Mississippi rivers, with escorts sufficient to pro-
tect them from the inland buccaneers. The journey was
exceedingly slow. Seventy-five days from Pittsburgh to
New Orleans was regarded as a fair voyage, and the trip
from Nashville must have been in proportion. The voyage
back was doubly tedious, and was not seldom made by
land from Natchez to Nashville by the celebrated Natchez
Trace, which was through the heart of the Chickasaw
country. Generally the shipments had been the venture
of several parties. The things brought back were the
simplest necessities of life, including farming implements,
carpenters' tools, nails, and the like. Though simple,
they nevertheless rendered life more endurable, added to
the accumulation of wealth, and deepened the foundations
and extended the limits of civilization and refinement and
social intercourse.
The prosperity of Nashville was phenomenal, and by
the beginning of the century it was, both in the number of
its inhabitants and the bulk of its trade, the leading city
of the Southwest. One of the most marked signs of im-
provement was the various mills erected along the banks
of the brooks and creeks. The Davidson County Court
gave leave to one Headon Wells to build a water grist-
mill on Thomas Creek, the first in that part of the coun-
try. This was succeeded by others in rapid succession
until meal ceased to be a luxury, except, perhaps, during
a protracted drought. In the earlier stages of the settle-
ment, bear's oil had been the substitute for gravy, lard,
and butter. But the bringing in of hogs by the new emi-
180
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
grants supplied the inhabitants both with lard and bacon,
which with bread now became the staple articles of food.
Walnuts, hickory nuts, and wild grapes began to lose
something of their importance. Another result of the
growing commerce was the supply of ready money, by
which the operations of exchange and trade were simpli-
fied and expanded beyond the utmost possibilities of bar-
ter. At first, rifles, cows, horses, axes, and cow-bells, the
five things in greatest demand, had been the ordinary
medium of exchange, and after the organization of the
guards to conduct emigrants through the Indian country,
guards' certificates were added to the list. This, however,
embraced other things though not in such general use.
Each incoming emigrant brought a little gold or silver,
and the New Orleans and Natchez trade soon relieved
what is now called the stringency of the money market.
In the matter of personal attire the changes were slow.
There is a tradition that a "few elegant stiff brocade pet-
ticoats" existed in Tennessee before the close of the last
century, but the names of the owners have not been
handed down. Calico, chintzes, coarse woolen goods, un-
bleached linen, were still in universal use by our grand-
mothers, although the leathern apron and the moccasin
had begun to disappear. Furbelows, flounces, and similar
ornamental additions no longer occasioned surprise. With
these, of course, the looking-glass appeared. The men
were not less willing to profit by the opportunity of don-
ning attire both more comfortable and more pleasant to
behold. The vests, pants, and shirts, made of deer-skin,
worn next the person, were discarded, and also the caps
of coon-skins and other furs. The hunting shirt still re-
mained, though not so generally worn, as likewise the
leggings and moccasins. Leather thread for leathern
garments gave place to cotton and flax thread.
The chief occupation of the people, of course, was agri-
culture, locating land, clearing it and cultivating it, grow-
MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND MODE OF LIFE. 181
ing corn, a little wheat, hemp, flax, tobacco, a few vege-
tables, and a very little cotton. Everybody tried to raise
horses, cattle, and hogs. If any sheep had as yet been
introduced, the writer has not been able to find any trace
of the fact. Some of the stations had now become
towns, but as yet there was no clearly marked boundary
between them and the country. Still the division of labor
which betokens wealth and prosperity and an increas-
ing population was rapidly taking place. There was the
farmer, the ferry-man, the tavern keeper, the distiller, the
miller, the manufacturer of salt, the lawyer, the physician,
the merchant, the tailor, the shoemaker, the tanner, and
the blacksmith. I might even add the miner, for Jacob
Kimberlin found lead in 1787 south of French Broad.
Although the struggle for life was still earnest and full
of serious vicissitudes, it would be inaccurate to think of
the early settlers as always beyond the cheerful influences
which make more bearable even the heaviest burdens.
But the relaxation was rarely carried to excess, and those
festivities were most enjoyed which had a practical and
useful outcome. House raisings, choppings, frolics, and
corn shuckings were more popular than target shooting,
throwing the tomahawk, racing, jumping, and wrestling,
though all were indulged in. The only amusement of the
women not enjoyed in common with the men was that of
quilting. The younger generation generally amused them-
selves imitating the actions of their elders, and after the
introduction of schools, by occasionally forcing the teacher
to accord them a holiday. This was accomplished by
"barring him out" until he yielded to the popular de-
mand. If he gained entrance, it became a contest of
strength, frequently ending in great personal violence.
When Judge Guild was a boy, he took part in a
"bar-
ring out" which terminated in letting the teacher down
the well in a bucket, and burning the school-house. As
the population grew, however, other amusements began
182
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
*
66
to make their appearance. In 1787 a distillery which
bore the euphonious name of Red Heifer was built. Pat-
ton's Still House came soon after. A road was ordered
by the county court to be laid off from Clarksville to
this place. A tavern was opened in Nashville," Black
Bob," for many years the centre of the habit of drinking
intoxicating drinks which was so prevalent in the very
earliest days of our history. Bishop Asbury's journal is
filled with allusions to distillers and tavern keepers, and
on one occasion he met a congregation too drunk to listen
to his admonitions. Of Francis A. Ramsey he says in
1800, “It may not be amiss to mention that our host has
built his house and takes in his harvest without the aid
of whiskey." The records of the county court were filled
with regulations fixing the price of whiskey. In 1787
the price of a dinner was set at twenty-five cents, whiskey
one dollar a quart. Among the vices legislated against
in the county court of Davidson County in 1784 was in-
temperance, nor was this the only crime committed in
those days. Our ancestors were, as a rule, honest and
fearless, but there were men among them who were both
cowardly and dishonest. In 1784 an act of the county
court refers to wicked men too lazy to get their living by
honest labor, who make it their business to ride in the
woods and steal cattle and hogs and alter and deface
marks and brands. They were to be branded with the
letter T in the palm of the hand. On another occasion
it is ordered that Sam Henry be fined ten shillings for
profanely swearing in the presence of the court. Even
gambling was not entirely unknown. It is said that a
valuable tract of land in Maury County was lost and
won at the game of Rattle and Snap, by which title the
place is still known. It would be a mistake to suppose
that the earlier settlers were without any of the faults
which usually accompany the frailties of human nature
in even its most favorable surroundings. The majority
MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND MODE OF LIFE.
183
were men who had come to improve their condition, to
obtain land at small prices, and to "grow up with the
country." They belonged to the sturdy yeoman class and
were thrifty, energetic, and honest in their dealings; not
a few were bankrupts who sought a new career, debtors
who wished to evade their creditors. These were the first
comers, the first to break the soil and to withstand the
murderous onslaughts of the Indians. There were also
those who had left the older communities to escape the
punishment of their crimes, vicious and lawless men, add-
ing a disintegrating element to the already lax organiza-
tion of a primitive society. The inhabitants of Powell's
Valley, especially, were noted for their lawless, desperate
characters. It will surprise those who know the inhab-
itants of that beautiful tract of country, celebrated as
one of the homes of Methodism, to learn that they were.
accused in those days of disguising themselves as Indians
in order to rob emigrants as they passed through. This
element, however, gradually disappeared before the influx
of population and the increase of social order. They
long existed, however, as pirates on the Mississippi River,
as horse thieves in the surrounding country, and as high-
way robbers on the Natchez Trace, and were the legiti-
mate predecessors of Murrell's band of later years.
The character of the early settler was peculiarly
adapted to his surroundings and the necessities of his sit-
uation. It was but natural that he lacked those features
of character which are the result of mental friction, the
mingling of many people. In the matter of Christian
worship and belief he was rather religious than denomina-
tional, rather practical than religious. Bishop Asbury
wrote in 1797, "When I reflect that not one in a hundred
came here to get religion, but rather to get plenty of good
land, I think it will be well if some or many do not event-
ually lose their souls." His personal courage was as nec-
essary as the Deck-hard rifle he handled with such ease of
184
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
motion and precision of aim. His time was necessarily
divided between the necessities of agriculture and the
duties of the chase. His ambition pointed towards the
future when the Indian should be exterminated, when he
should be in the midst of prosperity, and all his fields
yellow with harvests. His wants were as simple as his
mode of life. Next to cowardice, he most despised lack
of loyalty to one's friends. Drunkenness was the most
contemptible of vices, and slothfulness a subject of gen-
eral indignation. Having by the force of his character
won all that he possessed, he had acquired a self-reliance
which was apt to break into rebellion where law became
irksome. Familiarity with weapons made him prone to
resent insult with violence. But he never struck in the
rear, and the assassin of that day, like the rapist of this,
went without judge or jury. The Indian, however, he
never regarded as a human being. Panthers, Indians,
and bears were to be destroyed like vermin. When first
we meet with him he wears moccasins, leggings, hunting
shirt, and coon-skin cap. His rifle rests in the hollow of
his arm.
Around his waist is a leathern belt, while shot,
powder, and powder horn are strung over opposite shoul-
ders. A dog is apt to be at his heels. As the settlement
advances, however, his character is modified in a great de-
gree with his appearance. The cap goes first, then the
moccasins and leggings, and finally the hunting shirt.
He hunts less and works more. Perhaps he now has a
negro slave or two, a couple of horses, and a few "head of
stock." His family increases, also his slaves and his cat-
tle. He loses some of his prejudice against the refine-
ments of life. He even brooks a ruffled shirt. The
earnestness of his character, kept at nervous tension dur-
ing the days of Indian warfare, begins to mellow some-
what as his form grows more round. He has prospered
in the new order of things perhaps better than his neigh-
bor. He has ventured successfully a few cargoes to New
MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND MODE OF LIFE.
185
Orleans. His wealth continues to increase. He builds a
frame house in which there are various rooms.
It is no
longer necessary for his entire family to eat, sleep, and
live in two rooms, or probably one, with a curtain parti-
tion. Seated on his piazza he can see broad acres of
wheat, corn, and tobacco. His son is with Doak in the
east or at Davidson College; his daughters are possibly
in South Carolina. During the last fall one of his horses
has carried off the "sweepstakes." He is, by the way, in
common with Mr. Jackson, Mr. Anderson, Mr. Dickin-
son, and others, very fond of the race-course.
The aspect
of the world has changed. As he sees one of his old
friends pass, one whose lands are mortgaged and whose
sons and daughters help him eke out a scanty living, it
begins to dawn upon him that there are various stations
in life. The idea of class is formed in his mind and the
old days of perfect and noble equality among all settlers
are forever past. Degrees of prosperity bring in the arti-
ficial modes of thought and the shallow and unnatural
methods of life which still exist, and which belie the true
spirit of republicanism founded in theory upon the uni-
versal brotherhood of all men.
CHAPTER XX.
ADMISSION TO THE UNION.
AMONG the last resolutions of the first territorial Gen-
eral Assembly was, "that the sense of the people be
taken with respect to a new State." Governor Blount,
with the political tact which was but little below states-
manship, was among the first to perceive the necessity
of meeting this growing demand of the people, and at
once took measures to hasten its realization. The General
Assembly had been prorogued to the first Monday in
October, 1795. He called it together again on the 29th
day of June, 1795. A bill was passed for the enumera-
tion of the inhabitants of the Territory. More than
60,000 free votes were cast in favor of this measure, as
required by the act of cession. A constitutional con-
vention was called, and met at Knoxville on the 11th of
January, 1796. Among the members present were John
McNairy, Andrew Jackson, and James Robertson from
Davidson County; William Cocke, from Hawkins; Jo-
seph Anderson and Archibald Roane, from Jefferson;
William Blount, James White, and Charles McClung,
from Knox; W. C. C. Claiborne, from Sullivan; John
Tipton, from Washington; and Daniel Smith, from Sevier.
The constitution adopted was, apart from the election of
officers, substantially the one under which we now live.
Ramsey says: It is a tradition that the beautiful name
given to our State was suggested by General Jackson."
It may have been that Jackson, in committee, made the
formal motion to adopt Tennessee as the name of the
ADMISSION TO THE UNION.
187
new State. But it is not true that he suggested a name
which otherwise might not have been adopted. The ter-
ritory south of the river Ohio was already very generally
known as the Tennessee country. In Bishop Asbury's
diary, under date of May, 1788, he makes an entry as
in "Tennessee." The convention met in 1796. Winter-
botham's "America," an old history published at London
in 1795, contains a map on which the Cherokee River has
given place to the Tennessee River, and the Territory is
noted as the "Tennassee Government.” 1
The convention adjourned on the 6th of February,
1796. On the 28th of March following, the first General
Assembly of the State of Tennessee met at Knoxville.
John Sevier, of course, was found to have been elected
governor. William Blount and William Cocke were
elected to the United States Senate.
But for one drawback the new State would have moved
off like newly set machinery, well balanced and fitly organ-
ized and adjusted, without a jar or a creak. This draw-
back came from an unexpected quarter, and raised a storm
among those who had just been congratulating them-
selves on the success of the movement. Having the ex-
ample of Kentucky before their eyes, Blount, McNairy,
Jackson, Anderson, Cocke, and other leading members of
the convention had a particular regard for what they
considered the utmost possible requirements of technical
regularity. Only after repeated conventions had Ken-
tucky been allowed to become a state, and only then when
it appeared that insurrection might be the result of fur-
ther hindrance. When, therefore, the news came to
Knoxville that in the Senate of the United States the bill
admitting Tennessee as a state had been adversely re-
ported, there was a momentary lull, followed by a storm
1 This map, prepared evidently with great care, though not abso-
lutely accurate, is the best I know of Tennessee at that period of
its history.
188
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
that swept from Jonesboro to Nashville, carrying with it
even those who had voted against it at the ballot-box.
For a time the question assumed serious proportions and
threatened to convulse the country. The balance of
power, as a determinative principle in the admission of
states, had not yet attained the full development of later
years, when slavery became a deeply-rooted institution;
but it was there, and derived an increased vitality, not
only from the local prejudices existing between North and
South, but also from the fear on the part of the older
States that their power might ultimately slip from them
and fall to the share of those yet to be created.
The chief ground of opposition to the admission of
Tennessee was that it was "necessary for Congress to lay
out and form the Territory into one or more States, and
that the proof of their numbers should have been given
under direction and by order of Congress, the people not
being competent to give proof themselves." In the House,
the right of admission was supported by Nathaniel Macon,
James Madison, and Albert Gallatin. It was carried by a
vote of forty-three to thirty. In the Senate, the bill passed
by the casting vote of Mr. Livermore, acting president,
who was severely criticised for his action. Underlying
every other motive was that of party interest; the Fed-
eralists opposed the admission of Tennessee, knowing its
electoral vote would be given to Mr. Jefferson in the ap-
proaching election. Chauncey Goodrich, in a letter written
to Oliver Wolcott (Senior), said, referring to Livermore's
vote, "It must be left for him to account for his conduct;
his friends are chagrined. It is possible this act may
have some serious effect." Again he says: "No doubt
this is but one twig of the electioneering cabal for Mr.
Jefferson.
In the mean while Governor Sevier had called an extra
session of the legislature to obviate all questions as to the
validity of acts done by Tennessee before the date of its
ADMISSION TO THE UNION.
189
formal admission to the Union. Blount and Cocke were
again elected, the former in his letter of acceptance
referring to the quibbles resorted to in order to deprive
Tennessee of its equal share of representation. Andrew
Jackson was elected to Congress. The mode of electing
presidential electors was regulated. Thus finally Tennes-
see became a State of the Union, on the first of June,
1796.
CHAPTER XXI.
TENNESSEE INSTITUTES.
In every organized society there are certain fundamen-
tal duties which are common to all governments. On
these, which are a substratum, each nation has built a
superstructure peculiarly its own. This superstructure of
customs, this edifice of local institutions, makes the dif-
ference which exists among the nations of the earth.
Customs and laws differ as languages differ. There is
a Grimm's Law in the study of economic institutions as
well as in the study of the Indo-Germanic languages. But
each nation speaks its own tongue, each locality has its fine
variations of phrase, each individual his peculiarities of
speech. In like manner, each nation has its individual
customs and laws, each precinct its traditional institu-
tions, each town its own system of minutely varied self-
government. To apply the old and beautiful illustration,
the bits of glass in the kaleidoscope are the same, but
each nation shakes the box and we behold each time a
new arrangement of pleasing figures, delicate colors, and
graceful results.
The study of philology itself has not done more to
establish the kinship of races than the study of govern-
mental institutions. If all books and manuscripts bearing
on the history of England from the twelfth century to the
present time were lost, there would be no difficulty in
establishing the fact that America is peopled by descend-
ants of the same race that then inhabited England. And
this is true, although the attention of students has only
TENNESSEE INSTITUTES.
191
within the last few years been turned to the study of this
subject. But even what has been done has already formu-
lated as a general law the absolute continuity of political
institutions. There are changes and modifications, re-
adaptations and revivals, but rarely a new invention.
The essayists of Johns Hopkins University have, in the
study of New England townships, pointed out the sur-
vival of old Anglo-Saxon institutions that have been lost
even in the old England of to-day.¹
The institutions, both general and local, of American
States are, with the exception of Louisiana parishes,
directly derived from Anglo-Saxon and English sources.
A wide breach is popularly supposed to have taken place
at the Revolution, and since then we are generally sup-
posed to have invented an entirely new and original set
of laws and institutions for ourselves. It is this popular
error which later investigation is rapidly breaking down.
Nowhere is the chasm popularly supposed to exist be-
tween the laws of England and the laws and institutions
of this country so palpably and clearly bridged as in the
case of Tennessee. In 1792 Francis Xavier Martin pub-
lished," according to a resolve of the General Assembly,"
"a collection of the Statutes of the Parliament of Eng-
land, in force in the State of North Carolina."
The legislative authority for Martin's book is a recogui-
tion of the right by descent which the people of North
Carolina and of this State have to the store of legal wis-
dom in the common magazine of Teutonic, Anglo-Saxon,
and English traditions and precedents. An act passed in
North Carolina in 1715 enacts that the common law is
1 The author takes this opportunity of paying his tribute of re-
spect to the new school of historical investigation, which, under the
careful and scholarly editorship of Professor Herbert B. Adams,
introducing the same comparative methods into the study of American
history which have been fruitful of the best results in Germany and
England.
192
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
and shall be in force in this government, except such part
in practice in the issuing and return of writs and proceed-
ings in Westminster which for want of several officers
cannot be put into execution. In 1778 we find another
act on the same subject. "All such statutes and such
parts of the common law as were heretofore in force and
use within this Territory which are not destructive of, re-
pugnant to, or inconsistent with the freedom and inde-
pendence of this State and the form of government
therein established and not otherwise provided for, are
hereby declared to be in full force within this State."
The courts of Tennessee have time and again decided
that the common law is still in force in this State, with
such conditions and limitations as we find in North Caro-
lina.
The general organization of the machinery of state in
Tennessee is directly derived from England, but those
changes and modifications necessary to adapt English
forms to the needs of American society which were made
in the original colonies were, in our case, made in North
Carolina. When the first constitution was adopted, it was
practically the constitution then in force in North Caro-
lina, and showed the influence of the colonial develop-
ment of that State. In the grant of 1663 the king had
been careful to reserve the colonists a voice in the fash-
ioning of the laws by which they were to be governed.
The lords proprietors themselves were not a new inven-
tion, but were merely the grantees of a monopoly differ-
ing in no legal respect from those that had been causes.
of contention between the English people and their sov-
ereigns from the time of William the Conqueror. The
difference was found in the monopoly itself, which, instead
of being salt or woolen cloth, was land. The attempt to
people this land under their supervision brought into
play the same forces and factors that were and had been
working in England under the supervision of chiefs, head-
TENNESSEE INSTITUTES.
193
men and kings from the times of the earliest Angle inva-
sions. As a governmental incident, the proprietors were
foreign to anything known to English law. Indeed, they
made no attempt to govern otherwise than through the
This was
regular channels. They were not the centre.
the governor or governor-general whom they appointed,
and apart from a few appointments, their interference
was clearly in the nature of a revolution. One of the
clearest proofs of this fact was the reserved veto power.
In a manifesto issued by the proprietors, shortly after
they obtained the grant, they set forth their intention of
appointing a governor and council from among the colo-
nists, "to see the laws of the Assembly put in due execu-
tion." 1
The Assembly itself was to be elected by the
colonists, with the sole power of making laws and laying
taxes for the common good when need should require.
The council consisted of six, and subsequently twelve mem-
bers. Of these, six were appointed by the governor, and
six elected by the General Assembly. This was a combi-
nation of the English Cabinet and the Privy Council and
the upper house of Parliament, being also a constituent
part of the General Assembly.2
Subsequently, the number of councilors was reduced
to six and these, with the governor, constituted the upper
house of the General Assembly, which, before this, con-
sisted of but one body. The House of Burgesses, whose
meetings were biennial, was elected by borough franchise.
The qualifications of the voters were, allegiance to the
king, white color, twenty-one years of age, a year's resi-
dence in the province before voting, and the payment of
1 This provision was never apparently carried out, the governors
being appointed regardless of any expression of preference on the
part of the colonists.
2 This, perhaps, is the precedent which suggested to the framers
of the federal constitution the device of giving the Senate a semi-
executive function in the matter of appointments, treaties, etc.
+
194
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
at least one levy of taxes. A quorum was one half of all
the members. The province itself was divided into pre-
cincts for judicial purposes and into parishes for religious
purposes. The judiciary consisted of the general court,
the chancery court, the precinct courts, and the courts of
oyer and terminer. The judges of the general court were
eight-one chief justice and seven others. The former
was appointed by the voice of all the lords proprietors,
and the latter were appointed by them individually, each
assistant judge being also a deputy of the lord proprie-
tor from whom he received his commission. Subsequently
this right appears to have been waived by the proprietors,
the number of judges being reduced to three, one chief
justice appointed by the lords proprietors, and two as-
sistants by the governor and council, who also nominated
an attorney-general. The clerk was elected by the court.
The jurisdiction of the court extended to all parts of the
province and included all cases both civil and criminal,
with the exception of cases where the smallness of the
amount claimed gave the lower courts exclusive jurisdic-
tion, which could only be when both parties lived in the
same precinct. Original suits were begun by writs, served
by the provost marshals, of whom there was one in each
precinct, appointed by the governor. In addition to its
original jurisdiction, the general court had also appellate
powers for the correction of errors below. It is signifi-
cant that on several occasions appeals to the king in
council were refused by this court. The chancery court.
consisted of the governor and the councilors. The usual
practice was upon bill and answer, and testimony was
given only in depositions. The court of oyer and ter-
miner, the origin of our "criminal docket of the circuit
court,” and of our criminal courts where such are estab-
lished, was the criminal docket of the general court.¹
1 Two instances, in 1722 and 1729, are of record of this court
being held by order of the governor and council. In each case the
TENNESSEE INSTITUTES.
195
•
Proceedings were begun either by indictment, brought in
by a grand jury for the precinct where the offense was
committed, or by information from the attorney-general.
Such were, in outline, the prominent features of the
government originally established in North Carolina, each
of which was taken in full development from England,
and each of which under some name and in some guise
still exists in Tennessee. It is but necessary to read an
indictment in a court of oyer and terminer, or to follow
the pleadings of a case in the general court, to understand
the origin of Tennessee jurisprudence. There were sub-
sequent changes, but they were, for the most part, imma-
terial. After the cession of the colony to the crown in
1729, the governor and a council of seven were appointed
by the king. The governor and three of the council
made a quorum. In 1788 the precincts were changed to
counties. Sheriffs were appointed in place of marshals.
The office of provost marshal of the province was abol-
ished. Circuit courts were established, taking the place.
of the general court in so far as its jurisdiction was origi-
nal both for the trial of civil causes and as the court of
oyer and terminer. The powers of the county, formerly
precinct court, were enlarged. In 1740 was passed an
act to appoint able and skilful clerks for the several
courts within this province and for the better securing
and safe-keeping the records of the same.
An attempt made in 1754 to establish the supreme
courts of justice, oyer and terminer and general gaol
delivery miscarried, the acts for this purpose being re-
pealed by proclamation. In 1762, however, an act became
a law dividing the province of North Carolina into five
several districts and establishing a superior court of jus-
tice in each of the said districts and regulating the pro-
person tried was an Indian. It is very likely that Indians, being as
a rule the inhabitants of no particular precinct, could only be tried by
a special court.
196
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
ceedings therein. In 1774 another act established courts
of oyer and terminer and general gaol delivery, consti-
tuting the judges thereof a court for hearing and deter-
mining appeals and writs of error. In 1777 the State
was divided into six districts, one of which was Salisbury,
a part of this judicial district being the geographical
district of Washington or Tennessee. Here we see the
laws of Carolina in the very act of crossing the bound-
aries of this State. In each district was a superior court
of three judges who appointed a clerk. This act also pro-
vides that all suits for breaches on penal statutes and the
like, directed to be prosecuted in the name of the King of
Great Britain, shall be prosecuted and proceeded on in
the name of the State, in like manner as if such suits had
been begun in the name of the State. Here, as in the
constitution of 1776, we see the transfer of sovereignty
as distinctly as if it were an estate passed from grantor
to grantee in livery of seizin.
If now we examine the constitution of 1776 we shall
find that it has introduced absolutely not a single feature
into North Carolina institutions with which we are not
already familiar. The complete breaking loose from old
landmarks, the introduction of a new and original system
whose salient points are antagonistic to all the despotic
and autocratic ordinances of English government are no-
where to be found. It is true, a great deal that was not
serviceable has been discarded, but it is merely obsolete.
It is not destroyed, and at any moment the same conjunc-
tion of circumstances that rendered it necessary and use-
ful in England may again quicken it into renewed life
and vigor in America. The greatest change has taken
place in exactly those institutions which are popularly
supposed to have copied most nearly the English model.
The Governor, Senate, and House of Representatives are
as far from being the King, House of Lords, and House
of Commons as a bank of clouds is from being a camel.
TENNESSEE INSTITUTES.
197
The King has no executive power. The Governor has.
Parliament is omnipotent. The General Assembly can
legislate only upon a very limited number of subjects.
The King is a constituent part of Parliament; the Gov-
ernor is distinctively the executive factor as opposed to
the legislative. The Governor now has the veto power;
the King has lost it. The sovereignty of the English peo-
ple is in Parliament; with us it is in the constitutional con-
vention, and even then with the limitations provided by
the federal compact. The executive power in England.
lies in the hands of the cabinet. The House of Lords has
certain judicial powers. The Senate has absolutely none,
except in cases of impeachment. The constitution of
North Carolina of 1776, which is also, with a few varia-
tions, the constitution of Tennessee of 1796, rested the
legislative authority in two distinct branches, a Senate
and a House of Commons, called as a body the General
Assembly. The Senate was composed of representatives
annually elected, one for each county.¹ Members of the
lower house were to be elected annually by ballot, ac-
cording to the principle of borough-representation, two
for each county and one each for the six larger towns.
Each senator must have resided one year previous to his
election in the county that elects him, in which he must
also possess three hundred acres of land in fee. Each
member of the lower house must have resided one year
immediately preceding his election in the county he rep-
resents, and must also have possessed in the same county
one hundred acres of land in fee or for the term of his
own life, for six months preceding his election. The
Senate and House of Commons each have the power to
elect their own speaker and other officers, and be judges
of the qualifications and elections of their members. The
General Assembly, by joint ballot of both houses, ap-
1 The prevalence of the idea of proportionate representation
dates from the federal constitution of 1787.
198
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
points judges of the superior courts of law and equity,
judges of admiralty, and an attorney-general, who shall
be commissioned by the governor and hold their offices
during good behavior. The Senate and House of Com-
mons, jointly, at their first meeting after each annual
election, shall by ballot elect a governor for one year,
who shall not be eligible to that office longer than three
years, in six successive years. No person under thirty,
and who has not been a resident in this State above five
years, and having in the State a freehold in lands and
tenements above the value of one thousand pounds, shall
be eligible. The Senate and House of Commons, at the
first session after their annual election, shall elect by bal-
lot seven men as a "council of state," for one year, who
shall advise the governor in the execution of his office.
Four members make a quorum. Their advice and pro-
ceedings shall be entered in a journal to be kept for that
purpose and signed by the members present, to any part
of which any member present may enter his dissent. And
such journal shall be laid before the General Assembly
when called for by them. The governor, by and with the
advice and consent of the "council of state," may lay
embargoes, grant reprieves and pardons, and appoint offi-
cers to fill unexpired terms. In case of his death, he is
succeeded first, by the speaker of the Senate, and in case
of his death, inability, or absence from the State, the
speaker of the House of Commons. The General As-
sembly shall by joint ballot annually appoint a treasurer
or treasurers of the State, and triennially elect a secre-
tary of state. All indictments shall conclude "against
the peace and dignity of the State."
The plan of government devised for the territory north-
west of the river Ohio, the provisions of which were
extended to the territory south of the river Ohio in
1790, was temporary both in its nature and its effects.
The entire Territory was made one district. The exec-
TENNESSEE INSTITUTES.
199
utive office was filled by a governor appointed by Con-
gress, who was commander-in-chief of the militia. There
was a secretary whose duty it was to keep the acts
and laws passed by the legislature, the public records, the
executive acts of the governor, and transmit copies of the
documents every six months to the secretary of Congress.
In the absence of the governor, he performed that officer's
duties. There was also a court consisting of three judges
having a common law jurisdiction. It was the duty of
the governor and judges, or a majority of them, to adopt
and publish in the district such laws of the original States,
criminal and civil, as might be necessary, until the organ-
ization of the General Assembly.
Tennessee, or the Territory south of the river Ohio,
lived under this scheme of government from 1789 to 1794,
when the first General Assembly met. It had been pro-
vided that as soon as there were 5,000 free male inhab-
itants of full age in the Territory, representatives should
be elected to a General Assembly, one representative for
every 500. A legislative council, modeled upon the old
council of the Southern States, was to be a constituent
part of the General Assembly. The number of these coun-
cilors was five. These were selected by the president
from ten names submitted to him by representatives, and
held office for five years. The council performed gener-
ally the functions of the Senate as we now have it. Thus
we see that institutionally the Senate or Upper House of
the representative body in Tennessee is the lineal descend-
ant, as well of the English Cabinet as of the House of
Lords. The first session of the General Assembly under
the territorial form of government was held at Knoxville,
August 26, 1794. The constitutional convention met in
1796, and made such changes in the North Carolina con-
stitution as were commensurate with the progress of demo-
cratic ideas in America, giving less power to the represen-
tatives of the people and more to the people themselves,
200
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
but leaving the seed of future dissensions in the election
of county officers and the taxation of land which were not
healed until the constitutional convention of 1834. One of
the main features of the constitution of 1796 is the ap-
pointment by the General Assembly of state and judicial
officers and by the county courts of county officers. The
governor is to be elected biennially by the people instead of
the General Assembly. The council of state disappears.
The freehold qualifications of fifty acres for voters is
changed to any freehold whatsoever. The principle of
proportionate representation takes the place of borough
representation. A treasurer or treasurers and a secretary
of state are to be appointed by the General Assembly.
The provisions relating to the judiciary are drawn chiefly
from the precedents of North Carolina. The judicial
power of the State is to be vested in such superior and
inferior courts of law and equity as the legislators shall
from time to time direct. The judges are to be elected
by the General Assembly and also an attorney or attorneys
for the State who hold office during good behavior. The
judges of the superior court are also to be justices of oyer
and terminer and general gaol delivery throughout the
State. Clerks are to be appointed by the courts.
The first General Assembly of the State met at Knox-
ville, March 28, 1796.¹ James Winchester was elected
speaker of the Senate, James Stuart of the House. Wil-
liam Maclin was elected secretary of state. An act was
passed continuing the North Carolina judiciary system
and directing the appointment of superior judges. The
three districts were Washington, Hamilton, and Mero,
and the first judges were John McNairy, Willie Blount,2
and Archibald Roane. In 1806 Mero district was di-
vided into three, Winchester, Robertson, and Mero.
In
1 This is singular but true. The State was not admitted until three
months later.
2 Who declined.
TENNESSEE INSTITUTES.
201
/
1807 the number of superior judges was increased to
four, of whom at least three were to be present at each
term of court, but it was to be so managed that only one.
of the judges who resided in East Tennessee was to attend
the courts in West Tennessee and vice versa.
This was the beginning of the sharp geographical dis-
tinction between the general divisions of the State which
is a leading feature of our state government to this day.
In 1809 an act was passed establishing a supreme court
of error and appeals, and dividing the State into five judi-
cial circuits, in each of which was a circuit judge having
common law and equity jurisdiction, whose duty it was to
hold circuit courts twice a year in each county in his cir-
cuit. The judges, both of the supreme court and the
circuit courts, were to be elected by the General Assembly
and commissioned by the governor. In 1811 the equity
jurisdiction of the circuit court was taken away and given
exclusively to the supreme court. The constitutional con-
vention which met May 19, at Nashville, and adjourned
August 30, 1834, made no radical changes in the judi-
ciary as it was constituted at the time it met, but the
sheriff, trustee, and register were to be elected by the
people instead of the county court.
The number of su-
These and a few
preme judges was increased to five.
other changes were the consummation of the reforms which
began with the election of Carroll to the governorship.
Institutional changes since 1834 have not been of great
moment, except that in 1853 the election of supreme and
inferior judges was given to the people. One of the finest
illustrations of the strict coincidence between English and
Tennessee institutions is the history of equity jurisdic-
tion in this State. This is something not known to the
common law, having been imported into England by the
ecclesiastical and Roman lawyers. It does not fit into
institutions derived from the hard, inhuman Anglo-Saxon
law. In Tennessee it was long a matter of dispute as to
202
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
whom and to what court should be given the extraordinary
powers of chancery. At first they did not exist at all; then
they were given to the circuit court, then to the supreme.
When it was suggested that chancellors should be ap-
pointed, great opposition arose. The discussion was fla-
grant when the convention of 1834 met. The question
was finally settled by dividing the State into chancery di-
visions and electing separate chancellors. Judges of the
circuit court still claim to have equity jurisdiction in many
cases.
CHAPTER XXII.
LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT.
THE continuity of institutional development which is
discovered in the machinery for the general government
of the State as a whole is even more clearly exemplified
when we come to an investigation of the instruments used
by the people in the various local communities, and we
find here especially a coherent development in the methods
of local self-government, which are full of interest for
those who wish to study the course of American history
and the philosophy of its formation. Among other things,
we shall be struck first by the fact that there is a pecul-
iarly intimate relation between geographical divisions and
the means of self-government exercised by those occupying
them and then by the apparent paradox that the smaller
and more decidedly differentiated the institution, the less
liable to change, modification, or substitution. We shall
find that the time which has elapsed since 1584 has in
this domain developed nothing new. The present is the
logical result of the past. The institutions of England
were not made. They grew with the growth of the nation,
and it would be as easy for the English and their descend-
ants to form and carry out a resolution of being born with
black eyes and crisp, curly hair and with the quick and
cunning tongue of a Sevillian barber as to change their
principles of government and live peaceably under forms
foreign to their traditions and their education. The insti-
tutions of Tennessee are in every particular English
institutions, and though embodied in constitutions and
204
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
legislative enactments, they were as far from being in-
vented by the law-making power as the principles con-
tained in Magna Charta and the Westminster statutes from
being made by the old kings and barons of England. On
the contrary, these very statutes are but a kind of winnow-
ing process, each successive one discarding what was obso-
lete and unnecessary, and adding fresh wheat that had
ripened since the last use of the flail. Beginning with,
and in fact previous to the reign of Alfred the Great, this
has continued to the present time. When a new combina-
tion of circumstances has arisen requiring an expedient
not in active existence, a return has at once been made to
the magazine where that which had been discarded is
stored up and it has always been found in a state of per-
fect preservation. It would be impossible in a book of
this size to make anything like a thorough and satisfactory
investigation of this subject. But it will not be amiss or
unprofitable, at least, to imitate the earlier settlers of our
State, who, being unable to build roads, blazed their way
through the woods by occasional strokes of the hatchet.
We shall have to be on our guard, however, even in doing
so much, lest we be led astray by those who have studied
the local institutions of other States. When we begin to
get into the dusk of the forests it will be easy enough for
us to imagine we see a great many things that in reality
are not there and which are merely accidental resem-
blances such as we occasionally see in a tangle of vines
or cluster of undergrowth.
There are two well defined systems of local government
in the United States, one of which has as its centre the
town, the other the county. The former is found at its
best in New England, the latter in the Southern States.
All others oscillate between these two, being in a measure
compounded, as in Pennsylvania, or existing side by side
in the same State, as in those States which were formed
from the Territory northwest of the river Ohio. The
LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT.
205
township system of local government is, in its most salient
features, a revival of Præ-Normanic customs and is rather
an Anglo-Saxon than an English institution. The main
feature is, of course, the direct action of the citizens by
popular assembly on matters of local interest rather than
through elected representatives. Investigations into the
origin of this township system have discovered numerous
details showing not merely a revival of the Anglo-Saxon
tungemot, but also a resurrection of many peculiarities of
Anglo-Saxon land law and official life which after a dor-
mant existence or scant livelihood in several English
shires were revived in full vigor by the Pilgrims, who
were themselves a species of revival of old Saxon and
Angle and Jute invaders. The leading fact to be borne
in mind in the investigation of Tennessee and Southern
institutions of self-government is this: that there is noth-
ing here at all resembling anything that existed in Eng-
land previous to William the Conqueror, but which failed
to survive the Norman Conquest. Everything which we
now find in Tennessee we also find in England. But
while it or its germ may have been in existence before the
date of the various charters in which the Norman kings
were forced to confirm to the English their old laws and
customs, yet it necessarily existed in England subsequent
to that date. The survival of village communities, of land
communities, of the tithing-man and the gooseherd in
New England has no parallel in Tennessee. The institu-
tions of local government in New England and the South
are as distinct as two branches, though both be shoots of
the same tree. There are several reasons for this marked
difference between the settlements of the East and Tennes-
see, in the fact that the population of the former spread
from towns or plantations or bodies of people, whereas the
population of the latter may be said to have grown towards
them. In a community of scattered families that system
of government was best which regulated most successfully
206
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
the large area over which they were scattered. There can
be no doubt that the county organization filled this require-
ment. Hence the lower or smaller divisions of self-gov-
ernment were never called into requisition. They were
practical impossibilities until a time when they were no
longer institutional possibilities. Another cause of differ-
ence is found in the fact that New England was settled by
different bodies of people having a common interest and
generally having their lands in common, whereas land in
the South was owned by non-resident corporations or pro-
prietors, the title of which, in the main, was only parted
with to individuals. The township system of New Eng-
land grew up around the community of land ownership.
Not only did the communal idea not exist in Tennessee
and the Carolinas, but the prevailing idea was directly
antagonistic. The claim of title to every acre of land in
Tennessee can be traced back to the original proprietors
The tenure is distinctly feudal. The customs and rights
distinctive of certain Germanic stages of development
found no opportunity for expansion in a system which had
scarcely a trace of the allodial tenure. The contests
which in New England arose between the old inhabitants
and the new-comers in reference to communal land found
no parallel in Tennessee. Even the proprietorship of
lands which is found in the state domain subject to grant
is communal in appearance rather than in fact. Here the
title is in the sovereignty, not in the community. There
is no doubt that there would have been a revival in Ten-
nessee of some form of local government parallel to the
town-meeting in New England if there had been any op-
portunity for settlements to obtain and hold in common
contiguous bodies of land. When, therefore, the superior
system of the North is attributed to the superior foresight
of those who made it, they receive a credit not justly their
due. Both are sprigs from the same stock, and adapted
themselves to different circumstances in a different man-
LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT.
207
ner, both acting unconsciously. In the West and North-
west, it is true, the New England system has been repro-
duced in States of younger growth than Tennessee. But
here, again, the same conditions which existed in New
England produced the township also. The western town-
ship is formed about the school, and when Congress gave
a square mile of land in every six square miles for a
township school fund, the seed was planted. When the
State gave each township corporate functions for the pur-
pose of fostering the interests of the school, it began to
germinate. Especially is this so, when we consider that
that part of the population which came from New Eng-
land and which finally preponderated, brought the town-
ship traditions with them. The lands given by Congress
for school purposes in Tennessee were in large tracts, and
each county received merely a proportionate share. It is
apparent from this, that the township system was impossi-
ble in the settlements of Carolina and Tennessee, and that
the causes which introduced it into the West had no exist-
ence in this State.
The centre of county government in this State is of
course the county court or the court of pleas and quarter
sessions. This is but an adaptation of the English quar-
ter sessions court, which in turn was derived from the old
court leets and manor courts. The court leet is the lineal
ancestor of the New England town-meeting. Thus the
two systems met at a common point centuries before the
discovery of the continent on which both exist. In 1749
an act was passed in North Carolina enabling the justices.
of the several courts to provide certain law books for the
use of their county courts. The titles of these law books.
would alone tell the history of North Carolina law. They
are Nelson's "Justice," Cary's "Abridgment of the
Statutes," Swinburn on "Wills" or Godolphin's "Or-
phan's Legacy," and Jacob's "Law Dictionary "
Wood's "Institutes.” If now we seek for the origin of
or
208
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
our county court system, we can trace it back to the old
English statutes which, as already said, merely made use
of that which already existed, inventing nothing new.
The statutes of Westminster of 1330 prescribe that
"there shall be good and lawful men in every county to
keep the peace."
In 1360 a statute of Edward III. prescribed “what
sort of persons shall be justices of the peace and what
authority they shall have." They are to be "one lord
and with him three or four of the most worthy in the
county with some learned in the law," whose duty it is to
look after rioters, barrators, and offenders generally.
Also to "hear and determine at the king's suit all mat-
ter of felonies and trespasses done in the same county
according to the laws and customs aforesaid, and that
writs of oyer and determiner be granted according to
the laws and customs aforesaid." Here we see the shad-
dowy outline of the county court. This very act gives
them jurisdiction of one matter which they still retain:
"to inquire also of measures and also of weights." In
1391 they were given power to redress forcible entries on
real estate, also a species of jurisdiction which the Ten-
nessee justice has. Being descended from the hundred
reeve, the criminal jurisdiction predominates, and for a
time all increase of power and authority is in that direc-
tion. In 1411 they were required to arrest rioters, and in
1483 they were allowed to "let to bail," and three years
later a limitation was added to this power, allowing this
privilege to two, one to be of the quorum. In 1530 these
justices of the peace, who had been gradually gaining in
authority, were empowered to lay a tax for the building of
bridges and repairing of highways, another power which
they have possessed to this day. Among the powers
granted to the lords proprietors by the charter of 1663
was, "to erect and make so many manors as to them shall
seem meet and convenient, and in every of the said man-
LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT.
209
6
ors, to have and to hold a court baron with all things
whatsoever which to a court baron do belong, and to have
and to hold views of frank pledge' and 'court leet' for
the conservation of the peace and better government of
those parts." These courts, however, which necessarily
presuppose a population sufficiently large to perform the
duties required, were never established. The circum-
stances did not justify a revival of old forms, and it was
found necessary to adopt the forms then in existence in
England. In 1679 John Harvey, "governor-president
of the council and commander-in-chief of the forces in
Albemarle County," granted a commission of peace for
the precinct of Berkely to his "well beloved and faith-
ful George Durant, Alexander Lillington, Ralph Fletcher,
and Caleb Callaway, Esquires."
Locke's fundamental constitution provided for a court
in each county, consisting of the sheriff and four justices,
one from each precinct, appointed by the palatine's court,
and a precinct court consisting of a steward and four
justices. The precinct courts were to be held quarterly
and had jurisdiction of all offenses not punishable with
death, and of all civil causes whatsoever.
These provisions of Locke may have tended to strengthen
and render more decided the power and jurisdiction of
justices of the peace, although those appointed in 1679 by
Governor Harvey are evidently not the same officers pro-
vided for in Locke's constitution. Later, the justices of
the peace in North Carolina were appointed by the gov-
ernor, and the council insisted, only with their consent.
By the constitution of 1796, justices of the peace in Ten-
nessee were appointed by the General Assembly. During
the earlier days of storm and stress, the militia was, in
many cases, the nucleus of local self-government both in
Tennessee and other Southern States. Justices of the
peace were appointed at first according to the captain's
companies in each county, not exceeding two for each
210
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
company except in the case of the county town. Not more
than three were to be appointed for the company embra-
cing this. The constitution of 1834 divided the counties
into districts, not more than twenty-five in each county, or
four for every hundred square miles. Each district was
to elect, by popular vote, two justices of the peace and
one constable, except the district in which the county
town is. This, three justices of the peace and two con-
stables.
The single justice of the peace appears to have had
certain judicial powers in civil matters involving forty
shillings or less, at a very early period in the history
of North Carolina. The precinct court, the sessions of
which were quarterly, was composed of all justices of the
peace in the precinct. This court occupied a position
about midway between our present county court and the
circuit court. It required three justices of the peace,
one of them to be of the quorum, to hold court. The
officer who served their writs was the sheriff, or, previous
to 1738, the provost marshal. It was not until 1734 that
the precinct court had the power of taxation. In that
year an act directed "that the justices of the aforesaid.
precincts shall have full power and authority to appoint a
place for a church, court-house, and prison; to tax all
taxable persons in the said precincts for raising a sum
of money sufficient to defray the expenses of the above
public buildings." It is curious that the first instance in
our history of local taxation was that which the vestries
in North Carolina were allowed to levy for the support of
the ministers, and also to purchase glebes and to build
churches. The parish as a unit of local self-government
plays an important part both in English and New England ✓
history, and in the latter was an influence in the develop-
ment of the township system. In North Carolina, how-
ever, the parish and the vestry never possessed great influ-
An act in 1701 established the Church of England
ence.
LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT.
211
in the Province of Carolina, and some attempts were
made to organize under it, although against the bitter
opposition of the Quakers. In 1715, however, a second
attempt was successful. The Province was divided into
nine parishes, a parish to each precinct except in the case
of Chowan and Pasquotank, which contained two each.
Twelve vestrymen were appointed in each parish, who
elected two of their number wardens. The wardens were
the executive officers, and could levy a double distress to
collect the parish taxes, namely, a poll-tax of five shillings
or less, for the minister's support, and the same for pur-
chasing the glebe and building churches. These were
levied by the vestry. The vestrymen were at first ap-
pointed by the General Assembly, but in 1741 their elec-
tion was relegated to the people. The church establish-
ment lasted until the adoption of the constitution of 1776.
It never gained a foothold in Tennessee.
In 1738 an act enlarged the powers of the county
court, the name having been changed from precinct
court. In 1741 their criminal jurisdiction as individual
officers was increased. The county court was also in this
year required or allowed to levy a tax to build court-houses,
prisons, and stocks in every county. In 1754 an act for
establishing county courts and enlarging their jurisdiction
and settling the proceedings therein was repealed by
proclamation, the General Assembly and Governor Dobbs
being in a state of perpetual hostility and disagreement.
In 1760, however, an act to establish inferior courts of
pleas and quarter sessions in several counties in North
Carolina was passed, and two years later their civil juris-
diction was extended to all matters that did not exceed
fifty pounds proclamation money. In 1764 they were em-
powered to direct the laying out of public roads, to estab-
lish and settle ferries, and to appoint where bridges shall
be built, and to clear navigable rivers and creeks. In
1777 an act was passed for erecting county courts, for
212
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
holding sessions of the peace, and also appointing and
commissioning justices of the peace and sheriffs in and
for the several counties and the District of Washington
within this State.
In 1777 the "act establishing courts of law and for
regulating the proceedings therein" became a law, and
this, as already said, is the basis of Tennessee jurispru-
dence to this day. By this act, the justices of the county
courts of pleas and quarter sessions, or any three of them,
are given jurisdiction of matters above five pounds and of
petit larceny, assaults and battery, trespasses, breaches of
the peace, and all inferior misdemeanors, and are given
full power to keep and maintain the peace in their re-
spective counties. Matters of five pounds and under are
determinable before any individual justice of the peace,
with right of appeal reserved to the court of pleas and
quarter sessions, now to the circuit court. In 1785 an
act extended the jurisdiction of the county court to all
actions of trespass in ejectment, formedon in descender,
remainder and reverter, dower, partition, and trespass
quare clausum fregit. The same act extended to simple
justices of the peace jurisdiction of all debts and demands
of ten pounds and under, where the balance is due on any
specialty, contract, note, or agreement for goods, wares,
and merchandises sold and delivered, or work or labor
done. The act of 1786, for raising troops to protect the
inhabitants of Davidson County, directed the justices of
the peace to levy a tax payable in pork, beef, or other
species of provision, to support them. It is unnecessary
to follow the development of the county court beyond
this. The county court of to-day is in all essential par-
ticulars the county court of North Carolina, which in turn
was taken bodily from the English quarter sessions court.
The county officers, the sheriff, the constable, the coroner,
all three of them bearing names that were once high in
honor and strong in authority, are lineal descendants of
LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT.
213
what has gone before, and could in like manner be traced
back to the time when America was unknown to the peo-
ple among whom they performed their official functions.
There has been constant growth, modification, change, and
even exchange of duties and responsibilities. The most
careful analysis and comparison could not, without the aid
of historical investigation, find in the coroner of Ten-
nessee any very decided resemblance to the coronator of
the time of Henry II. But the functions of the coroner
of to-day were surely performed in that day, and the coro-
nator has grown into the coroner by historical processes
as undoubted and as natural as those which carry the tree
back to the acorn. Even the county ranger and the city
pound-master are remnants of Anglo-Saxonism. When
the Tennessean of to-day forces his neighbor to erect his
share of the common fence, he is merely doing what his
ancestors did even before they migrated to England.
When the overseer of roads calls on those living on the
highways to meet him on a certain day in order to work
the roads, he is following a precedent that was old in the
days of the Heptarchy. The hue and cry can still be
raised in Tennessee, and if any man is called on by an
officer in pursuit of a felon to assist in his arrest and
refuses to give aid, he is liable to a fine. When the
people of Memphis held the successive meetings which
began with the abolition of the city charter and ended.
with the compromise of the city debt, and passed the reso-
lutions which each time were embodied in laws by the
state legislature, they were but reviving a custom of their
race, the first record of which is found in the Germania
of Tacitus. In short, it would not be difficult to multiply
examples of this kind. There is nothing in the State to-
day the importance of which is greater than a recognition
of the fact that the institutions under which we live are
the result of growth. They can be changed. In fact, the
urgent need of a total revision of our entire machinery
214
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
becomes more apparent each day. But if the changes are
to be made successfully they should be made with due re-
gard to the nature of our institutions. Above all things,
the fact should be kept clearly in mind that the most
brilliant parts and the most liberal understanding are
powerless to do more than to change, mend, or modify.
Nature alone can make the leaves of a tree, and time alone
can make governmental institutions.
CHAPTER XXIII.
RELIGION IN TENNESSEE.
A HISTORY of the early days of the settlement of this
country which did not take note of the first steps of its
religious development would be as defective as a history
of England which omitted all mention of Wiclif, or of
France which passed over in silence the massacre of the
Waldenses and the expulsion of the Huguenots. There is
no factor of our intellectual development which worked
with so little disturbance, which brought about such im-
portant results. The whole social organization of this.
State is tinged with the ideas which came from the influ-
ence exerted by the pioneer preachers in much the same
manner and to almost the same extent that our political
institutions are affected by the bias given them by the
school-teacher and the lawyer. The Bible and the rifle
went hand in hand. The chapel arose in the wilderness
with the school-house. The chancel which six days of the
week during certain seasons of the year was occupied
by the man of law, was on the seventh and for the rest
of the year occupied by the man of God, whose congre-
gations at first brought their rifles as a protection against
sudden assaults by the Indians. Religion in this State
was coeval with immigration. The Presbyterians at first.
had every outlook to obtain a complete ascendency in the
religious thought and life of Tennessee. Internal and
schismatic dissensions alone opened the way for the Meth-
odists, who availed themselves of the opportunity with
zealous enthusiasm and liberal proselytism. Southwest-
216
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
ern Presbyterianism springs directly from the Scotch-Irish
race, whose predominant influence can be traced through
all the Southwest. The Protestants of Ireland, who had
come from Scotland, had begun to seek in America a ref-
uge as early as 1729. From this time on, the stream had
poured continuously across the ocean, increased at various
periods by the struggles and rebuffs of the unfortunate
Stuarts. Presbyteries had been formed in Ireland as
early as 1642, and as the Scotch-Irish came to America,
they brought with them the Solemn League and Cove-
nant, the Confession of Westminster, the gloomy and
stern doctrines of Calvin. They settled through the west-
ern district of Virginia, along the base of the Blue Ridge.
John Caldwell, about 1736, brought over a colony from
Ulster, that settled in Charlotte County, Virginia. These
various settlements soon reached to Georgia and the Car-
olinas along the fertile regions of the Yadkin and Ca-
tawba. Another accession of Presbyterians came direct
from the Highlands of Scotland and settled on the banks
of the Cape Fear River. Large bodies of colonists settled
in Pennsylvania, but soon the stream turned south and
came pouring steadily into Virginia, settling along the
Potomac and in the Shenandoah valley. From here they
pushed on southward until they met those who were al-
ready established on the Yadkin, the Dan, the Haw, and
the Catawba. Here they also met the other moving stream
which came by way of Charleston. Uniting, like the wa-
ters of the Missouri and the Mississippi, they swept on,
branching out in an overwhelming flood, until it poured
over the mountains into Tennessee and over a thin skirt
of Kentucky.
As they went they built churches, they established con-
gregations, they formed presbyteries. The spirit of un-
daunted resistance to the encroachments of civil power
flamed out on all occasions, as at the Alamance, and came
to a head as at Charlotte in Mecklenburgh County, when
RELIGION IN TENNESSEE.
217
the members of seven Scotch-Irish Presbyterian congre-
gations planned and enunciated the declaration of inde-
pendence, the inspiration for which had been drawn from
Alexander Craighead, who strikingly exemplified the reli-
gious zeal, the independent sturdiness, the earnest oppo-
sition to illegal usurpation which distinguished the Scotch-
Irish Presbyterians. In 1740, during the time of a
renewed spiritual enthusiasm, which had been brought
about by the celebrated Whitefield, Craighead was accused
of irregularities. These irregularities consisted of too
great vehemence and fervor in his admonitions. In the
division which took place, and which was not healed until
1758, he was a member of the New Brunswick Presbytery
and arrayed himself with the "New Side." Craighead
was next a member of the Hanover Presbytery, formed in
1755, and for many years the centre from which radiated
the religious influence that held sway in the Southwest.
Shortly afterward he removed to what soon became Meck-
lenburgh County. A pamphlet from his pen in 1743, on
the political rights of the people, which had been con-
demned by the synod of Philadelphia as calculated to
"foment disloyal and rebellious practices and disseminate
principles of disaffection," paved the way for the Mecklen-
burgh declaration of independence.
In 1788 the Presbytery of Abingdon, formed in Au-
gust, 1785, was united to the Synod of the Carolinas.
Here we see the first introduction of Presbyterianism into
Tennessee, for the Abingdon Presbytery lay almost en-
tirely in this State. It was first upon the ground and its
ministers were leading figures in the State. They were
men of strong characters, and the minds of men had not
yet been turned to spiritual affairs. Besides this, they
were practical school-teachers. Subsequent events alone
prevented the complete ascendency of the Presbyterians
in Tennessee and the Southwest.
In 1772, a few years after the erection of Bean's cabin,
218
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
one, perhaps two, churches had been established by the
Wolf's Hill or Abingdon settlement. The pastor was the
Rev. Charles Cummins, a member of the Abingdon Pres-
bytery. When Knoxville was laid off, a lot was reserved
for the site of a church, which was subsequently built in
1810. The first minister who came to live in the State,
who was at the same time the first and most prominent
teacher in Tennessee, was Samuel Doak. His parents,
Samuel Doak and Jane Mitchell, emigrated from the north
of Ireland and settled in Chester County, Pennsylvania,
from whence they removed to Augusta County, Virginia.
They were both "Old Side" Presbyterians. In August,
1749, Samuel was born. Having received a thorough
tudimentary education, he entered Princeton College in
October, 1773, and remained two years. He returned to
Virginia and married Esther, the sister of Rev. John Mont-
gomery. He was for two years tutor in Hampden Sidney
College, in Prince Edward County. Here he also studied
theology. He was then licensed by the Hanover Presby-
tery, preached for a while in Virginia, and removed to Sul-
livan County, and in a short while to Washington County.
Here he purchased a farm. He built a church, perhaps
the first in the State, on his own land. He built also a
school-house, which was not only the first in Tennessee,
but "the first literary institution that was established in
the great valley of the Mississippi." He also founded
Salem Congregation. He took some part in the Revolu-
tionary War, and was a prominent member of the Frank-
lin convention.
In addition to Doak, among the earlier preachers who
came to the State were Samuel Houston, Hezekiah Balch,
Samuel Carrick, all of Scotch-Irish descent and all mem-
bers of the Hanover Presbytery. About this time,
Thomas B. Craighead, a son of Alexander, fixed his resi-
dence at Spring Hill, not far from Nashville, and at once
began that long pastorate which has made his name illus-
RELIGION IN TENNESSEE.
219
trious among the sons of Tennessee. He was a graduate
of Princeton, and had been carly ordained by the Presby-
tery of Orange. He began his ministerial mission in
Kentucky. From there he removed to Tennessee. A
church built of rough stone was at once erected for his
use, and for a time he combined the work of teacher and
preacher. He was a man of stern character, indomitable
will, and varied learning. His diction was clear, elabo-
rate, unadorned, and often wearisome He possessed none
of the pleading sympathy and humane fervor that distin-
guished the pulpit oratory of M'Gready, and of the great
Methodists of his day. He was tall and straight as an
arrow, his features were cast in strong lines, his complex-
ion was rough and ruddy, his eyes were blue, his hair
sandy. His enunciation was clear and precise. His gen-
eral bearing was dignified. In 1805 his orthodoxy was
suspected, and he was examined by the Synod of Lexing-
ton on thirty-one questions. His answers were satisfactory,
though sometimes obscure. At a synodical meeting at
Lexington in 1806, he preached a sermon which was
considered flagrantly heterodox. He was at once brought
before the committee of bills and overtures, of which he
himself had recently been elected chairman. This pro-
cedure resulted in Craighead's making an explanation,
and the moderator dismissed him with an earnest entreaty
to be more circumspect. Some years later he published
a sermon on regeneration with an address directed to the
synod, which was regarded as smacking strongly of what
was known as "New Light" sentiments. He was also ac-
cused of encouraging Shakerism, and of Pelagianism. In
1810 he was summoned before the Presbytery of Transyl-
vania. He refused to obey and at the next meeting was
suspended from the ministry. He spent many years in
writing letters, sermons, and pamphlets, and prosecuting
appeals to the General Assembly. But not till 1824 was
he reinstated. He was earnestly opposed to the course of
220
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
those who eventually founded the Cumberland Presby-
terian Church. The dignity of his character, the un-
yielding severity of his mind, rendered him averse to all
emotional display. This in no wise lessened the kindness
of his affection or the sincerity of his faith. "He was,
was,”
said Philip Lindsley, "the most spiritual, heavenly-
minded person I ever knew."
From the first, the seeds of discord were implanted in
the soil of Tennessee Presbyterianism. The members of
the Abingdon Presbytery in 1788 were Charles Cummins,
Hezekiah Balch, John Cossan, Samuel Houston, Samuel
Carrick, and James Balch. Doak joined in 1793, Gideon
Blackburn in 1794. In 1790 Houston was dismissed.
In 1791 Cossan took issue with the presbytery upon some
point of discipline. In 1792 the General Assembly de-
termined, in answer to a question from the Synod of the
Carolinas, that those persons who professed a belief in
universal salvation through the mediation of Jesus Christ
should not be admitted to the sealing ordinances of the
gospel. In 1796 it was repeated to the synod that great
excitement had prevailed in Abingdon Presbytery, and
that Charles Cummins, Edward Crawford, Samuel Doak,
Joseph Lake, and James Balch had withdrawn and formed
an independent Presbytery of Abingdon because Hezekiah
Balch had published some articles of faith which greatly
scandalized many members of the church. The matter
having been brought before the presbytery, Balch apolo-
gized for certain abusive epithets, explained his utterances
as in accord with the confession of faith, and was suffered
to go without further discipline. Hence the secession of
the Independent Presbytery. This procedure was subse-
quently condemned, but the dissatisfaction being great, a
commission was appointed before whom the Independents
appeared, and they renewed their submission. They were
then reinstated. Abingdon Presbytery was divided into
two; Doak, Cummins, Lake, and James Balch being
RELIGION IN TENNESSEE.
221
members of one, Abingdon; and Hezekiah Balch, Cossan,
Carrick, Henderson, and Blackburn being members of the
other, Union. The charges against Balch were renewed
before the new presbytery, and he was eventually removed.
In 1799 Thomas Bowman was suspended by the Abing-
don Presbytery for unsound doctrine. "The subject of
his dispute was the extent and manner of the offer of the
gospel." The synod reinstated him.
It was evident that the time was ripe for new life, new
vigor, a more liberal dispensation, a less doctrinal essence
of Christianity. This came as naturally as the Reforma-
tion, as the Presbyterian Covenant itself, as the Wesleyan
reawakening of the slumbering and torpid spirit of the
Church of England. Indeed, the Cumberland Presbyte-
rian Church is to the Presbyterian what the Methodist
Episcopal is to the Episcopal Church. The great learn-
ing, the deep piety, the dauntless self-sacrifice of the
Presbyterian ministers could not be doubted. But their
passion and fervor throve only in the midst of danger
and persecution. The white heat of their faith as an active
force in human life appeared mitigated and tempered in
those surroundings of individual liberty and freedom of
worship for which they were prepared to battle with such
intrepid fortitude and resolute audacity. Disputes involv-
ing points of doctrinal belief and questions of discipline
were constantly arising, and differences of opinion and va-
riations even in non-essentials were frequently punished
with the extreme rigor of ecclesiastical censure. The spirit-
ual life of the Southwest was growing daily narrower and
harder. The organization and temper and general spirit
of the church was peculiarly adapted for a revival of
activity and vigor. The so-called revival that in the
early part of the seventeenth century spread from Antrim
throughout Ulster and then to Scotland, and the visits of
John Whitefield to this country had made this apparent.
But this new light had soon flickered out: so completely
222
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
that the son of Alexander Craighead, one of the leaders.
of the early revival, was the most determined opponent
of the last. The forms remained, but there was no vital-
ity-no flashing of the electric sparks of human sympathy
-no trumpet calls to repentance- no attempts to touch
those wonderful recesses in which are hidden the tears,
the loves, the desires, the pains, the raptures, the tremors,
the passions, and the joys of every human heart.
The reawaking Christian energy which ushered in the
nineteenth century and which introduced a new method of
spiritual propagandism and enlightenment into American
Christianity was due to a man whose name has almost
been forgotten by the great body of the people. This was
James M'Gready, who was born in Pennsylvania, of
Scotch-Irish parents. When young, he was removed to
North Carolina, and was under the pastorate of John
Caldwell. He was, as a boy, of a naturally grave and
serious disposition, and was early destined for the minis-
try. He thought himself devout and a true Christian.
But he accidentally overheard a remark made by one
whom he respected, that he had not a spark of religion in
his, heart. He was aggrieved and surprised. He thought
over what he had heard. Light began to dawn upon
him. Returning to North Carolina he commenced preach-
ing in earnest. In 1790 he married, and took charge of
a church in Orange County. He was accused of "run-
ning people distracted, diverting their attention from the
necessary avocations of life, and creating unnecessary
alarm in the minds of those who were decent and orderly
in their lives." A letter written in blood ordered him
to leave the country. His church was attacked. His
pulpit was set on fire. In 1796 he removed to Kentucky.
Here he took charge of three congregations in Logan
County Gaspar River, Red River, and Muddy River.
He infused new life into them. The people were aroused.
His reputation spread. His influence grew. People came
RELIGION IN TENNESSEE.
223
1
miles and miles to hear him. The walls of sectarian-
ism were thrown down. He joined with Methodists in
the work of reviving the love of Christ. William M'Gee,
a Presbyterian, was located first at Shiloh, near Gallatin,
Tennessee, then on Drake's Creek, in Sumner County.
His brother, John M'Gee, was a Methodist. In June,
1800, the two brothers assisted M'Gready at the Red
River meeting-house, where the great revival fully devel-
oped itself. The crowd was enormous, and many were
compelled to sleep in the open air under the trees. It
was noticed that some had brought tents and food. This
suggested the idea of a camp-meeting. The next month
the first camp-meeting the world had ever seen was held
at Gaspar River church in Logan County, Kentucky.¹
The spirit spread wider and wider, farther and farther.
A peculiar physical manifestation accompanied these re-
vivals, popularly known as the "jerks." They were
involuntary and irresistible. When under their influ-
ence, the sufferers would dance, or sing, or shout. Some-
times they would sway from side to side, or throw the
head backwards and forwards, or leap, or spring. Gen-
erally those under the influence would at the end fall upon
the ground and remain rigid for hours, and sometimes
whole multitudes would become dumb and fall prostrate.
As the swoon passed away, the sufferer would weep
piteously, moan, and sob. After a while the gloom
would lift, a smile of heavenly peace would radiate the
countenance, and words of joy and rapture would break
forth, and conversion always followed. Even the most
skeptical, even the scoffers who visited these meetings for
the purpose of showing their hardihood would be taken in
this way. As the inspiration spread, the demand for new
preachers was greater than the church could supply. In
1 There is a conflict of opinion as to the date of the first camp-
meeting. Flint's Geography, p. 147, gives Cane Ridge, Tennessee,
1799. The weight of authority is in favor of Gaspar Creek, 1800.
224
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
this demand the Cumberland Church had its origin.
David Rice, the leading member of the Transylvania
Presbytery, visited the Cumberland country. Convinced
that the revivals were doing great good and appreciating
the lack of preachers, he suggested that laymen possessing
the proper qualifications for carrying on the work should
be selected to apply for membership in the presbytery.
Alexander Anderson, Finis Ewing, and Samuel King ap-
plied and were licensed to exhort. During the revival,
the Cumberland country, as it was called, was a part of
the Transylvania Presbytery, but in 1802 this was divided,
and Cumberland Presbytery established. It was composed
of ten ministers, of whom five favored and five opposed
the method of the revivals. The various stages by which
the Cumberland Church was evolved from the Cumber-
land Presbytery are too long to be given here in more
than outline. The licensure of the young men to exhort
excited adverse criticism. A difference upon doctrinal
points acted as a dividing wedge. M'Gready, Hodge,
M’Gee, Rankin, and M'Adow, accepted the Westminster
Confession of Faith in so far as they believed it agreeable
with the Word of God, by which they excluded the doc-
trine of fatality. In October, 1804, Craighead, Bowman,
and Donnell wrote a hearsay or common-fame letter to
the synod, protesting against the actions of the revival
members of the Transylvania Presbytery. After some
time, and in an irregular manner, the synod passed what
amounted to a vote of censure on the course of the reviv-
alists, and appointed a commission to investigate the mat-
ter. This commission censured the admission of the
young men as irregular, and required them to submit to
another examination touching their qualifications. They
refused to submit, upon the advice of M'Gready, Ran-
kin, Hodge, M'Adow, and M'Gee, who were thereupon
cited to appear before the synod. The revival preachers
formed themselves into a council. Subsequent attempts
RELIGION IN TENNESSEE.
225
to effect a reconciliation failed. The Cumberland Pres-
bytery was dissolved, and its members joined to the
Transylvania Presbytery. On appeal to the General
Assembly, they advised a review of its own proceedings
by the synod. This was done, but their proceedings
were confirmed. In 1810, at the residence of Samuel
M'Adow, in Dixon County, Tennessee, it was proposed
to establish a new and independent presbytery. This
was done on the 4th of February. By 1813 the number
of presbyteries had increased to three, and in October
of that year the first synod of the Cumberland Presby-
terian Church was formed. In 1829 the first General
Assembly met at Princeton, Kentucky. Since then it has
spread over the entire nation, and is especially powerful
and influential in the Southwest. It is worthy of remark
that M'Gready, in whose exertions the new church had
its origin, never joined it. He made peace with the Synod
of Kentucky and remained in the Presbyterian Church.
66
Among the causes of censure alleged against the revival-
ists in the Cumberland Presbytery was too strong a lean-
ing towards Methodism. Hawe, a Methodist preacher,
had been received, and, it was charged, without renouncing
his previous views. On the records of the Cumberland
Presbytery were mentions of Finis Ewing's "circuit,”
a device borrowed from the Methodists." The mode
of licensing their preachers had been suggested if not
borrowed from Methodistic usages. The Methodist
Church at this time furnished undoubtedly the vitalizing
influences among the great body of people. These influ-
ences have never waned. That element of the Cumberland
Presbyterian Church which gave it force and vigor was
derived from the church of Wesley and Asbury.
1785 the Methodist Church of America was placed upon
an independent footing. In 1783 the first Methodist
preacher came to the Holston circuit, which embraced
East Tennessee and a part of Virginia. This was Jere-
In
226
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
miah Lambert, who was followed by Henry Willis, Mark
Whittaker, and Mark Moore. At the end of the first
year Lambert returned sixty members. In 1787 the Hol-
ston circuit was divided into two, the Holston and Nol-
lichucky. The next year two more were added. In 1787
Benjamin Ogden went to the circuit of Nashville, which
was yet a small station struggling to preserve its existence.
He was born in New Jersey and was twenty-two years old
at the time of his advent. He had been a soldier in the
Revolutionary War. After Yorktown, he had joined the
Methodist Church, and was at once appointed to carry the
gospel of salvation to the wilds of the far West. For a
long time services were performed in the county jail at
Nashville. In 1811 a small brick church was built, but
being too far away it was in 1818 succeeded by another on
Spring Street, of which John Johnson was pastor. In
1818 Nashville was made a separate charge. The number
of traveling preachers in Tennessee at that time was
thirty. The growth of the Methodist Church was rapid
and wonderful.
The observant traveler who passes through Mexico
and who sees the little shrines upon the roadside, the
smooth-faced priest, or the mendicant friar with pendent
rosary and bare feet upon the streets, the cathedral in the
cities, and the cross upon every shrine, need not be told the
religious life of the people. In like manner, the signs of
Methodism, though in a measure now giving way before
the incoming tide of a general laxity of faith, are equally
apparent to him who studies the history of the present.
What the Catholic Church is in Mexico, the Methodist
Church is in Tennessee. To follow its steps would be
foreign to our purpose, but it would be impossible to
understand the inner life of the people and the organiza-
tion of society unless we know the great instruments which
first gave bent to the religious impulse of the early
settlers. Perhaps it would be proper to say instrument,
RELIGION IN TENNESSEE.
227
for without doing injustice to the able and learned succes-
sors of Craighead, and without overlooking the Tennes-
seans who added a powerful branch to the already nu-
merous Protestant denominations of America, it may be
said that the religious life of the State is to this day the
direct outcome of the exertions of the early Methodist
itinerants. Other denominations have followed in the
wake of civilization. The Methodist circuit riders led it.
What the friar, the adventurous padre, was in the early
days of Mexican settlement, the circuit rider has been in
this State, and the evidences of his work and influence
are upon every hand. The Sunday of to-day is the
Sabbath which we inherit from him. The silent theatre,
the houses from which the sound of music and mirth are
banished, the empty streets, the calm stillness of the day,
in these things we see the signs of his influence. The
career of the circuit rider both individually and collec-
tively renewed in a great degree the romantic memories of
the medieval church militant. There were indeed no
glittering panoplies, no burnished helmets, no silken
banners, no dappled palfreys, and no vows of celibacy.
But the resemblance, in spite of the saddle-bags and the
raw-boned horse, is apparent and suggestive. The circuit.
rider was the embodiment of a sacred and enthusiastic
zeal which held in light esteem both the dangers and the
allurements of this world. And indeed he was a man
whose like has not often been seen. His limitations were
decided and palpable, but they were not repulsive. He
was bigoted as a Christian, but tolerant as a churchman.
He believed in the Bible with a literal faith which in the
present days of Renan and Strauss seems to have disap-
peared from the face of the earth. He could not grasp
symbolic meanings, and he felt no impulse to search for
them. The nearness of Christ to man, the illuminating
grace of God, the infinity of His love and mercy, the sanc-
tification of the soul by faith, were actual and real facts
228
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
to him. His God was a personal God, a being of infinite
wisdom but also of infinite vengeance against him who had
been called and who had not hearkened. The catholicity
of his tolerance embraced all churches but the Roman
Catholic. To him the cross was the emblem of Popish
blasphemy, of the iniquity which masked as religion, as
that religion that forbade the reading of the book of
life, and encouraged the idolatrous worship of graven
images. He regarded Wesley as the greatest instrument
the Lord had raised up for the work of salvation. The
Methodist Church offered him the safest and the fairest
road to eternal grace. This could indeed be attained
through other Protestant denominations, but with less
assurance to the sinner and with less of the divine dispen-
sation of spiritual light and life. He was a strict ob-
server of the austerities of life. He preferred coarse fare,
he would wear nothing but the plainest habiliments. This
came from the ideas of what both he and his spiritual
charges thought required by the censure of the ordinary
frailties and vanities of human existence. He trusted in
Providence for both food and raiment, and this was made
manifest by the gifts from members of his congregation.
His yearly stipend was rarely more than eighty or one
hundred dollars. If no other method was found, the in-
fluential members of the church gave a festival, the pro-
ceeds of which were devoted to buying him the necessaries
of life. His manners were not polished, but they were
far from rude. They were simple and sincere, and were
filled with a deep sympathy that warmed the hearts of his
associates. He was plain of speech, however, though if
he wounded the vanity of his hearers he never wounded
their sensibilities. These were his chief limitations. He
was narrow, sectional, and bigoted, unpolished, beyond the
grasp of any but Christian fellowship, taking a hard,
austere, and almost terrible view of the world as it is,
having real sympathy alone with the world as it should
RELIGION IN TENNESSEE.
229
be or as he would make it. Religion to him was the goal
of existence; all other interests were greater or less temp-
tations that drew away from the path to that goal.
But his virtues were great. Even his imperfections
were such as appeal to the purest impulses of every heart.
The religious, or more accurately the emotional zeal which
has shed the blood and destroyed the empires of so many
generations of the human race, in him was purified, tem-
pered, and in a manner brought into harmony with the
spirit of a more liberal civilization. His determination
was the determination of the fanatic, but it was directed
towards construction, not destruction. His was the work
of saving souls, not the work of preventing others from
having them damned. He had a clear conception of
what he was called on to perform, and the frantic zeal
which brought Latimer to the stake, and the undying
faith which sustained him when there, were not deeper
or more unwavering than the zeal and the faith which
sustained the circuit rider in his labors in the wilder-
ness. It is not a figure of speech to say that his path
was beset with death, and that for months at a time the
penances of a Trappist monastery were but as luxuries
compared to the daily trials of hunger and thirst and
sleeplessness which fell to his lot. He would ride for
days at a time, through any inclemency of weather,
through any degree of heat or cold, to keep an appoint-
ment to preach the Word to those who hungered for the
Lord. The last rain perhaps had swept a bridge away.
A tribe of hostile Indians were prowling through the
forests which he would have to penetrate. A heavy fall
of snow had obscured the trail that led through the intri-
cacies of a swamp.
It was doubtful if he could procure
food for man or beast for days, and it was vain to try to
carry a sufficient supply. It was impossible to procure a
guide across the Forks" of some range of hills, thickly
covered with ravines and with dangerous defiles. Starva-
230
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
tion and all the forms of death lay thick around and before
him. The stoutest heart might have quailed, the most
unflinching sense of duty might have wavered. The
rational mind might have justly demanded a greater
degree of equality between the magnitude of the thing
to be accomplished and the difficulties and dangers attend-
ing its accomplishment. All of these things gave him not
a moment's pause. Herein was manifest the grandeur of
the circuit rider's character. His mind was not the mind
of a rational man, as we estimate rationality. His pro-
fession of faith and his wish for salvation were sincere to
the full extent of their importance, as he estimated it.
Religion was a real and a tangible thing to him. The
simple, unhesitating sincerity of his faith was grand, it
was wonderful, it was sublime. The manifestations of a
spiritual world around him were as the fluttering of doves
about a cote. Traveling through the forest, his eye
would fall upon a tree stricken, scarred, and blasted by
lightning. The Spirit of the Lord would speak to him,
reminding him of his unworthiness and pointing to the
tree as a token and a sign. Straightway he would alight,
and, kneeling with uncovered head, he would pour out his
heart in the most abject terms of humility and the most
exquisite expressions of humble and child-like dependence
and love. He himself was an instrument of the Lord, not
figuratively, but in absolute literalism. As a rule, the
Lord had called him, and he had at first refused to heed.
Finally, after many spiritual conflicts in many particulars,
not unlike those of Mahomet when yet a driver of camels,
he had obeyed. At once the light had come to him, the
shadows had been lifted, peace and a flood of rapturous
emotion had filled his heart, and he was prepared to wrestle
with the Lord for the salvation of souls. His was a
sacred function, and the least duty of his mission was of
importance in his eyes. And all the dangers of physical
pain and even death were but of small moment to one who
RELIGION IN TENNESSEE.
231
could see with rapture-lit eyes a world of eternal happi-
ness open before him, a world full of strange and beauti-
ful sights and the calm peace of eternity, a world in which
there would be only perfect happiness found chiefly in the
singing of endless psalms of praise to the great and infi-
nite Jehovah, and with crown of gold and harp in hand
mingling in the glittering ranks of seraphim that sur-
round his central throne, the earnest of the divine pleas-
ure in his accomplished work ringing in his ears and
echoing in the words that had greeted his entrance
through the uplifted gates of gold, "Well done, thou good
and faithful servant."
And it must not be supposed that he recognized in this
the Christian mythology with which Milton, as with sun-
lit and gorgeous clouds, has obscured the tranquil heavens
of the religion which the God of Israel gives the faithful
who believe in Him. On the contrary, he believed these
things as an integral part of his religion, and though he
knew the Bible from lid to lid, he would not have hesi-
tated, if questioned for the proof of this faith, to refer to
that. This was the character of the circuit rider. Is it
wonderful that he should have accomplished great results?
The Jesuit type, waiving a discussion of the moral aims
of the two orders, may have been finer, more coherently
organized, broader in scope, having a more self-conscious
end to attain; it may have been a more delicately adjusted-
instrument for the achievement of a more complex object.
The early Methodist Conference itself was of coarser grain
than the Order of Jesus. But this was the utmost and all.,
The circuit rider in all things else was adapted to the
object and end of his mission in a degree of equal excel-
lence. He merged the individual completely in the work,
he lost all sense of personal interest in the craving to
advance the interests of others. He was willing to meet
death for the attainment of the smallest of the tasks set
before him. He was willing to forego all personal com-
232
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
fort as a part of the daily life of which hunger and thirst
were incidents. Luxury he had never known or seen.
When his work was with the wild, the desperate, the hardy,
and the dangerous, he went among them without a moment
of hesitation, without a quiver of fear. He led a life of
solitary self-communion, of mental solitude. He volun-
tarily resigned all the things which make the sum and the
substance of the world's happiness, the peace and com-
forts of home, the house filled with love and laughter and
the prattle of childish lips, the settled mode of life, the am-
bition of self-advancement. And he did this without an
effort of self-abnegation, without oaths, adjurations, and
vows of celibacy, without any of the up-bolstering that
comes from a feeling of human fellowship even in a color-
less and a cheerless cause. To the circuit rider, this was
a matter of course. Without probation, without any aid
beyond that of his own spiritual exaltation, he stepped at
once into a mental atmosphere of cold and solitary eleva-
tion and created a new life in the new world, apart from
the new world activity around him, not for his own worldly
good or the gratification of his ambition, but that good
might come to others.
As the church increased in numbers and influence, the
pioneer of religion, the one who had hewn for it a way
through the primeval forests, either pushed forward with
the advance line of civilization or yielded to the mellow-
ing influence of a more genial state of society. As vil-
lages developed into towns with souls enough to repay an
exclusive charge, the saddle-bags and the saddle were ex-
changed for a settled habitation. Sometimes he married,
and from the first marriage had practically destroyed his
usefulness as an itinerant. He is now familiar to us only
in tradition. The discipline of conference assignments of
duty, which carry with them change of habitation, still
suggests his noble activity in the early days of Tennessee
history.
CHAPTER XXIV.
SCHOOLS.
THE history of the common schools is, in the main, the
history of public lands in Tennessee, and the history of
public lands in this State is the history of confusion.
This confusion, which is much too intricate to unravel in
a short space, originated in the Act of Cession, and more
than three hundred acts have been passed upon subjects
growing out of the relation between the public schools and
the school lands of the State.
"1
The first school in Tennessee, in fact "the first literary
institution established in the great Mississippi Valley,"
was founded by Samuel Doak. In 1788 the legislature
of North Carolina incorporated this under the name of
the Martin Academy, Doak being president. In 1795
Martin Academy became "Washington College at Salem,
Washington County," Doak still remaining as president,
a position which he held until 1818, when he resigned in
favor of his son. Doak has been described by one who
knew him as a "a rigid opposer of innovation in religious.
tenets, very old school in all his notions and actions; un-
compromising in his love of the truth and his hostility to
error or heresy; a John Knox in his character, fearless,
firm, nearly dogmatical and intolerant, but no one has
been more useful to church or state." Doak was thor-
oughly identified with the earlier history of Tennessee,
having been a member of the "State of Franklin" Con-
1 Monette.
234
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
vention. He was also a soldier of the Revolution. He
was peculiarly adapted to his environments, and his influ-
ence was felt throughout the State. He turned the minds
of the hardy mountaineers towards intellectual improve-
ment, and the thoroughness of his methods gave a bent
to the school system in the eastern part of the State which
it retains to this day.
In 1785 Davidson Academy was established in David-
son County by the legislature of North Carolina. How-
ever, but little is known of its first development beyond
the fact that the State made a valuable donation of lands
near Nashville to encourage its founders. In 1803 the
General Assembly appointed Thomas B. Craighead, James
Robertson, Daniel Smith, Andrew Jackson, and others
trustees of a college "proposed" to be built on this
tract of land, to be called Davidson College. Craighead
was elected president. In 1794 Blount College was
founded near Knoxville, of which the "liberal, tolerant,
and refined" Samuel Carrick was president, and in the
same year Greene College at Greeneville was established
by Hezekiah Balch, who was the first president. It is
worthy of remark that the first four prominent educators
of Tennessee, Doak, Craighead, Carrick, and Balch, were
all of Scotch-Irish descent, and members of the same
presbytery. The Bible and the school-book were borne
together across the Alleghanies by men in whose veins
flowed the blood which had withstood the oppression of
three centuries.
An act of Congress of 1806 may be said to have set
the common-school system on its feet. The four colleges
then in existence and a few private schools here and there ¹
had till then supplied the absolute requirements of the
people for rudimentary instruction. But the State was
unable to give assistance. In 1801 the State Senate, in
1 James Menees had opened a private school at French Lick during
the eighties.
*
SCHOOLS.
235
answer to a petition of the University of North Carolina,
adopted a resolution in which it says: "Tennessee, in her
present condition and infant state has not arrived at the
period when her revenues will even authorize a loan to
patronize the seminaries of learning already established
within the limits of her own State." By the act of 1806
Congress set aside one hundred thousand acres of public
land in one tract for the use of academies in Tennessee,
one in each county. Six hundred and forty acres were
required to be located for every six miles square in the
territory ceded to the State of Tennessee, to be appropri-
ated to the use of schools for the instruction of children
forever. The same act appropriated another tract of one
hundred thousand acres, the proceeds of which were to be
applied to the support of two colleges, one in East and one
in West Tennessee. In East Tennessee, Blount College
was united with the new college. In West Tennessee,
Davidson College was consolidated with the one about to
be established there, and Cumberland College was the
result. Academies were established in twenty-seven coun-
ties.¹ This congressional grant of lands was entered by
occupants, and act after act was passed granting relief to
them and laying off other lands for the use of the schools.
Each new accession of territory from the Indians was at
once drawn into the maelstrom of confusion.2
The advantages to the State which would flow from a
thorough system of public instruction were fully appre-
ciated from the first, and the messages of all the govern-
ors are filled with suggestions looking to their upbuilding
and improvement. The first definite plan attempted was
by the act of 1829. County courts at the first or second
1 Only one female academy appears to have been founded - Fisk's
Female Academy at Hilham, in Overton County.
2 Those who wish to investigate this complex episode in state his-
tory are referred to the Journals of the House and Senate from 1817
to 1833. It is curious and interesting. See especially the report
signed by James K. Polk, November 27, 1824, House Journal.
236
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
term after January 1, 1830, were to appoint commission-
ers to meet at regimental musters on the third Saturday
in April, 1830, to divide regiments into school districts.
and make registers of names of heads of families. The
justice of the peace was then to give notice and hold an
election of five trustees, who were to organize themselves
into a board, the chairmen of which were to meet at the
court-house on the first Saturday in June to choose com-
missioners for the county. This bill gave existence to
the common-school system of Tennessee, and this is the
germ from which the present organization has grown.
In 1837 a report to the General Assembly throws a
striking light upon the condition of the public schools at
that time. "The subject of education has never yet re-
ceived in Tennessee that attention which it so vitally
merits. Appropriations, it is true, have been made to the
support of the common schools, but the system adopted
under that name has heretofore proved inefficient and by
no means equal to the expectations of those who first
established it. While this has been the case in the com-
mon-school system, a prejudice has prevailed against the
higher institutions of learning, academies and colleges,
neither of which has consequently ever received much
from the munificence of the State." This report takes
strong grounds against entirely free schools, advocating
partial self-taxation. A great drawback to the improve-
ment of the public schools was the lack of any proper head.
The superintendent was merely an agent to look after the
school funds, and there was no unity of action or spirit
among the schools themselves.
The fund itself was a
"It has been,"
prey to the vicious and the unprincipled.
says a report in 1839, "time after time plundered by a
thousand hands." In some cases, sheriffs who collected
school funds failed or refused to pay them over. Robert
H. McEwen had been elected to the recently created office
of superintendent of public schools in 1836 and reëlected

11838.
SCHOOLS.
237
He loaned large sums of the school money
• private individuals, particularly one John Scott, with
hom he was connected in business. McEwen was sued
nd a receiver appointed, but heavy losses ensued. Mc-
wen was succeeded in 1840 by R. P. Currin, who gave
ay in 1843 to Scott Terry. The constitution of 1834
a per-
rovided that the common-school fund should be "
etual fund, the principal of which should never be dimin-
shed by legislative appropriations." It was this wise
rovision which has kept alive, even under the most un-
avorable circumstances, the vital spark of public instruc-
ion. The establishment of the bank of 1838, one object
f which was to increase the public-school fund, but par-
ally accomplished its purpose. The act itself was passed
a combination of the friends of internal improvement
common schools, but was earnestly opposed as inex-
ent by Neil S. Brown, who took an active and leading
in the discussion of all measures affecting the welfare
e public schools. On the 19th of February, 1836,
It was passed making it the duty of the superintend
If public instruction to prepare plans for the im-
hent and organization of common schools. Under
t some changes of minor importance were made in
ganization of the schools, and the first scholastic
began in July, 1838.
1845 was passed a measure which manifested for
rst time a correct understanding of the true principle
mmon education. This was the introduction of the
ce of self-taxation for the support of common schools.
State was divided into districts, each district was to
or not levy a tax by the vote of all qualified voters,
the secretary of state was to pay each district an
unt equal to that raised by itself. Two years later,
ernor Neil S. Brown recommended that county courts
llowed to levy a tax on the whole county. Speaking
he previous attempts to establish common schools, he



HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
238
says in the same message: "Yet this effort for popula
education has slumbered and languished and pined, and
exists now rather as a memento of the past than as a liv
ing system for future growth and expansion." One great
good accomplished by the unceasing agitation of this
question before the war was the gradual strengthening
and spreading of the appreciation and estimate of the
advantages to be derived by the people from a public-
school system. In 1848 a long step forward was taken
in the establishment of common schools in the city of
Nashville, according to plans proposed by J. H. Ingraham
This was also an additional factor in the process of devel
opment by which Nashville has become the educationa
centre of the Southwest.
More than to any other one cause the credit for this
due to Dr. Philip Lindsley. Cumberland College, in
porated in 1806, opened its doors in 1809, with Ja
Priestly as president. In 1816 it was closed for
of funds and Priestly resigned. The original gra
50,000 acres had been unavailable. Congress had dir
that it be laid off in one body and not sold for les
two dollars an acre. But the legislature of Ten
located the grant in detached parcels in the regi
country south of French Broad and Holston river
sold it on credit for one dollar an acre.
Even of
but a small part was eventually received. In 18
the General Assembly allowed the University of I
ville 11,520 acres in the Ocoee district, which had
been acquired from the Indians, in lieu of all c
against the State for principal and interest. In this
the sum of $40,000 was realized. But this was
after Priestly's resignation. In 1820 an attempt
made to reopen the college, but Priestly's death in 1
frustrated it. In 1822, and again in 1823, Philip Lind
of New Jersey was offered the presidency but declin


SCHOOLS.
239
In May, 1824, it was again offered him and this time
he accepted. In 1825 Cumberland College became the
University of Nashville. Lindsley had been thoroughly
trained at Northern universities, especially Princeton.
The motive which actuated him in leaving an established
career in the North for the troubles and trials of a small,
thinly-settled community was undoubtedly noble and high-
minded. It was his ambition to build up a great South-
western rival to Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. In his
Baccalaureate Address, entitled, "The Cause of Education
in Tennessee," delivered at the first commencement in
1826, he unfolded his plan. Lack of means alone pre-
vented its consummation. He undoubtedly raised high the
standard of pedagogic excellence. He ennobled teach-
ing as a profession. He liberalized the tone of the entire
Southwest, and his influence was strong and widespread.
Up to 1848, 398 regular graduates and 1,500 undergrad-
uates had gone out from Cumberland College and the
University of Nashville. It was remarked that at one
time there were twenty-eight members of the United
States House of Representatives who had graduated at
that institution.
The present is the child of the past, and the imperfec-
tions of the earlier period have come down and been per-
petuated. The condition of the mass of the people as
regards education in Tennessee is mortifying and even
disgraceful. The losses entailed by the war and the bur-
dens of general and local taxation have been but a bare.
justification. But the highest duty which a community
owes its children, higher than every duty not the result of
moral obligation, is the rudiments of an education, The
time has come for Tennessee to readapt itself to the
progressive spirit of the age, and offer those who are
within its limits the advantages without which civilization
itself is but a state of more galling bondage. The fact that
240
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
our resources are insufficient does not lessen the weight of
the obligation. The greatest, the gravest duty which
now impends is that of teaching Tennessee children, all
of them, irrespective of age or color, the simple art of
the alphabet and the multiplication table.
CHAPTER XXV.
SEVIER TO CARROLL.
THE election of John Sevier to the governorship was
practically without opposition. In fact, political contests
as we now know them were of more recent development.
There were no local issues involving interests within the
State upon which men could align themselves, and in na-
tional politics all were Jeffersonians or Republicans. The
certainty of Tennessee casting its electoral vote for Jeffer-
son caused the bulk of the opposition to its admission,
and, in fact, Adams was only elected by a majority of
three votes. The term Federalist had not yet become a
by-word and a reproach. The nucleus for a division upon
national questions existed. Such men as John Overton
and John Haywood, men of thought and patriotism, were
attracted by the ingenious speculations and were impressed
by the brilliant services of Alexander Hamilton. The
Tipton party was still sullen, still sore, and still alive.
The unsettled negotiations involving the navigation of
the Mississippi River left the whole Southwest a smoulder-
ing fire. But the Excise law of 1791, which aroused the
fierce opposition of innkeepers and distillers scattered
throughout the valleys of East Tennessee, and who were
the bulk of the Tipton faction, retarded the feeble begin-
nings of organized opposition to Sevier and to Jefferson.
The storm which followed the Alien and Sedition laws of
1798 swept the last remnants of federalism from Tennes-
see, and the purchase of Louisiana by Jefferson obliter-
ated its traces. The Whigs, the next anti-Democratic
242
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
party in Tennessee, were cut off from the Federalists of
the eighteenth century as completely as the French Re-
publicans of to-day from the Girondins of the Revolu
tion.
Sevier was elected to fill for the first time the first
office in this State. The course of public affairs offered
no occasion for the display of administrative skill or ex-
ecutive ability. Nothing was called for beyond the rou-
tine duties with which every man of ordinary application.
can render himself conversant. Sevier's residence was
several miles from Knoxville. Unable to support the
manner of living which had distinguished the elegant
administration of his predecessor,¹ Governor Sevier af-
fected the opposite extreme, and while losing nothing of
the portly dignity which always marked his personal bear-
ing, the studied simplicity of his life gained him addi-
tional popularity among the people over whom he ruled.
He was reëlected for three successive terms, when the
limitations provided by the constitution rendered im-
possible his continuance in office. In 1801 Archibald
Roane was elected, and served until 1803, when Sevier
was again a candidate for reëlection. The contest between
Roane and Sevier was purely personal. Sevier's popu-
larity was unbounded. The only hope of compassing his
defeat was to break the influence of his name. An attempt
was made to sully his reputation. At this distance and
from the scanty material which survives, it is difficult to
determine exactly how far the attempt was successful.
In 1792 he and Landon Carter owned in partnership
land warrants for 128,000 acres, and by an agreement
made August 1, 1792, Sevier bound himself in the sum
of 700,000 silver dollars to perfect the title, by laying
them on lands "as valuable as present circumstances will
permit." After titles in fee simple shall have been ac-
quired, "in John Sevier's or any other person's name,"
1 The new State had but $3,145.64 in the treasury.
SEVIER TO CARROLL.
243
Sevier is to convey one half of what was left, after pay-
ing expenses, to Landon Carter. Ten years after the
date of this agreement, during the canvass against Roane,
it was discovered that a large amount of fraudulent land
warrants were in existence, and it was charged that John
Sevier was deeply implicated. Andrew Jackson was on
the bench at the time, and at once arrayed himself against
Sevier. Among the latter's most earnest political friends.
were the Donelsons, a sister of whom was Jackson's wife.
This defection, especially in so conspicuous a character as
a superior judge, damaged Sevier in the eyes of the pub-
lic. It also embittered him. His bitterness was enhanced
by an appearance of flagrant ingratitude, for Jackson
owed his original appointment to Sevier.
The contest between Roane and Sevier was acrimonious
and the latter often referred to Jackson in his speeches.
Roane was a lawyer, had been a judge, also a teacher, in
which capacity he had given instruction to Hugh L.
White, was fond of polite literature, and had an affable
demeanor, though at times he was abstracted in manner.
But he was not the man to cope with the hand-shaking
and buoyant-hearted Indian fighter of the Nollichucky.
Sevier was elected by a vote of 6,786 to 4,923. Shortly
after Sevier's inauguration, Jackson was holding court at
Knoxville. They met October 1, on the public square.
Proceedings had already been instituted by John Tipton
in the General Assembly to investigate the land-warrant
affair. With this impending, Sevier, upon seeing Jack-
son, denounced him violently as one who had instigated
the calumnies of his enemies. Jackson retorted, and
among other things, referred to his public services. Sevier
scornfully replied that he knew of no public services that
he had performed, except to run off to New Orleans with
another man's wife.
1 The MS. agreement is in the Historical Society Library at Nash-
ville.
244
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
The two men had many points in common. Both had
a gracious and a winning suavity of speech and gentle-
ness of manner when calm. Both were subject to frantic
outbursts of fury. And both, when enraged, were like
madmen. They stormed. They blustered. They swore
loud and boisterous oaths. Their faces and lips grew
white. Their eyes glistened like melted glass. And like
wild beasts, the first impulse of each was to strike, to
wound, to tear. But each had also a reserve of prudence
that was rarely extinguished even in the most extravagant
paroxysms.
""
Jackson's anger flamed out at the reference to his wife,
and he made desperate efforts to reach Sevier, but was
restrained. Jackson, seeing his antagonist with a drawn
cutlass, and having only a cane himself, prudently yielded
to the remonstrances of the bystanders. The next day
he sent a challenge. Sevier returned a mocking reply,
accepting for any time and place "not within the State
of Tennessee." Jackson insisted on the meeting taking
place in the neighborhood of Knoxville, since the insult
had been passed here. Sevier declined. "I have some
respect," said he, "for the laws of the State over which I
have the honor to preside, although you, a judge, appear
to have none. A vigorous correspondence bristling with
threats and expletives ensued. It would have perplexed
the best special pleader in England or America to deter-
mine what point of difference was at issue between them
at any given time. Finally, Jackson, in a note dated
October 10, 1803, expressed his willingness to meet Sevier
at Southwest Point, any time between Tuesday afternoon
and Wednesday at midday. This proposition Sevier again
rejected as not coming within the conditions previously
raised. Jackson then agreed to meet him in Virginia.
Sevier refused to open the note containing this proposi-
tion. Jackson, in pursuance of a previously uttered
threat, published Sevier as "a base coward and poltroon —
SEVIER TO CARROLL.
245
he will basely insult but has not the courage to repair the
wound." Jackson went to Southwest Point, but Sevier
did not appear. Returning, he met him and a company
of friends. Jackson had prepared a note setting out his
wrongs and demanding reparation. Seeing Sevier he
sent this forward. Sevier refused to receive it. It was
returned to Jackson. Enraged, Jackson charged upon
him with his cane. Sevier dismounted. Pistols were
drawn. But Jackson had lost all stomach for the fight
and Sevier had never had any. Friends interfered. After
some wrangling an indifferent peace was patched up be-
tween them. In 1791 Sevier had seventeen children
alive. Sevier's death at Jackson's hands meant also
Jackson's death at the hands of Sevier's sons, who were
proud, brave, and devoted to him. This undoubtedly
had much to do with the hair-splitting niceties of the
correspondence by which a meeting was successfully
evaded.
During the contention between Jackson and Sevier,
Tipton and other members of the General Assembly of
his faction prepared an address to Jackson expressing
their entire confidence in him and approbation of his of
ficial acts. David Campbell, one of the superior judges,
had been impeached for receiving a bribe from a litigant.
This, it was thought, might possibly besmirch Jackson in
the eyes of the general public, although Campbell was de-
clared not guilty by a vote of 9 to 3.1 In the House,
Tipton pressed with unflagging energy the investigation
of Sevier's speculations in land warrants. A special com-
mittee was appointed composed of Jesse Wharton, Wil-
liam Martin, John Menifee, David Campbell, subse-
quently withdrawn for James Scott, Samuel Tipton, and
John Tipton. John Carter, entry taker of Washington
1 Campbell never recovered from this blow. In 1809 he and
James Trimble were candidates for the judgeship of the second cir-
cuit. Trimble was unanimously nominated on the first ballot.
246
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
·
County and also one of the witnesses to the agreement be-
tween Sevier and Landon Carter, had deposited with Gov-
ernor Roane certain documents relative to his office.
These Roane delivered to the speaker of the House of
Representatives, and these were the material for the in-
vestigation which followed, and which kept Sevier in hot
water while it progressed. The Senate appointed a sim-
ilar committee. Sevier was called on to deliver up such
papers from Carter's office as had been deposited with
him. On the 8th of November, the committee reported
that 165 of 175 papers purporting to be locations, each
containing 640 acres, were in John Sevier's name and
written in his hand. Of the other ten, a majority were in
the names of members of Sevier's family. Upon these,
warrants had been issued by Landon Carter to John Se-
vier to the amount of 105,600 acres, and on these grants
for 46,060 had been obtained. All of these entries were
founded in fraud, and in some cases sixty different grants
had been issued to different individuals. The report con-
cludes in these words: "From the foregoing facts,
founded on the testimony herewith accompanying, the
committee are of opinion that warrants to the amount of
105,600 acres of land have been fraudulently obtained by
John Sevier from Landon Carter who acted as entry
taker in said office, on the file of papers purporting to be
locations and grants surreptitiously obtained from the
secretary of North Carolina, to wit: James Glasgow by
said Sevier on said fraudulent warrants, to the amount of
46,060 acres.” A motion to reject the entire report was
lost, and another motion to amend the report so as to have
it merely set forth the facts without attributing any de-
sign to or interpreting the motives of John Sevier was
carried. It is worthy of note that Sevier's friends voted
even against this. This is the evidence.
It is too meagre
to establish definite conclusions. Our whole system of
land-laws was a labyrinth to our forefathers, as it is to us.
SEVIER TO CARROLL.
247
Large land speculations were daily events. The charges
against Sevier involved forgery. In the absence of more
conclusive evidence, his character, his popularity, the love
his neighbors bore him, his achievements during long years
of service are of themselves sufficient to overthrow the
most conscientious skepticism. But join to this, that he
was twice elected, even after the investigation, to the same
high office, that at the end of his last gubernatorial term
he was elected to the State Senate, that in 1811 he was
chosen a representative in Congress and served as a mem-
ber of that body until his death, and he should be acquit
even in the eyes of those prone to accept the most sinister
interpretations of all complex human transactions. His
hold upon the people of Tennessee appeared to grow from
year to year. The impression was wide-spread that he
would serve as governor for life, with such intermission as
constitutional restrictions made necessary. In 1807 Wil-
liam Cocke announced himself as a candidate for the gov-
ernorship. Cocke had long held an honorable and con-
spicuous place in Tennessee. He had been one of the
earliest pioneers. He had been prominent in the State of
Franklin. He had been one of the first senators from
Tennessee. But so hopeless did it appear to contest the
election with Sevier that he was forced to withdraw. He
was at once assailed as having had some secret end in
view. On the 13th of July he wrote a letter to the ed-
itor of the "Impartial Review" in which he denounces the
report that he had offered himself as a candidate for gov-
ernor in order to deter others, and had then retired by
arrangement with "the present governor to secure an elec-
tion to that office at the time the constitution prohibits
his further services."
Sevier not only possessed great popularity, he deserved
it. He harmonized with the times and the people. His
tall and commanding figure, his intelligent features, his
skill in all those manly exercises which were the only
248
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
accomplishments of a turbulent era, his bravery, his intel-
lectual force of character, placed him naturally at the
head of affairs. But more than this, he possessed perhaps
every qualification which could contribute in an essential
degree to the success of a politician. He made himself at
home in everybody's house and made everybody at home
in his house. Even when governor, his house presented
at times the appearance of an inn. His horses, his am-
munition, his camp equipments, his provisions, his purse,
he placed at the disposal of his friends with lavish gener-
osity. He was fond of mingling with people, and his
amiability and cordiality rendered him irresistible. He
knew enough of human nature to serve his purposes,
which were always noble. He had a manner of forcing
the opinions of those whose agreement he desired. Not
by fluency of speech or cogency of argument, but by the
prestidigitator's trick of ostensibly allowing one to draw
one card at hap-hazard when in fact a sleight-of-hand has
effected the substitution of another. This he accom-
plished by withholding an expression of his own views and
then assuming them to be the opinions of his associates,
at the same time approving them with quiet flattery. One
who knew him said: "He made many a man, a veritable
fool upon some favorite topic, believe himself a real Solo-
mon."
But the basis of Sevier's character was laid in sincerity,
in truth, and in honor. He was loved because he had a
loving heart. The gentle word, the quick sympathy, the
open hand, the high purpose, the dauntless courage, the
impetuosity, the winning suavity were the wings and the
turrets and the battlements of a magnificent and harmoni-
ous structure. Energy, ability, and determination can ac-
complish many feats, and cunning can simulate many ef-
fects. But the tender and the true and the loyal heart is
beyond their power. This may not be counterfeited and
its deficiency cannot be supplied. The most beautiful
SEVIER TO CARROLL.
249
trait of Sevier's character was the exquisite sweetness of
his disposition. No man was ever more deeply beloved in
the circle of his family, and Sevier's was very large. He
was the boon companion of his boys, some of whom were
almost as old as he, for though he was only thirty-five
when the battle of King's Mountain was fought, he had
two sons present. At home he was the companion of his
wife and the playmate of his children. A delightful
glimpse of his family life is given in a letter written to
him in 1791, by a correspondent who says: "I more sin-
cerely wish you an hour's chat with Mrs. Sevier and a
romp with one of your little girls than all the honor you
could obtain by destroying ten Indian tribes." 1
In 1815 he was appointed by President Monroe to lo-
cate the boundary lines of the Creek territory, and died in
Alabama on the 24th of September. His grave has been
neglected, and is now said to be covered with weeds and
wild growth. Various attempts have been made at vari-
ous times to induce the General Assembly to have his
body brought to Tennessee. But so heedless and so in-
different have been the members that as yet no steps have
been taken. Some have excused the failure on the score
of economy.
This excuse is a confession of shame.
Those whose minds are so contracted, whose sensibilities
are so frigid, whose souls are so torpid that they are not
inspired by the glorious passages in the history of their
State may find in such a plea of specious parsimony am-
ple justification. But it will not fail to excite the ridicule
and contempt of Tennesseans who are proud of their past
history, and whose imaginations are fired by the contem-
plation of the glorious achievements which have made the
history of Tennessee more brilliant than the history of any
other Southwestern State. Of all whose fame was at-
tained within the limits of this State, the most illustrious,
the most conspicuous, the one whose name was and de-
1 MSS. in Historical Society Library.
250
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
serves still to be the most resplendent was John Sevier.
So long as his bones are allowed to remain among stran-
gers, so long as the children of Tennessee are allowed to
grow up in ignorance of his noble character, so long as no
worthy monument commemorative of his rare genius and
his stormy career has been erected to his memory upon
the beautiful grounds that surround the capitol of the
State, every right-thinking Tennessean should feel that he
stands belittled in the eyes of the world and that he de-
serves the contemptuous scorn of every mind that can rise
above the coupon or the breeches pocket.
At the end of Sevier's last term, Willie Blount was
elected and reëlected for the constitutional limit of three
terms, and if there was any opposition it was not chron-
icled. The influence of the Blount name and his friendly
relations with all factions probably prevented it. He was
on intimate terms with both Sevier and Jackson, and had
written the former an urgent letter in the latter's behalf,
just before Sevier appointed him judge. He had been
private secretary to his brother, and the popularity of the
latter, which had not been affected by the impeachment,
was in a measure transferred to him. From 1791 to
1796 he had performed most of the duties of the territo-
rial secretary, had been offered a judgeship of the supe-
rior court, was a licensed lawyer, a trustee of Blount and
Cumberland colleges, and in 1807 a member of the Gen-
eral Assembly. During his administration occurred the
Creek War, and his hearty support of Jackson rendered
possible its vigorous prosecution. On his own responsibil-
ity he raised $370,000 at the time of Jackson's greatest
urgency, and in return he was thanked by the president,
three secretaries of war, and the General Assembly of the
State, as well as by Jackson, whose friendship he enjoyed
until his death in 1835.
The governorship of the State after the war came to be
regarded as a more desirable prize. Blount had gained a
SEVIER TO CARROLL.
251
A
national, though a transitory, reputation. In 1815 we
find five gubernatorial candidates, of whom, with the ex-
ception of Foster, little is known beyond a dry catalogue
of the offices they held. Jesse Wharton had been ap-
pointed senator to succeed George W. Campbell, who be-
came secretary of the treasury in Madison's cabinet.
few days before the election in 1815, Wharton resigned
his seat in the senate in order to be a candidate for the
governorship. He had been among the earliest settlers in
Tennessee and had served in Congress and was an able
lawyer. It is probable the Sevier party had not forgiven.
his action during the investigation of 1803. Robert C.
Foster came to the State in 1800, when eighteen years old,
and had been several times speaker of the House of Rep-
resentatives. Robert Weakley was also one of the earliest
pioneers, had been a member of the convention that
adopted the federal constitution, was frequently a member
of the General Assembly and once of Congress. Thomas
Johnson came to Tennessee in 1788, was a member of the
convention that adopted the federal constitution, took
part in the Nickojack Expedition and the Creek War, was
a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1796, and
frequently a member of the General Assembly of North
Carolina and Tennessee.
The successful candidate in 1815 was Joseph M'Minn.
He was a farmer from Pennsylvania, had been in the
Revolutionary War, came to Tennessee and settled in
Hawkins County, had held several offices, and in 1807
was speaker of the Senate. He had been reared under
Quaker influences, and was a man of plain demeanor, had
a sound education, avoided display, and was fond of work.
He and his wife had often been seen working together in
their fields. It is remarkable that he announced his can-
didacy just one month before the election, after circulars
had been issued by all the other candidates, in response.
to a “call,” signed "your fellow citizens." It was the
252
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
custom for candidates to issue circulars, announcing their
candidacy, emphasizing their devotion to the "Republi-
can party," and indulging in vague platitudes upon the
functions of government. In the solicitation addressed to
M'Minn, by his fellow citizens, this custom is frowned
upon. They state their belief that "the modern practice
of every office-hunter sticking up his own name as a can-
didate to be inconsistent with the genuine principles of
Republicanism." When the votes were counted, exclusive
of Roane County, M'Minn had 15,600 votes; Weakley,
7,389; Wharton, 7,662; Foster, 4,184, and Johnson,
2,987.
M'Minn thus had much less than a popular majority,
and encouraged by this, Foster was again a candidate in
1817, but was overwhelmingly defeated. Foster held
various minor offices after this and was a man of promi-
nence in the State. But he was one of those irreproach-
able persons in whom Tennessee is and has been rich,
who, by the universal agreement of their fellow citizens,
would adorn every high position, but who are never called.
upon to occupy any. In 1819 M'Minn was opposed by
Enoch Parsons, who received a very small vote. M'Minn
served three terms.
In 1821 took place the hotly contested struggle between
William Carroll and Edward Ward. Robert Weakley
came forward at the beginning, but withdrew in June.
The conflict of 1803 had derived its vigor from purely
personal inspirations. But that of 1821 had an underly-
ing significance. It was the hostile clash between two
opposing systems, which had slowly grown up until mutual
encroachments had rendered inevitable a struggle for
the mastery. It was in the nature of a revolution. Priv-
ilege had expanded into usurpation, and presumption had
then called forth resistance. In 1821 resistance stepped
in and curtailed the original cause of contention. This
election anticipated the Constitutional Convention of 1834,
SEVIER TO CARROLL.
253
and emphasized the necessity for reforms which took place
long after. The constitution of 1796, in spite of Jeffer-
son's extravagant assertion to the contrary, was unrepub-
lican and unjust in the highest degree. It was framed by
land owners, and every large land owner of that day was
a land speculator. A monstrous provision was inserted
that "all lands shall be taxed equal and uniform in such
manner that no one hundred acres shall be taxed higher
than any other, except town lots, which shall not be taxed
higher than two hundred acres of land each." The bulk
of the most tillable lands, and those nearest Nashville,
Knoxville, Jonesboro, and Greeneville, were in the hands
of a few men, and this system of taxation enabled them
to hold them. It was an entail law in disguise. In ad-
dition to this a supreme and despotic power was given the
General Assembly, whose members were nearly all drawn
from that class which had the leisure to be candidates and
the means to be successful, for there were election ex-
penses even in those primitive times. All judges, state
attorneys, and justices of the peace were elected by the
legislature. Those who had the means could readily go
to Knoxville, or Nashville, or Murfreesboro, and see to it
that justices of the peace acceptable to them were ap-
pointed. In turn, these justices of the peace composed
the county court, who elected the sheriff, coroner, trus-
tee, and constables. The county court had large juris-
diction, and could impanel juries and decide cases in
ejectment, the most important of all in a community
where land is the foundation of nearly all wealth. When
we consider now that the judges and the state attorneys
and the justices of the peace held office during good be-
havior, and until impeached by the General Assembly
that appointed them, it is at once apparent that the most
comprehensive ingenuity, exercised with a view of devis-
ing a plan by which as little power as possible shall be
placed in the hands of the many, and as much as possible
254.
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
in the hands of the few, could not suggest any improve-
ment in a system whose perfection of organization had
left unutilized no expedient consistent with the forms of
republican government. It surpassed the Athens of the
kings. It put to shame the rotten borough system of
England. The whole State was one "Old Sarum."
Ward represented those who favored and profited by
this system. Carroll represented those who opposed and
those who were oppressed by it. Each possessed attri-
butes of character which emphasized and exemplified the
conflicting ideas. Ward came from Virginia, where he
had been a candidate for Congress, and it was at first.
whispered and soon openly charged with malicious satis-
faction by his enemies that he had been defeated as a
Federalist. He had great wealth, and lived in a style of
sumptuous extravagance, entirely out of keeping with the
simple and homespun life around him. He had received
a thorough education and was a man of learning. His
bearing was dignified. His manner was restrained. His
character was austere and unbending.
He was repre-
sented to be cold-hearted and selfish. He rarely attended
the rough country festivals, where the combined influ-
ence of general mirth, pretty eyes, wild dances, and a
jug with a corn-cob-stopper broke down utterly all the
conventionalities behind which, as behind a hedge, sensitive
and formal natures hide themselves. He had been a pres-
idential elector, and voted for Monroe, and was speaker
of the Senate in 1817.
Carroll bore the impress of a widely different mould.
He was born near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1789, and
was intended for a mercantile career, but removed to
Nashville in 1810, and opened a nail store, the first in
the State. He had a tall, athletic figure, refined face, and
graceful bearing. He was fond of studying military
tactics, and in 1812 was elected captain of the “Nashville
Uniform Volunteers." He was at first a favorite with
SEVIER TO CARROLL.
255
Jackson, who treated him with great consideration. In
1813 he was made brigade inspector of the command
sent by the United States to defend the lower Mississippi
River, and the same year was elected major of militia.
When Jackson received the appointment of major-gen-
eral in the regular army, Carroll was elected major-gen-
eral to succeed him in the command of the Second Division
of Tennessee Militia. After the return from the lower
Mississippi, Carroll fought a duel with Jesse, the irascible
and volcanic brother of Thomas H. Benton. It appears
to have had its origin in the prejudice against interlopers,
which is characteristic of fools and school-boys. It would
have been remarkable if Jackson were preoccupied when
pistols were being primed. He acted as Carroll's second,
who shot Benton in a part not generally exposed to hostile
fire by brave men. Out of Jackson's action in this mat-
ter grew the encounter between him and the Bentons.
When the trouble was brewing on the eve of the meeting
in Nashville, Carroll left town, pleading pressing business,
and carrying with him Jackson's sneer that he wanted no
man to fight his battles. Shortly after the Creek War
began, Carroll entered service with his reputation for
valor badly besmirched. His duel with Jesse Benton
alone gave him grace.
When the war was over, Carroll
returned to Nashville. He had proven himself a good
tactician, a good drill master, a clear-headed commander,
quick and full of resources. But above all he had made a
reputation for cool, desperate bravery and hard fighting,
equaled only by Jackson himself and John Coffee. After
the war, Carroll appears to have turned his attention to
trade again, and in 1818 the first steamboat floated under
the Nashville bluffs. It was owned by Carroll, who, prob-
ably to propitiate his old commander, named it “Gen.
Jackson." Jackson apparently remained unsoftened, for
he was an active friend of Ward's, voted for him and
urged his claims. Cordial relations were, however, sub-
sequently reëstablished between them.
256
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
Carroll's natural disposition was frank, open, and cor-
dial. He was always at his ease, and was always ready
to enter into the spirit of any occasion, especially at the
country dances which were so distasteful to Ward. When
he met one of his old soldiers, he always stopped him for a
shake of the hand, and generally knew his name.
It was
urged against him by Ward's friends that he had allowed
his note to be protested. This was an unfortunate accu-
sation, for it developed the fact that he had become bank-
rupt by going security for his friends. There was a
popular uprising for Carroll. He was toasted at every
banquet, and cheered at every barbecue.
The grand
jury of Montgomery County "presented" him as their
preference. The battle raged in the newspapers, and this
is remarkable as the first local contest in Tennessee in
which the newspapers openly advocated the cause of dif-
ferent candidates. The "Nashville Whig" supported
Ward. The "Nashville Clarion" supported Carroll.
The claims of each were violently assailed, and hotly de-
fended, generally by open letters. In one letter headed
derisively, "Hurrah for Ward," the latter is praised as
being a wise man, because like the wise man in the prov-
erb, he had changed his opinion. Having been a Feder-
alist in Virginia, he had become a Republican in Tennes-
see. On the Fourth of July, the "Clarion " published a
letter in which "A Big Fish" gives his reasons for not vot-
ing for Carroll: Because he is of humble but poor parents.
Because it would be a shame for the son of an old Revolu-
tionary farmer to rule over "the quality" of the State.
Because he has never learned Latin and Greek. Because,
as a boy, he had plowed and had been handy at reap-
ing, log-rolling, and country weddings, all of which is
coarse and vulgar. Because he is not rich and did not
stay at home during the war. Because, if elected gov-
ernor, he would be unable to support the dignity of the
State with fine dinners, splendid carriages, liveried ser-
SEVIER TO CARROLL.
257
vants, state balls, etc.; because he does not carry himself
with sufficient dignity and austerity, but will heartily
shake the hand of a ragged fellow soldier, thus doing
away with the distinctions of rank. Because, if elected,
he would not shake off his old friends. It was well enough
for low-born loons like him to fight the battles of his
country, but the nobility ought to have the honors and
rewards. The actual votes for each candidate make a
fitting climax to this long score of derision. Carroll re-
ceived 42,246 votes, and Ward 11,200. Carroll's ma-
jority was the largest ever given in this State before the
war, and he broke the strength of what would now be
called the bureaucracy.
The contrast between Carroll and M'Minn is especially
marked. The latter was, in all things, a conscientious
and painstaking officer, but he was essentially a man of
the present tense, and he possessed none of the powers of
combination which enable more gifted minds to forecast
the future. Carroll had not only seen much of the world,
he had also profited by his experience. His position on
the public questions which came up for discussion during
his long administration was often very far from being the
popular position, but it is remarkable that no other gov-
ernor ever had so much influence over the legislatures to
whom his messages were addressed.
CHAPTER XXVI.
BANKS OF TENNESSEE.
THE financial history of Tennessee, which really began
under M'Minn's administration, is instructive, though
elaborate and intricate. But even the broad outlines are
full of interest, and throw much light on the progressive
development of the State.
The Nashville Bank, chartered in 1807, was the first
bank incorporated in Tennessee. Among the reasons
urged for its establishment were the accommodations
which it was expected to extend the State in anticipation
of uncollected revenue. The amount of its stock was
limited to $400,000. It entered into operation several
years after incorporation. The affairs of the bank pros-
pered, and it was long one of the soundest financial
institutions of the Southwest.
In 1811 it was feared that the State would lose the
advantages of a sound and sufficiently abundant circula-
ting medium, through the extinction of the United States
Bank, which Congress had refused to recharter. To rem-
edy this evil, and also to reap the large profits supposed
to flow from banking operations, it was proposed to estab-
lish a State Bank, of whose constitutionality no doubt
could arise, and the Bank of the State of Tennessee, at
Knoxville, was the result. Judge Hugh L. White was
made president, and continued in office until 1827. It
was due to his conservative management that this bank
weathered all the financial storms which wrecked so many
Southern and Southwestern banks. It never failed to
BANKS OF TENNESSEE.
259
redeem its notes in specie. During the War of 1812 the
whole country, thrown by the Embargo Act upon its own.
resources, was compelled to turn its attention to home in-
dustries. The demands of trade, agriculture, and manu-
factures gave an impetus to banking that called many
new enterprises into existence. In addition to this, the
prominent part taken by Tennessee in the War of 1812
and the Creek War, under the impulse of local pride,
caused the State to put forth exertions in furnishing sup-
plies that strained its resources to the utmost. The Nash-
ville Bank was especially liberal in advances, and one of
the excuses offered by its directors when subsequently
embarrassed was that its difficulties all dated from the
loans it had made during the period of the war. In 1815
were incorporated the Fayetteville Tennessee Bank, the
Holston Tennessee Bank, at Jonesboro, and the Franklin
Tennessee Bank. They were in the main modeled upon
the State Bank. In 1817 the name of the Holston Ten-
nessee Bank at Jonesboro was changed to the Eastern
Bank of Tennessee, and all three were allowed to become
branches of the State Bank. In 1817 a general banking
act established banks at Gallatin, Carthage, Rogersville,
Nashville, Kingston, Columbia, Maryville, Shelbyville,
and Murfreesboro. All of these banks were established
for the public benefit and to ease the stringency of the
money market which followed the importation of foreign
goods after the peace of 1815. Each of them could issue
bills and notes. The charter of each was so worded as to
allow it to become, if accepted by the Nashville or State
banks, branches of these institutions. It was generally
supposed that the peace of 1815 would bring on a state
of prosperity hitherto unknown to the people of the coun-
try. But instead, various causes, whose influence could
not be clearly estimated at the time, produced a financial
crash that for years clogged the financial industries of the
country. The multiplication of state banks on every
260
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
hand during and immediately following the war, the
issues of which were not based on any sound foundation,
and could not be converted into specie, drove out of circu-
lation all the gold and silver in the country. It rapidly
made its way to New England, whose banks had never
suspended specie payment, to the strong boxes of cautious
old men and the stockings of still more cautious old
women.
The refusal to recharter the United States Bank in
1811, and the winding up of its affairs had caused about
$7,000,000 of specie to be transported to England to pay
the foreign stockholders. The heavy importation of Eng-
lish goods still further increased the drain of gold to that
country, and, besides destroying the sale of American man-
ufactured products, caused nearly every shop in America
to close or to be run at a loss. There was a general lack
of confidence in all those transactions where confidence is
an essential ingredient of prosperity. The banks of New
England distrusted those of Philadelphia, and these again
distrusted the banks of Louisville and Nashville; the
people distrusted the banks, and the banks distrusted the
people. A traveler from Nashville to New York was
either compelled to pay a ruinous price for New England
exchange, or he was compelled to have the value of his
money computed in the local currency by an elaborate
process, whenever he stopped for a night at an inn. The
profits of this process were among the emoluments of the
broker, who, like the tavern keeper himself, the barber,
the blacksmith, and the man of livery, was one of the
necessary institutions of every town.
A general suspension of specie payment took place
throughout the entire country, except New England, about
1814. It is to the honor of Tennessee that its two lead-
ing banks struggled on without resorting to this expedient
until 1819, and that even then the State Bank, under the
management of the illustrious White, refused to suspend
BANKS OF TENNESSEE.
261
but continued to redeem its notes in specie without a single
interruption. But, on the whole, suspension was unavoid-
able. When it came, however, it brought with it an
unexpected stringency. The charters of the banks had
limited the quantity of bills and notes that could be
issued, and these of themselves were not sufficient to
supply the necessities of trade. The notes of other than
Tennessee banks had totally disappeared. This scarcity
of circulating medium would have been oppressive in a
community free from debt and engaged in the ordinary
transactions of daily exchange and trade. But it was
disastrous to a community such as Tennessee then was,
having little or no reserved capital, heavily in debt, and
at the end of a speculative and expansive era. Governor
M'Minn, in 1820, speaks of a "general pressure, unex-
ampled in the history of our government." Various rem-
edies were suggested to relieve the depression and to make
"money matters easy." Among the number was the
suggestion that the State Bank and the Nashville Bank
should consolidate, and a law was passed for this purpose.
Indorsement and stay laws were passed forbidding ex-
ecution to be issued upon a judgment in less time than
two years, unless the creditor agreed by indorsement upon
the execution that he would take the notes of banks in
the State at par. Governor M'Minn suggested that this
remedy, usually called "property laws," be tried in Ten-
nessee, which was done. Under his administration, and
upon his suggestion, was exhibited the strange paradox
of a democracy exhibiting the most pronounced features
of the so-called parental or patriarchal form of govern-
ment. Another suggestion made by him in his message
to the called session of 1820 produced results which were
prolific of many evils to the State. This was the estab-
lishment of a loan office.
In 1817 the legislature of Tennessee passed an act tax-
ing heavily any bank established in this State by any
262
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
ORY
authority other than the laws of this State. This was
done in order to prevent the establishment in Tennessee of
a branch of the United States Bank, newly chartered. A
town meeting was held at Nashville to protest publicly
against the passage of this law. Among those who took
a prominent part at this meeting were Felix Grundy and
William Carroll. In anticipation of the establishment of a
branch of the United States Bank despite this law, Andrew
Jackson recommended two names, one for president and
one for cashier, to William Jones, president of the United
States Bank. Grundy wrote a private letter, suggesting
certain names as a fit directory. These facts were subse-
quently used with telling effect against both Jackson and
Grundy by White, during the days of his candidacy for
the presidency.
The management of the United States Bank refused to
establish a branch in a state where the will of the people
had been expressed in opposition. A strong sentiment be-
came general in favor of some measure for the "inflation
of the currency." Governor M'Minn suggested "the
issuance of treasury certificates circulating upon the faith
of a public responsibility and resting for their final re-
demption on the sale of lands in the Hiwassee District,
as well as upon the ordinary revenues of the State."
These certificates were to be put into circulation through
the agency of a loan office. The capital stock was fixed
at $1,000,000, in bills payable to order or to bearer, all
of which "shall be emitted on the credit and security of
the borrowers, and the whole to be warranted by the State
on the proceeds of the sale of its unappropriated lands,
the interest of the money arising from the sale of lands
south of the French Broad and Holston." Loans were to
be made to citizens upon bills of exchange, notes, and
real and personal property, the former to be secured by
indorsement, the latter by mortgage and power of attor-
ney to confess judgment. The rate of interest was six
BANKS OF TENNESSEE.
263
per cent. per annum.
ing in more than ten per cent. of the amount loaned.
One agency was to be established in each county, and the
amount loaned in each county was to be determined by
the relative amount of taxes paid into the public treasury
for the year 1819. The name of this institution was to
have been "Loan Office." The bill establishing it was
prepared in the main by Felix Grundy. It is not known
whose audacity suggested the device, but the caption of
the bill on its passage was changed to "An Act to estab-
lish a Bank of the State of Teunessee." White after-
wards charged that this was done in order to give the new
bank the influence of the confidence reposed in the State
Bank already in existence. This charge was made in the
United States Senate when Grundy was present, and
there was no denial. Another episode which occurred
during the discussion of this measure was the remon-
strance against its establishment. This was signed by
sundry citizens of Davidson County. Among the num-
ber was Andrew Jackson, who aroused the ire of some of
the legislators by remarking that "any member who voted
for it would perjure himself." In a protest entered on
the House Journal, two members speak of "that most
chimerical of all political schemes of the State of Ten-
nessee."
Notice must be given before call-
From the first the new bank was a failure, and in 1821
Governor M'Minn was forced to acknowledge that it had
not met the expectations of its friends. In 1821 William
Carroll was elected governor. It is scarcely probable
that the loan office of 1820 would have been established
if Carroll had been elected two years earlier. With the
exercise of that clear judgment and sound practical view
of things which distinguished him, he discards in his first
message the make-shifts which had been resorted to by the
previous administration. He puts aside the "property
laws," the "replevin and stays laws," the "indorsement
264
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
laws," and the issuance of large quantities of paper money
as totally inadequate. Instead he recommends economy
and industry. He urges as prompt a return to specie
payment as the circumstances will permit. He disposes
of the proposition to unite the Nashville and State banks
by an unanswerable syllogism. "Their strength consists
in their solvency; if they are solvent and continue so,
they have nothing to fear. If they are unsound, a union
of unsound parts can never make a perfect whole.” In
place of this, he suggests a thorough examination of all
the banks, and the appointment of a day for the resump-
tion of specie payment. A law was at once passed in
accordance with these suggestions, and the first day of
April, 1824, was appointed. The effect of Carroll's mes-
sage was in every way beneficial. It aroused the people
of the State from a lethargic dependence upon the hope
that the General Assembly would do something to relieve
their distress, and it set them to work. In his message
of 1822, Governor Carroll says: "I am happy in having
it in my power to say that the pecuniary embarassments
of the country have been greatly diminished by the indus-
try of our citizens and the surplus produce of last year."
A slight depression in 1823 again alarmed the pessimists,
and a law was passed directing the banks to loan out, as
soon as received, all moneys received from the sale of
public lands. A unique resolution, adopted in 1823, is
peculiarly characteristic of the times, and gives a striking
illustration of the force of Governor Carroll's influence.
The resolution recommends the members of the next Gen-
eral Assembly “to appear in clothing entirely of domestic
manufacture,” and the people of the State generally are
advised to "manufacture their own clothes and live within
their means and not go in debt."
In the spring and summer of 1825 the price of cotton
and tobacco went up very considerably, and as a result
brought a great influx of capital back to the State. In
BANKS OF TENNESSEE.
265
66
addition to this, there had been a steady inflow of popula-
tion from the older States since the crash of 1819, in
consequence of which there was a constant widening of
the area of cultivation and increase in the aggregate
products of the State. In 1825 Governor Carroll finds it
pleasing to reflect on the happy and prosperous condi-
tion of the State." "Our citizens. have been relieved
by economy and their own exertions and not by the
passing of laws interfering between debtor and creditor
❝ Our
which never fail to injure the interests of both."
population," he adds, "is increasing with astonishing
rapidity."
On the first of September, 1826, about a year and a
half later than the time appointed, all the banks in Ten-
nessee, except the Nashville Bank and its branches, re-
sumed specie payment. There were not wanting voices.
to exclaim that it was bad policy to resume at that par-
ticular time. The good results which flowed from this
were enhanced by the establishment of a branch of the
United States Bank at Nashville, the previous law having
been repealed. The Bank of Nashville, however, was
seriously crippled. Its notes in 1826 were at a discount
of 37 per cent. Its management, in pursuance of the
policy of straightforward honesty which had distinguished
it from the first, decided to wind up its affairs, which was
accordingly done with but small loss to any one.
The failure of the Nashville Bank increased a suspicion
which had become current that the new State Bank was in
trouble. It was now patent to all that, in so far as the ob-
ject of its creation was concerned, it was a pronounced fail-
ure. It had not benefited the State. It had not benefited ·
the citizen. It was estimated that debtors paid from twelve
to twenty-five per cent. for every dollar they borrowed, and
that the State gained only three per cent. net on the
money invested in the bank even when honestly conducted.
Between the adjournment of the General Assembly in
266
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
1827 and the reassembling in 1829, three hundred judg-
ments against debtors of the bank had been recovered at
Nashville alone. In 1829 Governor Carroll said: "
"As,
however, the avowed causes which induced the legislature
to establish the Bank of the State of Tennessee have
happily passed away, a fit occasion seems to present itself
to inquire whether a due regard to sound policy and to the
best interests of the country does not require that meas-
ures should be adopted to settle the affairs of the institu-
tion by calling in the debts due to it with as little delay as
possible, taking care not to injure or oppress those who
are indebted to it." In pursuance of this suggestion, a
resolution was passed directing the committee on banks
"to inquire into the policy and expediency of closing the
concerns and finally winding up the business and repeal-
ing the charter of the Bank of the State of Tennessee."
The committee went earnestly to work. The managers of
the bank became frightened. On January 3, 1830, the
capital was startled by the announcement that gross irregu-
larities had been discovered in the State Bank, and that the
cashier, Joel Parrish, was a defaulter for a considerable
Being pressed by the committee, Parrish conceived
the daring design of making away with the books of the
bank in order to destroy the only evidence upon which he
could be convicted. He and the clerk were arrested, but
not until the books had been secreted.
sum.
The amount of the defalcation was discovered to be
very nearly $200,000, a large part of which had been
drawn out by friends of the cashier who had nothing to
their credit. The clerk had embezzled about $15,000.
The latter obtained an entire release by giving a lien on
real estate. Parrish eventually returned the books of the
bank upon an agreement that he should not be criminally
prosecuted. Close investigation revealed the fact that the
agencies, especially those in West Tennessee and in the
Western District, were in a worse condition than the main
BANKS OF TENNESSEE.
267
bank.¹ New officers were elected and were instructed to
bring the affairs of the bank to a speedy close. A law
was passed directing the funds of the bank remaining
after payment of all indebtedness to be turned over to
the board of public-school commissioners in the various
counties.2 In 1833 the committee appointed to report
upon the winding up of the affairs of the bank estimate
the probable losses in closing up the bank's business to be
about $153,344.05. The whole profits from the beginning
amounted to $341,639.62, and the entire expenses had been
$153,884.26, leaving a balance of $187,755.36, or very
little more than enough to cover the estimated losses.
The next financial venture of Tennessee was the Bank
of Tennessee, chartered December, 1831. This charter
was repealed in October, 1832, by the same act that
established the celebrated Union Bank. The capital stock
was to be $3,000,000, of which the State was to take
$500,000, issuing bonds therefor. The State was to re-
ceive a bonus of one half of one per cent. on the capital
stock and interest on deposits of state funds. Profits
arising from the state stock, the bonus, and the interest on
deposits, after the payment of the bonds, were to go to
the common schools. In case of a violation of the pro-
visions of the charter, the directors voting for it were made
responsible in their private property for any loss or
damage, and next the stockholders to the amount of their
stock. Suspension of specie payment was expressly forbid-
den, and holders of notes who had demanded and been
refused specie were entitled to recover ten per cent. interest
from the date of the demand. The notes of the bank were
receivable for all dues to the State. The public faith of
1 Andrew M'Millin, cashier of the Knoxville branch said: "With
but few exceptions the agents in East Tennessee have acted with
strict integrity and have managed their agencies only with a view to
the interests of the institution."
2 Also those of the old State Bank.
268
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
the State was pledged to the redemption of all debts of the
bank in proportion to the amount of the state stock.
Proper limitations were placed upon the power to inflate
the currency. The charter of the Union Bank showed a
distinct advance in the knowledge of the proper relations
which should exist between State and bank. In 1856
the stock of the State was transferred to the Bank of
Tennessee.
In 1833 the Planter's Bank was chartered upon the
model of the Union Bank, as also the Farmer's and
Merchant's Bank, except that the State had no stock in
the latter. The former was designed as a Middle Tennes-
see Bank, with headquarters at Nashville, and the latter
as a West Tennessee Bank, with headquarters at Memphis.
Up to 1838 the three subjects which chiefly engrossed
the attention of those who confined their attention to
state affairs, were the public schools, the banks, and inter-
nal improvements. As yet, however, the last, although a
matter of constant discussion and even legislation, had
been compelled to stand upon its own footing. Especially
was it true that it had not become in any manner entan-
gled with the financial institutions of the State. On Jan-
uary 19, 1838, this limit was overstepped, and, undeterred
by the experience of the previous experiment, the legisla
ture chartered the Bank of Tennessee, "to raise a fund
for internal improvements and to aid in a system of educa-
tion." The faith and credit of the State were pledged
for the support of the bank, to supply any deficiency in the
funds specifically pledged and to give indemnity for all
losses arising from such deficiency. The capital stock
was $5,000,000, raised from the whole school funds, the
surplus revenue deposited by the federal government and
in such sum in specie or in fund convertible into specie at
par value as may be necessary to make up the balance.
The governor was directed to issue $2,500,000, of state
bonds for the benefit of the bank. Twelve directors were
BANKS OF TENNESSEE.
269
66
to be nominated to the General Assembly by the governor,
more than one third of whom shall in no case be mer-
chants." Fortunately for the State, William Nichol was
elected president, and Henry Ewing cashier. With but
slight intermission, either Nichol or Cave Johnson was
president of the Bank of Tennessee until Isham G. Harris.
became governor. Another provision in the charter de-
signed for the benefit of farmers, and which subsequently
caused much trouble, was one forbidding the bank or its
branches to discount more bills of exchange than notes
and bills single. Of the dividends, $100,000 were to go
to common schools; $18,000 to academies, and any defi-
ciency was to be made good by the State. The bank
might not owe at any one time, exclusive of deposits,
more than twice the amount of its capital stock. The
notes of the bank were receivable for taxes. Discounts
were to be apportioned annually among the counties in pro-
portion to the number of qualified voters. Of the bonds
ordered to be issued, $1,000,000 were sold in New York
at par, and the bank reaped a double profit by assign-
ing to each branch its pro rata and authorizing it to
draw at the usual rate of exchange and receive the bills
of the new bank, thus giving them circulation at par.
Another problem which met the new bank on the threshold
of its existence arose from the fact that the other banks
had suspended specie payment. If paper, payable on
demand, had been issued, it would have been possible to
issue but a small amount of notes beyond the actual quan-
tity of specie on hand. On the other hand, was it possi-
ble or even honest to issue paper redeemable on demand
with the express intention of not redeeming it on demand?
The problem was new and its solution, though novel, was
successful. Post-notes were issued payable in twelve
months, and the faith of the bank was pledged to redeem
them in specie whenever the other banks resumed, either
before or after maturity. The president of the bank
270
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
reported that no inconvenience resulted from the experi-
ment. Specie payment was resumed in January, 1839.
The principal bank and three branches were to be
located in Middle Tennessee, two branches in East Ten-
nessee, and two in the Western District. An eager ri-
valry arose among the various towns for the location of the
branches. Thirty-seven places presented petitions and
excitement ran high. The contest over the location of
the capital was not more determined. The selection
finally made caused great dissatisfaction among the dis-
appointed, and for a long time traces of bitterness re-
mained. It was supposed that the location of the bank
would have a decided effect upon the future prosperity of
the town selected. The branches ultimately went to Rog-
ersville, Athens, Shelbyville, Columbia, Clarksville, Tren-
ton, and Somerville. The most flourishing towns at that
time in West Tennessee were Jackson, Randolph, Browns-
ville, Memphis, and La Grange. At a later date, branches
were established at Sparta, Knoxville, and Memphis.
One of the chief reasons for chartering the Bank of
Tennessee was the stringency of the money market.
The crash of 1832 had brought ruin to or seriously crip-
pled nearly every one of the Southern and Southwestern
banks, the issue of whose paper had been entirely out of
proportion to their capital. It is to the honor of Tennes-
see that every one of its banks came triumphantly through
the crisis. But it was at the expense of the debtor classes
and by the suspension of specie payment, a practice which
the example of the Bank of England and custom had
made one of the ordinary expedients for financial depres-
sions. The Bank of Tennessee failed to alleviate the
stringency caused by the curtailment of discounts on the
part of the other banks. The aggregate circulation of the
Tennessee banks in 1836 and 1837 was about $5,000,000.
In 1842 this had sunk to $1,200,000. Had the intention
of the legislature been carried into effect, much of the
BANKS OF TENNESSEE.
271
suffering of that period would have been obviated. But
the surplus federal revenue which had been deposited
with the Union and Planter's banks and the Memphis
banks had by these been loaned out, and being required to
turn over this sum -in all it amounted to $1,356,746.41
to the State Bank, these institutions found it necessary to
restrict their operations and call in their loans. Instead
of inflating the currency, it caused a contraction at the
most critical period. In addition to this, only $1,000,000
of the bonds of the State issued for the benefit of the
State Bank could be sold at par as required by law. The
rest, $1,500,000, were subsequently destroyed by the gov-
ernor in pursuance of an act of the legislature.
From the first the dissatisfaction was wide-spread and
general. Governor Cannon, in 1839, said: "The bank
has failed to effect the amelioration of our pecuniary af-
fairs that its authors anticipated. . . . There is probably
not another law to be found among our statutes that has
more signally failed to fulfill the wishes of the legisla-
ture." Another one of the curious financial experiments.
of that day was a still further attempt to unite banking
and internal improvements in the Southwestern Railroad
Bank. The act chartering this institution was passed in
December, 1837, and its object was to confer banking
privileges on the stockholders of the Louisville, Cincin-
nati, and Charleston Railroad. The distinctive feature of
this enterprise, which was chartered by three States, was
that each share in the bank should be inseparably con-
nected with a share in the railroad company, never to
be transferred without it. Every person owning stock in
the railroad company was entitled to one share in the
bank for each share in the railroad company, and for-
feiture in one worked a forfeiture of the corresponding
share in the other. This bank actually went into opera-
tion, and in his message of 1841 the governor mentions
this as the only bank that had not suspended specie pay-
272
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
ment.
The failure of the railroad, however, carried with
it the failure of the bank.
Early in the forties the State Debt for the first time
began to be a subject of disquietude. In 1842 the stock
banks of the State were ordered to dispose of their real
estate and receive in payment stock of the banks or
bonds of the State. In 1844 it was found necessary to
lay a heavy tax on personalty by an act with the sig
nificant title, "To preserve the faith and credit of the
State and to avoid reducing the amount distributed annu-
ally under existing laws for the support of common
schools." In 1846 a sinking fund for the gradual extin-
guishment of the State Debt was created. The profits of
the Bank of Tennessee were inadequate to the demands
upon it. The necessity of curtailment became apparent,
and it was found necessary to relieve the bank by a sale
of the State's interest in the stock banks. From now
until the war, the history of the Bank of Tennessee is in-
tricately interwoven with the history of the State, at times
dragged into the arena of politics by partisan prejudice,
but being always preserved by the judicious management
and undoubted integrity of William Nichol and Cave
Johnson. Nearly every governor of the State, from the
time of its establishment to the election of Governor
Harris, recommended that its affairs be wound up, but it
lived through it all.
In 1852 the Free Banking Act was passed which con-
tained the germ of the present national banking system.
Any one with a capital of $50,000 was allowed to do a
general banking business and issue circulating notes to be
secured by bonds, worth par in the market, to be deposited
with the comptroller, who was required to issue notes coun-
tersigned, numbered, and registered in a proper book
kept for that purpose. Subsequent amendments were
added, and the whole act was repealed in 1858, but not
until several banks had organized under it. The General
BANKS OF TENNESSEE.
273
Banking Act of 1860 placed a wise restriction upon banks
and banking operations, and, had it come sooner, would
have prevented not only the speculative mania that ham-
pered the legitimate industries of the State, but would
also have prevented the reckless waste which turned the
blessings of internal improvements to curses, the evil ef-
fects of which still clog heavily the wheels of our indus-
trial enterprises. The capital stock of all banks was re-
quired to be paid in coin; it was not to exceed $3,000,000
or go below $300,000; the circulation was not to exceed
twice the amount of its specie bonds. Monthly state-
ments were to be made to the comptroller of the State.
A suspension of specie payments worked a forfeiture of
the charter. Individual liability of stockholders ex-
tended to the amount of their stock until the original sub-
scription had been paid in full. A supervisor of banks.
was to be appointed by the governor and confirmed by
the senate.
During the war, a part of the bank's funds was used
to advance the cause of secession. In addition to this,
$3,000,000 of bonds were issued to assist the confederate
government, and the seeds of litigation were sown which
still flourish in healthful vigor. The issue signed by G.
C. Torbett, and known as the Torbett Issue, was the
chief source of contention. One of the first acts of the
Brownlow régime, after gaining control of the State, was
to pass certain amendments to the constitution, one of
which declared void all notes and bonds issued on or after
the sixth day of May, 1861. In his message of April,
1865, Governor Brownlow suggests an investigation into
the affairs of the "three old banks." He regarded all as
insolvent, and recommended that they be closed up and
made to redeem their issues, and that no future state
banks be chartered. In February, 1866, an act was
passed requiring the governor to appoint six directors to
wind up the business of the Bank of Tennessee. The
274
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
Free Banking Act was repealed (the previous repeal ap-
plied only to banks to be organized after the date of re-
peal), and the banks were ordered into liquidation, saving
only those which should place their notes at par with
United States treasury notes within sixty days. In April,
1866, the board of directors of the State Bank made an
assignment of all the assets of the bank to Samuel Wat-
son as trustee, who proceeded to wind up the bank in
chancery. In 1866 he reported the entire assets of the
bank to be about $16,000,000, including worthless claims.
The case continued almost up to the present time. When
the available assets were finally distributed to note hold-
ers pro rata, provision was made for issuing notes for
the balance, which were receivable for taxes. The United
States Supreme Court had already decided that the issues
of the bank were receivable for taxes, despite legislative
enactments. An attempt was made in 1869 to convert
the notes of the bank into bonds, but this failed. The
holders of the notes were finally paid in full. But those
who had money deposited with the State Bank have never
received any return.
any return. Even those who find in the Brown-
low régime a justification for the settlement at fifty cents
on the dollar of that part of the State Debt issued to rail-
roads, can and do offer nothing against the validity of the
claims of those who deposited their money with the Bank
of the State upon the faith and credit of the sovereign
State of Tennessee.
Since the war the financial history of Tennessee, apart
from the State Debt, has been, in the main, the financial
history of the rest of the Union. Apart from a few so-
called exemption charters, obtained during the disastrous
period following the close of the war, the banks of Ten-
nessee rest upon a healthy and just basis, always subject
to the scrutiny of the State. Their complete severance
from the State, the necessity of regular reports, and the
inability to issue notes are the historical sequence of the
BANKS OF TENNESSEE.
275
financial experience through which Tennessee passed prior
to the war.
A new spirit of commercial conservatism
has come in, bringing with it the possibilities of a new
era of expansion, growth, and enterprise. Until a knowl-
edge of the history of the various Tennessee banks shall
have been lost to the people of this State, it is not proba-
ble that the State as such will ever again attempt to de-
part in any radical degree from its proper sphere into the
fields where great rewards only come to individual effort,
guided, watched, and guarded by the jealous eagerness of
individual self-interest. The financial history of Tennes-
see has colored and influenced the whole commercial com-
plexion of the State. Radiating from the banks of the
present, the true spirit of business life has permeated the
entire social structure. Business has laws of its own for
violations of which it has its own punishments, unknown
to the code. The commercial prosperity of a community
can be gauged by the extent of the reign of these laws.
Before the war, this spirit was practically unknown. Be-
ginning with the Southern planter, but few in practice
drew a sharp line of demarcation between the exactions
of business and the amenities of social life. The custom
of indorsing notes indiscriminately for friends was uni-
versal, and a refusal frequently brought about a rupture,
at times a personal clash. A bill too often presented
aroused anger and indignation. A gentleman's credit
was supposed to be above suspicion, and, resting upon this
supposition, liberties were taken with the goods of mer-
chants and the bills of doctors that would now stamp a
man as having no credit at all. In every respect, the
business organization of the present is sounder, broader,
and better than before the war.
CHAPTER XXVII.
INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.
INTERNAL improvements in Tennessee, which have
played an important part in its history, were at first con-
fined to the making of roads and turnpikes and the build-
ing of jails, court-houses, and stocks. The roads leading
from Tennessee to Virginia, Georgia, and Kentucky were
matters of inter-state regulation and enterprise. Resolu-
tions, memorials, and messages were constantly inter-
changed. Very soon attention was turned to river
navigation, and the pages of the earlier statute books are
crowded with enactments allowing mill-dams and fish traps
to be erected in certain creeks and rivers, or requiring
them to be removed. At first, matters of this kind were
subjects of local regulation. In 1804 an act was passed
empowering the county courts of the State to order the
laying off of public roads, establish and settle ferries, and
to appoint where bridges should be built. In 1811 Gov-
ernor Blount laid before the General Assembly an act
passed by the New York legislature providing "for the
improvement of the internal navigation of the State of
New York," which had been sent by the authorities of
that State with the request that the legislature of Tennes-
see be formally requested "to instruct representatives in
Congress to advocate such measures in relation thereto
as shall be before Congress." This was the beginning of
the great canal. This memorial in effect turned the at-
tention of the State in the direction of internal navigation.
In November of this same year, in a resolution addressed
INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.
277
to the Tennessee delegation in Congress, they are directed
to obtain "free navigation of the boatable waters between
this State and Mobile, to establish a road from East and
one from West Tennessee to Mobile, to be kept up by
turnpikes and ferries at proper points to be kept by white
people, and to have the Natchez Trace kept in repair.”
In 1813 the governor of Tennessee is authorized to open
a correspondence with the governors of the States of
Alabama and Georgia, on the subject of internal improve-
ment. A correspondence had already been opened with
the governor of Alabama in reference to removing the
obstructions occasioned by the Muscle and Colbert's
Shoals in the Tennessee River. Governor M'Minn, in
his message of September, 1817, said: "I will submit for
your consideration the propriety of turning your atten-
tion to improving the navigation of our rivers, either by
incorporating navigation companies for a definite number
of years with the right to charge toll, or by such other
means as your wisdom may suggest."
One of the first steps taken in pursuance of this policy
was the appointment of a board of managers for opening
the navigation of the rivers, who, however, beyond a
meagre report or two, accomplished nothing. The gen-
eral policy of internal improvement, however, was rapidly
gaining favor, and the success of the Erie Canal was
to the entire country an index-finger that pointed towards
the goal of assured prosperity.¹
In 1819 Governor M'Minn again urged on the General
Assembly the subject of improving the navigation of the
rivers and roads in the State. A joint resolution empow-
ered him to appoint one or more fit persons to examine
and explore the navigable rivers of the State for the pur-
1 The contest between Clinton and Tompkins for the governorship
of New York in 1819 was a wager of battle between those favoring
and those opposing internal improvements. The success of the
former gave a renewed impulse to the policy.
278
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
pose of reporting to the next General Assembly on the
obstructions which existed, and the probable expense to
be incurred in removing the same. The idea of the Gen-
eral Assembly was to appropriate immediately $500,000
for this purpose. In 1821 Governor M'Minn submitted
to the Treasury Department of the United States an
elaborate report prepared by himself, on the navigable
waters of Tennessee. He also suggested a canal uniting
the Holston and Tennessee to the Mobile, it being not
more than eleven miles from Hiwassee to Connasauga.
He also urged upon the United States the necessity of
free navigation through the Muscle Shoals in the Tennes-
see River.
The constitutional questions involved in the relation of
the federal government to internal improvements gave rise
to long debates, acrimonious discussions, and exhaustive
investigations. Out of the mists, however, Henry Clay
emerged as a body of light, and taking as his basis one
of the pentateuch of Democratic authority, the report of
Mr. Madison to the Virginia General Assembly, replying
to the resolutions passed by some of the States in refer-
ence to the Alien and Sedition laws, he evolved the prin-
ciple of internal improvements as a part of his broader
scheme or plan known in American politics as the Ameri-
can system. The objections raised against the participa-
tion of the general government in such works, which
culminated in Mr. Monroe's celebrated veto message, but
emphasized the necessity of such works and compelled
the strict constructionists to look to the efforts of the in-
dividual States. Clay's speeches of March 13, 1818, and
January 16, 1824, were widely circulated and read. As
yet no comprehensive plan had been formulated in Ten-
nessee, but evidences of the demand were not wanting.
In 1825 Robert H. Dyer was loaned $3,000 for three
years for the purpose of cutting a canal from the Forked
Deer River to the Mississippi. In the same year the
INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.
279
governor was authorized to appoint a suitable person to
act with the United States engineers in the survey which
was about to be made of a route through the State for
the Great National Road. All of these measures bore but
little fruit at the time, but they indicated and encouraged
the general drift towards works of this kind, and were the
forerunners of the subsequent mania or bubble. This
tendency was further illustrated by the readiness of the
legislature to grant special inducements to those who es-
tablished manufactures of any kind, by the purchase for
the State of the patent right of Eli Whitney and Phineas
Miller in a machine or new invention for cleaning cotton,
commonly called the "saw gin," 1 and by the number of
lotteries authorized to be drawn for public and local pur-
poses. Among the first, if not the very first, instance of
a legal sanction being given to lotteries in the Southwest,
was the law of 1794, "to raise money to cut a wagon
road from Southwest Point to Cumberland settlement."
Lotteries were as common as church festivals of the pres-
ent day. In 1825 the town of Franklin was allowed to
procure a town clock in this way. In 1826 alone, lot-
teries were allowed for the benefit of Cumberland Col-
lege, to improve the navigation of Forked Deer River, to
build a masonic hall in Knoxville, to enable certain
parties to make salt in Bedford County, to remove ob-
structions from Caney Fork, and to encourage the estab-
lishment of cotton manufactures in White County.
As early as 1823 a standing committee on internal
improvements had been appointed in both houses of the
state legislature, and the accession of Governor Carroll,
who was a warm advocate of internal improvements, gave
additional strength to the movement. In 1825 a joint
resolution urged on senators and congressmen to use
their best exertions "to procure a survey of the route be-
tween the Hiawassee and Coosa Rivers, by civil engineers
1 This was the "cotton gin."
280
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
of the United States, appointed to survey and lay out a
road from Washington to New Orleans, and to report
whether it is practicable to unite the waters of the Hia-
wassee and Coosa Rivers by a canal." In 1825 the com-
mittee on internal improvement submitted a report on
the Great National Road, in which they recommended the
line that would run through the centre of the State to a
point on the Mississippi River at Memphis, there to be
discontinued, as the rest of the journey to New Orleans
could be made by water. Commissioners were actually
appointed by Tennessee and Alabama to examine the Mus-
cle Shoals in the Tennessee River with a view of making
the river at that point navigable. They reported that
"this could be done at much less expense than has hereto-
fore been thought necessary."
>"
The difficulties, however, in the way of a regular and
systematic plan of operation were found almost insur-
mountable. The difficulty was in deciding upon the
points of commencement. Local jealousies were aroused.
Each little community clamored for recognition. Political
influence came into play. Even the attempt to encourage
private investment in turnpike stock failed. But the
principle itself flourished, and although the way had not
been found, the will was there.
The very scruples which made the strict constructionists
deny the power of the general government to undertake
works of internal improvements, forced them to an ac-
knowledgment of the necessity that the States themselves
should adopt measures for this purpose. Great works of
this kind were in progress on every hand.
"In
In 1829 Governor Carroll said in his message,
many parts of our country the great work of internal im-
provement is advancing with astonishing rapidity. The
New York canal is in successful operation. The Pennsyl-
vania Canal, four hundred miles long, is nearly finished.
The Baltimore Railroad, the Chesapeake Canal, the canal
INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.
281
uniting the waters of Lake Erie with that of the river
Ohio, and numerous other improvements of less magni-
tude, but of great value to the internal trade of the coun-
try, are in a state of vigorous progression, and will in a
few years be entirely completed. With these bright
examples before us does it become Tennessee to be idle?"
In compliance with the spirit of the age, and in obedience.
to a general demand from all parts of the State, the Gen-
eral Assembly devised the first systematic plan of internal
improvement in Tennessee. This is the plan of 1829.¹
According to this, a board of internal improvement
was appointed consisting of six commissioners, two east
and two west of the Cumberland Mountains, and two
west of the Tennessee River. One hundred and fifty
thousand dollars of the unappropriated funds from the
sale of the lands in the Hiwassee district were set apart;
$60,000 for East Tennessee, $60,000 west of the Cumber-
land, 30,000 for the Western District. The governor
was ex-officio member of the board. In 1831 the number
of commissioners east of the Cumberland Mountains was
increased to three and made a separate board for the pur-
pose of removing obstructions to navigation in the Ten-
nessee and Holston rivers and their navigable tributaries,
and the $60,000 already appropriated were turned over to
them. This same year was established a board of internal
improvement for the mountain district of Middle Tennes-
see, one for Caney Fork, and one for Obed's River in Over-
ton County. Also, in counties west of the Tennessee River,
the county courts were directed to appoint three suitable
persons, residents of the county, boards of county com-
missioners of internal improvement. Special acts were
passed creating boards of internal improvement for Giles,
Davidson, Rutherford, and Bedford counties.
The constitution of 1834 directed that an effective sys-
tem of internal improvement be established throughout
1 The act in reality was passed in 1830, January 2d.
282
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
the State. The plan of 1829 had not worked well in
practice. But little support had been extended by private
citizens, and local jealousies were so strong that the plan
failed to accomplish definite results.
The next plan was that of 1835, passed February 19,
1836, for the construction of railroads and turnpikes and
known as the Pennsylvania Plan. The principal feature
of this scheme was the formation of corporations or com-
panies for the prosecution of individual enterprises. After
two thirds of the capital stock had been subscribed and
its payment secured by others, the State was required to
subscribe to the other one third, for which bonds were to
be issued. In 1839 the State was required to subscribe
one half and citizens the other half. One third of the
directors were to be appointed by the State. Under the
operation of this law, $66,666.66% were issued to the
Nashville, Murfreesboro, and Shelbyville Turnpike Com-
pany, $125,000 to the La Grange and Memphis Railroad
Company with a lateral branch to Somerville, $45,000 to
the Gallatin Turnpike Company, and $40,000 to the Leb-
anon and Nashville Turnpike Company. This was the
first faint beginnings of the State Debt. The interest on
the bonds issued by the State was to be paid by the com-
pany and deducted from any demands that might subse-
quently accrue to the State upon its stock. In 1837-38
this scheme was still further amplified by the formation of
the Bank of Tennessee, which, among other objects, was
to aid in establishing a system of internal improvement
in the State. The bank was required to provide for the
interest of the bonds from its own profits in addition to
the dividends accruing to the State in internal improve-
ment companies. Should this be insufficient, the governor
was to notify stockholders in the company for whose stock
state bonds had been issued, who were compelled to pay
in on unpaid stock enough to meet the interest, under
penalty of forfeiture of charter. The State retained a
INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.
283
lien on the works of the company for the amount paid in
by it. This was frequently known as the Partnership Plan.
The State bore all the burdens, and was unable to protect
itself against the negligence and fraud of its partners.
Governor Polk, in his message in 1841, said: "Indeed,
our whole internal improvement system, as at present
organized, is so very defective as to demand your anxious
and unremitting consideration.” The amount of bonds
issued under the act of 1835-36 was $265,666.663, bearing
5 per cent. interest, and under the act of 1837-38 was
$300,000 for navigation and $599,500 for internal im-
provement companies, bearing interest at five per cent.
Charters of incorporation were too readily granted, and
works of no importance were undertaken for the purpose
of obtaining state aid, which, by a judicious system of es-
timates, was, in many cases, made sufficient to accomplish
the whole work. It was almost impossible to persuade
the inhabitants of any locality that any work of local
utility was not for the general good. The number of
charters obtained was so great that $4,000,000, the
amount to which the state subscriptions in all internal
improvement companies were limited, would not have been
sufficient to pay for one half of what was actually ap-
plied for. The failure to comply with the requirements
of law on the part of the stockholders alone protected the
State. Even the law itself was so ambiguous that no
two agreed upon the same construction. An act was
passed January 25, 1840, repealing all laws authorizing
the governor of Tennessee to subscribe for stock in any
internal improvement company on behalf of the State.
This was spoken of as a dissolution of partnership. Pro-
vision was made for a careful investigation to determine
whether the requirements of the statute had been com-
plied with.
This was used in terrorem to force many
companies to surrender their charters, and in a great
measure accomplished its purpose.
284
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
The financial crash of 1837 was one of the causes
which forced the State to withhold aid from internal im-
provement companies. But the most potent was, no doubt,
the inability to devise a plan that would accomplish the
result effectively and economically. In the mean time,
railroads, as a means of transportation, had passed beyond
the experimental stage, and the popular desire for national
advancement had turned enthusiastically in that direction.
It had become a mania, and as such raged with unabated
fury until the beginning of the civil war. As attention
was more steadily turned towards railroads, canals and the
navigation of rivers received less consideration. An oc-
casional reference to schemes that had once been much in
the public eye is found, but nothing more. Governor
Cannon in 1835 urges the construction of a canal from
Savannah on the Tennessee River to Big Hatchie near
Bolivar, which would shorten the distance of steamboat
navigation about four hundred miles. So little interest i
was taken in the improvement of the rivers that $300,000
appropriated by an act of 1841 were never spent, on
account of a disagreement between the board and officers
of the Bank of Tennessee.
The first railroad chartered in Tennessee¹ was the
Memphis Railroad Company, in 1831. This title was, in
1833, changed to the Atlantic and Mississippi Railroad
Company, which was to run from Memphis to Pulaski,
there to connect with another railroad which it was sup-
posed would be constructed by Alabama from Florence.2
One of the next roads chartered was the La Grange and
Memphis Railroad, which received $125,000 from the
State. It was perhaps this that enabled it to build the six
1 The first built was the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad.
2 I can find in the statutes no act chartering the Memphis Railroad
Company. The date is given in the act which changed the title. The
act refers to December 17, 1831, and again to December 12, 1831,
as the date of the first act.
INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.
285
Railroads
miles which were actually constructed in 1837.
from New Orleans to Nashville, from Memphis to some
point in Virginia, from Memphis to Charleston, from
Charleston through the eastern part of the State to Cin-
cinnati and Louisville, were the main topics of discussion.
Perhaps the largest, certainly the most conspicuous rail-
road enterprise of that day was the Charleston, Cincinnati,
and Louisville Railroad. For several years it was a matter
of interstate diplomacy and negotiation. The messages
of the governors and the statute books of the States are
filled with mentions of it and references to it. In Colum-
bia, Greeneville, Charleston, Cincinnati, and Louisville.
meetings were held, speeches were made, and resolutions
were passed. Tennessee was the last State to pass the act
of incorporation. The governor was directed to subscribe
$650,000 in behalf of the State, and $32,000 in bonds.
were actually issued. Most of these were subsequently
returned and the subscription canceled, but new vehemence
had been given to internal improvements or, as it had now
become, the railroad mania. But it was not without sig-
nificance that the State was compelled in 1846 to meet a
deficit of interest on the bonds.
In 1845 was held the great commercial convention at
Memphis, over which John C. Calhoun presided. The
object of the convention was to bring together the friends
of internal improvements for mutual discussion. It was
here that Calhoun came out for the improvement of the
Mississippi River, declaring it to be a "great inland sea."
The immediate outgrowth of this convention was the build-
ing of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad. The history
of this enterprise forms an important chapter and played
an important part in the making of Tennessee. It is
worthy of being detailed at some length.
In those days a certain efficacy was attached, in the
popular mind, to a railroad, entirely independent of the
greater ease of locomotion and facilitated transportation
286
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
of freight which came with it. Even so clear-headed a
man of business as Marcus B. Winchester seemed to
think that the advantages that flowed from a railroad
stretched themselves along its rails foot for foot. In a
letter written in 1834 he says: "If the Jackson company
owned the property and some about the upper end of the
town of Memphis they would have every inducement to
string their road through our town from north to south,
which would regenerate, it seems to me, every part and
portion of it." In the eyes of most Americans of that
day, the town that was so fortunate as to come within the
influence of a railroad was like an Indian village with a
powerful medicine man. With ideas such as these, it is
not surprising that so ambitious a place as Memphis was
eager to have a railroad. Capital, as political economists
use the phrase, had not turned its attention in this direc-
tion. The motive power then was a compound of agri-
culture and sentiment. Roads were built, not from accu-
mulated savings, but from the proceeds of a discounted
incoming era of prosperity. The method of proceeding
was for various local companies to be formed, each of which
built, or expected to build, a fragment of road designed
to connect with other fragments until a through line, as
it is now called, was finished. In this way the La Grange
and Memphis Railroad and the Tuscumbia, Courtland, and
Decatur railroads had been begun and had failed. As its
name indicated, the Memphis and Charleston Railroad was
designed to connect these two cities.
The public discussion of this question elicited a general
enthusiasm, and it became the leading topic of the day.
The most prominent statesmen, politicians, merchants of
Tennessee and Georgia and South Carolina became its
warmest advocates, and men like Hayne, who had gained
national fame in his brilliant debate with Webster, and
Jones of Tennessee took a leading part in advocating this
enterprise. Jones added to his already brilliant reputa-
tion by the force and eloquence of his speeches.
INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.
287
For more than a year he canvassed West Tennessee,
North Mississippi, North Alabama, Memphis, New Or-
leans, and Charleston. The corporation of Memphis sub-
scribed $500,000. The largest individual subscription
was that of R. C. Brinkley, $15,000. Jones was elected
president, and George W. Smith, secretary and treasurer.
He was soon succeeded by Sam Tate. The road was
divided for working purposes into two sections. The
eastern division extended from the Alabama line to
Stevenson, where it connected with the Nashville and Chat-
tanooga Railroad, and the western to Memphis. In 1851
the letting of the contracts began. Soon after this, Jones
was elected to the United States Senate. He in turn was
succeeded by A. E. Mills of Huntsville, and under Mills
the lines contracted for under Jones were finished. The
first track laid was at the crossing of Union Street in
Memphis, on April 1, 1852. But after the contracts for
the rest of the work had been let, the treasury was ex-
hausted. An added embarrassment was the failure to get
a charter through the Mississippi legislature allowing the
right of way across the northeast corner of the State, owing
to the opposition of the friends of the Mississippi Central
Railroad. In order to overcome this hostility, Mills and
Tate for their road agreed to subscribe $125,000 of the
capital stock of that concern. When submitted to the
board of directors of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad
this contract was indignantly rejected, some of the direc-
tors declaring they would resign before accepting a charter
on such disgraceful terms. At this time Tate, who lived
at Memphis, was the only acting officer on the western
division, Mills living at Huntsville and having charge of
the eastern division. Even the warmest and most hope-
ful friends of the enterprise now began to despair of its
completion. The one ray of hope, however, was the fact
that one man had demonstrated an executive ability and
comprehensive grasp of affairs that gave promise of sub-
288
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
stantial results. This was Sam Tate, the secretary and
treasurer, and even he had sent in his resignation to take
effect on the first day of April, 1854, on which day there
was to be a general meeting of stockholders at Tuscumbia,
Alabama. The object of the meeting was to consider the
rejection or acceptance of the contract which Tate, since
its former rejection by the board, had again entered into
with the Mississippi Central Company. After a stormy
debate the contract was accepted. Mills resigned the
presidency, and Tate the secretaryship. The latter was
then offered the former position but declined. Nothing
could more distinctly emphasize the difference between
the two stages of development in railroad building of
that day and this than the fact that for several days.
the presidency went absolutely begging. Finally, after
great persuasion, Sam Tate was induced to accept the posi-
tion. Tate's first action was decisive. He made an accu-
rate estimate of what money was still needed to complete
the work. Already $2,000,000 had been spent. He de-
cided that $1,600,000 would still be necessary. A stock-
holders' meeting was at once held at Huntsville, before
which Tate laid his statement of the affairs of the com-
pany. All his recommendations were at once adopted.
He declared that $400,000 were necessary to complete
works then in process of construction. This, as he
pointed out, could only be raised by the stockholders sub-
scribing for that amount of the bonds that were to be
issued. It would be impossible to get Northern capital-
ists to invest in so doubtful a security. Tate's reputation
had gone before him, and he gained the implicit confidence
of all with whom he came in contact; $312,000 were at
once taken, and he was urged to proceed with this amount.
But he refused on the ground that he could not regard it
as honorable to speculate at the risk of men whose bread
depended upon their daily labor.
their daily labor. After the adjournment
of the stockholders, Tate, with an
energy that filled with
INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.
289
enthusiasm all who came in contact with him, at once
set out in a buggy to visit the largest stockholders to
persuade them to increase their subscriptions. On all
sides he proclaimed that he had money on hand sufficient
to pay off at the next pay-day, August 15, 1854, and that
if the $400,000 were not assured by that day, he would
give notice to suspend work. He postponed the pay-day
until the twentieth of August. After a long and arduous
journey up and down the beautiful and fertile valley
through which the Memphis and Charleston Railroad now
runs, he drove into Huntsville on the evening of the
eighteenth of August. He was met on the public square
by an immense throng of citizens who had followed his
course with enthusiasm, and who now greeted him with
cheers. Standing in his buggy, he announced that his
subscription list still lacked $13,000. In a moment
this was subscribed by four of the bystanders, and amid
cheers not unlike those that greeted Fourth of July orators
during the earlier part of this century, Tate announced
that the road would be a success. He promised at the
time to have the road completed by the 1st of April, 1857.
It is worthy of remark that the last spike was driven on
the 27th of March, 1857. His calculations had missed
absolute accuracy by only four days.
When the road was completed, nearly 25,000 people
visited Memphis, upon the invitation of the railroad com-
pany, to celebrate the successful completion of so impor-
tant a work, and also to witness the marriage, as it was
called, of the waters of the Atlantic Ocean and the Mis-
sissippi River. This ceremony consisted in pouring a
hogshead of Atlantic water into the Mississippi River
amidst the booming of cannon and the shouting of the
people. The building of this road not only rounded out
a period in Tennessee history; it was also an epoch in
the history of the Southwest. The completion of the
great sub-Alpine tunnel did not affect the commercial
290
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
intercourse and development of France and Italy more
decidedly than the completion of the Memphis and Charles-
ton Railroad affected the intercourse and development of
the entire Southwest of the United States. The comple-
tion of this road gave us the Tennessee which we have now.
In 1848 an attempt was made to establish a new system
of state aid to railroads. The distinctive feature of this
plan was that the State indorsed the mortgage bonds of
the companies, instead of issuing its own. The State was
secured by a lien on the whole stock of the company and
on the road fixtures. Curiously enough, however, these
bonds sold for less than par, whereas the bonds of the
State were at or above par. This plan proved to be not
more satisfactory than the other. Its most glaring defects
were the failure to devise means by which the State could
examine into the financial condition of the corporations.
whose bonds had been indorsed, and the failure to reserve
to the State the power of legislating to protect its inter-
ests. In addition to this, being an indorser and guaran-
tor of the bonds issued, the ability of the State to protect
itself depended on the actions of those over whom it
had little control. Still another grave disadvantage was
the fact that the lien for the protection of the State.
depended upon the deed to be made by the company in-
stead of public act or statute. In 1749-50 an attempt
was made to correct these defects. The State was to issue
its own bonds and have vested in it the title to the roads
to secure the debt created for their benefit, and individual
stockholders were required to accept and ratify the act.
But again the legislature failed to provide measures by
which information could be obtained of the condition of
the companies, and also by which the State could legislate
as a sovereign instead of resorting to the courts as an in-
dividual.
The act of February 11, 1852, was passed to avoid the
defects of all previous enactments. Under this act, the
INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.
291
State Debt was contracted, and had it not been for the
incompetency of the so-called "Brownlow régime," imme-
diately after the war, when a large majority of the voters
of the State were disfranchised, the success of the act
would have been unmixed with evil. The bonds of
the State were issued in its sovereign capacity, for the
payment of which its credit was pledged, and without
involving itself in any relation of trust or partnership.
The manifest intention of the law-makers was to float the
bonds at or above par by pledging the credit of the State
for their payment, which would not have been done had
any question of the primary liability of the companies.
been entertained. It was the intention, an intention alto-
gether reasonable and well founded at the time, to provide
means by which to save the State from all loss, if possible,
and certainly to reduce this loss, if any should occur, to a
minimum. The war could not be foreseen. The losses
could not have been avoided. Had it not been for the
war and the Brownlow administration, the debt of Tennes-
see would doubtless have been paid in full. The act of
February 11, 1852, was called an act to establish a system
of internal improvements in this State. It required each
railroad company to have a bona fide subscription to its
capital stock sufficient to grade bridges and prepare for
the iron rails the whole extent of the main trunk line.
The governor was to exact a rigid compliance with these
terms. After this had been done and thirty miles of the
road at either terminus prepared, the governor was to
issue $8,000 a mile in six per cent. state bonds, to be used
in procuring rails and equipments alone. The State was
to be invested, upon the issuance of these bonds, with a
first lien or mortgage upon the section so prepared, with-
out a deed of the company. Other sections of twenty
miles each were to be treated in the same way. After the
completion of the road, the State was invested with a prior
lien or mortgage on all its interests, franchises, equip-
292
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
ments, etc. The company was to deposit in the Bank of
Tennessee, fifteen days before due, the interest on the
bonds as satisfactory evidence that the same had been
paid. Upon failure, the governor was to take charge of
the road, and place it in the hands of a receiver until the
interest in arrears should have been paid. If the company
failed to pay the bonds when they fell due, the State was
to take possession and dispose of the road to protect itself.
Five years after the completion of the road, one per cent.
per annum upon the amount of bonds issued was to be
set apart by the company and used to retire the bonds of
the State, which bonds when retired were to be a credit on
the debt due the State, and these bonds were to be held and
used as a sinking fund for the payment of bonds issued.
Semi-annual reports were to be made under oath by the
president of the company. The State reserved the right
to enact all such laws as might be deemed necessary to
protect its interests and secure it against loss.
An act was passed February 8, 1854, amendatory of
this act of 1852. This act increased the amount per mile
to be issued to $10,000, and provision was made for
issuing bonds for building bridges. On February 17,1
the length of the sections after the first thirty miles was
decreased from twenty to ten miles, and on January 19,
1855, the grading of ten mile sections was to be taken
in lieu of completing them. On February 21, 1856, the
the sinking fund was increased to two per cent. On
March 20, 1860, an act to provide for the equalization and
investment of the sinking fund directed that the money
and bonds paid to the sinking fund commissioners should
be passed direct to the credit of the party paying them,
and operate as a release to said party for that amount on
the debt due by them to the State, and the sinking fund
was still further increased to two and one half per cent.
1 By an act to amend the charter of the Memphis and Somer-
ville Turnpike Company and for other purposes.
INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.
293
The war prevented the good effects of this law from being
felt, apart from the retirement of a small part of the debt.
The total amount of bonds issued to railroads alone
before the war was $14,841,000.¹ As soon as the war
closed, what is now called a raid was made on the treasury.
From April, 1866, to December, 1868, a period which has
been described as "a carnival of revelry and corrup-
tion," at a time when every industry and enterprise had
been paralyzed by the war, and when, by the loss of slaves,
the assessed value of the taxable property in the State had
sunk from $388,936,794 in 1860, to $225,393,410 in 1867,
$14,393,000 were issued to railroads, $113,000 were issued
to turnpikes, besides $4,941,000 issued under the act of
1866 to fund the war interest, and $2,200,000 under the
act of 1868 to fund past due coupons. This increased
the debt of the State in two years, $21,647,000. In addi-
tion to this, by an act passed May 24, 1866, incorporating
several turnpikes, the stock of the State in the East Ten-
nessee and Georgia Railroad, amounting to $425,000, was
turned over to them. This and the $113,000 issued be-
tween 1868 and 1870 succeeded in building twenty miles
of turnpike, as officially reported by a committee of inves-
tigation. A large part of these twenty miles was built by
private subscriptions paid in work.
On the 25th of February, 1869, an act was passed to
liquidate the State Debt contracted in aid of railroad com-
panies. This act was passed in the interest of the rail-
roads, who were represented by strong lobbies at the capi-
tal during the pendency of the bill. It allowed them to
1 Add to this $3,000,000 issued in 1833 and 1838 to the Union
Bank and the Bank of Tennessee, $1,323,000 issued to turnpikes
from 1836 to 1854, $1,166,000 issued between 1848 and 1860 for
building the Capitol, $30,000 issued July 19, 1856, for the Agricultural
Bureau, and $48,000 on March 29, 1856, for buying the Hermitage,
and the entire State Debt at the beginning of the war, exclusive of the
repudiated Confederate loan, was $20,408,000.
294
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
cancel their indebtedness to the State by paying in bonds
of the series issued to them. The State was to receive, at
par, bonds quoted in 1869 as low as 40. That provision
of the law, however, which required bonds of the same.
series as those issued to be paid in acted as a restraint
on the railroads, and the act of January 2, 1870, was
lobbied through the legislature which allowed them to pay
the State, in liquidation of the principal of the debt, any
of the legally issued six per cent. bonds of the State, with-
out regard to series or number. It was anticipated that
questions of the validity of the post-bellum issue of bonds
would be raised. The acts of 1865, 1866, and 1867, the
last being the "Omnibus Railroad Bill," had been passed
under circumstances of such notorious fraud and so clearly
in defiance of law, that as soon as the Brownlow and
Senter régime was overthrown, steps were taken to repu-
diate those bonds which were issued contrary to law. A
committee was appointed by the legislature of 1869–70 to
investigate the railroads and the bonds issued to them.
But the work of the committee had scarcely been begun
when a movement looking to the reconstruction of the
State began to assume shape at Washington. The ground
upon which reconstruction was urged was the belief that
the Brownlow and Senter bonds would be repudiated.
Mr. D. B. Thomas, speaker of the Senate and Mr. W.
O'N. Perkins, speaker of the House, went to Washington,
and by their assurances saved the State from what would
have been the disaster of reconstruction. It became neces-
sary to abandon the line of policy mapped out by the com-
mittee, according to which the validity of the bond-issuance
was to be tested by proceedings at law.
The railroads hastened to take advantage of the laws of
1869 and 1870. It is a remarkable circumstance that of
the $14,841,000 issued to railroads before the war, up to
1880 $5,330.000 had been canceled, and of the $14,393,-
000 issued to railroads since the war, $11,258,000 had
INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.
295
been canceled.
More even than this. Of the ante-war
bonds, a part was retired before the war and a part was
paid, November 17, 1865, by the Louisville and Nashville
Railroad. Under an act of 1871, for the sale of insol-
vent and delinquent roads, eleven roads were sold for
$6,698,000 and the amounts paid in by the railroads under
the acts of 1869 and 1870 was $14,787,600. The total
amount of the State Debt in January, 1879, according to
the report of James L. Gaines, comptroller, was, including
interest, $27,008,480, represented by 21,005 bonds out-
standing, of which 10,067 were issued before the war to
banks, turnpikes, and railroads, to build the Capitol, to
buy the Hermitage, and for the Agricultural Bureau, and
10,938 issued since the war, of which 113 were for turn-
pikes, 3,135 for railroads, 2,254 under the Funding Act of
1866, 569 under the Funding Act of 1868, and 4,867
under the Funding Act of 1873.
The constitution of 1870 put an end to the possibility
of any further internal improvements as a political or
economic scheme at the expense or with the aid of the
State. It enacts that "the credit of this State shall not
hereafter be given or loaned to or in aid of any person,
association, company, corporation, or municipality." The
State Debt was long a political issue in Tennessee. It
passed practically out of politics with the compromise of
1882, which settled the so-called State Debt proper, the
Capitol, Hermitage, Bank, Agricultural Bureau bonds in
full, and the rest of the debt at fifty cents on the dollar,
with three per cent. interest. The war interest was repu-
diated.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
CARROLL, HOUSTON, AND CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION.
THE period which intervened between the first election
of Carroll and the Constitutional Convention of 1834 is
one of steady progress. During this period of thirteen
years, Carroll was governor eleven. This was an era of
reform and growth, and nearly every step forward was
taken at the suggestion of the brave old warrior. His
overwhelming victory in 1821 emphasized his popularity
with the people, and in 1823, and again in 1825 he was
elected without opposition.
In 1827 Willie Blount, Newton Cannon, and Sam Hous-
ton were candidates for the governorship. The vote cast
for Blount was contemptibly small. Houston was elected
by a large majority. His administration was successful,
his recommendations conservative. Houston's career, even
before he was made governor of Tennessee, was not with-
out a touch of romantic diversity. He had been brought
up among the East Tennessee mountains, and on the banks.
of the beautiful stream which gave its name to the State.
As a boy, he had been a familiar inmate of the wigwams
of a small settlement of Cherokees in the neighborhood of
his mother's cottage. Here he had tasted the pleasures of
that undisciplined mode of life which seems to have a
strong fascination even for those reared in the lap of lux-
urious indulgence. When a mere boy, Houston entered
the army, fought with desperate bravery through the
Creek War, won the applause of General Jackson, was
made a lieutenant in the regular army, resigned, studied
'i
THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION.
297
law, was elected solicitor-general of the Nashville district,
removed to Nashville, was elected adjutant-general in
1821 over Newton Cannon, to succeed William Carroll,
and was elected in 1823 and 1825 a member of Congress.
Cannon was known to be lukewarm in the cause of Jack-
son. Houston was known to be his ardent partisan. This
may have influenced the final result, both in the contest of
1821 and again in 1827.
Houston had a tall, commanding figure, an imposing
bearing, an affable demeanor, and popular address. As
solicitor-general he had displayed oratorical talents of no
mean order. Oratory, or rather public speaking, had not
yet been developed to the extent which has since made
it the distinguishing feature of American political life.
The passionate eloquence of Patrick Henry had been
adapted to times of danger, to a turbulent and troubled
period. The incisive discourse of Franklin, the luminous
exposition of Hamilton, the philosophic reasoning of Jef-
ferson, the persuasive declamation of Fisher Ames, were
adapted to the deliberations of men engaged in the seri-
ous occupation of making laws for nations. Clay and
Webster were just rising through the morning mists.
There were no orators in Tennessee. Houston, it was
then thought, would be a great orator. Perhaps a more
favorable field for the cultivation of his talents might have
accomplished this result. His first efforts, considered as
first efforts, were full of promise, which, however, was
never realized. Perhaps there is something which unfits
the man of action for words. Houston was certainly a
man of action. Indeed he was a great man, though his
claim to this title rests upon his achievements after he left
Tennessee. In January, 1829, Houston married a Miss
Eliza Allen, daughter of an influential family in Sumner
County, and a member of "the quality." In April of the
same year Houston's wife left him and returned to her
father's house, after Houston had written to the father
298
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
requesting him to bring about a reconciliation between
him and his wife. The first information that came to the
public was Houston's resignation, which took place on the
16th of April. He at once abandoned the State, went to
the Cherokee country, to the wigwam of an Indian chief
who had adopted him when a boy. From here he drifted
to Texas where, fortunately for his fame, he found a
proper field for the display of those strong and admirable
qualities of mind which, united to a steadfast character
and a high purpose, made him great despite his puerile
affectations and his robust vanity. The cause of separa-
tion was at that time a mystery, and the lapse of time has
in no wise lessened it. Houston, even when deepest in
his cups, never suffered a word of explanation to escape
him. He always protested that the virtue of his wife
remained unimpeached. The most plausible and satisfac-
tory explanation appears to be this: Houston was spir-
ited, sensitive, and vain. The young woman had been
driven to the marriage by the importunities of her family,
who were ambitious, and who saw, as they imagined, a
brilliant career opening for Houston. Her affections had
been won by another lover of less pretension and promise.
She yielded to the wishes of her friends. The marriage
took place. She was cold. Houston was importunate
and passionate. Suddenly he discovered the truth. She
did not love him. His suspicions were aroused, and he
suspected more than the truth. Reproaches and recrimi-
nations followed. An explanation took place. Houston
saw the real truth. He tried to effect a reconciliation.
He wrote the letter, already mentioned, to her father, to
enlist his services. She remained obdurate, and returned
to her father's house. Houston, who was fond of dramatic
effects, determined to resign. This he did in a dramatic
manner, and surrounding himself with a cloak of mystery,
he left the State. This explanation is consistent with
Houston's character, with the ordinary transactions of
THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION.
299
daily life, with what we know of the event, and most of
all with the letter which Houston wrote before his wife
left him. In this he says: “Whatever had been my
feelings or opinions in relation to Eliza at one period, I
have been satisfied, and it is now unfit that anything
should be adverted to." Again, "Eliza stands acquitted
by me. I have received her as a virtuous, chaste wife,
and as such I pray God I may ever regard her, and I
trust I ever shall. She was cold to me, and I thought did
not love me."
Houston was succeeded by the speaker of the Senate,
General William Hall. Hall was born in Virginia, and
came to Tennessee when young, had been sheriff of Sum-
ner County, brigadier-general of the fourth regiment of
state militia during the Creek War, at various times a
member of the state legislature, and in 1823 speaker pro
tem. of the Senate. When elected to the Senate in 1827,
on the eve of Jackson's election to the presidency, all eyes
appear to have been turned toward Hall as the proper
man to be speaker. He possessed the important qualifi-
cation of being an intimate friend of Jackson. Houston
in his letter of resignation speaks of him as one who has
been "the consistent friend of the great and good man
now enjoying the triumph of his virtues in the conscious
security of a nation's gratitude." As soon as elected,
William Carroll had written to him, "I have no hesitancy
in saying you ought to be speaker of the Senate. If you
give authority to mention your name, I feel confident
that there will be no opposition, to produce which, my
best efforts shall be directed." Robert C. Foster also
urged him to be a candidate, and he was elected without
serious opposition. He served as governor until Carroll
was again elected, which was in August of that year.
Carroll was reëlected without opposition in 1831 and
1833. During his last term the second Constitutional
Convention of Tennessee assembled.
300
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
The Constitutional Convention of 1834 marked an era
in the making of the State. The admission of Tennessee
to the Union brought about generally that condition of
affairs which is said to make a people happy at the ex-
pense of the historian. The epic stage of our develop-
ment was during the turmoils and wrangles of Indian
warfare, incipient secession, and civil agitation. With
the end of these came the end of striking episodes, tragic
climaxes, and events that influence a people's destiny.
From 1796 to 1834 we see the gradual expansion of the
area of cultivation, the steady inflow of immigration, the
building of cabins, the widening of settlements, the for-
mation of new counties, the laying off of new county
seats, and the building of schools, churches, and court-
houses.¹ While this is going on among the people, we
see their representatives first at Knoxville, then at Mur-
freesboro, and then at Nashville, where the permanent
seat of government was finally located in 1843, attempting
to devise legislation to help forward the material interests
of the commonwealth. The primitive and clumsy machin-
ery of state government is gradually improved. The
most complex problem of all, involving the highest func-
tions of legislation, just laws firmly administered, is vig-
orously undertaken. Always, however, and even to this
day, without a complete or entirely satisfactory solution.
The cultivation of the soil brings gradually increasing
wealth, and the planting of corn, cotton, and tobacco, as
it spreads, carries with it the curse of slavery and the
seeds of future disasters. The beautiful blue-grass re-
gions of Middle Tennessee and an abundance of water,
draw the attention of the thrifty to stock-raising. New
inventions gradually creep in and a better mode of agri-
culture. The increasing power of the press brings with
it a widening of mental vision, a humanizing of passions
1 The Penitentiary was built in 1831. The State Capitol, begun
in 1845, was finished in 1855.
THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION.
301
which, in subsequent years, finds practical expression in
the establishment of asylums for the afflicted. Comforts
become generally diffused and luxuries follow comforts.
In the homely phrase of the day, Tennessee is fairly out
of the woods. On all sides are pleasant visions, beautiful
landscapes, fast-flowing streams, thriving towns, thrifty
plantations, a happy, prosperous, industrious, and, in the
main, virtuous population.
The changes in the organic law of the State accom-
plished by this convention have already been described
under other heads. It was a fit culmination that it should
be held during the administration of Carroll, whose elec-
tion had opened the way for the changes in the official
organization of Tennessee, and whose influence had created
the impulse which resulted in a radical reform in other
branches. Among the signs of the times were the im-
peachments of Judge Nathaniel W. Williams and Judge
Joshua Haskell. Feeling secure in their seats, many of
the judges had become so high-handed and overbearing,
and in many cases so neglectful of their duties, that a gen-
eral protest went up from the people as well as the bar.
The experiment of filling judicial seats with officers quam
diu bene se gesserint was not a success in Tennessee.
The four ablest governors of Tennessee before the war
were John Sevier, William Carroll, James K. Polk, and
Andrew Johnson. But John Sevier earned his reputa-
tion before he became governor, and Polk and Johnson,
after they had been. None of them had an opportunity
of displaying any species of statesmanship, even in so
circumscribed a sphere. Carroll was more fortunate. The
opportunity was offered and he seized it. In his circular
issued in June, 1821, he set his face against the recently
organized Loan Office or Bank of Tennessee, which Felix
Grundy had pushed through the extra session of the leg-
islature. In his first message he took a decided stand
against all the relief and stay and replevin laws, by
302
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
which, acting on the suggestion of Governor M'Minn, the
General Assembly had hoped to cure the financial and
commercial evils of the State. He urged, instead, rigid
economy and retrenchment by the people themselves. He
called attention to the inefficiencies of the judicial organi-
zation of the State and the confusion resulting from a
lack of sharply defined jurisdiction among the courts. He
urged the repeal of the law which gave the county and
circuit courts concurrent jurisdiction, and suggested the
establishment of district courts of equity. He advised.
the establishment of a penitentiary, and the abolition of
such barbarous methods of punishment as the pillory,
stocks, branding, and the like. He dwelt upon the im-
portance of a system of general education, internal im-
provements, and a more thorough organization of the
state militia. Many years elapsed before all these re-
forms were accomplished, but it is due to Carroll's liberal-
minded appreciation of the necessities of the times, and
his unwavering obstinacy in pressing them that they were
at last achieved. All his messages from the first to the
last returned repeatedly to the charge. If we divide our
state history into ancient and modern periods, the credit
would fall to Carroll's lot of having foreseen and ushered
in the latter. He was essentially the reform governor
of Tennessee.
At the Constitutional Convention of 1834 appeared
representatives from a division of the State which had
heretofore attracted little attention. They now came in
numbers sufficient to demand and to enforce consideration.
Although having been open to emigration only about fif-
teen years, its growth had been so rapid and yet so quiet,
that the older communities of East and Middle Tennes-
see could scarcely realize and were loath to acknowledge
that they were threatened with a rearrangement of politi-
cal power. This division of the State was West Tennes-
see, at that time known as the Western District.
CHAPTER XXIX.
WEST TENNESSEE.
THE history of West Tennessee has never been written.
Its real history begins at a time when the troubles which
attended the formation of the State were at an end. The
treaty of 1818, by which the Chickasaws lost their inter-
est in the soil of Tennessee, is the beginning of the his-
tory of this part of the State. This groups itself for the
first part of its development around Jackson and Browns-
ville and then around Shelby County and Memphis. The
inflow of population was of two kinds that which
gradually spread like waves on ruffled water, approaching
from the east, and that which came down the rivers. In
an interesting account of "The Chickasaw Country lately
ceded to the United States," written in 1819 for the "Ra-
leigh (North Carolina) Register," by Calvin Jones, he
says: "There is not a white family nor a trading house.
in the country, unless a store at Fort Pickering near the
Mississippi line should be on the north side of it, a fact
of which I am not well informed. . . . In 1784, all that
portion of country which I have described as lying be-
tween the inundated lands and gravelly ridges, together
with some parcels on the elevated banks of the Mississippi
at or near the mouths of the rivers which empty them-
selves into it, were surveyed by Judge Harris, General
Roberts, and Henry Rutherford of Nashville, in tracts of
500 to 5,000 acres each. Five years ago these lands were
selling at from twelve and a half cents to twenty-five
cents an acre, and within a few months they have been
304
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
sold in Raleigh at fifty cents. I once witnessed a convey-
ance to the late Governor Williams of 640 acres, very fa-
vorably situated on the Obian (sic), given in exchange for
an indifferent gig-horse. The average value of all these
lands is now ten dollars an acre, and many tracts are worth
double that sum." Those who first came to this country
were surveyors and land speculators who, according to an
old chronicler, were stopped by no difficulty. By an act
of the legislature, the priority of location was decided by
a lottery.
Hickman County was organized as a county in 1808,
two years after the first settlement on Pine River by
Adam Wilson. The first county seat was Vernon, but
was succeeded in 1824 by Centreville. Lewis County
was organized in 1806 and Wayne County in 1820, five
years after the first settlement at Buffalo Creek by Fred-
erick Meridith. Perry, which at that time included De-
catur, was organized in 1820.¹ Humphreys, which includes
also the present limits of Benton, was organized in 1810.
The first county seat was Reynoldsburgh, on the east bank
of the Tennessee, which is now a deserted village more
desolate than sweet Auburn itself. In 1838 the seat was
removed to Waverly. The first settlement in Carroll
County was made by John Woods, Thomas Hamilton, and
others on Clear Creek near where McKenzie now stands.
Huntingdon, the county seat, was built on ground donated
by the heirs of Memucan Hunt, whence the name.
The first settlement made in Henry County was in 1819
by Joel Hagler, John Stoddurt, and Jones Williamson
near where Manley's Chapel now stands, or stood a few
years ago. The county, named for Patrick Henry of Vir-
ginia, was organized in 1823, and Paris was founded the
same year. Hardin County, which is partly in West and
partly in Middle Tennessee, was organized in 1820. It
1 The county was sometimes organized a year or two after the
passage of the act authorizing its establishment.
WEST TENNESSEE.
305
was named in honor of Captain John Hardin, a Revolu-
tionary hero. The first settlement was made at the mouth
of Horse Creek by James Hardin. Henderson County,
organized in 1822, was first settled by Joseph Reed, a few
miles east of Lexington, which was founded the same.
year. McNairy was established in 1823 and named for
Judge John McNairy. It was organized at the house of
Abel V. Murray. Purdy, the county seat, was founded
in 1824. The first settlers upon the territory that after-
wards became McNairy, were the Murrays, McAlpins,
Sweats, Gillespies, Beattys, and Kirbys. Gibson County
was organized in 1823 and named in honor of Colonel
Thomas Gibson, who had gained distinction under Jack-
son in the Creek War. The first settlement was made by
Thomas Fite and James Spencer near Trenton in 1819.
Gibsonport was laid off as the county seat, but the name
was changed to Trenton in 1825. By the act of 1823-24
Gibson, Fayette, Hardeman, Haywood, Dyer, and Tipton
became separate counties and commissioners were ap-
pointed to lay off county seats. The first county court of
Fayette was organized in 1824 at the house of R. G.
Thornton, about a quarter of a mile south of the north
fork of Wolf River. Somerville was laid off as the
county seat by the commissioners appointed for that pur-
pose. The commissioners were Henry Kirk, Daniel John-
son, Hamilton Thornton, William Owen, and John T.
Patterson. The immigration to Fayette County in 1825
was very great. One author says enthusiastically of it:
"Settled by men of enterprise, intelligence, and wealth,
it early took a stand among the most favored counties in
the district noted for the refined, cultivated taste and good
morals of its citizens." In 1837 William Lewis issued the
first number of the "Somerville Reporter." La Grange,
one of the principal towns of Fayette County, at first at-
tained great prominence. It carried on a lucrative trade
with the Indians of North Mississippi and was for a time a
306
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
substantial rival of Jackson. In 1828 it had sixty houses,
two hundred and forty inhabitants, four stores, two tav-
erns, and twelve mechanics. The final completion of the
Memphis and Charleston Railroad, to which it had looked
for growth and prosperity, had an opposite result, and it
yielded to the commercial supremacy of Memphis.
The first county court in Dyer County was organized
in 1824, and was named for Colonel Henry Dyer, who
served in the battle of New Orleans. The first building,
put up in 1824, was a double log cabin with a dirt floor.
Dyersburg was made the county seat.
1
The first settlement in Hardeman County was made by
Colonel Ezekiel Polk, his son William, and son-in-law,
Thomas McNeal, and Colonel Thomas J. Hardeman in
1823 near Hickory Valley. The county court was organ-
ized at the house of Thomas McNeal. The county seat
was named at first, Hatchie, but was changed in 1825 to
Bolivar, in honor of Simon Bolivar, "the Liberator of
his Country," a name as familiar to the ears of our grand-
fathers as that of Kossuth to our fathers or Garibaldi to
our own.
The first settlements in the territory which afterwards
became Tipton County were made by General Jacob Tip-
ton.in 1821, by Jesse Benton below the third Chickasaw
Bluffs, by H. Yarbrough on Indian Creek, and by Henry
Turnidge and others on Big Creek. The county was
named for Captain Jacob Tipton, who fell in St. Clair's
defeat near Fort Washington in 1791, and who was the
father of General Tipton. The county court was organ-
ized in 1823 at the house of Nathaniel Hartsfield, about
one mile south of Covington. Covington, the county
seat, was located on lands donated by John C. McLemore
and Tyree Rhodes. The constitution of 1834 having pro-
vided for the formation of a new county out of territory
lying between Hatchie and Forked Deer, Lauderdale was
established in 1835, leaving Hatchie as the north bound-
WEST TENNESSEE.
307
ary of Tipton County. The proximity of Tipton County
to the Mississippi River and the bluffs within its limits
gave it great prominence in the annals of settlement and
the struggle for precedence which make up the early history
of West Tennessee counties. Jesse Benton's place was a
general landing for emigrants who came by river, and
soon became a distributing point for the adjacent country.
Benton's Trace still remains in local geographical nomen-
clature. Randolph soon became a flourishing town. In-
deed, at first all indications pointed to its future success
in the contest for commercial mastery which geographical
position forced upon the two towns, Randolph and Mem-
phis. Like Memphis, it was situated upon one of the
Chickasaw Bluffs and at the mouth of a small inland
stream. But Big Hatchie was navigable as far up as
Bolivar, and Randolph carried on a lucrative trade by
water with many of the newly established counties east
of Hardeman. It became at once the shipping point for
all the western counties except Shelby and Fayette. This
was during the internal improvement mania, and a plan
was suggested which, if carried out, might have enabled
Randolph to carry off the palm in its contest with Mem-
phis. This was to connect the Tennessee and the Hatchie
by means of a lateral canal or drain. This would have
given Randolph the trade of the fertile sections of coun-
try through which the Tennessee runs, and would probably
have given it the greatness which has fallen to its rival.
The governor of Tennessee recommended the project to
the General Assembly, but nothing came of it. In 1834
the "Randolph Recorder" was issued by F. S. Latham,
who soon afterwards sold out to A. M. Scott and removed
to Memphis. In 1836 or 1837 the "Randolph Whig"
was established by the McPhersons, but was soon discon-
tinued. In 1836 Randolph shipped 40,000 bales of cot-
ton, and in 1839 from 20,000 to 25,000. Some time in
the thirties Randolph established a bank. In 1833 a

308
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
semi-weekly stage was started by James Brown from
Jackson to Randolph. A great drawback to the growth
of Randolph was the A. M. Cambreling suit, finvolving
the title to 1,000 acres of land, on part of which Randolph
was located. This prevented the growth of population,
and was not settled until 1835. The removal of the In-
dians and the settlement of North Mississippi helped
Memphis, and finally a few steamboats that navigated the
Hatchie began to unload at Memphis. The foresight and
liberal policy of John Overton caused Memphis to pros-
per rapidly, and by the time the Memphis and Charleston
Railroad was built, the leading merchants of Randolph
had removed to the lower town.
The last attempt of Randolph to regain its earlier im-
portance was in 1852, when, by a bare majority of the
voters in the county, it was decided not to move the seat
of justice to that point from Covington. A Tipton County
institution, which exerted a beneficent influence upon the
development of the western part of the State, was the
Mountain Academy, founded by the Reverend James.
Holmes, of which it is chronicled that it "was long noted
as the best in West Tennessee, and hundreds of youths
were instructed and trained there, who became eminent as
teachers and professional men. The name of James
Holmes, D. D., is more intimately connected with West
Tennessee as an educator and instructor of the young,
both male and female, than perhaps any other man
living."

The
Haywood County, named for Judge John Haywood, the
historian, was organized in 1824, and the first county
court met at the house of Colonel Richard Nixon.
first permanent settlement was made by Nixon about four
miles east of the present site of Brownsville, on Nixon's
Creek. Nixon had blazed a way through the cane from
Jackson in Madison County. Brownsville itself was laid
off in 1824 and the jail was built in 1825. In 1824–25
WEST TENNESSEE.
309
public roads were cut out from Brownsville to the county
seats of neighboring counties. Being accessible to small
steamboats, Brownsville did a large receiving and for-
warding business for the surrounding country. It was
the second town west of the Tennessee which carried on a
regular trade in merchandise with the adjoining country.
The first and most important was Jackson.
na
Madison County was organized in 1820, and named in
honor of James Madison. The first county court met at
the house of Adam R. Alexander, about two miles west
of where Jackson now stands. The first settlement re-
corded was made in 1820 near the old Cotton Grove
neighborhood, by John Hargrave and the McIvers family.
Shortly afterwards, John Bradbury settled on Spring
Creek. Seth O. Waddell settled "the Sixteenth District"
the same year. The most important settlement was that
made by Adam R. Alexander, William Doak, Lewis
Jones, and others near Jackson. Jackson has been de-
scribed by one who knew it in its earliest infancy as “the
abode of ease, elegance, and refined social enjoyment, the
home of the enterprising and intelligent, the beautiful
and cultivated, the seat of learning and temple of law."
He calls it the first habitable town in West Tennessee.
"It was here the first courts of law were organized and
the first academy of learning established, and it gave birth
to the first newspaper published in West Tennessee."
Jackson was for many years the centre of activity in the
western portion of the State. The fact that it published
a weekly newspaper made it politically conspicuous. The
"Pioneer" was established in 1822, but soon died and
was succeeded by the "Gazette," which was edited by E.
Begelow and published by Charles D. McLean. The first
number appeared on the 29th of May, 1823, and contin-
ued until 1831, when it was merged in the "Southern
Statesman." Jackson was the centre of the political ac-
tivity of the Western District and then of West Tennes-
310
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
see, and it was here that the fight between Crockett and
the friends of General Jackson, after he became presi-
dent, was hotly waged. Robert I. Chester, who still en-
joys the fruits of a long life well spent, was postmaster
and a warm friend of Jackson. McLean and the news-
paper men generally were opposed to Crockett, and the
struggle gained in fierceness from year to year. Indians
still came here to buy their supplies, and on Saturdays it
was no unusual sight to see all mingling on the streets
together, Indians, boatmen, hunters with bear and coon-
skin caps, herdsmen on small Indian ponies, slave drivers
with short lariats, lawyers, doctors, and merchants. The
first court-house at Jackson, which was laid off in 1822,
was built by John Houston "of round logs, with dirt floor
and daubed chimney." The judge's bench was made of
puncheons. The first dwelling in Jackson was built by
Thomas Shannon in 1821. As Memphis grew, Jackson,
as well as Randolph, receded, but it still retains its posi-
tion as the second town in West Tennessee, distinguished
by the thrift and enterprise of its inhabitants, the thor-
oughness of its schools, the beauty and comfort of its
houses and the activity of its politicians. It is worthy of
note that the first cotton in West Tennessee was grown
in Madison County, and that the first gin was brought to
Jackson from Nashville in 1821. The plank used in
building the first frame house in Jackson was brought on
a keel-boat from East Tennessee and up the Forked Deer.
Shelby County, of which Memphis is the county seat,
has but little history which is not also a part of the his-
tory of Memphis. It was organized May 1, 1820, at the
house of William Lawrence where the county court met
until a court-house was built. The first magistrates were
William Irvine, chairman, Jacob Tipton, Anderson B.
Carr, Marcus B. Winchester, Thomas D. Carr, and Ben-
jamin Willis, Jr.; Samuel R. Brown was sheriff; Thomas
Taylor, register; Alexander Ferguson, ranger; William
WEST TENNESSEE.
311
A. Davis, trustee; Gideon Carr, coroner; John P. Per-
kins, solicitor; William Bettis and William Dean, con-
stables. The first frame building was built for Benjamin
Fooy by Zaccheus Joiner, and was occupied by old Isaac
Rawlings. The first steamboat that landed at Memphis
was the Etna.
Weakley County was organized in 1823 with Dresden
as the county seat. Lauderdale was organized in 1836,
and was named in honor of Colonel James Lauderdale,
who fell at the battle of New Orleans. The first settle-
ment was made in the Key Corner by Benjamin Porter
and Henry Rutherford, who came in a flatboat from Rey-
noldsburgh in 1819-20. In 1789 Henry Rutherford, a
son of General Griffith Rutherford, had been employed
by certain North Carolina landholders to locate their
grants. He descended the Cumberland to the Forked
Deer, and then went up that stream until he came to high
land, where the Cole Creek Bluffs are intersected by the
former stream. Landing here, Rutherford made a mark
in the shape of a key on a sycamore tree as a starting
point. From this the whole section of country of which
Tipton, Dyer, Haywood, Lauderdale were parts, was
known as the" Key Corner Settlements." In this region.
Crockett attained his celebrity as a bear hunter. A son
of Benjamin Porter, named Benjamin T. Porter, was born,
lived, and died in the same house.¹ The change in the
territorial limits of counties is strikingly illustrated by
the fact that he lived successively in three counties. Rip-
ley was laid off as the county seat of Lauderdale County.
Obion County was organized in 1824 at the house of W.
M. Wilson. Since then, Benton, Decatur, Crockett, and
Lake have been established.
1 There is a conflict of authority as regards the first name of Por-
ter. One account gives it as David T., and his father's name as
David.

CHAPTER XXX.
MEMPHIS.

MEMPHIS Occupies a geographical position that thrusts
upon it a peculiar prominence, which only those familiar
with the Mississippi River can appreciate. The stranger
who first sees Memphis from the deck of a steamboat
readily understands the cause which has madle it one of
the leading cities of the Southwest. Hundreds of miles
below the Chickasaw Bluffs is a highly interesting but
rarely broken series of forests, canebrakes, sandbars, and
masses of willow trees. The muddy waters of the river,
when at a low stage, lap the crumbling banks that yearly
change as they yield to new deflections off the current.
When the spring floods come, however, the banks disap-
pear, and the water pours over the low marshy land for
miles back. It has been found necessary to run embank-
ments practically parallel with the current in order to con-
fine the waters of the river in its channel. Even where the
banks are above high water mark, they are of a treacherous
sandy soil, and at any moment the constant working of the
current may cause, not square yards, but acres of land to
disappear beneath the flood. The same conditions exist
above Memphis, except that on the Tennessee side the over-
flow is not so wide-spread. For purposes, of habitation the
difference is not great. From Cairo to Memphis but
three eligible places exist where a city might have been
built. These are the so-called Chickasaw Bluffs. These
bluffs differ from ordinary banks, both in their height
above the river and in the fact that the same formation

MEMPHIS.
313
runs back into the country, forming a kind of plateau
suitable for all the purposes of civilized habitation.
There are in all four bluffs which still bear the name
of the original owners, the Chickasaws. Memphis stands
upon the fourth. The four Chickasaw Bluffs have a his-
tory which reaches back to the earliest days of American
colonial history. They played an important part in the
political history of three great European powers. Here
was the centre of the history of a people who, long since
banished, have attained prosperity and enlightenment in
the wilds of the far West. The Chickasaws were one
of the great tribes, perhaps the greatest. Their country
extended through what is now Mississippi to Natchez. It
is a conjecture that De Soto crossed the Mississippi River
at these bluffs. If so, the Casique or head man of the
tribe of Indians who opposed his passage had his seat of
government at Memphis. More than one hundred years
later La Salle, desiring to enter into amicable relations
with the aboriginal inhabitants along the banks, was
forced by geographical considerations to build his fort
here. He gave it the name of Prud'homme. This was
probably in 1682. In 1714 the successor of Prud'homme
was built by the French, Fort Assumption. About this
time the centre of the Chickasaw government appears to
have been transferred to the region of country in which
were the Chickasaw Old Fields in North Mississippi. For
reasons by no means difficult to explain, the Chickasaws,
in the contest between the French and English for the
possession of the Mississippi valley, always favored the
latter. The cause of this preference was that they saw
a great deal of the French and very little of the English.
In 1739 Fort Assumption was seized by the French for
the double purpose of avenging a previous defeat and of
exterminating the tribe whose stubborn vindictiveness was
an obstacle in the way of the French plan of uniting the
North and the South by a cordon of forts. The attempt

314
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
i
miscarried, and the expedition, worn away by sickness
and deadly epidemics, returned to Natchez, Canada, and
New Orleans. After Fort Assumption came Fort San
Ferdinando de Barancas, built by the Spanish governor-
general, as a move in his desperate attempt to build up
the great Southwestern Empire of North America. Dur-
ing the war between France and Spain, in 1794, the Span-
iards seized the Chickasaw Bluffs, previously abandoned
by them. Washington, who was president, at once pro-
tested, “The act of the Spaniards in taking possession
of the Chickasaw Bluffs is an unwarrantable aggression,
as well against the United States as the Chickasaws, to
whom the land belongs.'
As soon as the United States came into possession of
the Mississippi valley, General Pike immediately occu-
pied the old Spanish fort. Several years later General
Wilkinson took command. He at once dismantled Fort
San Fernandino at the mouth of Wolf River, and built
Fort Pickering lower down, naming it in honor of Tim-
othy Pickering. The local designation of Fort Pickering
remains to this day, having been kept alive by various
attempts to make it a rival of Memphis. The fourth
Chickasaw Bluffs are about ten miles north of the south-
ern boundary of the State of Tennessee, and hence lay
within the grant of Charles II. to Clarendon and his as-
sociates. This was also claimed by the French and the
Spanish in turn, and was within the limits of the Crozat
grant of Louis XIV. Even so late as 1763, when the
treaty of Paris was made, the boundary lines of Louisiana
and Florida were not definitely known. The purchase
of Louisiana from Bonaparte in 1803 settled all questions.
of boundaries, in so far as Tennessee was concerned, be-
tween the United States and foreign countries, and left the
Indian alone to be dealt with. By the treaty of October
19, 1818, made by General Andrew Jackson and General
Shelby with the Indians, all of the land north of latitude

MEMPHIS.
315
35° and east of the Mississippi River was ceded by the
Chickasaws. This settled the southern boundary line of
the State According to the terms of the original grants,
the constitution of North Carolina, the cession of the
Southwestern Territory to the United States, and the con-
stitution of Tennessee, the 35° of latitude was to be the
boundary line of Tennessee.
By a strange coincidence the territorial limits of the
Memphis region of country have always been in doubt,
and the struggles between Spain, France, England, and
the United States find a parallel in the contests which
were long waged by the earlier settlers and proprietors.
In March, 1819, James Brown, an old surveyor who sur-
vived the war between the States, extended the southern
boundary line of Tennessee, beginning at the northwest
corner of the State of Alabama. The line ran to the
lower end of President's Island, about four miles below
Fort Pickering. A few months later the official line was
run by General James Winchester. About 1832, when
Memphis had become a prosperous village, the Indian
chiefs in North Mississippi became dissatisfied with the
Winchester state line, claiming that it had been falsely
run. It was many years before the line was again run.
It was long supposed by those who did not live there,
that the new town was in Mississippi. As late as 1832
Memphis is spoken of as "a town in the northwestern
angle of Mississippi, upon a high bluff which used to
be called Fort Pickering."1 The people of Mississippi
claimed the town with zealous enthusiasm for several
years. To settle the dispute an engineer was appointed to
take new observations in accordance with which the line
was run. One of the Tennessee commissioners was Judge
Austin Miller of Bolivar. It was discovered that the
real line of the 35° of north latitude was about four miles
farther south than the Winchester line. This settled the

¹ Encyclopedia Americana.

316
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
question in a manner altogether unexpected by those who
had raised it.
When the town of Memphis and the county of Shelby
were first organized, the virgin wilderness bore scarcely a
trace of the human hand. The foundations of both city
and county were laid under the shadows and around the
roots of forest trees and in the midst of tangled under-
growth. The old block-house still stood in Fort Picker-
ing and a few straggling "shanties" clustered around a
large and primitive structure known as the Public Ware-
house, sometimes called Young's Warehouse, in the neigh-
borhood of Wolf River. Between these two were thick
canebrakes and a heavy and luxuriant growth of timber
through which a narrow footpath ran from Fort Pickering
to Wolf River. A wolf tax of six and one fourth cents
was levied in Shelby County in 1822. At this time the
only semblance of a road leading to the Chickasaw Bluffs
from the interior was the so-called Cherokee Trace.
trail ran from the bluffs to the Chickasaw Old Fields in
North Mississippi, where it connected with the Great
Natchez Trace. The chief avenues of ingress were the
Mississippi River and its tributaries, the chief means of
transportation, flatboats, pirogues, and broad-horns.
A
Memphis properly begins with the Rice and Ramsey
grants. John Rice was an energetic trader of the earlier
days of Tennessee history, and even so early as 1780
made trips to Natchez and New Orleans. During one of
these trips his attention was attracted by the advantages
offered by a high and accessible bluff to river commerce.
In 1783, with shrewd foresight, he entered in John Arm-
strong's office at Hillsboro, North Carolina, 5,000 acres of
the best land on the bluffs. Having obtained his war-
rant, the survey was made in 1786. The price paid was
ten pounds for every 100 acres. In 1791 John Rice was
killed near the present site of Clarksville. His will be-
queathed his brother, Elisha Rice, this grant. In 1794

MEMPHIS.
317
John Overton bought from Elisha his interest in this
grant for the sum of five hundred dollars and immediately
transferred one undivided one half to Andrew Jackson.
But there existed still another and equally important
grant of land upon the great bluffs known as the Ramsey
Grant. In 1783 John Ramsey entered a tract of 5,000
acres of the North Carolina western lands. The year fol-
lowing a warrant was issued to him. Some time subse-
quent to this he assigned a small interest in this warrant
to John Overton, and in 1823 grant No. 190 was issued
to John Ramsey and John Overton, for a certain 5,000
acre tract of land, beginning at the southwest corner of
John Rice's 5,000 acres, on the banks of the Mississippi
River. The Rice grant was registered in the recorder's
office of Shelby County in 1820, but for some reason never
satisfactorily explained the Ramsey grant was not recorded
until 1872. The date of Ramsey's death is not definitely
known. His will has never been recorded in Shelby
County and his title to property which is worth millions
of dollars has never been extinguished by any deed or
written instrument known to the law of Tennessee.¹

1
In 1819 a law was passed by the Tennessee legislature
for the laying off of the lands just acquired from the In-
dians, into ranges, townships, and sections. Grants ob-
tained from North Carolina were to be reserved — all the
rest was to be thrown open to sale.
In January, 1819, John Overton, Andrew Jackson, and
James Winchester, the proprietors of the Rice grant, en-
tered into an agreement to lay off a town on the Rice
tract. In May of the same year, the first conveyance of
a lot in Memphis was made. The town, therefore, had
its birth some time in the early part of 1819. The origin
of the name is not remote when we consider that the an-
cient city of the Pharaohs also stood upon the banks of a
1 His will is said to be of record in Chatham County, North Caro-
lina.
318
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
great river that in many respects resembles the Missis-
sippi. In a description of Memphis published in a Phil-
adelphia paper in 1820, the Mississippi River is called
the American Nile. To the Memphian of the present,
who sees about him the activity, the enterprise, the broad
streets, the huge buildings that indicate a large and pros-
perous city, the contrast between the two, so far separated
by time and distance, is not so striking. But for many
years it was a subject of ridicule to those who saw but a
few straggling houses perched upon the bluffs. Samuel
Lover satirizes the name in an invocation to the Shades
of Pisostris.
The new town was laid off some time in 1819 on the
Rice grant, and at the time the contest which subsequently
arose between the owners of the two grants in reference
to the boundary line did not exist. Some years later,
when Overton had the Rice grant again laid off according
to the survey of 1786, the question came up for settle-
ment. Overton discovered to his mortification that by be-
ginning about one mile below the mouth of Wolf River,
according to the terms of his grant, the most attractive and
finely situated body of land on the entire bluffs lay beyond.
his limits. John Rice, in selecting the mouth of Wolf
River as a determining point, left out of consideration or
was ignorant of the variations which take place in the
currents and banks of all streams which run through allu-
vial soil. In 1786 Wolf River flowed into the Missis-
sippi at a point at least one half mile lower down than it
did in 1819. The exact point cannot now be determined
but it was probably between Jefferson and Adams streets.
The plat made at the time of the original survey, repre-
sents the banks of the Mississippi south of Wolf River
as running in a decidedly southwestern direction and out
into the space which is now under water. As a result,
Wolf River was forced inland until it) struck the base of
the bluffs, along which it skirted for a short distance until
MEMPHIS.
319
its waters broke into the current of the Mississippi. At
this time there was a batture about the mouth of Wolf
River not unlike that which now exists except that it ex-
tended farther out and lower down. In 1819 this had
been swallowed up by the Mississippi, and the banks
south of Wolf River had greatly caved and pushed the
mouth of the smaller stream upwards. The mile below
the mouth of Wolf River as it was in 1786 and in 1819
made a vast difference in the quality of the tract of land
conveyed by the Rice grant, and the owners were anxious
to establish the fact of the change. Naturally the Ramsey
grant people were anxious that the mouth of 1819 — the
Rice grant people, that the mouth of 1786- should be
taken. The former proved, among others, by the testi-
mony of Jesse Benton, that there had been no change
since 1819. The latter proved that previous to that date
there had been a change of debouchement. Benjamin
Fooy, who had been living on the Chickasaw Bluffs or
on the opposite side of the Mississippi River since 1795,
swore that it was three hundred yards higher up. The
southwestern point of the Rice grant was eventually fixed
at or near the point where Beal Street runs into the river.
From there it runs east and a little north as Beal Street
diverges from a straight line.
The description of the Ramsey grant called for the
meanders of the Mississippi in establishing the western
line, but strange to say in the Rice grant no mention is
made of the Mississippi at all. In the original plat, a
waving line was made where the Mississippi River should
have been called for. This was the source of great
trouble and dissension to the future citizens, and played
an important part in the litigation which ensued after the
formation of the so-called mud-bar in front of Memphis
in the thirties.
Among the first steps taken by the new projectors of
Memphis was to give deeds of gift to some of the old set-
320
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
tlers for the purpose of making a beginning of the town
and from charitable motives. Lots were thus given to
Peggy Grace" in consideration of the long residence of
old Mr. Grace at the Chickasaw Bluffs." Pat Meagher
was also given a lot. On the 22d of May, 1819, the pro-
prietors entered into an agreement with John Henry
Fooy, son of Judge Benjamin Fooy, to convey to him any
lot he might select in the town then being laid off, on con-
dition that said lot be purchased by Fooy or his agent at
the public sale of the first lots sold. Fooy selected lot
No. 53, on the corner of Mississippi Row (Front Row)
and Sycamore Street. It is not known what fabulous
price he may have ostensibly given for his lot, but he set
an example which has found successful imitation even in
our own day. The lot, however, brought him no good
and was ultimately involved in litigation.
The number of lots sold at this public sale was very
small, but Overton was by no means discouraged. With
wise foresight the proprietors looked to the future for
their reward, and they laid the foundations for a large
superstructure. In one respect alone did they calculate
falsely. They laid off into streets and squares too small
a portion of their land. They expected Memphis, when
it had grown to be a great city, to be as densely populated
as the cities of Europe. They failed to make allowance
for the spacious habitation which the American demands.
This is the reason why the upper portion of the town is
so evenly laid off whilst the suburbs are but little more
regular than Boston itself.
They laid off four squares for public purposes, Court,
Exchange, Market, and Auction squares.
The prom-
enade, subsequently the cause of violent dissensions, was
laid off on the bluff, and was designed for a public pleas-
ure ground. A burying-ground was laid off north of
Poplar Street which was, for the first decade, the south-
ern limit of the new town. The strip of land fronting
MEMPHIS.
321
the river and running from Jackson Street to where the
Bayou empties into Wolf River was made a public land-
ing, the ferry privileges, as it was afterwards asserted,
being reserved.
The first feeble steps towards the making of a town
have been partially preserved in the records of the court
of pleas and quarter sessions. In May, 1820, Joseph
James was allowed to keep an ordinary or house of en-
tertainment in "the town of Memphis." Thomas H.
Parsons, Charles Holman, Joshua Fletcher, M. B. Win-
chester, John C. McLemore and William Irvine were
appointed a jury of review to mark out the best and near-
est route for a road from the town of Memphis to the
county line in the direction of Taylor's settlement situated
on Forked Deer. William Irvine is allowed to keep a
ferry across the Mississippi. At the August term of the
same year patrolmen are appointed for the county, among
the number being Russell Bean, the first born of Tennes-
see and the hero of the Jackson anecdote. Three indict-
ments are found at the same term of court, one of them
against Paddy Meagher for retailing spirits. Paddy, prob-
ably having no exculpatory evidence, set the precedent for
a long line of equally shrewd successors in that he disarmed
judicial severity by pleading guilty and throwing himself
upon the mercy of the court. It may have been that his
offense was not regarded as a decided departure from the
straight path, or the value of money may have been at a
great premium, for he was only fined one dollar and costs.
It was also ordered at this term that Thomas Carr be
authorized and empowered to contract with some working-
man to build and erect a temporary log court-house,
jury-room, and jail on Market Square in the town of Mem-
phis. One hundred and seventy-five dollars were appro-
priated for erecting the same. The May term in 1821
was held in the court-house in the town of Memphis.
This was a building procured instead of the one ordered
322
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
to be built at a previous term of the court, since the order
itself was rescinded.
At the May term in 1822 commissioners were appointed
to lay off and establish a public road from Memphis to
the settlement on Big Creek and Loosa Hatchie and
thence to the Forked Deer River. One of these commis-
sioners was Jesse Benton, the brother of Thomas H. Ben-
ton and the implacable foe of Andrew Jackson, whose
name at this time was frequently mentioned in connection
with the presidency of the United States. Jesse qualified
as justice of the peace at this same term of court. Com-
missioners were also appointed to lay off a road to R. G.
Thornton's settlement on Wolf River, thence to Fowler's
Ferry on Big Hatchie. In August, 1823, the court ap-
pointed a venire for the circuit court to be held for the
first time in Memphis on the fourth Monday of October.
When the court of pleas and quarter sessions met in
1825 a change of the county seat was not contemplated
by the members of the court as a bare possibility even.
Memphis had been actually laid off, and although the num-
ber of inhabitants was not large, improvements of a sub-
stantial nature had been made. But the overwhelming
advantage which the Memphis of to-day has over the Ra-
leigh of to-day did not exist at that time. There were no
roads and no railroads, and the bulk of the interior com-
merce was carried on upon the inland streams, Hatchie,
Wolf, Nonconnah, and others. When, therefore, a plan
was made for the transfer of the county seat from Mem-
phis to a point some miles inland upon a branch of Wolf
River, it was very far from being even remotely as pre-
posterous as such a scheme would now seem. The state
legislature having appointed commissioners to fix the seat
of justice in the counties west of the Tennessee River,
the county court of Shelby County, whilst in session, were
startled by a report signed by James Fentress, Benjamin
Reynolds, William Martin, and Robert Jetton, stating
MEMPHIS.
323
that they had located the seat of justice for the county
of Shelby on Sandelin's Bluff on the north bank of Wolf
River.
The details of this plot, for such tradition tells us it
was, have been lost. We only know that it excited vigor-
ous opposition among those who had purchased lots in
Memphis and especially among the proprietors. It was
most likely a blow aimed at them. The court appointed
commissioners to obtain a perfect title to the lands for the
new county site, lay off a town, and advertise and sell the
lots according to law. Among the commissioners were
Robert Fearne, a pronounced enemy of the proprietors.
In January, 1827, $555 was appropriated for the building
of the court-house at Raleigh.
It
The change of the county seat had no ill effect upon
the growth of Memphis - perhaps the contrary.
caused an increase in the area of cultivation, and added
to the means of communication. A firm entitled James
Brown & Co. started a line of post coaches drawn by four
horses between Memphis and Raleigh, which was soon
extended to Somerville.
The chief street in the new town was Winchester, and
the central point was at first Anderson's Bridge. Gayoso
Bayou, now dry except for occasional puddles and the
last rain, was then a running stream, the water of which
was clear and pure. (On the map of 1827 it is called
Gayoso Creek.)
In 1824 the three firms who carried on the business
of the city were Winchester and Carr, Henderson and
Fearne, subsequently Lawrence and Fearne, and Isaac
Rawlings. The leading spirits in the new community
were M. B. Winchester and Isaac Rawlings. The latter
had a store at Anderson's Bridge which was the camping
ground for Indians and in-coming emigrant trains. As
long as this class of trade was most lucrative, Rawlings
thrived. But Winchester, a late arrival, had a decided
324
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
advantage, having been made postmaster as soon as the
town was well under way. He built what was at that
time the finest house in Memphis on Front Row just be-
low Jackson Street. He also made roads streets were
out of the question which rendered both the landing
place on the Mississippi River and his own place of busi-
ness more accessible. When the flat-boat trade became
the source of commercial prosperity, and especially after
the disappearance of the Indians, Winchester became the
leading merchant of the town.
These two men are interesting figures in the history of
Memphis, not merely because they were present at the
founding of the city, but also because they represented
the two opposing tendencies which in turn have had such
a powerful effect upon its development. Rawlings was
a man of cautious temperament, suspicious of innovation,
well satisfied with the existing order of things unless
working to his disadvantage, adverse to change, rough,
blunt, and without mental discipline or cultivation. Win-
chester had a quick mind, a clear judgment, a spirit of
restless inquiry, ever eager for advancement, constantly
in search of improved methods, prone to be led astray by
theories and abstractions, refined, well educated in books
as well as in knowledge of the world, lacking only a leaven
of the practical common sense that was the distinguish-
ing feature in the character of his rival. Rawlings was
conservative; Winchester was liberal. Their commercial
rivalry was not diminished by the fact that Rawlings was
a Whig and Winchester a Democrat. Rawlings had once
been a sutler in Jackson's army, and had been at the
bluffs longer than any one then living. He was among
the first appointed magistrates. He predicted the failure
of the effort to make a city on the Chickasaw Bluffs.
His attitude of antagonism was perhaps confirmed by his
rivalry with Winchester. His vanity, which was remark-
ably robust, received daily blows from the decrease of his
MEMPHIS.
325
importance as his rivals in trade grew more numerous and
successful. After a time he began to realize that, con-
trary to his predictions, Memphis was growing, and in-
deed rapidly. He determined to change his site, and
bought a lot of ground on an alley which subsequently,
through his intercession, became Commerce Street, and
built him a store, with many muttered revilings against
the folly of people and their fondness for new things.
But the current of trade had set towards Winchester and
could not be changed. There is a tradition that Raw-
lings marked the price on his goods, and in spite of all
competition and the general decrease of prices refused to
sell under his marks. It was said he had on hand at the
time of his death goods purchased years before.
In 1826 Memphis was made an incorporated town by
the action of the legislature, although the limits of the
new corporation were not defined. When the news
reached Memphis there was a general outburst of alarm.
and indignation, especially from those most hostile to the
proprietors. One of the characteristics of Memphis is
the readiness with which it vents its spleen in an indigna-
tion meeting. The first of a long series was held when
the news of the incorporation came. The presiding of-
ficer was Isaac Rawlings. But the meeting developed the
unexpected fact that those most violently opposed to the
incorporation were those who lived farthest from the cen-
tre of business. It was therefore proposed that these
should be left out. The change as suggested was adopted
by the meeting. It was discovered when too late that the
land left out belonged almost entirely to the proprietors,
who were thus the chief beneficiaries.¹
1 The only authority I have been able to find for this episode is
the author of the Early History of Memphis, James D. Davis. It
may be and probably is largely apocryphal. Davis says that the
change of boundary by which the complainants were left out of the
city limits was ratified by the legislature. I can find nothing in the
326
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
>
According to the terms of the charter, seven aldermen
were elected, who in turn were to elect one of their num-
ber mayor. Winchester was postmaster at the time of
the passage of the new charter, but he was immediately
chosen mayor. Perhaps no better proof of his reputation
for strict integrity and unbiased fairness could be given
than this. Though looking after the interests of those
who were regarded as the natural enemies of the inhabit-
ants of Memphis, he was yet chosen to the office having
at the time most influence over their immediate welfare.
During Winchester's second term of office, the corporate
powers of Memphis were increased.
Among other changes was a restriction which prohibited
the mayor from holding a federal office. Winchester re-
fused to resign his postmastership. This opened the way
for Isaac Rawlings, who succeeded him in March, 1829.
This singular and almost grotesque figure made one of
the best mayors who ever presided over Memphis from
M. B. Winchester to D. P. Hadden. He was long known
as the model mayor. Rawlings was vain, stubborn, self-
willed, and imperious, impatient of contradiction and con-
servative to a fault. But he was also honest, clear-minded,
law-abiding, determined to be obeyed, and economical.
He took the duties of his position in earnest, and rigor
ously enforced the law, preserved order, looked after the
disbursement of the public funds with scrupulous care,
and was remarkably energetic. His prejudice against the
city appeared to die away after his exercise of power.
He served two terms, from March, 1829, to March, 1831,
retired for two years, was reëlected in 1833, and served
three successive terms until 1836. He was a candidate
for the Constitutional Convention of 1834, but it was dur-
ing the height of Jacksonian Democracy and he was de-
feated. His last appearance was almost dramatic. Hav-
records to justify the statement. There was probably some founda-
tion for the tradition, as Davis wrote from memory.
MEMPHIS.
327
ing weathered the storm of Democratic ascendency for
many long years, he had himself carried in an easy-chair
to cast his last vote for Harrison and Tyler. He was
suffering from a mortal disease, and waited eagerly but
confidently for news of the election. When it came he
remarked, "Now I can die happy," and very shortly
afterwards expired.
From 1820 to about 1833 Memphis was still an experi-
ment. The natural advantages which it then possessed
belonged in an almost equal degree to Fort Pickering
below and Randolph above. There was as yet no white
population in Arkansas and Mississippi to draw together
the nucleus of a town as a depot of supplies. The region
which was inhabited was that which stretched back towards
Jackson and the Big Hatchie country, and for the pur-
poses of navigation and trade Randolph was not less con-
venient than Memphis. That Memphis became the city
and not either Fort Pickering or Randolph is due mainly
to the wisdom of one man, John Overton. The other pro-
prietors exercised merely a passive ownership. The terms
upon which Overton conveyed one half of the Rice grant
to Andrew Jackson are not known. But the latter dis-
posed of his interest long years before the dream of Over-
ton, which dated from his purchase of Rice's land in 1794,
began to be realized. Jackson sold to John C. McLemore,
in 1823, his last remaining interest (one eighth) in the
grant. The other three he had already sold to the Win-
chester brothers. The fact that he had an interest in the
Rice grant was made the cause of much severe criticism
at the time of the treaty in 1818. Those who had already
settled on the Chickasaw Bluffs, especially a few of his
old soldiers, expected to have their rights recognized,
some of them having purchased from the Indians. These
lost sight of the fact that the Rice grant had already been
surveyed and located. In order to spare himself these
criticisms, for at this time he was no longer in pecuniary
328
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
stress, he sold his interest to John C. McLemore. The
other proprietors were, besides Overton, who still had his
one half, William Winchester, who owned one eighth, and
Gen. James Winchester, who owned one eighth in his own
right and one eighth as trustee for the children of a de-
ceased brother. William Lawrence and M. B. Winches-
ter were agents of the original proprietors. The final
division of unsold lots took place in 1829. But during all
the time that Memphis was still an experiment, John
Overton was the only one of the proprietors who did any-
thing to advance its interests, and he did everything.
From the first he had looked into the future far as human
could see, and he had literally seen all the visions of the
world and the wonders that should be. He not only
foresaw the future of the Chickasaw Bluffs as a city, but
he also appreciated the minor consequences that would
flow from founding a city there, and turned them to his
own advantage. He exercised the minutest care in per-
fecting his title. He not only bought the Rice grant from
Elisha Rice, but also obtained quitclaim deeds from all
possible distributees in case no will existed. The reason
of this was that John Rice's will, though in his own hand-
writing, was not attested.
ness.
Overton possessed neither brilliancy of mind nor strik-
ing greatness of character, but he was a man of singularly
sterling qualities and had a remarkable aptitude for busi-
He possessed in a fortunate degree that peculiar
combination of practical caution and liberal temerity that
alone carries great undertakings to a successful termina-
tion. Having foreseen what was coming for Memphis, he
mapped out in really a marvelous manner the line of its
development. He devised the general policy which con-
trolled the proprietors in their dealings with the inhabit-
ants. It was his eye that watched with microscopic care
every point, and it was his ingenuity that turned it to the
advantage of the infant town. He used his influence
:
MEMPHIS.
329
with the general government to secure the establishment
of a mail stage-route from Memphis to other points. The
commercial contest between Memphis and Randolph was
decided in favor of the former by several factors, one of
the chief of which was the line of tri-weekly mail stage-
coaches from the East to Memphis by the way of Nash-
ville, Charlotte, Reynoldsburg, Jackson, Bolivar, and
Somerville, which the postmaster-general established at
the intercession of Overton in 1829. After Jackson be-
came president, he also succeeded in having a weekly mail,
carried on horseback, established between Jackson and
Memphis by way of Brownsville, Covington, and Randolph.
When a hospital is to be built he is ready to furnish the
ground free of charge, but he uses his generosity as a
means of preventing its being built in a wrong place.
When a possible purchaser goes to Memphis, he writes to
Winchester, "Make him pleased with the place by polite.
attentions." One of the most active opponents of the
proprietors was Fearne. Fearne's partner was Robert, a
brother of William Lawrence. Overton advocated mak-
ing Robert joint agent with William in order to soften
Fearne's opposition. When the town was fairly on its legs,
he remitted none of his care, and his letters, even during
this period, were filled with minute directions as regards
the laying of corner-stones, the grading of streets, the
opening of alleys, the laying off of graveyards and the
like. As a matter of course he was a friend of Jackson.
But he was ever anxious for Memphis to emphasize the
part that it also was Jackson's friend. He, as all other
friends of Jackson, knew that these things did them no
harm with the imperious old soldier. When the "Globe ”
was started at Washington, he wrote to Winchester, send-
ing him a copy, and requesting him to procure half a dozen
subscribers from among the friends of the administration.
"Tell your editor Phœbus to get the paper and extract
from it fully, for rest assured it is and will be ably con-
ノ
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HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
ducted." The next sentence has a touch of unconscious
irony. "Besides, in these intriguing corrupt times, it is
absolutely necessary for the support of correct principles."
When Van Buren is rejected by the Senate he wants an
indignation meeting held in Memphis. Hearing that a
majority of the people of Memphis will vote for Crockett
for Congress, he is filled with indignation. "But for the
present administration, it would not have risen as it has.
Don't your citizens sometimes think of this? What ad-
ministration was it made it the great road leading east
and west throughout the United States to Mexico by the
establishment of three stages a week, besides speaking
of it as it deserves? Is there no consideration of these
things? Besides giving the public printing of the United
States to the editor of your newspaper?"
In 1833 the postmaster-general makes Memphis a dis-
tributing point. While in the North he hears that a Clay
organ is about to be established in Memphis. He is even
told by those who watch affairs minutely that Winchester
himself, though a federal office holder, is not in high favor
with the administration. He is suspected of secret lean-
ings towards the corrupt enemies of good government,
namely, the Whigs. He tells Winchester plainly that the
enemy of an administration so capable of doing a small
town injury and the agent for the proprietors cannot be
the same person.
He subscribes liberally for the estab
lishment of a newspaper. As the various suits involving
his proprietory interests arise, he attends to them in all
their details with unflagging interest. He is an unweary-
ing letter-writer. His style is charming by reason of its
clear, direct simplicity and pure, wholesome English. He
has a trick of at times repeating his words that accom-
plishes the purpose of emphasis admirably. In one letter
he says, “I pray you
“I pray you — I pray you, look after this. In
another he writes, "Do not, I beseech you, do not let
this be known." Being old and garrulous, towards the
>>
MEMPHIS.
331
last he writes very long and reiterative letters, but always
clear, full of eminently judicious advice and suggestion.
In addition to the difficulty which besets all new
towns, Memphis labored under an unusual and decided
disadvantage in the feeling of antagonism that existed on
the part of the inhabitants against the proprietors. This
feeling of hostility was a well-recognized fact. Overton,
in 1831, says: "Particularly where the people have mani-
fested so much hostility as those about Memphis have."
As a rule the inhabitants were wrong. Those who came
in at first, generally, had no money. They bought lots on
long time, and were rarely able to meet the first payment.
From 1819 to 1829, when the first era of decided prosper-
ity set in, the inhabitants rather regarded themselves as
patrons of the proprietors whom they were accommodat-
ing by living in their town. Overton had seen to it that
the new town was well advertised. So early as 1820 the
"Portfolio" of Philadelphia published a long and glow-
ing account of it. Inducements were held out to bona
fide settlers. Long leases were frequently given to those
who would clear the soil and build cabins on it. A typical
lease is one made to Samuel Gibson. Overton leased to
him the place on which he was living for the term of six
years from January, 1826, on the following conditions:
He was to clear and cultivate at least thirty acres of land,
build a good log cabin, plant out and take care of one
hundred fruit trees to be furnished by Overton. He was
to leave about ten acres of woodland around the spring.
The timber outside the clearing is only to be used for the
improvement of the place. At the end of said term of
six years, Gibson is to return the said place to Overton in
good farming order and well fenced.
In 1826 a newspaper was established at Memphis, to
which the proprietors, at the instigation of Overton, sub-
scribed liberally. This was Thomas Phoebus's "Memphis
Advocate." The chief business of the "Advocate" was
332
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
to urge the claims of General Jackson for the presidency,
and to call universal and unceasing attention to the pecul-
iar advantages offered by Memphis to settlers. These
were both themes agreeable to Overton, and he wrote a
great deal for the new paper. Those who came in answer
to such direct invitations as those contained in the Mem-
phis papers felt as if they were going rather upon the
judgment of the proprietors than for their own satisfac-
tion. One of the main causes of discord was the cutting
of timber. On this point, Overton was particularly sen-
sitive. When it became necessary, the inhabitants, in a
manner very far from clandestine, cut down and used for
fuel the trees most conveniently situated near them.
Winchester wrote the proprietors that he was helpless to
stay the destruction. Overton, who could be bitter as well
as prudent, wrote to him that the destruction must be
stopped. He advised hiring a man by the month to guard
the woodland. He also directed Winchester to hire teams,
and as soon as the wood was cut by the depredators, to
haul it to town and sell it. Public sentiment eventually
corrected the evil.
But soon a new element of discord was thrust between
the inhabitants and the proprietors, involving greater in-
terests than the loss of timber. The origin of this went
back to the time when the town was first laid off and cer-
tain tracts of land designated for public purposes. The
Promenade was the broad strip of land between Missis-
sippi Row (now Front Row) and the river. A part of
this is now occupied by the custom-house. This had been
intended for a public promenade or park. The bluffs at
that time ran out to the river, not having been cut away
to make a wharf or cut through by streets. There was
no way of getting to the river from the lower part of the
town. The growing flat-boat and steamboat trade of the
now thriving little town rendered it difficult to get along
without a landing lower than Jackson Street. At this
MEMPHIS.
333
juncture it was proposed that the city should take the
responsibility of cutting a street through the promenade.
Having been appropriated for public purposes, of course
it could be disposed of as best suited the public. This
stated the case from the standpoint of the citizens. Over-
ton, returning from New Orleans and landing at Memphis
in 1828, found the street already cut. He at once ad-
dressed a protest to his agents. This was the beginning
of the entanglement that was not ended till nearly twenty
years later. The fact that the promenade was directly
upon the river added a disturbing element to the contest.
The privileges were becoming valuable, and these of course
went with the ownership of the land. It is possible that
these questions would have been amicably settled had not
the Mississippi River in one of its freaks injected a still
more perplexing and discordant factor. This was the cel-
ebrated batture or mud-bar which, like Aaron's serpent,
swallowed up the rest.
In 1828 the water of the Mississippi River was higher
than ever known before. One of the inevitable results of
high water is that it completes changes already begun by
the action of the current in ordinary years, and begins
changes which perhaps would not otherwise begin for
many years. From 1786 to 1828 the mouth of Wolf
River had been going steadily up stream. Previous to
1811, the year of the great earthquake, the mouth of Wolf
River had been about the foot of Jefferson and Adams
streets. Around and above it was a bar. Upon this bar
the Indians had at one time built cabins, and in 1782
Benjamin Fooy, by command of Governor Gayoso, had
here quartered Spanish troops. He cleared a few acres
of the willow and cottonwood growth that covered it, and
raised corn. The Indians had also at one time a quarter
mile track upon which they tested the speed of their
ponies. The bank north of the mouth of Wolf River ran
in a northwesterly direction, and was at that time con-
334
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
stantly washed by the action of the current. The earth-
quake of 1811 is supposed to have created changes which
sent the current of the river against this bar. It soon dis-
appeared, and for many years the narrow strip of ground
above Jackson Street was the only landing above Fort
Pickering. According to the statement of Jesse Benton,
a north course from the point of intersection of the Mis-
sissippi and Wolf rivers in 1786 would run over what was
the current of the Mississippi in 1821. This shows very
clearly, if correct, that the Mississippi above North Mem-
phis had at one time been much farther west than it was
before 1811, that it had worked its way towards the east,
bending into the country above Wolf River, and had then
again shifted its bed towards the west where it now is.
It is now, and has been since 1828, about where it was in
1786. The overflow of 1828 caused the westward move-
ment and left a kind of bar or harbor at the mouth of
Wolf River, which was not in the direct flow of the current.
The rapid rush of a vast body of water by it, however,
created an eddy which in turn gradually formed, by the
settling of sediment, a hard and compact bit of earth.
This remains to this day and by municipal geographies is
called the navy yard. In the earlier days it was called
by the accurate and the polite, the batture. To the great
public, however, it was known only as the mud-bar. The
winter of 1831-32 is given as its historical date. It had
taken a little over three years to form, and the distinc-
tion of having discovered that it had formed is claimed by
James D. Davis, the author of the "Early History of
Memphis."
1
It is not going too far to say that a profound sensation
was created among the inhabitants of Memphis when the
1 Within the last few years, the current appears to have set in to-
wards the point as it did in or previous to 1811, and unless pre-
vented by the engineering skill of those who have the work in hand,
it is probable we shall have a repetition of the events of that year.
MEMPHIS.
335
formation of the mud-bar became known. Only those
who had recently arrived were ignorant of what a bar
meant, or of the difference between a sand-bar and a mud-
bar. The effect of the mud-bar upon the river commerce
was primarily bad, but ultimately good. The great ne-
cessity of a landing convenient for steamboats and acces-
sible for the citizens of Memphis caused various attempts.
to be made to remedy the damage done to navigation. A
wooden wharf was built by W. A. Bickford for a com-
pany from the foot of Winchester Street to the edge of
the mud-bar. In a few years, however, this proved futile.
The Memphis and La Grange Railroad agreed to build a
kind of earthen quay from the foot of Washington Street,
but failed. An attempt was made to run a wagon road
from Market Street diagonally across the bar, striking
the water at a point about opposite Poplar Street. This
was stopped by Winchester. It was then run straight
across from the foot of Market Street, but a change in
the river soon rendered this unserviceable.
For some months after the forming of the mud-bar, it
was a matter of hot discussion as to who owned it. But
no active steps were taken to settle the question. In May,
1834, the Supreme Court of Tennessee, in the case of the
Mayor and Aldermen of the City of Memphis v. Wright,
decided that the mayor and aldermen were the representa-
tives of the original proprietors and as such had vested in
them all the right to dispose of or apply to any use they
might think proper, the public promenade and squares
which existed in the proprietors originally. The lawyer
who represented Wright in this case, which had arisen in
reference to some ordinance affecting the river landing,
was R. C. McAlpin. In August of the same year, we
find him trying to induce the corporate authorities to
make a conveyance of the public promenade to trustees
for the benefit of the railroad. The question of right
was to be decided by an agreed case. This case appears
336
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
to have attracted McAlpin's attention to a new way of
settling the mud-bar case, and in this year we find McAl-
pin, John D. Martin, and several others laying their war-
rant on this geographical windfall, through the land of
fice of Colonel Tipton of Tipton County. W. D. Dabney
tried to obtain a warrant for a part of the river front that
was below the mud-bar, but the only claim of serious im-
portance was that of Martin and McAlpin and their as-
sociates. As soon as they obtained the grants they made
application to the county court for the right to establish a
ferry. The question of wharfage was left in abeyance for
the present. The ground upon which Martin and McAl-
pin based their claim was the fact that the Rice grant did
not call for the water's edge. The course given undoubt-
edly marked the meanders of the river as it had been
when originally surveyed. This the claimants admitted,
but contended that inasmuch as the course had been laid
down specifically, it would not shift with the river. The
western boundaries of the Rice grant, therefore, had been
left by the receding of the river, and new formations as a
result became the land of the State and as such could be
granted. The proprietors, on the other hand, contended
that the specifications of the grant called for the water's
edge, and, as a matter of fact, went to the channel of the
river. The phrase, "beginning one mile below the mouth
of Wolf River," could mean nothing else than beginning
on the bank of the Mississippi River. More than this,
the first line of the Rice grant had in some places actually
caved in, and although the alluvial deposit extended west
of where the line had been at one time, yet originally the
line, apart from the river meanders, had been farther west
than the western line of the bar just formed. More even
than this, the Rice tract had been processioned and resur-
veyed in 1820, and the certificate of the survey called for
the river's edge. These were the two sides of the ques-
tion as between the proprietors and the warrant holders.
MEMPHIS.
337
The city's claim involved the question of the promenade
as just mentioned. The details of the contest are not
only long and comparatively uninteresting, but had but
little effect upon the making of the city itself. When the
question of the ferry rights was brought before the su-
preme court, they decided that they belonged to the pro-
prietors and had never passed from their possession.
This somewhat disheartened the McAlpin claimants. At
this juncture the United States came forward and raised
a storm of laughter by proposing to buy a large part of
the mud-bar for a navy yard. The idea was first
broached in a letter published in the "National Intel-
ligencer" over the name of "Union Jack." When the
"Enquirer" of Memphis republished this letter it excited
among the clear-headed Memphians merely an expression.
of amusement. This was followed by other communica-
tions to the press signed "Harry Bluff," who was the cele-
brated Commodore Maury. Finally the plan began to
assume shape. In 1843 a committee of naval officers,
three in number, were sent to inspect the premises and es-
pecially to report on its fitness for a naval depot and
dockyard. The people of Memphis, with a shrewd eye to
the main chance, carried out Overton's idea of making
them pleased with the place by polite attentions. The
report was favorable, and it was decided to locate a navy
yard upon the mud-bar itself. This brought about a com-
promise between those who were contending for its owner-
ship. The proprietors submitted the following proposi-
tion: All parties should donate to the United States such
part of the bar as was necessary for the navy yard. The
rest should be sold and the proceeds divided in such man-
ner that the proprietors should receive one half, the city
one sixth and the warrant holders one third. The pro-
prietors agreed to give the space between Poplar and
Washington streets for a centre landing, and to allow all
cross streets and alleys to be extended across the prom-
338
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
enade to the water's edge. The question of wharfage was
to be submitted to the arbitration of three able jurists to
be selected by the governor of Kentucky. This proposi-
tion was accepted, and Seth Wheatley, whose glib tongue
had once defeated old Isaac Rawlings for the mayoralty,
was appointed trustee to carry it into effect. This
changed the popular name of the mud-bar to that of Com-
promise Addition to the city of Memphis, and was the end
of the contest between the city and the proprietors rela-
tive to the promenade and between all parties relative to
the ownership of the mud-bar.
The fate of the navy yard is soon told. It dragged its
slow length along for many years, beset on one hand by
unwillingness, on the other by incompetency. When the
question of sectional preference was injected into the de-
bate upon internal improvements, the Memphis navy yard
was at once flung into the face of the Southern members.
F. P. Stanton, the member from the Memphis district,
found it each year more difficult to obtain the necessary
appropriations for continuing the work in a proper man-
ner. Eventually the subject became a matter of jest.
Those whose untimely fate it was to be doomed to the
mud-bar of Memphis on the banks of a muddy inland
stream, whilst their companions were on the high seas en-
joying the tropical splendor of the East or loitering around
the beautiful bays and harbors of the Mediterranean, were
not reticent in expressions of disgust. They too ridiculed
the navy yard. A commission was sent by the navy de-
partment, who returning made an unfavorable report. At
length, in 1853, at the suggestion of ex-Governor James
C. Jones, at that time in the United States Senate, the
government cut the knot of its entanglement with the
Memphis mud-bar by donating it back to the city.
ment.
CHAPTER XXXI.
SOUTH MEMPHIS AND FORT PICKERING.
ONE of the peculiar manias which obtained in the early
days of Southwestern history was that of city-building.
A favorable location on a river bank, a railroad, and a
map of the city with streets laid off and a public outcry
of lots was supposed to constitute the necessary ingredi-
ents for the making of a town. The fundamental error
was prevalent that a city drew population. The necessary
antecedence of population was not known. Overton was
the solitary exception among those who made the experi-
He looked to the gradual growth of the surround-
ing country and a distant future. The law which directs.
the currents of city movements, and which acts slowly and
almost imperceptibly but surely upon the causes which
decide its fate, was entirely ignored. The undercurrent
of prejudice, of local preference, of pride, the apparent
shifting of the stream of population which, like that of
a river, is only indicated by its results, these and many
more determining factors were unknown to the city-ma-
ker's philosophy. One of this kind was Robert Fearne,
the wily and energetic intriguer, on whom Overton kept
a constant and suspicious eye. He originated and devel-
oped the South Memphis scheme, and so successfully that
his city eventually obtained a charter of incorporation,
though after his own disappearance from the scene. In
July, 1827, he issued a prospectus under his seal as pro-
prietor of a certain tract of land, in which he undertook
to accommodate himself to the wishes of many citizens.
340
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
The tract of land in question was 414 acres, being the
northern part of the Ramsey grant. His proposition was
to form a stock company under the name of the Memphis
Auxiliary Company. He was to issue eighty shares, re-
taining five himself and selling seventy-five. The stock-
holders were to appoint commissioners to attend to the
necessary details of surveying, selling, etc. In Septem-
ber, 1828, he made the agreed conveyance to five commis-
sioners. Here the project halted for many years. Some
of the commissioners left the State, among them Fearne
himself, and others refused to act. In 1838, after some
legislation, new commissioners were appointed who carried
out Fearne's original ideas. In 1846 the town of South
Memphis was incorporated by the legislature. Union
Street was the northern boundary of the new town. Sub-
sequently the southern line was extended to Jackson
Street to include Fort Pickering. Town officers were
elected. Sylvester Baily was elected mayor. There
were eight aldermen. This was the culmination of the
up-town and down-town rivalry which characterized the
history of those days.
When the act of 1826 was passed, no limits were pre-
scribed for the new town. In 1832 Jefferson Street was
made the southern boundary. There is a tradition that
the bitterness which existed between Pinch and Sodom
surpassed that of Carthage and Rome. The origin of
these nick-names has been preserved. Pinch is the sur-
vival of a term of ridicule applied by Craven Peyton, one
of the earliest Memphians, to those who lived upon the
banks of Cat-Fish Bay, a lake-like body of water north of
Jackson Street filled with cat-fish, dead and alive. These
people were poor and Peyton spoke of them as Pinch-
Gut. In the course of time the appellation was applied
to that part of the town and then eventually to the entire
north part of Memphis. Sodom was the name given by
the Pinchites to South Memphis to indicate their utter
SOUTH MEMPHIS AND FORT PICKERING.
341
abhorrence of the place. The geographical application of
Pinch shifted. In Memphis it was confined to all the
town north of Washington Street. But it gradually
crept south until it was generally recognized as extending
to Market Street. Those who lived between Market and
Adams repudiated the term. The city was at that time
divided into three wards of which that was the third.
The other two, being in a majority, overrode the third
ward in the matter of municipal improvements and ap-
propriations of city funds so ruthlessly that it finally
became almost a personal matter between those who rep-
resented these wards in the city council. This feeling
of exasperation was encouraged by Sodom. One of the
chief causes of complaint was the refusal of the council to
allow a street to be cut to the river through the bluff for
the convenience of this part of the city. It was wittily
remarked by one of the wags of that day that if he wished
to turn a man of sense into a jackass, the first thing he
would do would be to make him an alderman. This ob-
servation was caused by the action taken by the board of
mayor and aldermen in reference to the landing. In
1837 a large wharf had been built from Winchester
Street across the bar for the purpose of a steamboat land-
ing. But the increase in the bar made it difficult for
large boats to land at this point. A steamboat captain
let his boat land several hundred yards lower down where
the water was deeper, but was promptly ordered by the
indignant rulers to return to the proper landing. The
absurdity of this proceeding became more apparent in
view of the fact that there was much more freight than
the boats could handle. A heated discussion arose, which
ended by the captain dropping his boat below the city.
limits. This encouraged the South Memphis people, and
filled them with sanguine hopes of soon outstripping their
rival. But it had the good effect of bringing the first and
second wards to a better sense of public duty. The third
342
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
ward was divided into three, thus giving them a majority
in the city government. The South Memphis people, who
had always taken sides with the oppressed ward, saw in
this a victory for themselves. The steamboats had been
in a measure forced to their wharf. They hoped to see
the inhabitants of the third ward district come to them in
like manner. It is a common and amusing illustration of
the potency of prejudice that the Sodom people imagined
they could accomplish this end by making the name of
Pinch cover all the region from Market to Adams Street.
Their belief appears to have been that this part of Mem-
phis proper would resort to any expedient to escape the
reproachful term. But in so far as it had any effect, it
rather consolidated the contending factions. A still more
efficacious cause of a mutual drawing together was, in ad-
dition to the removal of absolute grievances, the desire to
retain the lucrative trade of the flat-boats, the landing of
which extended all the way from Wolf River to Adams
Street. South Memphis maintained a separate corporate
existence for three years only. In December, 1849, it and
Memphis became an incorporated town of six wards, gov-
erned by a mayor and twenty-four aldermen, under the
name of the city of Memphis.
Another rival of Memphis was Fort Pickering, now its
southern suburb. At one time its rivalry became a seri-
ous matter. This was due to railroad expectations.
Among the railroads projected during the mania for inter-
nal improvements was the La Grange and Memphis Rail-
road. This became the subject of discussion about 1831.
The enterprise appears to have taken shape at La Grange
itself. La Grange was not far from the Indians in north-
ern Mississippi, and it hoped by building a road to the
Mississippi River to attract enough trade to make it a
great inland city. Such were the extravagant ideas of
those days. As soon as the building of this road became
a matter of general discussion, it was suddenly discovered
SOUTH MEMPHIS AND FORT PICKERING.
343
in Memphis that the fate of that place depended upon its
becoming the western terminus. Even before the first
cross-tie was laid, the enterprising thought of the commu-
nity was already looking to the ultimate extension of it
to the eastern seaboard. In 1834 Winchester mentions
the fact that the stock of the Jackson Company was
taken and that the Columbia Company have agreed to
unite with them. This was designed to be a Middle Ten-
nessee road, and was the germ of the idea which, after two
ante-bellum failures, is at last being pushed to completion.
The contest for the western terminus was primarily be-
tween Randolph and the country north of the Big Hatchie,
and secondarily between Memphis and Fort Pickering.
The first was soon settled. The second was long and
hotly waged. Fort Pickering has long since ceased to
offer any rivalry to Memphis. Now that the latter has
waxen into a comely city, Fort Pickering has pursued
that line of development which makes it a necessary com-
plement of the larger place. But during the first years of
the thirties it was still a rival and indeed a forinidable
rival. In 1836 Winchester wrote, "So far as our imme-
diate prosperity is concerned, it matters little whether the
railroad terminates at Fort Pickering or at some point
above us say Randolph or Fulton. In either event,
the young Memphis must be merged into its greater
rival." Comparing Memphis and Fort Pickering, he
says:
"As a town site, it is not probable that we have
anything the advantage over Fort Pickering. As a land-
ing, that place has decidedly the advantage over the one
we now use. But his fears were groundless and were
not shared by Overton. The idea of making Fort Pick-
ering a rival of Memphis had been entertained for some
years, and more especially by one of the proprietors of
Memphis - John C. McLemore. In the La Grange rail-
road, McLemore thought he saw his opportunity to build
up a town in which he would have as great a preponder-
*
344
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
ance over Overton as Overton had over him. The latter
owned 181 acres of the Ramsey grant and McLemore
995. The connection of McLemore with Memphis had
from the first been a disadvantage. He possessed great
energy, but he had a speculative turn, which loaded him
with a heavy debt at the very time when he could have.
been of greatest service to the infant town. He left the
management entirely to Overton, and could rarely be per-
suaded to go to Memphis after its incorporation.
When
the first real prosperity of Memphis set in, about 1830,
there was an active demand for lots, and public sentiment
insisted upon the proprietors supplying the demand.
Overton, writing on the 29th of January, 1832, said:
"All future sales, at least for some time to come, are likely
to fall entirely on my unsold lots." McLemore on the
24th of November, 1831, writes to Winchester, "Now,
while the judge is willing to sell, you must find pur-
chasers. I will urge the judge to instruct you to sell, and
when the instructions reach you, act-get the property
out of his hands it is his interest as well as the town's
that he sell. He is getting very infirm and can't last
long. My lots are not for sale at present prices." Over-
ton's confidence in McLemore was unbounded. On the
20th of December, 1832, he says: "He is certainly a
most excellent man, and his exertion is far beyond one in
ten thousand. He is so honorable a man and of such in-
defatigable industry that I have no doubt that he will
come out."
But Overton with his usual caution appears towards
the last to have begun to feel uneasy about McLemore
and Fort Pickering. Still, old and infirm as he was, the
indomitable will and sagacity of the old man asserted
itself, and for all McLemore's indefatigable industry and
his scheming letters to Winchester, he was outwitted.
Having crushed Randolph, he, at the last, let fall the
weight of his hand upon Fort Pickering—to this day it
SOUTH MEMPHIS AND FORT PICKERING.
345
feels the blow. In 1830 he proposed to McLemore that
they should mutually grant to each other the right to es-
tablish ferries at Fort Pickering. Shortly after this, the
scheme to "make Fort Pickering a city" began to assume
tangible shape. On the 12th of May, 1832, the old man
writes triumphantly to Winchester, "I think with you,
that even if they were to begin the execution of the proj-
ect of laying off lots, etc., to-morrow, they can't affect
Memphis materially. It is too far advanced to be arrested
in its progress now. Putting off a year or two making a
town below will be better. So much so that none but a
simpleton would think then of it. Especially as I own
nearly half the landing at Fort Pickering and that the
best part of it." The year following Overton died.¹
There was a sale of lots at Fort Pickering, which did
secure the terminus of the La Grange railroad. But the
collapse of the road ensued, and with it the collapse of its
rivalry to Memphis, which had already been placed be-
yond danger by its founder.
1 His death was characteristic. An eye-witness wrote, "I heard
him request Doctor Hogg to say to General Jackson that he died like
a man and a soldier, so you see he clung to the general to his last
moments."
CHAPTER XXXII.
JOHN A. MURRELL AND THE REIGN OF DISORDER.
STRANGE as the statement may sound, one of the most
important events in the making of Tennessee was the
hanging of five men in Vicksburg in July, 1835. To per-
ceive the relation which this event bears to the history of
this State, it is necessary to understand the general state
of society which existed during the years just preceding.
One of the most striking contrasts to be met with in the
study of American institutions is the ease with which a
thorough system of laws is introduced and the difficulty
of having them enforced. The relation between the min-
isters of law and the people upon whom they are to be
administered is so personal and intimate, that it is impos-
sible to obtain that rigidity which is a characteristic of
European countries. The enforcement of law and espe-
cially criminal law, therefore, depends rather upon the
character of the individual than upon the general system.
The result is a laxity which offers direct inducement to
law-breakers. Where the population is sparse, and in re-
gions of country where the interval between a state of
nature and civilization is in process of being bridged, this
laxity attains its highest development. The pioneers who
open the way are, as a rule, brave, honest, uncouth, but
quick to repel the invasions of others by a prompt resort
to violence. They may be said to clear the field. The
first growth is generally one of tares, and then comes the
labor of the husbandman.
After the departure of the Indians from Tennessee, as
JOHN A. MURRELL AND THE REIGN OF DISORDER. 347
the country rapidly settled up, the field for brigandage in
the State was a peculiarly favorable one. The state of
society was generally rough, and the newly introduced
laws frequently failed to command respect. The thief,
the robber, the horse-stealer, the negro-runner, the high-
wayman, the burglar, and the counterfeiter profited by
the opportunity, and a reign of lawlessness began. But
it was frequently tempered by lynch-law, and was over-
ridden at times by superior force. It was the glory and
the boast of a native Tennessean to have organized these
scattered elements of recklessness and crime into a 66 no-
ble band of valiant and lordly bandits," as Murrell styled
his following.
It is beyond the power of historic research to separate
the false from the true in all that has come down to us
about John A. Murrell. Still all that we know is equally
characteristic of the times, and if all did not happen, it
can be as truthfully asserted that it all might have hap-
pened. Murrell was born in Middle Tennessee in the
earlier part of the century. His mother was a woman of
evil disposition, and taught him his first lesson in vice.
By the time he was of age he had become a confirmed
evil-doer, and formally adopted robbery as a profession.
He soon became noted among the fraternity of "specula-
tors," as all of that profession were called by themselves,
for the boldness and success of his ventures. The distin-
guishing feature of his methods was their thoroughness.
After the commission of an offense, nothing was stickled
at to prevent detection. He knew no degrees in crime, and
regarded murder as in no wise more heinous or repugnant
than the theft of a watch. He never robbed a man, unless
by stealth, without killing him, and he never robbed by
violence where the person robbed could not be killed. The
following incident, told in his own words, gives an idea of
his methods: "While I was seated on a log, looking
down the road the way I had come, a man came in sight
348
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
He did
riding a good-looking horse. The very moment I saw
him I determined to have his horse if he was in the garb
of a traveler.
I arose from my seat and drew an elegant
rifle-pistol on him and ordered him to dismount.
so and I took his horse by the bridle and pointed down.
the creek and ordered him to walk before me. We went
a few hundred yards and stopped. I hitched his horse
and then made him undress himself, all to his shirt and
drawers, and ordered him to turn his back to me. He
asked me if I was going to shoot him. I ordered him
the second time to turn his back to me. He said: If
you are going to kill me, let me have time to pray before
I die.' I told him I had no time to hear him pray. He
turned around and dropped on his knees, and I shot him
in the back of the head. I ripped open his belly and
took out his entrails and sunk him in the creek. I then
searched his pockets and found four hundred and one dol-
lars and thirty-seven cents and a number of papers that I
did not take time to examine. I sunk the pocket-book
and
papers and his hat in the creek. His boots were bran
new and fitted me very genteelly, and I put them on and
sunk my old shoes in the creek to atone for them. I rolled
up his clothes and put them into his portmanteau, as they
were quite new cloth of the best quality. I mounted as
fine a horse as I ever straddled, and directed my course
for Natchez in much better style than I had been for the
last five days." Having met with some congenial spirits
in New Orleans, men possessing, like himself, a certain
degree of force, Murrell conceived the design of organiz-
ing "a clan." As subsequently developed, the plan of
organization appears to have been the formation of a kind
of general central committee, called Grand Council of
the Mystic Clan, to direct the operations of local thieves
and robbers called strikers. These latter were not ad-
mitted to the general meetings, and were simply tools in
the hands of Murrell and his council. The strikers exe-
JOHN A. MURRELL AND THE REIGN OF DISORDER. 349
cuted the plans of their superior associates, running most
of the risk and dividing the profits with them. The cen-
tral place of meeting was an enormous cotton-wood tree
in Mississippi County, Arkansas, said to be still standing.
There existed among them a system of signs and counter-
signs and the usual paraphernalia of a clandestine asso-
ciation formed for deeds of secrecy and violence. After
the organization had been placed on a proper basis, Mur-
rell, who had hitherto led a roving life, married the sister
of a former confederate, and bought a farm near Den-
mark in Madison County, Tennessee. Here he lived in
apparent quietude, but in reality carrying on the most
extensive and elaborately devised schemes of rapine and
plunder.
Murrell was undoubtedly a character for whom nature.
had done much. He possessed a quick mind and a re-
markably pleasant and gentlemanlike address. He had
great natural adaptability, and was as much at ease among
people of refinement as among his clansmen. He had a
certain frank, cordial manner that enabled him at times
to convert his bitterest enemies into his warmest admirers.
He was not altogether unread, and had made a special
study of criminal law in order to avoid its dangers. He
knew enough of theology to palm himself off as a minis-
ter of the gospel, and at one period of his life attempted
medicine with some degree of success. He frequently
assumed the disguise of a preacher in order to pass coun-
terfeit money. He had a cool, clear-headed judgment, and
was utterly without fear, physical or moral. His ascend-
ency over his men never waned, and they were ever ready
to sacrifice their lives in order to save his. Within the
ranks of his clan, he was just, fair, and amiable. He was
a kind husband and brother and a faithful friend.
Murrell had a nefarious ambition that took a pride in
his position and in the operations of his followers, inde-
pendent of the love of gain. He was vain and eager to
350
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
lead. As a soldier he would have been a brilliant, though
probably a temporary success. His conceit was the only
weak spot in his armor, and it was the cause of his down-
fall. During the period of Murrell's reign there was no
security to life or property in West Tennessee. The
favorite operations of his clan were horse-stealing and
negro-running, so called. The latter was accomplished
by promising the negro freedom in the North if he would
leave his master, accompany his new friend, and allow
himself to be sold several times on the way. The negro
consenting, the runner carried him through the country,
selling him in the daytime, recovering him again at night,
and pushing on until another favorable opportunity pre-
sented itself. It required a certain address to gain the
negro's confidence, and this Murrell possessed in a super-
eminent degree. But he never failed in the end to mur-
der the negro, open his stomach, and sink him in water
deep enough to hide all traces. This was in obedience
to his rule that no man should live who could implicate
him without implicating himself. His only violation of
this rule, which was caused by his vanity, caused his de-
tection.
The man who brought Murrell to justice was Virgil A.
Stewart. Stewart himself gives a detailed account of
this transaction, which is so filled with glaring inconsist
encies and even contradictions that it is safe to accept
only that which coincides with known facts. Stewart was
a young Georgian who had removed to Madison County,
Tennessee, when young, and from there had gone to the
Choctaw purchase in Mississippi. Before Murrell settled
in Madison County, Stewart, being on a visit to Denmark,
was told by a friend that he suspected Murrell of having
run off some of his slaves. Hearing of Murrell's in-
tended departure, Stewart followed him, made his ac-
quaintance on the road in the disguise of a horse-hunter,
and wormed himself into Murrell's confidence by playing
JOHN A. MURRELL AND THE REIGN OF DISORDER. 351
upon his vanity. Murrell eventually gave him a history
of his life and an insight into the character, organization,
and workings of his clan. Stewart accompanied him to
the celebrated cotton-wood tree in Arkansas, and was pres-
ent at a meeting of the Grand Council. Returning, he
had him arrested and was the instrument of having him
sent to the Penitentiary, from which he emerged an imbe-
cile and an invalid.
Among the assertions made by Stewart was that Mur-
rell had revealed to him a plan which he had originated
for a general insurrection of the slaves on a day appointed.
He represents this as in a manner the climax of Murrell's
ambition
There may
the scheme nearest his heart.
have been a scintilla of truth in this, as some members of
his band were arrested and confessed that such a plan ex-
isted. It is probable, however, that Stewart elaborated
the idea in order to attract attention, for notoriety was
the breath of his nostrils. Another statement of Stewart's
which is preposterous on its face was that many men high
in social and official life were members of the gang.
They were used by Murrell to give an air of respectability
to any impeached member, to laugh down rumors of the
existence of such an organization and to help the clans-
men escape the toils of the law. But in spite of having
received and published a list of Murrell's gang, the name
of no one high in social or official life was ever produced.
Murrell's conviction in 1834 acted as a great clarifi-
cation of the atmosphere. It discouraged the marauder
class and it gave heart to the citizens. So strong had the
clan been, that no one was willing to run the risk of need-
lessly offending them.¹
In Memphis their most unrelenting enemy, M. B. Win-
chester, had felt the weight of their anger in slanders
that eventually drove him to his cups. Isaac Rawlings,
1 This probably was the grain of truth in Stewart's statement in
reference to the members who stood high in the esteem of the public.
352
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
!
F
who was mayor at the time of Murrell's conviction, and
who had enforced the law where he could find transgres-
sions, without regard to consequences, was only protected
from personal violence by the fear of lynch-law. But the
members of the lawless class were bold, defiant, and in-
solent.
The towns upon the river banks were peculiarly exposed
to evil influences. The rivers were almost exclusively the
channels of trade, and the entire traffic of the lower Mis-
sissippi valley passed by Memphis and the places farther
south. New Orleans was the great Southern mart or
emporium, and the products of the Valley States were
brought down to New Orleans as to the market of the
world.
The forms of the boats used would baffle any attempt
at accurate classification. Everything that could be made
to float was forced into service. Those chiefly used by
people whose circumstances permitted choice were the
barge, the keel, and the "flat" or flat-boat, also called
Kentucky-flat or broad-horn. Pirogues, canoes, skiffs,
and dug-outs still remained as relics of earlier days, but
were only adapted to light work. The keel was a slender
and rather stylish looking boat, capable of carrying about
twenty tons. The barge was a heavy, ponderous wooden
structure with a hulk raised above the surface of the water,
and was not unlike a schooner of the present day. It had
a possible capacity of very nearly one hundred tons. The
flat-boat or "broad-horn was the one in most general
It was easy to make and was sufficiently durable
and cheap. At the end of a voyage it was generally sold
to saw mills. The barge and the keel were occasionally
worked up stream, by means of tread-mills, sails, and
ropes tied to trees so as to pull along the bank from tree
to tree, but the greatest speed gained was about ten miles
a day. From New Orleans to Cincinnati in three months
was a good trip. The flat-boat never attempted to do
use.
JOHN A. MURRELL AND THE REIGN OF DISORDER. 353
1
more than float with the current. The life upon the river
would appear to the steamboat traveler of to-day as phan-
tasmagorical. On the large barges two or three families
with all their household effects, poultry, produce, hogs,
horses, mules, and cows would sometimes embark, intend-
ing to change their place of habitation. On the keels,
pleasure - seeking parties would sometimes descend the
river on a jaunt to New Orleans with the expectation of
returning by land. There were bedrooms, a dining-room,
and a platform for dancing. The fiddle, flute, banjo, and
bones furnished rhythmical and appropriate accompani-
ment. At each large village or town a landing was made,
followed by a sojourn of several days. On the flat-boats
traveled those who were lower in the scale, the needy, the
desperate, and the adventurous. It was made by fastening
together logs as large as could be procured, erecting two
immense paddles at both ends or sides, sometimes both,
making a rough flooring and building a roof. The neces-
sities of the maker decided its length. Upon this, the
poor man with his family would live for months, drifting
leisurely down when it suited his convenience, and occa-
sionally stopping over to make a crop on shares for some
one living upon the banks. His chickens, pigs, cow, dogs,
wife, and children lived together in daily association.
More frequently, however, these flat-boats were tenanted
by the rough elements of society, carrying the produce of
the year to market, eager for amusement, generally well
supplied with whiskey and fire-arms. At times several of
them would fasten their rafts together. As a rule the
sober, staid citizen who undertook a trip of this kind down
the river threw off all restraint, and became as boisterous
as the most hardened. When two flat-boats passed each
other, a continual fire of jest, taunt, insult, and ribaldry
was exchanged, sometimes ending in blows, pistol shots,
stabs, and death. Occasionally a raft would be seen to
drift by vacant and apparently deserted. The fate of
354
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
the former proprietors was easily guessed. Fish-like they
preyed and were preyed upon.
When a crowd of these
aquatic rovers found themselves together in a town, they
instinctively banded together against the stationary being
as a natural enemy. The fights between flat-boat men and
citizens were often fatal.
in 1841.
An incident of this kind occurred in Memphis in 1842,
and marked a distinct advance in the progress of law and
order. The damper cast upon the gamblers by the events
of a few years before had not spread to the flat-boat men,
and in the vernacular of that day "they took the town"
when they liked, and flatly refused to pay the city fees for
wharfage. Their trade was valuable, and the subject was
not pressed until William Spickernagle was elected mayor
He determined to have a more vigorous admin-
istration of law, and appointed the proper man wharf-
master, who rigorously collected the wharfage fees despite
threats and bloody noses. In 1842 Edwin Hickman, the
successor of Spickernagle, carried out the policy of his
predecessor, and continued the same officers in power. In
May, 1842, about five hundred-flat boats were at the
Memphis landing, and among the flat-boat men was one
named Trester who had heard of the change which had
taken place in Memphis. He had previously passed down
the river and landed at Memphis without paying the fee.
He cut himself a heavy haw stick set with knots, which,
as he said to the wharf-master himself, he had cut on pur-
pose to use on any one who tried to make him pay for
landing where he pleased. The wharf-master swore out a
warrant and placed it in the hands of G. B. Locke with
orders to serve it. Being resisted, Locke obtained the
assistance of a detachment from the Memphis Guards, a
local military company, and again started for the river.
Seeing the uniforms and the bayonets, Trester pushed out
from the bank, and being pursued, resisted and was killed.
For a day, a pitched battle between the flat-boat men and
JOHN A. MURRELL AND THE REIGN OF DISORDER. 355
the city of Memphis was imminent, but was averted. This
event had a salutary effect upon the flat-boat men, in so far
as Memphis was concerned, and they never again attempted
to "take the town."
During the latter years of Murrell's life in Denmark,
the lawless elements of society in the South and Southwest
undoubtedly had the upper hand of the law-abiding.
The best citizens lived in apprehension. But it is only
the kind heart and the liberal mind which is not made in-
solent by success. The very fact of their mastery carried
with it the proper corrective. This was administered on
July 6, 1835. Vicksburg had been overridden by gamblers
almost from the time of its inception. A great many of
them had their headquarters there, and a stream of them
was continually flowing through Vicksburg to and from
New Orleans. The citizens had grown very restive under
their domineering, but were afraid to take a stand against
them. On the fourth of July, 1835, the usual national
festivities were being celebrated by the citizens, when a
drunken gambler, in imitation of many successful exam-
ples, undertook to run the meeting." He was at once
put under arrest and only released in the evening. When
discharged he not only uttered insolent threats against his
imprisoners, but immediately armed himself to carry them
into execution. He was then seized, carried to the out-
skirts of the town, given a coat of tar and feathers and
dismissed. The gambling "fraternity" were deeply in-
censed and were loud in their denunciations. The blood
of the citizens being up, they issued a notice to all pro-
fessional gamblers to leave the town in twenty-four hours.
On the morning of the sixth, committees previously ap-
pointed examined the gambling houses and burned all the
gambling devices they could find. By this time most of
the profession, being frightened, had left the town. A few
desperadoes alone remained, and having armed themselves,
collected together in a house used by them for gambling
UgrM
356
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
Several shots more
citizens made a rush.
They captured three
purposes and refused to open the door. The door was
broken down by a mob of infuriated citizens with Dr.
Bodley, a prominent and popular physician, at their head.
The gamblers fired and he fell dead.
being exchanged without results, the
and obtained entrance to the house.
of the inmates in the house and two others who had
escaped from the building, and hanged the whole five.
Their names were North, Hullams, Dutch Bill, Smith,
and McCall.
The moral effect of this act cannot be fully appreciated
by any one not familiar with the current literature of that
day. The news swept like wild-fire throughout the Mis-
sissippi valley, and was eagerly discussed by every fire-
side, at every cross-roads store, and on every stage coach
throughout the South and Southwest. Coming on the
heels of Murrell's conviction, it gave heart to the lovers
of law and order. Committees were formed in every com-
munity from Cincinnati to New Orleans that had suffered
from the thief and the cut-throat, and general notices
were issued for specified classes to leave in twenty-four
hours. Few, if any, lynchings took place, but an end
had been put to organized crime in the Southwest forever.
Maou
CHAPTER XXXIII.
RISE OF THE WHIG PARTY.
FROM December, 1834, to the loss of Tennessee by Polk
in 1844, may be called the decade of partisan fury, though
the era of partisan activity continued to the time of the
war. The contest between Carroll and Ward in 1821,
and that between Bell and Grundy for Congress in 1827,
was spirited and full of fire. The gubernatorial strug-
gles between the Browns, Trousdale, Campbell, Johnson,
Gentry, Henry, Harris, Hatton, and Netherland were
obstinate and vehement, but all were tame when compared
with the terrific encounters of these ten years. Then
every election was the coming together of the Numidian
lion and the Arachosian tiger. During this era the Whig
party came into existence in Tennessee. In 1834 it was
not merely in a minority in Tennessee; it was, as a polit-
ical organization, absolutely unknown. In 1840 it carried
the State overwhelmingly for a Whig candidate for the
presidency. The history of its gradual development and
of the period of its ascendency in the State is curious and
instructive. Between Jackson and Buchanan, the Whigs
carried Tennessee at every presidential election. The
Whig leaders of Tennessee repelled with indignation the
charge that their party had its origin in opposition to Jack-
son. But such was the fact. Carroll was the only promi-
nent candidate who was opposed by Jackson who did not
subsequently become a Whig. The Republicans held un-
disputed supremacy in Tennessee long after Clay's seces-
ion and the annunciation of his American system. Jackson
358
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
NA
was nominated by the legislature of Tennessee on the 20th
of July, 1822, for the presidency of the United States.
Between the period of the War of 1812 and this date his
influence had become paramount, and as far as personal
influence, unaided by the machinery of party conventions,
could control the politics of a state, he controlled the
politics of Tennessee. His prejudices were strong. He
was devoted to his friends. He hated his enemies, and he
was suspicious of those who were indifferent. His final
election to the presidency made him politically omnipotent.
Those who were excluded from his good-will were excluded
from all preferment, not resting upon the direct vote of the
people. The politicians of Tennessee have always been
singularly tractable to authority, and the people have al-
ways been remarkably intractable. Jackson was an old
man, and during a long and tempestuous life he had con-
tracted many debts of personal gratitude. He became
president; these were now to be liquidated. There was
room for no new men, a class of politicians who are fre-
quently hated as much in our day as in Cicero's. Young,
ambitious spirits were not wanting to see that there was
no place for them, unless a new order of things could be
inaugurated. During Jackson's second term, circum-
stances arose which opened up the possibility of revolu-
tion. The number of those willing and able to lead in
this movement had been steadily increasing. Not only
were the Jackson men supreme, they were intolerant.
Jackson not only proposed to reward his friends, but to
punish his enemies. As Crockett said, "to turn against
Jackson was the unpardonable sin." Naturally there
was much mutiny.
One of the ablest of those who were driven into the
Whig ranks by the intolerance of Jackson and his friends,
was Newton Cannon. He had been born in Guilford
county, North Carolina, educated at a public school, and
removed to Williamson County, Tennessee, when quite
RISE OF THE WHIG PARTY.
young. He entered the Creek War as a private, was
elected captain and then colonel of a regiment of volun-
teer mounted riflemen. He was in two engagements and
bore himself bravely. His term of service having expired,
he returned to Tennessee before the end of the war, and
on this slight circumstance was founded the charge of cow-
ardice and desertion subsequently made by the "Nashville
Union." Before the Creek War Cannon had attracted
Jackson's attention. He was on the jury that tried Mag-
ness,¹ the father of the man who shot Patton Anderson.
Jackson, a warm and enthusiastic friend of Anderson,
spared no exertion to have Magness convicted. He was
acquitted. Jackson shook his finger in the face of the
obstinate young juror, and said, "I'll mark you, young
man." During the Creek War fresh fuel was added to
Jackson's prejudice. In a letter which appeared on the
fourth of July, 1821, in the "Nashville Clarion," the
writer asks," Is it not known that he and Colonel Cannon
have not been very friendly since the Creek War?" In
1814 Cannon made his appearance on the political field
as a successor to Felix Grundy, who had resigned his seat
in Congress. With the exception of the 15th Congress,
when he was a commissioner to negotiate a treaty with the
Chickasaw Indians, having been appointed by President
Monroe, Cannon remained in Congress until 1823, when
he voluntarily retired. Whilst in Congress he excited the
indignation of Jackson's friends by denying some state-
ments in the life of Jackson begun by Reed but finished
by Eaton. He also voted against maintaining the military
establishment as Jackson desired. He addressed a letter
of explanation to Jackson which the latter, such was the
currently accepted rumor, trampled under foot. When
Cannon was a candidate for governor in 1827, against
1 Parton, in his Life of Jackson, vol. i. p. 344, in relating an in-
cident that occurred at the trial of the son, spells the name Magness.
In Cannon's speech it is spelled Magnus.
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
Blount and Houston, Jackson's sympathies were avowedly
for either as against him. Naturally Cannon was not in
high favor with the national administration which came
into power the year following.
David Crockett was another Lucifer of republicanism
who became one of the morning stars of Whiggery in
Tennessee. Perhaps it would be true to say that Crock-
ett was the first prominent Whig in this State. He was
born in East Tennessee, and was reared in the narrow cir-
cumstances of those times, without education or the means
of intellectual cultivation. He moved to Elk Creek near
the mouth of Mulberry. From here he entered the army
and served in the Creek War. It is probable, though
borne out by no direct proof, that Crockett contracted a
prejudice against his commander during these campaigns
which made it an easy matter for him, when elected to
Congress, to array himself against Jackson. As early as
1823 he voted for John Williams and against Jackson
for senator. Returning home he again removed to Shoal
Creek in Giles County, where he became colonel of mili-
tia, and was elected a member of the General Assembly.
Having suffered some reverses, he again removed, this
time to the banks of the Obion, where he was in 1823
again elected to the state legislature. In 1825 some
practical joke in the town of Jackson spread the report
that he was a candidate for Congress. Angered by the
implied ridicule, he at once came forward and made a vig-
orous canvass. Though defeated, he laid the foundations
upon which he was elected in 1827. When he entered
Congress it was as a Republican. But his indignation wast
aroused during his second term by the course of the ad-
ministration towards the Cherokee Indians in Georgia.
His violent denunciation of Jackson's perfidy incensed
the friends of the president. When he returned home to
seek a reëlection, he found that the storm had been raised.
He himself says, "he was hunted like a wild beast, and in
RISE OF THE WHIG PARTY.
361
this hunt every little newspaper in the district and every
little pin-hook lawyer was engaged." Crockett was de-
feated by a small majority. In 1833 he was again elected,
after a stubborn contest. He voted with the Whigs for
a protective tariff, for internal improvements, to renew
the charter of the United States Bank, while Bell was still
dealing his heaviest blows against the American system.
He signed the letter of the 19th of December, 1834,
calling on White to be a candidate for the presidency.
Jackson's defeat of General John Williams for the Sen-
ate, in 1823-1824, embittered his adherents. He had
been in the Creek War and was very popular, especially
in East Tennessee. Scattered here and there were men
like McNairy and Jesse Benton, in whom old wounds still
rankled. Indeed, Jesse Benton's hatred of Jackson was
so fervent, so malignant, so active, and so futile that it
became amusing. It was suggestive of the burlesque
representations on Vaudeville stages of Ajax defying the
gods. In 1824 he was a candidate for elector in the
Western District. If elected, he promised to vote for
Crawford. If it should be necessary to change his vote,
for Clay. He wrote a letter to the editor of the "Whig,'
proposing to examine the lives and conduct of presiden-
tial candidates. "All I ask is that the people shall have
light. I owe a duty to my God and to my country,
which I will discharge." Being refused the privilege of
performing this duty through the columns of the "Whig,"
he published a pamphlet. This contained thirty-two
specifications. It was extensively copied by the organs of
the Adams, Clay, and Crawford factions. It created a
great commotion in Tennessee, and elicited answers from
Mayor W. B. Lewis and others. But no one proposed to
bring the implacable pamphleteer to terms.¹
>>
¹ In the Old Times Papers by James D. Davis, a fight between
Jesse Benton and Jackson at the Old Bell Tavern in Memphis is men-
tioned. Jackson appears to have had the advantage. Parton does
not refer to this. Davis says he had it from Jesse Benton himself.
362
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
In 1827 John Bell and Felix Grundy were pitted
against each other for Congress. Both were avowed
friends of Jackson, Grundy perhaps a little more vocifer-
ous than Bell. Grundy was then fifty years of age,
twenty years older than his competitor. Born in Berkeley
County, Virginia, he had removed, when two years of age,
to Brownsville in Pennsylvania, and the next year to
Kentucky. Here he received a substantial education,
studied law, and was admitted to the bar. He was a
member of the Constitutional Convention of Kentucky in
1799, for several years a member of the General Assem-
bly and was on the supreme bench of that State. In 1807
he removed to Nashville. In 1811, and again in 1813, he
was elected to Congress. He sprang at once into na-
tional prominence. His support of the war measures
was energetic and effective. The Federalists denounced
the war as one instigated by "Madison, Grundy, and
the Devil." He resigned in 1814 and devoted himself
to law. The Southwest has never produced another
criminal lawyer of equal fame. He had a figure which
was strikingly graceful and commanding, an open, refined
face, a disposition of great affability. These personal
qualifications, joined to a mellow flow of words which was
impressive and which sparkled with antitheses, distin-
guished also by occasional bursts of pathos that never
failed to move the sensibilities of the jury, gave him an
unvarying tide of success, the very momentum of which
rendered him eventually invincible. He is said to have
defended but one man who was afterwards hanged. The
traditions which still linger among lawyers of some of the
trials in which he played a part, show him to have been
quick of mind, full of stratagems and wiles, and not over-
scrupulous in resorting to any method or expedient that
was likely to save the neck of his client.
Bell, on the contrary, was a very young man, just thirty
years of age. He had been in the legislature at Nash-
RISE OF THE WHIG PARTY.
363
ville, having served one term in 1817, declining a reëlec-
tion. Devoting himself to law, he had established a rep-
utation as a man of strong mind and solid parts. He
had enjoyed the advantages of a classical education, and
during the interval between 1817 and 1827 he had pur-
sued, in addition to his practice at the bar, such studies
as strengthened his powers and cultivated his tastes. He
possessed an intellect of extraordinary vigor, broad in its
scope and catholic in its sympathy. He tended too much
towards speculative generalities, which detracted from his
talents as a partisan leader. He was not without sub-
tlety, and he could map out a plan of action with consum-
mate skill. But he lacked the quickness of resolution and
the dashing execution necessary in the guerilla warfare of
political contests. His eloquence showed marks of polish,
and his talents for speaking had been assiduously im-
proved. On the stump, his powerful logic, his compre-
hensive discussion, his thorough grasp of the political
questions of the day, his terrible invective and noble and
elevated tone of oratory made him the delight of his au-
dience. On the floor of the lower house at Washington,
all of these qualifications lifted him as an orator high
above the head of every Tennessean who was his colleague
during his active term of service. But he was not a mas-
ter of the arts of rhetorical bushwhacking which make
the debater. He was too composed, too slow in his move-
ments, he required too elaborate preparation, he moved in
an atmosphere too rarified. He was a prominent figure
in the lower house, it is true, but he never gained the
ascendency to which his eminent abilities justly entitled
him. In 1841 he was appointed by Harrison secretary of
war, but resigned the same year. For six years he was
out of public employment. Had his career closed here,
it would have been an evil thing for his fame. But in
1847 he was a member of the legislature, and after pro-
tracted balloting he was elected to the United States Sen-
364
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
ate, of which body he was a member for the next twelve
years. Here was the proper arena for the display of his
talents. Here his eminent abilities, his melodious rheto-
ric, the philosophic bent of his virile mind, the serene dig-
nity of his bearing, and the perspicuous quality of his logic
shone with unclouded brightness. Here he was a distin-
guished figure in a body of which Henry Clay, Lewis
Cass, Salmon P. Chase, Stephen A. Douglas, John J.
Crittenden, William Pitt Fessenden, John P. Hale, Ben-
jamin F. Wade, Charles Sumner, Judah P. Benjamin,
Jefferson Davis, and Andrew Johnson were members.
His nomination by the Constitutional Unionists, in 1860,
for the presidency was a natural climax to a life whose
greatest intellectual triumphs had been gained in attempts.
to accomplish what divine foresight alone could see was
impossible, the attempt to make fanaticism and moral
right work in harmonious traces with self-interest and
constitutional warrant.
When Bell and Grundy were candidates against each
other, the latter apparently had every political advantage,
joined to long service and a national reputation. Gen-
eral Jackson electioneered actively for Grundy and voted
for him. Bell was elected by an overwhelming majority
and took his seat, feeling sore and mutinous. Jackson
had offended the ablest mind which Tennessee has ever
produced, after his own and Andrew Johnson's. Grundy
was elected, however, two years later, to the Senate, to suc-
ceed Eaton. It was charged that Jackson's preferences
were consulted in this matter. In 1829 Jackson took the
oath as president of the United States. He appointed a
cabinet. The man who, outside of Tennessee, had been
most instrumental in making him president, was Martin
Van Buren. In 1831 Jackson determined that that man
should succeed him as president. He discovered that it
was necessary to have all the political forces of his adminis-
tration act in harmony and move in concert towards this
RISE OF THE WHIG PARTY.
365
common point in order to accomplish it. His election had
been a rebuke to the system of using the patronage of the
government for ulterior purposes. The method hereto-
fore pursued was for the president to appoint to the sec-
retaryship of state the successor apparent. Adams's ap-
pointment of Clay had created the "bargain intrigue and
corruption" storm. Jackson now allowed himself to be
seduced from the true theory of his political career. But
he contrived to draw a specious veil over his plans by
ostentatiously establishing the rule that no member of his
cabinet should be a candidate for the presidency. His
attention had already been drawn to a possible candidate
from Tennessee; a man of unblemished reputation, of dis-
tinguished merit, and of the highest talent. Jackson pro-
posed to net two birds at once by turning Van Buren out
of the cabinet and by drawing Hugh L. White into it.
White refused. Jackson accepted this as a confirmation
of his suspicions. He at once set in operation the entire
force of his influence, but in vain. White had been his
life-long friend, his stanchest supporter, his warmest ad-
herent, his most trusted adviser. But unlike most of his
compeers, White never lost his manly individuality of
character. He was Jackson's friend, not his dependent,
and he obeyed unhesitatingly the dictates of his own con-
science. During the debate on the tariff difficulties in
1832-33, Jackson sent for White, and requested him,
who was speaker of the Senate pro tem., not to put Clay-
ton of Delaware on the committee to which would be re-
ferred the bills pending on this subject. Having already
ordered his name to be entered on the "Journal” as a
member of the committee, White refused. This strength-
ened the estrangement between Jackson and White, an
estrangement which gave this State to the Whigs and em
bittered the last days of the two great Tennesseans.
Viewed as a political organization, the distinctive fea-
ture of the Jacksonians was a proscription never dreamed
366
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
of by those who laid broad and deep the foundations of
our government in tolerance, individual freedom, and
brotherly love. In 1823 the "Nashville Whig" pub-
lished some letters signed "Boone" and "Viator,” in
which Jackson's candidacy for the presidency was dis-
cussed in a temperate and a conservative tone.
This was
at once held up as evidence of hostile feeling, and a large
number of subscribers adopted that method of punish-
ment which is the delight of narrow minds and the amuse-
ment of newspaper men. They refused to continue taking
the paper. As Crockett said, to turn against Jackson
was the unpardonable sin.
During the year 1833 the availability of White as a
successor to Jackson became more patent. In Tennessee,
Van Buren was unpopular in the highest degree. The
Democrats saw in White a worthy successor to Jackson
and the Whigs saw in him a high-minded statesman who
would be unwilling to debauch the public service. In the
autumn of 1833 the legislature of Tennessee desired to
put him in nomination, but desisted at his earnest request.
In the spring of 1834 Jackson, in a conversation with an
intimate friend of White's, suggested that White should
be vice-president on the ticket with Van Buren, and that
after the latter had served eight years, White could then
succeed him. Jackson also offered White a seat upon the
supreme bench. White indignantly rejected every over-
ture. It is probable that he would never have been a
candidate, but some time in 1834 Jackson uttered the
characteristic threat that if he did become a candidate for
the presidency, he would be rendered odious to society.
White determined at once to come forward regardless of
all consequences. On the 19th of December, 1834, the
members of Congress from Tennessee, with the exception
of James K. Polk, Felix Grundy, David Crockett, and
John Blair, met to consider White's candidacy. Luke
Lea stated that Polk had promised to support White, and
RISE OF THE WHIG PARTY.
367
James Standifer answered for Grundy and Blair. Of
Crockett there was no doubt. The next day the meeting
addressed a letter to White, who replied, consenting to
become a candidate. In the winter of 1834 the legisla-
ture of Alabama put White in nomination.
The issue was now joined. At once the stream of ob-
loquy began to rise. The "Globe" made a furious on-
slaught on White, as a tool in the hands of one deeper
and more designing than himself one whose foul and
deep-laid scheme it was to defeat Jackson's administration
and strengthen the hands of his enemies. This of course
was John Bell. Up to this time the rivalry between Polk
and Bell had been purely personal. Bell, during the
contest for the speakership in 1834, and his friends as a
rule, protested that he was "as good a Jackson man as
Polk himself." Polk had long desired to see Bell assume
a position of antagonism to Jackson. The open warfare
of the "Globe" which was certainly in harmony with
Polk's desires, if not under his immediate direction,
finally drove Bell into opposition, and removed from Polk's
path the only enemy he feared in Tennessee. Jackson
himself, who had used the machinery of a convention to
force Van Buren on the Republican, now occasionally
called the Democratic party, as vice-president, deter-
mined to resort to the same means to make him president.
In February, 1835, he wrote a letter advocating a national
convention to nominate candidates for president and vice-
president. In May the convention was held at Baltimore,
and Van Buren was nominated. Tennessee refused to
appoint delegates, and its vote was cast by one man, a
chance bystander named E. Rucker, and Ruckerize be-
came one of the political commonplaces of the day. A
systematic plan for the purpose of destroying White's in-
fluence in Tennessee, without the hearty support of which
he was lost, was then devised. When White's candidacy
was announced, the two Nashville papers at once declared
368
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
for him. Letters were to be written for use in Tennessee,
by Jackson. Bell was to be defeated for Congress. A
Van Buren man was to be elected governor. White was
to be defeated for the Senate. Jackson himself was to
enter the canvass personally in Tennessee. A new paper
was to be established at Nashville to oppose White and to
denounce him as a Federalist. The contest was to be nar-
rowed down to Jackson and White, and Van Buren was
to be left out of the discussion. The most important of
all these designs was to leave Van Buren in the back-
ground and to bring on the struggle as between the two
Tennesseans. Bell, who hoped indeed to see White
elected, but who hoped above all things to break the su-
premacy of the Jackson men in the State, managed the
White canvass in so far as it had any management.
He
proclaimed on all hands the warmth of his and White's
friendship for Jackson. The "Republican" called re-
peated attention to the fact that Bell had supported all of
Jackson's measures, that he had voted against the tariff of
1832, for the compromise of 1833, and the Indian and
anti-nullification policy of his administration. In a speech
made at Nashville, on the 23d of May, 1835, he frankly
declares his design: "Opposition to the administration of
General Jackson is the course the worst enemies of Judge
White desire his friends to adopt. They are so anxious
on this point that they appear determined to put Judge
White and his friends in opposition whether they will or
not. But, gentlemen, the friends of Judge White will
adhere to General Jackson and his administration from
consistency and respect for their own characters and be-
cause they will be supporting their own principles."
In August, Jackson traveled through the State and in-
augurated the campaign. He proclaimed in public that
White was a red-hot Federalist, and that he was as far
from his administration as the poles are asunder. Donel-
son in Washington had incautiously declared that White's
RISE OF THE WHIG PARTY.
369
candidacy for the presidency would be made a contest be-
tween him and Jackson. Blair of the "Globe " predicted
that Judge White would be "as effectually and entirely
crushed by General Jackson as if the foot of an elephant
had been placed on him." The "Globe" studiously
avoided the reiterated charge that Jackson was for Van
Buren. Jackson wrote two letters to a man named Gwin,
a parson, to be used against White. In the second, writ-
ten on the 8th of August, 1835, he says in reference to
the first Gwin letter, "I wrote it immediately on seeing
the article in the Republican,' and intended it as a re-
buke of what I considered an unwarrantable use of my
name to subserve the views of factious intrigues, seeking
to undermine the course of Republicanism and to defeat
the result of the leading measures of my administration.”
This was intended to repel the assertion made by the "Re-
publican," that Jackson would prefer White to Van Bu-
ren. He wrote other letters of like substance to Willie
Blount and one to Felix Grundy which Cave Johnson was
in the habit of reading on the stump during his canvass.
C
The "Union" was established by the Jackson party at
Nashville, and was edited with an energy of personal vitu-
peration never before witnessed in Tennessee. It poured
a steady stream of denunciation and doggerel against
Bell and White and their adherents. About this time
the name of Whig began to be applied to the White men.
A toast at a dinner given to Jackson in August denounced
the "new-born Whigs," a phrase recently coined by Jack-
son, and the "Union" called White's supporters, "White
Whigs." But all these extraordinary exertions resulted
in no measure of success. The press of the State was
overwhelmingly for White-the proportion was seven-
teen to seven. The Jackson men failed to make the issue
between White and Jackson, and the people of Tennessee.
were filled with a profound veneration, a deep-seated af-
fection, an earnest and almost sorrowful sympathy for the
370
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
pure and noble character who had been caught in the toils
of a wild and frenzied fight of factions. White meetings
were held in almost every county, and the support of Ten-
nessee was pledged with increasing and spontaneous en-
thusiasm.
The first conspicuous failure in the Jackson programme
was the result of the August elections. The return of
John Bell was peculiarly galling. Caucus after caucus
was held, letters were written, extravagant promises were
made to induce some one whose standing and reputation
gave some promise of success to come forward against
him. But his defeat of Grundy had taught the politi-
cians in his district a lasting lesson, and no one fit and
available could be found. The towering genius of John
Bell was not of the sort that could so easily be hawked at
in its pride of place and killed. He had no opposition.
More than this. The candidates for the governorship
were Governor Carroll, Newton Cannon, R. G. Dunlap
who soon retired on account of ill health, and W. H.
Humphreys who was for White, but who made no figure.
Carroll was outspoken for Van Buren, though protesting
that the presidential question should not be made an issue
in this canvass.
In 1834 the Constitutional Convention
met. Under the old constitution, Carroll, having served
three terms, was not again eligible. But his supporters
declared that the new constitution, although not changing
this rule, entirely abrogated the old, and that Carroll
stood in the attitude of one who had never been governor.
So great was his popularity that the leading White organs
conceded his election. Newton Cannon, who had been
chairman of a White meeting in Williamson County, and
was personally obnoxious to Jackson, attacked Van Buren
and declared his decided preference for Judge White.
The leading White men took no open part, but Cannon
was elected by a majority of about 7,000. So strong and
uncompromising was the feeling for White, that Polk
RISE OF THE WHIG PARTY.
371
avowed on the stump his individual preference for White.
He even went to extreme lengths and attacked the Balti-
more Convention. He declared that the proceedings of
that body had no more obligatory force on the party
than the recommendations of any other equally respecta-
ble men.
The White candidates carried the State by a
large majority. When the legislature met, E. H. Foster,
an outspoken White man, was made speaker of the House
by acclamation. The Jackson men seemed unable to
grasp the drift of things. The second day after the mem-
bers assembled, each one found on his desk a copy of the
"Globe's" extra edition, franked by Jackson himself and
containing violent and almost scurrilous attacks on
White's course during the last session of Congress on the
Expunging Resolutions. The same day White was re-
elected to the Senate by an almost unanimous vote. The
motion to instruct him to vote for the Expunging Resolu-
tions was laid on the table by a vote of 50 to 22. On the
17th of October the legislature, by a vote of 60 to 12,
recommended White to the country as a man eminently
qualified to fill the office of president.
The overthrow of White's enemies in Tennessee was
complete. Almost the only victory of the Jackson men
was the defeat in 1835 of Bell by Polk for the speaker-
ship. The Van Buren organs spared no exertions to
drive White into the Whig ranks. From his candidacy
dated the Whig party in Tennessee, but he never became
a Whig himself. He was an independent in the highest
sense of the word, steadfast in his principles, and sacri-
ficing nothing to party expediency. Such men as these
rarely become great statesmen, but they exemplify a noble
phase of human character. To the charge of having
abandoned his principles, he retorted that he stood firm,
that it was Jackson that had abandoned his. He excited
deep indignation among his old friends by supporting the
bill to prevent federal interference in local elections. He
372
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
pointed to the fact that he had taken this same position
in 1826 and that Jackson had been elected on this issue.
In a speech delivered at Knoxville on the 5th of April,
1827, while still a warm friend of Jackson, he had defined
his views on all the leading questions of the day. In the
matter of internal improvements he said: "I think not
only that the United States do not possess this power, but
further, it ought never to be surrendered to them." In a
speech delivered in the Senate in the very heat of the can-
vass, he said: "I have been one of those who do not be-
lieve the federal government has the power to carry on a
system of internal improvements within the States." He
said of protection in 1827: "To give protection to a
certain extent, I have never doubted the power of the fed-
eral government; but this, like every other power, ought
always to be exercised for the good of the whole." These
views he never changed. In 1833 he discussed the na-
tional bank idea: "I hold that, by the constitution of the
United States, Congress has no power to create a bank,
and having no power to create it, we have no power to
continue it beyond the time of its limitation." As late
as August, 1838, after all his leading supporters had gone
over to the Whig party, he still held fast to his ancient
moorings. He was comparing the views on this subject
held by Van Buren and himself. "He is against a
national bank and so am I." He held, as Jackson had
once held, that Congress could create a bank of deposit
and transfer. The only specific charge that White had
changed his views on this subject was based upon Bell's
celebrated Cassidy letter,¹ in which, referring to White's
position on the bank question, he remarks that it would
be unprecedented and do him a great injury to declare
beforehand that he would put his veto upon any measure
whatsoever. The only variance between the views of
1 Written May 11, 1835, to Charles Cassidy of Bedford County,
Tennessee.
RISE OF THE WHIG PARTY.
373
""
Jackson and White not founded upon Jackson's desire to
be succeeded by "the heir apparent to the government,
as Crockett called Van Buren, was that upon the bill to
prevent federal influence being exerted in order to affect
the result of popular elections. On the 16th of Febru-
ary, 1835, White, in the Senate, reviewed his course in
the matter. He not only established the fact that he had
not changed, but proved unanswerably that the change was
in Jackson, who had abandoned his earlier professions on
this subject. Upon Benton's Expunging Resolutions, the
difference was not political but personal. When Benton
first introduced his resolutions to expunge from the Jour-
nal of the Senate the vote of censure passed upon him
for removing the deposits from the United States Bank,
Jackson saw at once that this could be made a test ques-
tion as between his friends and enemies. Properly used,
it could change the complexion of the Senate which was
hostile, and it offered an additional weapon in his attempts
to make Van Buren his successor. After all, the whole
question was a veritable mist without weight or substance.
But White, with characteristic disregard of appearances,
at once declared it was unconstitutional to mutilate the
records of the Senate by the literal destruction or expur-
gation of the offensive vote, and that a rescission and a
repeal would accomplish exactly the same result. This
position he maintained with unwavering courage, and in
reality the question was eventually settled in accordance.
with his views. The Jackson papers, however, ignored
this, and persisted in placing him among the foes of Jack-
son, the Federalists, the enemies of good government.
Both White and Jackson agreed upon the distribution of
the sales of the public lands. In his letter of resignation
of 1839 he defines his position on this question: "When
a bill was introduced having such a distribution as that
spoken of for its object, I voted against its passage and
in favor of the veto of the chief magistrate, on the
374
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
ground that no such distribution ought to be made until
the public debt was all paid." In his message of 1829,
Jackson, anticipating the time when "the application of
the revenue to the payment of debt will cease,” had sug-
gested its distribution among the States for purposes of
"internal improvements.'
وو
When the subject came up again several years later,
White voted for the distribution. The debt had all been
paid. The attempt to implicate White and Bell and sub-
sequently the Whigs with the Nullifiers was regarded as
unworthy serious refutation.
The Van Buren-White-Harrison campaign was long,
arduous, and exciting, but lies beyond our scope. White
was overwhelmingly defeated, receiving the votes of
Georgia and Tennessee only. In addition to this, he was
voted for by the Whigs of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisi-
ana, Arkansas, and Missouri. Jackson had the mortifi-
cation of seeing Van Buren lose Tennessee by 10,039
votes. In the Hermitage polling district, White received
43, Van Buren 18 votes. The defeat of White paved
the way for the Whigs in Tennessee. Even then, the de-
feat of Van Buren by another candidate would have ce-
mented the breach, and probably have left them in as
hopeless a minority as in Alabama. But Van Buren was
elected. The leading measure of his administration was
the Sub-Treasury Bill. This was opposed by White in
the Senate, who regarded it as a step toward a treasury
bank or a national bank owned and operated entirely by
the government, with power to issue currency and as in-
creasing the power of the national executive. In 1839
Newton Cannon was again a candidate for governor. He
was opposed by General Robert Armstrong, one of Jack-
son's most intimate friends and a pronounced Van Buren
man. The popular exasperation was still undiminished.
Cannon was reëlected.
Cave Johnson was a member of Congress from 1829 to
RISE OF THE WHIG PARTY.
375
1845, when he was appointed postmaster-general by Polk,
with the exception of one term. This was from 1837 to
1839, when he was defeated because of his opposition to
White, the year preceding. Polk was saved by local
pride in his prominence as speaker. Grundy was beyond
the reach of popular displeasure. A notable indication of
popular sentiment was the election of Washington Bar-
row, editor of the obnoxious "Republican," as a member
of the legislature from the Hermitage district. In a
speech in the State Senate on the 18th of October, 1837,
Anderson of Davidson County, discussing the election of
a United States Senator, declared that he "was proud of
the good old name of Whig, and that he accepted the title
for himself and party." The Whig party was now fairly
established in Tennessee. It was strengthened by the
contest in 1839 between James K. Polk and Newton Can-
non for the governorship. Jackson experienced deep
mortification over the loss of Tennessee. He regarded it
as a prodigal son, eating the husks of Whiggery. He
was anxious to have the State redeemed. It was agreed Z
that Polk should make the race. If elected, he was to be
put upon the ticket in 1840 for the vice-presidency. This
part of the programme failed. Polk was nominated by
the Tennessee legislature and supported by the Jackson
interest, but the antagonisms were too strong in the con-
vention and no nomination was made for that office. But
in this way attention was drawn to him as " presidential
timber."
CHAPTER XXXIV.
POLK AND CANNON.
THE charge made against Polk in 1844 that he was an
unknown man was merely a campaign dodge which has
been so often repeated that it has been popularly accepted.
In truth Polk was an unexpected nominee, not an un-
known one. He was as prominent in his day as Mr. Car-
lisle is in ours. He was as prominent as Mr. Clay in
1824. He was more prominent than Mr. Lincoln in
1860. He was more prominent than Mr. Hayes in 1876.
His career had been one full of gradual growth and co-
herent expansion. He had filled several positions and all
of them well and with honor. Reared under the influ-
ence of Jeffersonian traditions, he had naturally attached
himself to Jackson. He was well educated and graduated
with the highest honors. He was a rare example of a
school-boy whose early promise found future fulfillment.
He was clerk of the state Senate for several terms and
then a member of the legislature. In 1825 he was elected
to Congress, and was continued in office until 1839, when
he voluntarily withdrew to enter the canvass for governor.
In Congress he had been speaker for two terms, defeating
both times John Bell, a personal as well as a political
enemy, for they did not speak. Polk was a fine illustra-
tion of what can be accomplished by the union of a sound
mind, discretion, and great energy. He could not be said
to have possessed brilliant parts he was not an orator
he had none of that broad grasp of intellect with which
men who lack industry often supply their deficiencies.
POLK AND CANNON.
377
But he had a mind of singular force, and his industry was
both methodical and persistent. He was one of the first
politicians of his day. He appreciated public sentiment
and knew how to guide it, when it could be guided, to
evade it or to follow it when it could not be guided. As
president his administration was perhaps the most bril-
liant before the war. The very order of mind which ren-
dered it impossible for him to inaugurate any of the great
questions and lines of public policy to the solution of
which were called the ablest diplomatic talents of the day,
rendered it possible for him to select fit instruments for
the accomplishment of the works whose importance he
fully appreciated. In state history he deserves a credit
which has never been fully accorded him. He was the
first great "stump speaker." He taught the art, not of
popular oratory, for he was not an orator, not merely of a
thorough discussion of public questions, but the art of pop-
ular debate. Polk was always full of his subject, ready
at retort, sophistical, quick to capture and turn the guns
of his enemy against him, adroit in avoiding an issue
whose result must be unfavorable, thoroughly equipped
with forcible illustrations, humorous anecdotes, and a ridi-
cule which ranged through all the changes from burlesque
to wit. After the canvass of 1839, which brought into
play upon a broader field the powers which Polk had long
utilized and which kept him in Congress fourteen years,
stump speaking" became a distinct political accomplish-
ment, which some of the most brilliant orators, Clay for
instance, never possessed; which, on the contrary, some
of the politicians of third rate power, Governor McNutt
of Mississippi for instance, possessed in an eminent de-
gree. But Polk taught the art.
66
"Most can raise the flowers now,
For all have got the seed."
In politics he was something more than a friend of
Jackson - he was his follower. Jackson tolerated no in-
}
378
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
dependence, and Polk avoided any clash of judgment with
assiduous caution. In 1836 the State of Tennessee was
overwhelmingly for White. The most prominent Demo-
crats in the State were White, Bell, Grundy, Polk, John-
son, and Catron. Bell alone had the sturdy determination
to sustain White, and even his courage was strengthened
by the known prejudice of Jackson. Grundy, Polk,
and Johnson all-intended at first to support White.
They had given evasive answers to the invitation of the
Tennessee delegation to attend the meeting of Decem-
ber 19; so evasive that they had been reckoned among
those friendly to White. But an interview with Jackson
at once changed their attitude. They declared they were
for White in case White was nominated by the conven-
tion. Very shortly after this, Jackson wrote the first
Gwin letter suggesting a convention, and very shortly
after this the convention nominated Van Buren, as men
with less foresight and political sagacity than these three
had foreseen. Jointly with Jackson, they did as much to
defeat White as they could without danger to themselves.
They were ably assisted at home by John Catron. These
were the four great pillars of that phase of Jacksonism
which involved political management.
Catron was perhaps the ablest of the four. He was
certainly more sprightly and agile. He was a self-edu-
cated lawyer who had been placed on the supreme bench
of Tennessee. But he was uncouth, full of eccentricities,
and overbearing. He says of himself as a lawyer: "I
got on very well but often with an arrogance that would
have done credit to Castlereagh." In a judge this ar-
rogance was offensive and vicious. The greatest incident
evil of the many advantages which flow from civilized
government is the insolence of office, and Shakespeare's
phrase fitted Catron well. He was very unpopular and
when last a candidate was defeated. But he was an un-
swerving Jackson man. In 1829 he wrote a series of bril-
POLK AND CANNON.
379
liant and plausible letters against a United States Bank,
which were extensively copied, and which were not with-
out their effect in Jackson's war on Biddle's Bank.'
He pursued White with all the malignancy and force of
his rugged wit and crushing satire. He had his reward.
Of the four pillars of Jackson in Tennessee, it is worthy
of note that Grundy and Johnson both became cabinet of-
ficers, Polk became president, and that Catron became a
United States supreme judge.
In 1839 the controversy was for the first time between
the Whigs and the Democrats. The latter granted con-
sistency to the old Whigs, but denounced the "New
Whigs," such as Bell and Foster, with as much bitterness
as the Republicans of the present time denounce the so-
called mugwumps. In our day we have seen the addi-
tional vigor with which an October election is conducted
in a presidential year in a doubtful State. It was under-
stood that the election in 1839 in Tennessee was to be the
first skirmish of the presidential battle of 1840. Tennes-
see was a doubtful State. The Democrats selected the man
of all others best fitted to carry it a selection concurred
in by Jackson and Van Buren. Prentiss, the brilliant
Mississippian, refused to concur in the vote of thanks at
the close of Polk's term as speaker on the ground that
this would be used for political purposes in the approach-
ing struggle in Tennessee. Newton Cannon was accepted
by the Whigs and came forward as a Whig candidate, the
first in the history of the State. He attacked Polk for
his course in 1836 and as being supported by federal pat-
ronage. Jackson he denounced as a despot. But the ad-
vantage was all on the side of Polk. Cannon had rather
a slow, ponderous delivery, not adapted to the new tactics.
of his opponent. Polk was Napoleon in the Italian cam-
paign, and Cannon closely resembled the Austrian gener-
als. The Democrats had a compact organization, and "the
hurrah boys," a phrase which came into vogue during this
380
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
canvass, were all for Polk. He had a definite line of pol-
icy, and he was for Martin Van Buren for president.
Cannon still hoped to receive the votes of many Democrats.
who would be alienated by an outspoken preference for
Clay, although White openly announced that as between
Van Buren and Clay he would vote for the latter. Polk
ridiculed Cannon for his indecision in announcing his
preference for president. White's pronounced opposition
to the sub-treasury scheme hampered Cannon in his ef-
forts to win lukewarm Democrats. He was also accused
of having neglected the interests of the Tennessee Vol-
unteers who had taken part in the Florida War.
A notable addition to the Democratic party was the ad-
vent of Jeremiah George Harris upon the field of Tennes-
see journalism. The "Union," heretofore a small weekly,
was enlarged and issued three times a week. Harris
came from New England, New Bedford, where he had
edited the New Bedford (Mass.) "Gazette," which had
been strongly tinctured with abolition sentiments. Hav-
ing charged Bell with leaning towards the abolitionists,
the most fatal of political heresies at that time, the
"Nashville Banner" procured files of Harris's paper and
published extracts strongly squinting towards abolition-
ism. But Harris was a born fighter. Having been
brought to Tennessee for the purpose of fighting the bat-
tle of Democracy, he was often called "Dugald Dalghet-
ty." He had learned from George D. Prentice the art of
writing pungent paragraphs that stung and irritated. He
dealt largely in personal abuse and ridicule. Let those
who accuse the present stage of journalism of being char-
acterized by vituperation, read the files of the Tennessee
papers from 1839 to 1860. The "Union was for many
years the leading Democratic newspaper in the South-
west. Harris was a terse, vigorous, rough writer, and
wielding the party whip, he could lash the Democrats into
a phrenzied fury. He seemed utterly impervious to even
POLK AND CANNON.
381
the most scurrilous assailants. He had a cut of an eagle
with wings widespread which he was in the habit of put-
ting at the head of any issue of the "Union," containing
news of a Democratic victory. Judge Guild has pre-
served an amusing story about this eagle, told him by
Felix Grundy. News was expected of an election in an
adjoining State. While the mail at Murfreesboro was
being assorted, a leading Whig, peeping through a win-
dow, exclaimed: "It's all over; there is Harris's infernal
buzzard in the mail."
war.
Polk opened the campaign on his side by an address to
the people of Tennessee, perhaps the ablest political docu-
ment which appeared in this State up to the time of the
This was the beginning of the custom, which was
subsequently carried to great length, of discussing na-
tional questions in local elections. Polk defended this
procedure on the ground that the objections urged
against his election were based on difference of opinion on
national questions.¹ In this address, he reviews the
course of the Whig leaders, deduces their origin from the
Federalists, and defends those who had refused to support
White, accusing his supporters of a desire to overthrow
Jackson in Tennessee. This address caused a great stir
among the Whigs. Bell, especially, denounced it bitterly,
saying it was "a tissue of the foulest calumnies and false-
hoods he had ever seen published since the sun shone in
the heavens." It had a powerful effect on the people.
On the stump Polk completely demolished Cannon. He
ridiculed him so effectively that Cannon abandoned the
joint debate on the score of a press of official duties, but
was compelled by party friends to resume. Polk was
elected by a majority of 3,000 votes, and the Democrats
had a safe majority in the legislature. The breach be-
tween the faction of the Democratic party which had
1 In 1839, after Polk's election, a committee on federal relations
was raised by the General Assembly.
382
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
refused to support White and that faction which had sup-
ported him, was widened and rendered impassable by the
course of the Democrats in the legislature who instructed
White and Foster, the successor of Grundy, to vote for
the Sub-Treasury Bill and other measures favored by
Van Buren's administration, in order to drive them from
the Senate. In this they were successful and both re-
signed.
CHAPTER XXXV.
THE FIRST WHIG VICTORY.
THE issue of the "Republican Banner" announcing
the result of the election of 1839 called for increased ex-
ertions and a more thorough organization among the
Whigs to rescue the State from giving its vote to Martin
Van Buren and his odious administration. "Let the din
of preparation be heard throughout the Whig ranks in
Middle Tennessee." On the 25th of October a great
Whig dinner was given at Island Springs, just below
Nashville. Bell made an elaborate speech, cheering the
Whigs and denouncing Polk's address. Clay was in-
vited to visit Nashville. The Whig party was now thor-
oughly rooted in Tennessee soil. An illiberal party man-
agement and a despotic use of party power had, in five
years, made doubtful a State which had been regarded as
the focus of democracy.
The Whigs were desperately in earnest. Whilst their
opponents were still rejoicing over their victory, the
Whigs were making preparations for the most marvelous
political contest which had ever taken place in the
Southwest. Through one of those queer revulsions by
which nature endeavors to equalize the forces of the
world, a revolution took place in the relative position of
the parties. The Whigs now had all the advantages of
discipline and earnest determination which came from the
loss of a skirmish preceding a great decisive battle. The
election of 1839 was the Quatre-Bras of the Waterloo of
381
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
{
1840. The enthusiasm grew from day to day. Whigs
meeting each other in the streets spoke of the next ensu-
ing election as if their personal fortunes and the fate of
the Union depended upon the result. The Whigs drew
hope from a comparison of the votes cast in 1837 and
1839. Cannon, the first year, received 52,660, the sec-
ond, 52,899. Armstrong in 1837, 32,695 and Polk in
1839, 52,899. Thus Polk had been elected by an increase
from votes which had been wanting at the polls in 1837,
but had not gained by accessions from the Whigs.
The enthusiasm with which the Whigs went to work
alarmed and terrified the Democrats. The Whigs of Da-
vidson County met on the 7th of September for organiza-
tion, and county after county followed this example until
the whole State had been put in the condition of an army
or of a secret organization. The Democrats accused them
of having secret conclaves, grips, and passwords. The
"Union" denounced their organizations and committees as
new and strange fermentations in the body politic to be
put down by all lovers of peace and social order."
66
The Whig National Convention met at Harrisburg on
the 4th of December, 1839. The Whigs of Tennessee,
whose origin dated from the opposition to the convention
that nominated Van Buren, refused to send delegates.
Harrison was nominated, and for a moment the Whigs of
Tennessee whose hearts were set on Clay threatened to
rebel. But the tide of popular feeling was running high,
and soon all resistance gave way and "Tippecanoe and
Tyler too" were taken up with a rush. The Whigs in
1840 advanced no general principles upon which they pro-
posed to administer the government, but relied upon
attacks on the party in power, upon phrases and catch-
words, upon emblems and monster processions, upon ridi-
cule of Van Buren and glorification of Harrison, upon
brilliant speeches and imposing spectacles. Every party
to be successful should have a plan of action as well as
THE FIRST WHIG VICTORY.
385
a plan of attack. The Whigs of 1840 had but the second,
and though successful, they crumbled to pieces.
In February, 1840, a monster demonstration at Colum-
bus, Ohio, suggested the plan of campaign. This was
followed by the Young Men's Convention at Baltimore on
May 5, which, we are told by a chronicler of the day in
words of overpowering eloquence, was "all the imagina-
tion could conceive of beauty, grandeur, and sublimity."
The very next day, at the same place, the Democratic Con-
vention, of which Governor William Carroll was chair-
man, met and nominated Van Buren, but made no nomina-
tion for vice-president, to the sincere regret of the Whigs
in Tennessee, who expected it would be Polk and who
hoped to defeat him. The Democrats, who saw little to
attack, at first imagined they would have little difficulty
in overthrowing the Whigs. But it was Don Quixote's
charge upon the wind-mill. In May a Whig festival was
held at Clarksville. There were parades of military com-
panies, and a procession in which a log-cabin drawn by
four horses figured. A live coon was on the top of the
cabin. These were the emblems of the Whig candidate.
Some Democrat had spoken of Harrison as an old Hoosier
who might get along very well as a clerk whose ambition
would be satisfied with a log-cabin and a barrel of hard
cider. These were unlucky phrases for the Democrats.
The Whigs at once adopted them as battle-cries. Gov-
ernor William Carroll made a speech in which he belittled
Harrison's military ability. This was violently denounced
at a meeting held at Tippecanoe where about 20,000 peo-
ple were present. Tippecanoe clubs were formed in all
parts of the country, and in June a delegation of Indiana
Whigs came to Tennessee to present the Nashville Tippe-
canoe Club with an Indian canoe, a cage containing a
coon, and other Whiggish emblems. The day of their
arrival, a log-cabin had been put up on Market Street,
built by the personal exertions of Bell and other promi-
386
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
nent Whigs. The "Banner," describing it, quoted the
refrain of an old negro song:
"Pussum up a gum-tree
Cooney in the hollow."
Harris of the "Union " replied in three stanzas of dog-
gerel which were among the briskest and raciest songs of
the campaign—
"Whiggies to the rescue,
Cooney in a cage,
Go it with a rush, boys,
Go it with a rage.
"Mum is the word, boys,
Brag is the game;
Cooney is the emblem
Of Old Tip's fame.
"Go it, then, for cooney,
Cooney in a cage ;
Go it with a rush, boys,
Go it with a rage."
It is characteristic of this contest that the Whigs seized
at once upon lines which were written in derisive ridicule
and made a campaign song of them. In May came the
news that the Harrison men had carried Virginia and vari-
ous other States, and the Whigs, as they passed the office
of the "Union," yelled to the editor to "fetch out the
buzzard." Jackson was again dragged into the struggle,
but in vain. He wrote a letter indorsing Van Buren
and speaking of Harrison as the "representative of Fed-
eralistic principles in the present contest." But this shib-
boleth was no longer potent. He, Governor Polk and
Adam Huntsman, who had defeated Crockett for Congress,
visited Lexington, Tennessee. When Jackson arose next
morning, he saw near the inn a "liberty pole," from
which a Harrison and Tyler flag was flying. Both he
and Polk made speeches. Polk, who, without making a
THE FIRST WHIG VICTORY.
387
regular canvass, neglected no opportunity of speaking for
Van Buren, was presented by the grand jury of Sevier
County as a nuisance. Both parties had their ablest men
forward, but the Whigs outshone their rivals. White,
who had agreed to support Harrison, was put on the Whig
electoral ticket but died. Bell met A. O. P. Nicholson in
East Tennessee. Foster, smarting under his recent resig-
nation, canvassed the State from end to end, "from Car-
ter to Shelby," a phrase which was first applied to Polk's
canvass against Cannon. Wherever Foster went, he was
received with unbounded enthusiasm, being frequently
met by processions and greeted by ringing of bells and the
huzzas of the people.
Among the most startling events of this year was the
defection of Eaton, the intimate friend and adviser of
Jackson, from the Van Buren cause. When he announced
his intention of supporting Harrison, a change which he
justified on the score that he had seen the disastrous re-
sults of a hard money system in Spain, to which country
Jackson had sent him as minister in 1836, there was a
burst of indignation among the Democrats, and it was
openly predicted that Jackson would refuse to receive him.
In a speech delivered just before the election, in which he
made an earnest appeal for Harrison and the Whigs, he
said "he had heard it intimated that General Jackson
would not recognize him as a friend on his return to Nash-
ville," but that their meeting had been as cordial as at any
time before.
The most notable political event of this anomalous con-
test was the Whig Convention held at Nashville on the
17th of August, 1840. It was first suggested at a Whig
Convention at Little Rock, and was originally designed to
embrace merely the new, or the Western and Southern
States. The idea was accepted and swept like a fire from
place to place, until it was universally adopted and the day
selected. The Whigs of Muskingum County, Ohio, made
388
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
an enormous ball painted in variegated colors, and covered
with mottoes among which was one that had become a
battle-cry for the Whigs, "Keep the ball rolling." This
was sent to Nashville and arrived just preceding the time
for the assembling of the convention. On the 12th of
August, the "Nashville Whig" formally announced that
Henry Clay himself would be present, and fears were en-
tertained that the crowd would be larger than could be
accommodated. The procession was to form at seven
o'clock on Market Street and march to Walnut Grove.
Marshals were appointed to keep order. They were to be
mounted and were to wear black hats, blue silk sashes
with rosettes on the shoulder, and were to carry white
batons. The day was clear. Not a cloud was in the sky,
and the sun rose resplendent. It was such a pageant as
had never been seen in the Southwest before, as has been
seen but once since then, four years later, when a dis-
tinguished Tennessean was to experience the humiliation
of seeing one more gorgeous assemble for the purpose of
doing honor to a rival candidate for the presidency. Four-
teen States had each a general state banner, and indeed
the immense throng fluttered with banners of all sizes and
kinds and colors, generally of satin. Conspicuous in the
parade were the "Straightouts," a military company of
Tennessee, dressed in dark blue hunting shirts, trimmed
with white coon-skin caps and copperas breeches, sugges-
tive of the early pioneer life with which the fame of
General Harrison was intimately connected. They bore
three banners. The first was of plain white upon which
was the motto, “One Presidential Term and Fair Wages
for Labor." The second represented an eagle with wings.
outspread, bearing in its talons the words, "Harrison and
Reform," and underneath, "In Hoc Signo Vinces." The
third was of blue muslin on which was a game-cock with
the inscription, "A loud crow Chapman," in allusion to
the phrase of "Crow, Chapman, Crow," one of those
THE FIRST WHIG VICTORY.
389
senseless absurdities in which the political phraseology
of that day is peculiarly rich. The "Straightouts" were
followed by a general committee on arrangements. Next
came the Arkansas delegation whose banner bore David
Crockett's immortal saying, “Be sure you are right, then
go ahead." The Missouri banner represented a buffalo
"roused to the claims of an early friend," in reference to
Harrison's course during the contest over the admission
of Missouri to the Union. Madison County, Alabama, in
which party feeling ran unusually high, sent a large dele-
gation and a banner on which was a fanciful design, repre-
senting the Goddess of Liberty hovering over "Old Tip's
Cabin," and underneath the significant phrase, "Day is
Dawning," in allusion to recent Whig gains in Alabama,
which then as now was overwhelmingly Democratic.
Illinois and Mississippi both sent large state satin banners.
The banner of Indiana, which had just given an enormous
Whig majority, displayed a huge ball on which were the
words, "The Ball in Motion. Indiana 10,000 Majority."
Ohio displayed an eagle, bearing in its talons " For Presi-
dent, the Farmer of North Bend." Kentucky, the State
of the founder of the Whig party, who was to be orator
of the day and who excited as much wildness of enthu-
siasm in Tennessee as in his own State, was largely repre-
sented. In addition to two richly uniformed and capari-
soned military companies, many counties were represented
by large delegations. The banner of one county repre-
sented "Little Matty" flying from the White House,
another, a portrait of Harrison. New York showed a
pair of scales, with Van Buren going up on one side and
Harrison coming down on the other, with the motto,
"Weighed in the Balance and Found Wanting." New
England's device was,-
“From hill and from valley
From mountain and glen,
We come to the rescue
Of our country again."
390
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
Pennsylvania represented a fox following a lion — Jack-
son was the lion. Tennessee, of course, formed much the
largest part of the procession. The chief banner repre-
sented on a blue ground a stately "Seventy-four" under
full rig, pointed towards the White House and Capitol,
which was seen dimly in the distance. The state banner,
which was satin fringed with crape, displayed a device
representing the tomb of the great Tennessean, recently
deceased, around whose memory clung the same atmos-
phere of unruffled serenity which distinguished him liv-
ing, and whose unbending and exalted independence of
character had opened the way in Tennessee for the party
which was proud to number his name among those which
had made it illustrious. The great Ball from Ohio was
there, elevated upon wheels, and beside it strode the oak-
like figure of Porter, the Kentucky giant. The rear was
brought up by numerous county delegations from Tennes-
see and Kentucky. Robertson County, Tennessee, sent
an immense painted canoe on wheels. Maury County, in
which Polk lived, sent as an ominous threat, a likeness of
Hugh L. White, and the noble lines in which he resigned
his place in the Senate.
1
The procession began to move at ten and arrived at the
grove about twelve. E. H. Foster was elected chairman,
and vice presidents were appointed from eleven States.
Foster made the opening address, and almost before he
closed cheers and shouts began to rise in stormy succes-
sion until the air trembled with the noisy clamor. On
the stand beside Foster sat a tall, spare figure, with a face
whose features, far from symmetrical, have been rendered
almost as familiar to us as to our fathers. Whatever may
have been the measure of his statesmanship or the excel-
lence of his celebrated American system, there was cer-
tainly no doubt about the splendor of his fame, the vigor
of his intellect, the gentleness and sweetness of his char-
1 He was said to be eight feet tall.
THE FIRST WHIG VICTORY.
391
acter, the magnificence of his oratory, the importance of
his services to the party which he had founded, or the no-
bility of ambition which had cemented it for this contest
by his generous self-sacrifice. When he arose, the audi-
ence, as if electrified, arose with him. The applause rose
and swelled like the roar of the waters at Niagara. Hats
were thrown in the air. Men acted as if possessed, some
of them embracing each other as in transports of rapture,
others with tears in their eyes choking with emotion. In
those days the fever of political frenzy had spread even
to the women and many were present. They were as
ungovernable in their emotions as the sterner sex, and
several fainted, overcome by an excess of zeal and enthu-
siasm. Clay stood for a moment and gazed with kindling
eye upon the frantic spectacle. Then he lifted one hand,
and in a little while the silence was so deep that the cry-
ing of a child on the outskirts of the crowd could be
heard by all who were present. Clay's speech was neither
very brilliant nor very profound, but it was suited to the
occasion. It was a ringing denunciation of the abuses
which had crept into the government under the adminis-
tration of the "military chieftain" whose rugged impet-
uosity had so often borne down his own finer and more
elastic talents. It was full of alarums and drum-beats to
victory and the blare of trumpets. On the whole, per-
haps, it was a little more dignified, a little more thought-
ful than the type of heated iron and hissing water which
elected Harrison and accomplished what the Whigs vain-
gloriously declared "was the greatest moral revolution of
the age." After Clay, on this and succeeding days, came
J. J. Crittenden of Kentucky, Balie Peyton, the knight-
errant of Tennessee politics, and others, men of greater
or less brilliancy, whose reputations still remain as tradi-
tions only traditions which are
traditions which are but the beads and
wrought flowers upon the skirts of history.
After this convention the Democrats began to lose
heart. Their last effort was a trick, a shallow, disgrace-
392
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
ful trick, such a trick as the censorious are fond of declar-
ing a disgrace to the political life of this day. It is not
without comfort to us to reflect that an accurate knowl-
edge of our forefathers reveals to us the same errors of
unreasoning passion and unjust prejudice in their meth-
ods of thought and action which we deplore in ourselves.
in anticipation of the verdict of our children.
General Harrison made several speeches in Ohio during
the few months immediately preceding the election. In
one of these he said the people had an inalienable right
to petition for redress of grievances, even for the abolition
of slavery, if they regarded that an evil. He was at once
denounced as being an Abolitionist, a charge which was
daily repeated in Democratic journals. During the latter
days of October, the "Nashville Whig" gave notice to
the Whigs that some treachery was designed and to be on
their guard. On the 2d of November the treachery was
made apparent. Handbills were scattered broadcast con-
taining a letter of Harrison's to Arthur Tappan, the un-
daunted fanatic, declaring himself an Abolitionist. If
this had been true, Harrison would have lost Tennessee
and every Southern State. The "Union " at once issued
an extra edition containing the letter. But the "Whig'
was not less enterprising than the Democratic organ, and
it appeared the same day in flaming headlines publishing
a letter of denial by General Harrison. Van Buren re-
ceived 48,289 votes; Harrison, 60,391. It was said there
was not a sober Whig in Tennessee the day the result was
announced. The "Straightouts," in high glee, went to
the lodgings of the editor of the "Union," gave "Three
cheers for Jeremiah George," and called on him to show
himself. Harris came forward and good-humoredly "ac-
knowledged the corn." The crowd cheered him again and
left. The asperities of political warfare were moderating
since the time when a mountaineer with hard knuckles
and a big fist made it a rule "to lick on the spot any man
that said he did n't vote for Hugh White."
CHAPTER XXXVI.
POLK AND JONES IN 1841.
1
A STRIKING characteristic of the politicians of that day
was their stoutness of heart, and the din and tumult of
1840 had not died away before the Democrats began
preparations for 1841. On the 10th of December, 1840,
Dr. Felix Robertson distributed a circular in which he
suggested the plan of an organization for the following
year. Five men were to be appointed a corresponding
committee in each county, and these were to select three
Democrats in each civil district to distribute documents
and get voters to go to the polls. The Whigs were not
less alert. An old Whig still living ¹ has described the
thoroughness of the Whig organization during the three
years, 1841, 1843, and 1844, as surpassing anything ever
before witnessed in the Southwest. Not only were the
ordinary committees appointed, but each civil district was
placed under a kind of political martial law. Those vot-
ers who were unalterably attached to the Democratic or
the Whig parties were polled. Those who were doubtful
were turned over to some Whig friend or neighbor to be
persuaded, wheedled, and argued into voting the Whig
ticket. All who were halt, maim, or blind were each as-
signed to some individual whose duty it was to procure a
vehicle and bring them to the polls. Tennessee had now
become and for many years remained as prominent in the
politics of that day as New York in the politics of our
day. Jackson's residence in the State, and the fact that
1 Colonel Sam Tate.
394
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
the Whigs had carried it over his opposition made it con-
spicuous as a battlefield. Nashville, through the various.
conventions which met there, became a gathering place
for the Southwest. Here were arranged many of the
plans of campaign, and here often were concocted the
schemes and plots by which shrewd and subtle managers
controlled the actions of their parties. From Tennessee
came some of the ablest leaders among the Whigs and
Democrats of the United States. From now until 1850
the biographies of the candidates for the governorship
appeared in all political papers and their utterances were
quoted. The messages of the governors were generally
reprinted in full in the Eastern papers.
The contest between Polk and Jones in 1841 was fol-
lowed with keen interest by the Democrats, who hoped to
find some indication of the "sober second thought of the
people" asserting itself after the frenzy of 1841, and by
the Whigs to see if their hold upon popular favor gave
promise of being permanent. The contest of 1843 was
conspicuous as preceding 1844. The canvass of 1841
turned chiefly upon national issues. This was now and
long continued a matter of course. James K. Polk was
the Democratic candidate, and James C. Jones was the
Whig candidate. The leading question was of course the
bank. The Independent Treasury scheme had at last be-
come a law in 1840, but was promptly repealed in 1841,
and the rest of the session was spent in vain endeavors to
establish a National or Fiscal Bank of the United States.
Polk favored the reëstablishment of the Sub-Treasury
System and Jones a National Bank. He twitted Polk
with a change upon this subject which was more apparent
than real. In so far as the abstract question of a Na-
tional Bank was concerned, neither party in Tennessee
had what is called a straight record. Clay had opposed
this measure in 1811, and Grundy had favored it in 1814.
The petition for a branch at Nashville which was signed
POLK AND JONES IN 1841.
395
by William Carroll, John C. McLemore, and other lead-
ing Democrats was used by the Whigs in this as in other
campaigns. Indeed, the Democrats were somewhat ham-
pered by a diversity of opinion within their own ranks
upon the question of a bank. There was a small but very
determined body of voters who acted with the Democrats
on all other questions, but who had been converted to the
National Bank idea. The leadership of the party at once
"read them out of the party." In vain they called at-
tention to Madison's and Jackson's earlier record. The
party organs insisted upon their "going where they be-
longed," into the ranks of the Whigs.
6
The "Knoxville Argus" was one of the Democratic
organs.
It denounced bank Democrats as Federalists.
"The Post' says we are reading 'Bank Democrats' out
of the party," declared the " Argus." "We are doing no
such thing, for bank men, whether they
Democrats or not, are not in the party.
propriate place is in the federal ranks.
nothing to do with them we will hold with them no
political communion."
call themselves
Their only ap-
We will have
On the other hand, the position of the Whigs upon the
tariff was uncertain and indirect. Indeed, it was not till
this canvass that the Whigs came out boldly for even
a moderate degree of protection. Even so late as 1839
Ephraim H. Foster denounced the protective tariff sys-
tem as one "that steals from unconscious purses. Bell
had said in 1832, "It is scarcely necessary to say that I
regard what is called the American system, the great
idol of the majority, as the direct and baleful cause of the
present distracted condition of the country." It was not
till the forties that the Tennessee Whigs became protec-
tionists, and even then they rarely went beyond the doc-
trines of Jackson's Coleman letter, and Polk's Kane let-
ter. Gentry was the only Whig who voted for the tariff
of 1842. The Democrats were not without flaws in their
396
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
party record. The Whigs were a protective party with
occasional free-trade utterances, and the Democrats were
a free-trade party with occasional protective utterances.
When a small amount of revenue was to be raised, the
Whigs favored a protective rate. When a large amount
of revenue was to be raised the Democrats favored a pro-
tective rate with discriminations within certain broad land-
marks. In Tennessee the bulk of the people were op-
posed to high duties, and this compelled the Whigs to
handle this subject with extreme caution.
Upon the subject of internal improvements the Whigs
generally had the advantage. Jefferson, Jackson, and
Polk himself had at some time or in some measure
squinted at a system of internal improvements at the ex-
pense of the general government. Boasting of his con-
sistency, Polk said: "I challenge the newspaper press of
the State to pick out the act-the single act upon which
I have changed my principles." Jones called attention to
the fact that when a member of the General Assembly of
Tennessee, he had, in a report on internal improvements,
referred to the "propriety of such works being constructed
by the State or general government." Again in a circu-
lar dated the 10th of May, 1825, he said: "A judicious
system of internal improvements, within the powers dele-
gated to the general government, I therefore approve."
When twitted by Jones concerning these things, he evaded
it by saying that if such things were necessarily to be, he
favored Tennessee getting its share.
The White-Van Buren-Jackson contest of 1836 was
discussed in detail again, and this led to a discussion of
the origin of the Whig party. Polk made a searching
and skillful argument proving that the Whigs were Fed-
eralists with but a change of name. He reviewed at
length the bargain, intrigue, and corruption charge of
1824, and paid exalted tribute to the public services and
private character of General Jackson. The only question
POLK AND JONES IN 1841.
397
of state policy drawn into the canvass was the "Sterling
Bond" charge upon which Jones based a demagogic ap-
peal to the prejudices of the people. After the State
Bank was chartered, Polk as governor suggested that the
interest on a certain number of the bonds to be issued for
that enterprise should be payable in pounds, shillings, and
pence in order to negotiate them abroad, as Jones said,
"to sell them like sheep in the market." The suggestion
was practical and sensible. It strains our credulity to
know that upon this ground Jones attacked, and in a
great measure successfully attacked, Polk's patriotism.
The Democrats, in order to offset the prejudice flowing
from this preposterous affair, made a counter-charge to
this effect, that Jones in 1839, when a candidate for
the state legislature, had advocated the same idea, and,
out-Heroding Herod, gave as a reason for this that he
had just sold his farm and expected to be paid in state
bonds. The falsity of this charge was clearly proven.
The Whigs were also charged with having condoned the
defalcation of Robert H. McEwen, the superintendent of
public instruction. Jones accused Polk of using the
patronage of the State Bank, and Polk accused Jones of
being supported by the private banks, who hoped to break
down the state banks.
But the election in 1841 turned upon other things than
questions of public policy. It was in a large measure a
revival and a continuation of the preceding year. The
Whigs found a candidate peculiarly adapted to their
needs. Immediately after their great success in 1840, the
fruits of victory were taken from them by the death of
Harrison and the refusal of Tyler to act in harmony with
the party to which he owed his election. The approaching
dissensions were not yet apparent when Jones was nomi-
nated. Still in the national party they grew and in-
creased in bitterness during the canvass in Tennessee. It
was due to the Whig candidate that the spirits of the
398
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
Whigs were not chilled by adversity, disappointment, and
deferred hope. This candidate was James C. Jones, or
as he is popularly called, even to this day, Jimmy Jones.
When nominated, the Democrats ridiculed him as a man
of yesterday "unknown to fame." Jones had all the at-
tributes and all the antecedents of a popular hero. He
was born in 1809, in Davidson County, near the Wilson
County line, and almost within sight of the Hermitage.
He was a delicate child, and being compelled to leave.
school on this account, he turned his attention to farm-
ing. Plowing and the hard work of a farm restored his
health and replenished his stores. He married at an
early age.
As a married man he was as striking a con-
trast to Polk in this as in other things.
Polk had no
children at all, Jones welcomed a new one nearly every
year. He took no part in politics until 1839, when he
was elected a member of the legislature from Wilson.
County. As a member of this body, he gained neither
applause nor blame. The ardency of his Whig senti-
ments was soon established, for even as a candidate for
the General Assembly he advocated the nomination of
Clay by the Whigs for the presidency. The first time
attention was drawn to him as a public speaker was in
January, 1840, at Nashville, where a large meeting of
Whigs assembled to ratify the nomination of Harrison.
In 1840 he was one of the Whig presidential electors, and
within a week after his return from the legislature he be-
gan making speeches for Harrison and Tyler. His can-
vass gave him the reputation of being a strong, effective
stump-speaker. "He can hold a crowd well in hand,” it
was said, "and handle his opponent with ease." The
Whig Convention that met at Murfreesboro on the 5th
of March, 1841, met with the knowledge of the fact
that their nominee would be called on to face the ablest
stump-speaker in the Southwest-perhaps in the United
States. Some one must be found who could "stand up
POLK AND JONES IN 1841.
399
before Polk." As by inspiration, Jones was suggested and
unanimously nominated. His task was before him. He
was to "get after Polk." The Whigs, in speaking of
Jones's nomination, frequently confessed that "Lean
Jimmy was nominated to get after Polk, and he went
straight for him." They canvassed the State twice, in
1841 and in 1843, and the excitement of the two contests
is still a tradition among Tennesseans. Polk had laughed
Cannon from the stump by anecdotes, by ridicule, by bur-
lesquing his manner of speaking, by confusing his mind,
by the most ingenious perversions of his views, aided by a
thorough grasp of political questions and masterly discus-
sion of current issues. He invented and perfected the art
of stump-speaking, and like the Guillotine of fable, though
not of history, he was among the first victims of the in-
strument his refined ingenuity had invented. Polk real-
ized from the first the qualities of the candidate pitted
against him. In making appointments there was evi
dently a desire if not an intention on his part to avoid
joint discussions. But Jones met this by making every
necessary sacrifice of pride in order to meet him.
Jones's personal appearance gave him an advantage on
the stump. He was ungainly and very slender. He was
six feet, two inches tall, and weighed only one hundred and
twenty-five pounds. He walked with a precise military
step, not unlike a soldier on parade. His complexion
was swarthy, his nose was large, and his expression was
grave and solemn. In more respects than one he bore a
remarkable resemblance to Ned Brace in the "Georgia
Scenes." His hair was thin and curly. His mouth was
extraordinarily large. His eyes were small and gray, and
were shaded by heavy eyebrows. But his address, which
was cordial and kind, more than redeemed his personal
appearance. He had a touch of pleasant deference which
rendered him extremely popular with his female constitu-
ents. He lacked the personal dignity which made it diffi-
400
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
*
cult for Polk to unbend in the light badinage of flippant
conversation. His popularity was very great. On the
stump in 1841, he knew it would be impossible to attempt
to answer Polk's speeches. He had a wide and frag-
mentary knowledge of men and measures, but nothing
more. The Democrats said he had learned all he knew
from "The Spirit of '76," a campaign paper published
during the Harrison-Van Buren contest. He avoided all
serious argument. But he had a genius for perverting
and confounding words and terms, and would frequently
harp on what he called a strange inconsistency of his
worthy opponent, which resulted alone from his using the
same word used by Polk and giving it a different signifi-
cance. Polk had great powers of mimicry which he had
used with unsparing pitilessness against Cannon. His
imitations of Balie Peyton were especially effective. But
against Jones his powers seemed to fail him. Jones was
a master of all the arts of caricature and simulation. His
impressive gravity, his powers of ridicule and travesty,
his anecdotes told with irresistible humor, joined to his
queer figure, his capacious mouth, and his large nose kept
his audience in a state of perpetual uproar. People be-
gan to laugh the moment he arose. On one occasion,
after Polk had made a long and elaborate argument upon
the Whigs and Federalists, Jones arose and running one
hand gently over a coon-skin which he held in the other,
remarked, “Did you ever see such fine fur?” The effect
of Polk's speech went up like chaff in a wind before the
mocking laughter which recognized the reference to the
Harrison campaign and the implied taunt. Occasionally
after Polk's Federalist speech, Jones would assert that
Ezekiel Polk, the grandfather of his competitor, was a
Tory, and would then denounce the Tories in the bitterest
terms, leaving his audience to imply that it came with a
bad grace from a man with such antecedents to accuse
other people of being Federalists. Polk would deny the
POLK AND JONES IN 1841.
401
truth of this assertion and would prove its falsity conclu-
sively, but Jones, at the next appointment, would probably
make the same statement and indulge in the same invec-
tives. He was, on the stump, thoroughly unscrupulous.
The most glaring falsehoods, when corrected at one place,
would be reiterated at another. In this way Polk could
never corner him. Polk at first tried his powers of ridi-
cule upon Jones, but the latter never failed to turn the
laugh on him. He did this, not by his wit, for in this
Polk, though not a witty man, far excelled him, but by his
comical expression. The most trivial phrases from Jones
would call forth shouts of laughter, when remarks of ten
times the humor and force from Polk would pass unre-
garded. One of Polk's anecdotes has been preserved.
He said the desire of the Whigs for office reminded him
of an incident in the late war. A Virginia regiment had
come from a part of the State which raised very fine
horses, and not wishing to endanger the lives of those
which were valuable, the soldiers mounted themselves on
old mares, the majority of which had young colts. Much
time was lost through the necessity of having to stop to
let the colts suckle. The colonel commandant, in order
to save time, finally made it a routine duty to allow them
to suckle all at one time. So when the hour came, he
would give the command, "At-ten-tion Reg-i-ment! Halt!
Pre-pare to suck-le colts!" The application was obvious,
and there was much merriment and some blushing among
the women, who in those days always attended "speak-
ing." Jones retorted by saying that what the governor
said was true the Whigs were young colts. But that
the governor himself was an old sucker who had been at
it for fifteen years.
The farmers in his section of coun-
try generally let a live, healthy colt be weaned by his dam,
but that in the case of a scrubby, unpromising fellow, they
generally weaned him about the first Thursday in Au-
gust. (The day of election.)
402
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
After Polk had been unmercifully spurred and goaded,
he repudiated his own methods and ridiculed Jones and
his anecdotes. He himself, he said, tried to discuss great
questions of state in a becoming and serious manner. His
worthy opponent wisely made a jest of things which in-
deed were beyond his comprehension. In fact, he was
better fitted for the tights and spangles and sawdust of
the circus ring than for the gubernatorial office. Jones
did not wince. But in replying he said that in fact both
he and his opponent were best fitted for the ring. That
for himself he could not deny that he was fitted for tights.
(here he touched his thin legs), but his worthy compet-
itor was fitted for the little fellow that is dressed up in
a red cap and jacket and who rides around on a pony.
Polk's smile, which his scoffing contemporaries often
called "a horrible grin," was one of the standing jests of
his enemies. Jones's reference to the monkey was greeted
with vociferous and long-continuing laughter and Polk
was long known as "the little fellow on the pony."
Polk made several attempts to break loose from Jones,
as Cannon had attempted to break loose from him, but
Jones was as eager in 1841 as he had been in 1839. As
the canvass progressed, Polk began to lose his temper,
and to assail Jones both in the newspapers and on the
stump, without, however, in any measure destroying the
latter's equanimity. The boisterous cheers, the loud
laughter, the huzzas with which the Democrats had fol-
lowed the canvass of 1839 were now, such was Brown-
low's boast, hushed into religious silence when their leader
came to face the young farmer from Wilson County.
Not only did Polk lose his temper. The Democrats gen-
erally became irritated and sore. When the meeting
took place in Somerville, there were two partners in busi-
ness, one a Democrat and one a Whig. They agreed that
the Whig should stay at the store, and the Democrat
should attend "speaking." He was to listen faithfully,
POLK AND JONES IN 1841.
403
and report impartially what he heard. He was naturally
a man of good temper, and not easily angered. When he
returned his partner noticed that he appeared flushed and
angry. Being asked what Polk said, he answered fiercely,
"Mr. Polk made an ass of himself, talking sense to a lot
of d-d fools." And Jones? "Jones-Jones! I don't
know what Jones said! No more does anybody else. I
know this much. If I were Mr. Polk I would n't allow
any one to make a laughing-stock of me. He ought to
get a stick and crack Jones's skull, and end this tom-
foolery!" 1
As a matter of fact, all the enthusiasm, the dashing
impetuosity, the fire, the shouting, and the cheering were
with Jones. He had the "Hurrah boys" - the bonfire
and the dress-parade element the young men. The con-
testants spoke to the largest crowds that had ever assem-
bled in Tennessee. In some counties the roads leading to
the county seat where the candidates were to speak were
so crowded with people on foot, in buggies, on horseback,
and in wagons, that they resembled caravans of emigrants.
It was noticed that Polk, before the speaking began,
generally stood at some point near the speaker's stand
with a few friends, speaking to such as came up to be
introduced to him, while Jones was stalking through the
crowd, poking fun at the boys, chucking the girls under
the chin, flattering the women, and bantering the men.
Nashville was the centre of the political life of the
State. Indeed, it was said that there was a Whig junto
or clique in Nashville who controlled the party through-
out the entire State. Bell and Foster and A. A. Hall
were among the leaders of this junto, and the Democrats
asserted that Jones owed his nomination to the sub-
serviency with which he had bowed his neck to this
yoke when a member of the General Assembly, and voted
to retain the seat of government at Nashville. In spite
of the jealousy of other parts of the State, it was, as a mat-
Related by Colonel Sam Tate, who was the Whig in this anecdote.
404
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
ter of course, from Nashville that the strongest influences
radiated, and it was before a Nashville audience that
speakers most desired to shine. Polk and Jones met for
the first time on the 30th of March at Big Spring, in
Wilson County. They reached Nashville on the 19th of
May. The partisan complexion of reports sent to partisan
newspapers in those times was a subject of amazement to
men of liberal minds and unprejudiced understandings.
According to the "Union," Jones was a poor creature
whose ignorance and coarse buffoonery were rendered
more glaring by the brilliancy and statesmanlike pro-
fundity of Polk's classical orations. According to the
"Whig," Polk's strength of mind and character had de-
parted from him, as completely as if some Delilah-like
influence had shorn him of his talents. It was an assured
fact that the people of Tennessee would never let a man,
such as Polk, be elected over the head of one who towered
so high above him. It was significant, however, that the
Whig papers occasionally went so far as to admit, in the
high-flown style of the day, that it was a "battle of
giants." From all of this, it was difficult for the Nash-
ville people to form a moderately accurate estimate of the
two champions, as they were often called. Party feeling
ran high, and there was a feverish impatience to hear them.
When the time came, there was present an audience
larger than that which had collected to ratify the nom-
ination of Harrison. According to the terms of the dis-
cussion, each speaker had two and a half hours. The
speaking began at 2.30 and continued until 7.30. It
was a repetition of what had taken place before. Polk
made a speech that would have swept from the stump any
man who had ever been governor of Tennessee before
him, and any man who was governor after Jones until
Andrew Johnson came forward. It was forcible, compre-
hensive, powerful, vehement, almost eloquent. Bell, with
his graceful purity of speech, his thorough political equip-
ment, his rhetorical finish, his incisive analysis and philo-
POLK AND JONES IN 1841.
405
sophic amplification, might have answered it. Foster, the
impassioned, the turgid, the alert, the lofty, might have
answered it. The warm imagination and impetuous and
dazzling rhetoric of Gus Henry might have sustained the
contest on terms not altogether unequal. But James C.
Jones, who scarcely possessed a single quality here attrib-
uted to these three, did what not one of the three could
have done he completely demolished the speaker. He
had no wit, he had no fancy, he had no oratorical powers,
he had no knowledge, he had no great qualities of mind,
he lacked everything that the others had, but he had
what the others lacked, a power of ridicule and mimicry
never equaled in this State. It is said that the Greeks,
fearing alone the attack of the elephants which accom-
panied the army of Darius, put them to flight by loud
alarums and great tumult. Jones met Polk and routed
him by the same tactics. He made the crowd laugh until
it became frantic. He twisted and distorted everything
that Polk had said until he, whose thoughts and words
were so perverted, could not, for his life, have unraveled
the maze of sophistry and nonsense. He turned serious
arguments into jests, jests again into serious arguments.
He discussed the spirit of an assertion or the actual letter
of it, or he jumbled both together as suited his purpose.
He held out hopes of Polk becoming a Whig. And
why? Because he grinned like the little fur-covered ani-
mal that had been one of the emblems in the Harrison
campaign. He told the most grotesque, the most ludicrous
anecdotes with a mien of funereal gravity. When at a
loss for something to say, he looked solemnly towards the
audience, and then turned slowly and reproachfully to-
wards his competitor, while the crowd burst into roars of
laughter at the sight. The Democrats and Polk were
mortified but not surprised, when the same party which
had elected Harrison president, with cabins, coons, and
cider, elected Jones governor with anecdotes, laughter, and
waggery.
!
CHAPTER XXXVII.
POLK AND JONES IN 1843.
WHEN the General Assembly met in October, the two
parties were very nearly evenly balanced. In the House,
the Whigs had a majority of one, and there was one mem-
ber who was not strictly a member of either party. In
the Senate, the Whigs had twelve and the Democrats
twelve. Samuel Turney was again a member, and held
the balance of power. In 1839 he had been elected in
a Whig community on purely non-partisan grounds. He
was elected a member of the Senate on a compromise.
At this session was enacted an episode which makes a
curious chapter in the history of partisan politics. As a
result of the instructions of 1839, White and Foster had
resigned. In the encouraging eloquence of the "Whig,
"Our noble Foster refused to drag the manacles at the
wheels of a chance majority, while he knows his own
beloved Tennessee has power to bid him mount on a tri-
umphal chariot, and lead her people rejoicing with him up
the steeps of honor and prosperity."
""
As the right of the General Assembly to instruct the
Senators whom it elects has often been a subject of par-
tisan disputation, it may be of interest to know that it was
a right never seriously denied before the war. During
this session of the legislature, the right of instruction was
discussed, and both parties were agreed upon it. In a
report made by the majority of the committee to whom
were referred the resolutions of 1839, and who recom-
mended their rescission, it was said that as to the right of
POLK AND JONES IN 1843.
407
the constituent to instruct the representative there was
very little difference of opinion. "This power
“This power is essential
to the very existence and perpetuity of a representative
government." The minority report took the same position.
White and Foster both resigned in 1839, being unable to
vote for measures for which they had been instructed to
vote. In 1838 Grundy voted against the Sub-Treasury
system, although he favored it, in obedience to legislative
instructions. In 1846 Spencer Jarnagin voted for the
Walker tariff against his convictions but in obedience to
instructions. In 1842 Foster refused to vote for the an-
nexation of Texas, contrary to instructions, but defended
his vote on the ground that whilst he favored annexation,
he regarded the instructions as general, not requiring him
to vote for any particular measure. He admitted the right
of instruction.
There were two vacancies in the Senate, that of Alexan-
der Anderson, elected to fill out White's term, and Grundy's
unexpired term, to which A. O. P. Nicholson had been
appointed. The prominent Whig candidates for the Senate
were Spencer Jarnagin and E. H. Foster, who had been
the Harrison electors for the State at large the year before.
Then, as now, this was considered an onerous task worthy
of substantial partisan recognition, when adequately per-
formed. Foster was peculiarly objectionable to the Demo-
crats because of his effective party work the year before,
and because his general identification with White and his
resignation rendered it especially galling to have him now
returned to the Senate. It was charged that Jones had
suggested the plan afterwards pursued by the Democrats
for the guidance of the Whigs, in case they failed to elect
a working majority. This was earnestly denied by Jones.
The fact that Turney held the balance of power in the
Senate suggested an obvious method of defeating Foster
which was at once adopted. The Whig caucus nominated
Foster and Jarnagin, and the Senate, with Samuel Turney's
408
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
vote, elected his brother Hopkins L. Turney, at that time
a member of Congress. The House refused to concur.
The Senate refused to meet the House in joint convention
until Turney received instructions from his constituency
to vote to bring on an election of United States senators.
The day appointed by joint resolution was December 2.
On that day, Turney and the twelve Whigs repaired to
the house, but the twelve Democrats remained in the
senate chamber. Among the number was Andrew John-
son, who was apparently with Laughlin, the leader in this
queer filibustering. When the roll of the Senate was
called, the clerk reported "no quorum."
no quorum." The speaker
sent the doorkeeper to request the absent members to
attend the meeting of the joint convention. The House
then proceeded to organize, in order, with the majority of
the Senate, to proceed to business. About twenty Demo-
cratic members of the House at once left the hall. This
scene was reenacted for four days, when Turney refused
any longer to attend the meetings of the joint convention.
On the eleventh of December the Democrats entered a
protest against the methods pursued to elect a United.
States senator, as unconstitutional. Under the law, the
election must be made by the legislature and not by con-
vention, that is, it must be made by each body in its un-
divided capacity and in its own hall, not in joint meeting.
Another ground of protest was the refusal of the two can-
didates elected in caucus to answer certain questions re-
garding their positions on certain public questions. More
even than this, the Democrats had offered to compromise
the matter by electing one Democrat and one Whig, each
party to elect its own candidate but both to be from dif-
ferent geographical divisions. This proposition was "de-
feated by the votes of the exclusive Whigs, who have thus
refused a measure calculated to produce reconciliation
between the two great parties." The Democrat selected
was of course H. L. Turney. This puerile proposition
POLK AND JONES IN 1843.
409
and others equally trivial were rejected by the Whigs.
The Democrats who signed this protest fully realized the
folly of it. There was no record of a United States sen-
ator ever having been elected by any other method than
by the one proposed. Indeed, Johnson himself had been
a member of the General Assembly in 1839 and 1840,
and had concurred in previous proceedings of this nature.
The other offer to compromise by electing one Whig and
one Democrat (like various other propositions to resign
and hold forthwith another election in order to get the
opinion of the people) was not only imbecile and contemp-
tible. It was a direct sacrifice of principle. Exactly the
thing irrational in politics and impossible in a representa-
tive form of government is the reconciliation of opposing
parties. The stability of republican institutions, as the
purity of water, depends not upon stillness and quietude,
but upon struggle and commotion. Other conditions are
unnatural and of short duration as was the "Era of Good
Feeling." The bulk of the people have little time for
looking after their collective interests. The exercise of
power without supervision leads to depravity and roguery.
The organization of parties furnishes the people not only
officers to perform necessary functions but also a large
body of alert, vigilant, and self-interested inspectors and
supervisors, who watch closely public affairs and promptly
report any dereliction and delinquency. Andrew Johnson
and his associates, who figure in state history as the "Im-
mortal Thirteen," knew the extravagance and inanity of
their propositions, but they expected to defeat the election
of a Whig senator for the present, hoping to achieve a
different result at the next election.
Nor did this stop here. Governor Jones, in accordance
with the law, sent in a list of twelve directors of the State
Bank early in the session. Two days before the adjourn-
ment, the Senate called up the nominations and rejected
them. Jones sent in a new list the day of adjournment
410
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
which met a similar fate. In this way, the Democrats
then forming the board held over for two years more. A
recommendation to investigate the condition of the bank
was also voted down. An extra session was called in 1842,
but without effecting any change of affairs.
These things Polk was compelled to face. In answer
to what is known as the Memphis Interrogatories, he was
forced to defend the "Immortal Thirteen." When in
1843 the second struggle between Polk and Jones came
on, the Democrats entered it in the face of a whirlwind.
It had often been charged that the old Bank of Tennessee
was used to advance the interests of the Jackson party.
The defalcation of Joel Parrish was pointed to as the
result of this course, and Parrish himself was quoted as
saying he would suffer his right arm to come off before
he would divulge the secret workings of the bank. These
charges had been repudiated by the people and proven
false by actual occurrences. But they were now again
revived with greater plausibility than before. "The ad-
dress to the Republican party of Tennessee" of the 4th
of July, 1840, had been signed by four directors of the
new Bank of Tennessee, one of whom, Dr. Felix Robert-
son, was chairman of the Republican committee. The
Whigs in 1843 bitterly denounced the management of the
bank, and pointed significantly to the resolution passed
at the extra session declaring an investigation inexpedient
and useless. Brownlow, of the "Jonesboro Whig," poured
forth a steady stream of vituperation, of terrible invective,
of coarse ribaldry, and of sharp, biting sarcasm. The
Whigs waged the war with more than wonted enthusiasm.
Jones had not failed to profit by his previous campaign, by
intermingling with the world, by contact with the leaders
of the party. He had developed a talent for political
management in recognition of which the Democratic
papers had promoted him to the leadership of the Nash-
ville Junto. His knowledge of public questions had
POLK AND JONES IN 1843.
411
broadened, his mind had become more liberalized, the tone
of his discussion less flippant. But his unscrupulous in-
genuity, his hardened equanimity, his powers of mimicry,
of burlesque, of mockery, of farcical exaggeration, the
grotesque solemnity of his features, the heavy eyebrows,
the small eyes twinkling over the large nose, and the broad
mouth still remained with him.
In addition to the issues which had arisen within the
State, the two candidates fell to upon the same questions
which had occupied them in 1841. The bankrupt law,
however, which held then a secondary position, now came
in for more extended discussion. The Whigs generally
favored it, and the Democrats opposed it. It had been
passed in 1841 and repealed in 1842. Polk in 1843, after
its repeal, was very severe in his denunciation, and Jones.
ridiculed this by his celebrated "Lay on, Nancy" anecdote.
It reminded him of a fellow this was then, as now, the
anecdote-teller's conventional form of introduction-
whose cabin was attacked by a bear, there being no one
there but a small child, his wife, and himself. The man
ran up into the loft, and left his wife to contest the matter
with the bear, which she did most gallantly. The fight took
place in the yard close to the door. The husband in the
loft watched the fight with intense interest, yelling, “Lay
on, Nancy! Lay on, Nancy! LAY ON, Nancy!" After
the bear was laid out, as dead as the bankrupt law, the
fellow crawled down puffing and blowing, and going up to
his wife said, " W-e-ll, Nancy, ain't we brave?"
The canvass of 1843 was watched with deep and wide-
spread interest throughout the United States, and in Ten-
nessee bets as high as $3,000 were made between Whigs
and Democrats. The" Frankfort Commonwealth" said
that "should the Whigs, as we confidently anticipate, carry
the election in Tennessee, we believe the result will be con-
sidered as decisive of the presidential election of 1844."
The "National Forum" thought the contest in Tennessee
412
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
would decide the complexion of the United States Senate,
also "it is the first regularly contested battle of the cam-
paign which is to decide who is to be the next president."
Governor Jones in a letter to Prentiss said: “This is the
battle-ground of the nation." The election of Jones was
greeted by the Whigs throughout the Union with boundless
enthusiasm. The Whigs of Philadelphia passed a vote of
thanks to him, and the "Boston Atlas" suggested that a
suitable gift as a memorial be presented to him by the
Whigs of the United States. Various suggestions were
made that he should be put on the ticket the year follow-
ing for the vice-presidency. Another substantial result for
the Whigs was the election of Jarnagin and Foster to the
Senate.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE GREAT WHIG CONVENTION OF 1844.
THE contest in 1844 was the first political struggle in
Tennessee into which slavery entered as an issue, and it
was the last in which the Whigs manifested that martial
ardor which recalled the tempestuous shouts, the terrific
charges, the bursting of shells, the flash of musketry, and
the bristling of bayonets in actual warfare. The national
Whigs entered the contest of 1844 inflamed with resent-
ment against what they termed the treachery of Tyler,
united, enthusiastic, and with a leader whose personal pop-
ularity, if we except Jackson and the elder Pitt, surpasses
anything recorded in the history of constitutional govern-
ments. From the first his nomination was demanded so
imperatively that he was nominated by acclamation when
the Whig Convention met at Baltimore on May 1. The
Whigs of Tennessee so far overcame the prejudices which
the White campaign of 1836 had left behind, as to send
delegates to join in the nomination. Theodore Freling-
huysen of New Jersey was put forward for vice-president
and the country rang with the refrain:-
"Hurrah, hurrah, the country 's risen,
For Henry Clay and Frelinghuysen."
The defeat of Van Buren in 1840 had exasperated the
Democrats, and acting upon a suggestion originating with
Benton, they determinated to nominate him in 1844.
Buchanan and Calhoun withdrew, and when the year of
conflict opened, it seemed apparent that Van Buren would
414
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
have no serious opposition. In fact a majority of the
delegates were instructed to vote for him. Negotiations
had been in progress for some time looking to the annexa-
tion of Texas to the United States, and in April, 1844,
President Tyler submitted a treaty for that purpose to
the Senate. In a letter written from Raleigh, North
Carolina, shortly before he was nominated, Clay took con-
servative grounds against annexation. This was followed
shortly by a letter from Van Buren of similar significance.
Andrew Jackson and the Tennessee Democrats were thun-
derstruck, and the former at once declared that Van
Buren must "explain," which meant retract this. Dele-
gates had already been appointed and instructed to vote
for Van Buren. When this letter was made public, those
from the Southern States refused to obey these instruc-
tions. Some resigned. In Tennessee the droll and
whimsical Joseph C. Guild openly announced his determi-
nation under no circumstances to vote for Van Buren.
The adoption of the two-thirds rule made it impossible.
for "the Sage of Kinderhook" to be nominated. On
the eighth ballot James K. Polk of Tennessee received
forty-four votes, and on the ninth he was nominated.
George M. Dallas of Pennsylvania was nominated for the
vice-presidency. Polk was known to be a pronounced
advocate of annexation and a follower of Jackson. He
was called "Young Hickory." The Whigs declared he
had been nominated "to gild the evening of the days of
the hero of the Hermitage." One of the Whig papers
said gravely that the coons in the forest all grinned when
they heard of Polk's nomination. Another quoted them
as running through the woods singing, —
66
Ha, ha, ha, what a nominee
Is Jimmy Polk of Tennessee."
In Tennessee his nomination was received with deep
satisfaction by the Democrats, and by the Whigs with a
desperate determination to pay off at last the score of the
THE GREAT WHIG CONVENTION OF 1844.
415
When the
""
part taken by Polk in the defeat of White.
Democratic orators pleaded for Polk on the score of state
pride, the Whigs with telling effect asked where had been
Polk's state pride in 1836? The "Union" at Nashville,
with Jeremiah George Harris at its head, and the "Whig'
at Jonesboro, with Brownlow at its head, were the most
active, the most vituperative, the most impetuous papers
in the State. The Democratic papers overflowed with
ridicule of the campaign emblems of 1840, and attempted
to turn them against their opponents by caricatures rep-
resenting a coon in the act of being skinned by a Loco
Foco, or on the ground being torn and rent asunder by
Democratic dogs. They composed a campaign song, “The
Coon is Dead," to which the Whigs responded by an-
other, of which the refrain was,
"The Coon is dead. Ah, how mistaken!
For you there's no such luck.
You wish him dead, I doubt it not,
But he lives in 'Old Kaintuck.'"
‘
Brownlow sneered at the ridicule of the "Union.” “When
a Loco Foco, by the remission or apathy of the Whigs,
slips into office, Democracy calls it 'the sober second
thought of the people'; but when freemen, aroused as in
1840, assert their rights and turn rogues and royalists'
out of office, they are said to be 'drunk on hard cider.'
The Democrats twitted the Whigs upon being divided
among themselves, and renewed the old charges of bar-
gain, intrigue, and corruption. It having been rumored
that Jackson had finally conceded the falsity of this, he
published a letter in May denying any recantation. The
Whigs, in June, were absolutely confident of victory.
They far surpassed the Democrats in talent and in ora-
tory. Governor Jones, like Polk in 1840, without ac-
tually taking the stump, lost no opportunity of cheering
on his political friends and exerting his influence for
Clay. John Bell, whose enmity against Polk was fierce
416
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
and unremitting, attacked him with unsparing denuncia-
tions, and with a closely woven tissue of argument, invec-
tive, and inference which no man but Polk himself could
have answered. Gus Henry, whose name is one of the
brightest of those who, in the Southwest, established a
school of remarkably brilliant political oratory, and who
was fresh from his remarkable struggle against Cave
Johnson, won his first laurels on the broader field of state
politics in this campaign. Tall, erect, and of a striking
beauty of features, his personal appearance rendered him
peculiarly adapted to the style of rhetorical brilliancy of
speaking which dazzled the imagination of his audience
and charmed them into forgetfulness of argument, re-
search, and reason. In this year he gained the sobriquet
of "Eagle Orator," a phrase not then worn threadbare.
Neil S. Brown took the stump, and displayed those genial
qualities of character and intellect which subsequently
made him governor of the State. In West Tennessee
the enthusiasm of the Whigs was aroused to the highest
pitch by the wit and sarcasm and fiery invective and
flowery perorations of William T. Haskell, the splendor
of whose intellect had not yet been dimmed by disease.
Such enthusiastic efforts had but once before been made
in the political arena of Tennessee. From Memphis where,
as a local Whig organ said, the Clay Club was glorious
to look upon, to East Tennessee, where, as Foster said,
"the mountains were on fire," it was a stirring time, in
which parts were played by many men of brilliant talents.
In the midst of the canvass an election for town magis-
trate was held in Columbia, Polk's home, and the Clay
candidate was elected by a vote of 68 to 34, a fact which
was not suffered to go unnoted by the Whigs. Each
party organized clubs, renewed the organizations of pre-
vious elections, canvassed each district closely, and dis-
seminated political literature with ceaseless energy.
In the discussion of public questions, the Democrats
THE GREAT WHIG CONVENTION OF 1844.
417
again had decidedly the advantage. The rallying cry was
Polk, Dallas, and Texas. The old issues were again
prominent, the old charges were again ventilated, again
hotly discussed, again stoutly maintained, and again
fiercely controverted. The Whigs were thrown upon the
defensive by Clay's position on the annexation of Texas.
Over and above the question of slavery, Tennesseans were
bound by too many ties to Texas to suffer them to be in-
different. Polk's position was pronounced and unequiv-
ocal. Clay had on one side the South, and on the other a
small body of Abolitionists in the North. His first let-
ters were designed to placate the latter. The Democrats
in Tennessee and the South generally denounced him for
courting the Abolitionists. The South was not in a mood
to suffer any hesitation on this question, and on the 27th
of July, 1844, he wrote from Ashland the celebrated let-
ter which was published in a North Alabama paper. In
this, without changing his position, he changes front. In
the previous letter he had emphasized the imperative
nature of certain antecedent conditions before annexation
should take place. "I should be glad to see it, without
dishonor, without war, with the common consent of the
Union, and upon just and fair terms. I do not think that
the subject of slavery ought to affect the question one
way or the other." The Pythoness could not have uttered
an oracle better adapted to the purpose for which it was
designed. It succeeded in Tennessee, but the Abolition-
ists manifested their disapproval by nominating national
candidates the following month. Clay's letter failed of
its effect, in so far as the Abolitionists were concerned,
but Polk's Kane letter, written on the 15th of June, was
more successful and saved Pennsylvania to the Democ-
racy.
In August both parties held at Nashville what were
called in those days conventions or popular assemblies,
designed to elicit expressions of party fervor. The Dem-
418
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
ocrats held one on the 17th of August, called at the time
the Polk, Dallas, and Texas Convention, the motive of
which was to protest against the "Disunion of Texas"
movement. The proceedings were deliberative and dig-
nified. The Whig Convention had been called to meet
on the 21st of August, or less than a week after the date
appointed for the Democrats. This convention was the
most elaborate in detail which had ever been held in the
State of Tennessee. That of 1840 had been full of
bright fantastical effects, queer sights, grotesque mixtures,
gaudy colors, and beautiful images. But even then a
large part of its success was due to the presence of Henry
Clay. Then he was merely an illustrious Whig. Now
he was again a candidate for the high office for which his
long experience, his ripe statesmanship, his lofty intellect,
and exalted character peculiarly fitted him in the eyes of
the Whigs. This was to be held in the native State of
his opponent. As Governor Jones said, "All eyes are
now turned towards Tennessee. It was among the possi-
bilities that the election might be decided in Tennessee.
The Democrats appreciated the gravity of the situation,
and in default of local talent, Lewis Cass, who had been
defeated by Polk for the nomination, and who was a pro-
spective candidate for the succession, gave both time
and talents to the Democracy of the State. Thomas F.
Marshall, the undisciplined and recalcitrant Kentuckian,
threw the weight of his bright, wayward, and wasted
genius in the scales for Polk.
""
The Whig Convention met on the 21st of August.
Minute details of this picturesque pageant have been pre-
served in contemporary newspapers. The political pro-
cessions of the present day, such as those which marched
through the streets of New York in 1884 in honor of Mr.
Cleveland and Mr. Blaine, are intended to impress the
imagination of the beholders rather by the spectacle of a
vast multitude aided at most by a few banners, and a
THE GREAT WHIG CONVENTION OF 1844.
419
transparency or two, than to tickle the fancy and dazzle
the eye by bright colors and sumptuous display. But
there was more abandonment, more enthusiasm, less self-
consciousness in those days. "The Great Whig Conven-
tion of 1844," as it was long called, was the finest of the
kind ever held in the Southwest. It was a tournament
from the pages of Froissart, adapted to modern times and
republican conditions. The romances of the Middle Ages.
spread before us tourney-fields upon which were assem-
bled stately knights clad in glittering armor and mounted
upon horses nobly caparisoned; heralds resplendent with
coats upon which were embroidered in rich colors the
arms of distinguished warriors; bevies of beautiful ladies
in green silks and purple velvets, gayly decked with gar-
lands of mingled roses and lilies; laughing pages, jovial
friars, rubicund burgesses with pretty daughters in modest.
smocks, jesters in motley wear-in short, a throng of
checkered hues, quaint costumes, unbridled merriment,
dramatic pomp, glittering pageantry, fanciful ceremonies,
and gaudy spangles, surpassing the tulip, the peacock, and
the butterfly. The Great Whig Convention of 1844 had
in some shape or distortion all of these things. They ap-
peared in the guise of mounted guardsmen, immense bod-
ies of men in costumes, the reds and whites and blues of
the "Stars and Stripes," beautiful silken banners with
curiously wrought devices, liberty-poles, coons, open car-
riages filled with the fresh-hued beauties who were the
boast of Tennessee, troops of symmetrical and spirited
horses, bands of music, speeches sparkling with rhetorical
tinsel, lace work, and pearl brocade.
The procession formed on the Public Square, and moved
out to Walnut Grove in a vast cavalcade of about six
thousand people. The entire number of those present was
estimated at between thirty and forty thousand. There
were twenty-six open carriages in which were ladies who
wore sashes of white and blue. Nearly every State in
420
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
the Southwest was represented by a delegation. A prize
banner had been offered to the county (outside of David-
son) which should send the largest delegation. It was
made of rich, pink satin with a fawn-colored fringe, and
upon it was painted a full-length portrait of Henry Clay,
over whose head was suspended the American eagle, the
stars and stripes falling in graceful folds on either side.
This was awarded to Wilson County, the native county of
the governor, whose life was spent in doing noble homage
to the great Whig, and who, by a strange but fitting fatal-
ity, was the only friend not of his household that stood
by his bedside as his restless spirit sank into eternal rest.
The county seat of Wilson County is Lebanon, so named
because of the cedars in its neighborhood, and the Wilson
County delegation bore cedar boughs covered with checked
cloth, and branches of cedar with the green upon them.
A local chronicler comparing Polk to Macbeth, said he
must have thought that "Birnam Wood had come to
Dunsinane." Some of the banners had such devices as
"Our Battle-Cry is Harry of the West." The banner of
the "Coon-Rangers of Nubbin Ridge" displayed on one
side Clay, on the other the "Same old Coon" tearing down
a polkberry stock, saying, "Polkberries can't hurt this
Coon." Henry County showed “Old Hal" mounted on a
race-horse, just reaching the presidential goal, pursued at
a long distance by "Little Jimmy" on a donkey. Among
the Rutherford County delegation was a troop of little
Whigs with a banner on which was the motto, "Oh how
we do wish we could vote for Clay and Frelinghuysen.'
There was in another part, a body of pioneers weighing
about two hundred pounds each, with battle-axes and
large bear-skin caps. A cotton loom formed a part of
the procession. This was mounted on a car drawn by six
horses, each bearing a small postilion clothed in varie-
gated colors. One banner displayed a significant motto:
"Hemp Cravats for all Disunionists." All the emblems
""
THE GREAT WHIG CONVENTION OF 1844.
421
of 1840 were revived. There were great numbers of mil-
itary companies as in the Harrison campaign. - Clay
Guards, Harrison Guards, Straightouts, Slashers. The
coon, the barrel, the ball, the liberty-pole, the cabin, the
grotesque caricatures, the derisive rhymes and mottoes,
all were there.
Among the orators, in addition to those from Tennes-
see and those who have been entirely forgotten, were two
figures whose names to this day have a legendary sound.
One of these was Albert Pike, whose career had touched
all the elements of romance and adventure that existed in
the Southwest from the wild Indian tribes, into which he
had been adopted and of which he was probably a chief,
to the composition of verses which had found recognition
and appreciation even so far away and from such high au-
thority as "Blackwood's Magazine." As a lawyer he was
one of the most brilliant of his day. Even in these times.
of advanced scholarship his learning is remarkable and
admirable. In those days it was wonderful. Other
American linguists may be more thorough, none are more
versatile and comprehensive. Genial, warm-hearted, and
refined, he has touched the lyre in every strain and has
made it sound harmoniously in all. He has written one
bit of fugitive lyricism which deserves to find a place in
every anthology of English verse. He is still living at
Washington, one of the first officers in the masonic or-
der in America, and if we except Joseph Holt, the keen-
tongued and incisive lawyer who was in Buchanan's cab-
inet, Governor "Charlie" Anderson of Ohio, who is
spending the sunset of a bright career in the beautiful
and picturesque little village of Kutawa in Kentucky, and
Harvey M. Watterson, the reminiscent Nestor, whose
charming pen has restored the faded glories of the great
epic period of Southwestern oratory and statesmanship,
Albert Pike is the last survivor of that group of orators
1 "After the midnight cometh morn."
422
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
<
and lawyers who gave a distinct character to both politi-
cal and legal life in the Southwest before the war.
S. S. Prentiss was the other, a Mississippian, born and
reared in New England, who possessed in an eminent de-
gree all the characteristics which are popularly supposed
to be peculiarly Southern. His character was high-
minded, his pride was strong and disdainful, his courage
was undoubted. Quick and impulsive, he resented an in-
sult fiercely and at times with bloodshed. But his nat
ural disposition was generous and tender, his affections
were warm, his devotion was unfaltering. His temper,
sometimes unruly, ran riot with wit, but never with mal-
ice. If contemporary judgment may be accepted, he was
a profound lawyer. But his greatest renown was as an
orator. In the estimation of Daniel Webster the most
brilliant of American orators, in the estimation of Clay
who stood next to Webster, he was an orator of the first
magnitude, and by the united voices of his contemporaries
he was adjudged to possess in a higher degree even than
these two, that quality of oratory which manifests itself
in gorgeous and resplendent imagery and dazzling meta-
phor. So great was his reputation that his presence at
the convention was greeted with enthusiasm similar to
that which had made the earth tremble for Clay in 1840.
His court-house speech at the convention of 1844 was
long regarded as the most wonderful ever heard in the
Southwest. Being overcome by an indisposition to which
he was subject, he sank back into the arms of Governor
Jones, who, overcome with emotion, exclaimed, "Die,
Prentiss, die. You will never have a more glorious op-
portunity.'
""
But the struggle was vain. The Whigs of Tennessee
had the supreme gratification of seeing the electoral vote
of the State given to Clay. This is the only time in Amer-
ican history that a successful candidate for the presi
dency lost his own State. Clay's majority was very small.¹
1 One hundred and thirteen votes.
THE GREAT WHIG CONVENTION IN 1844.
423
It has been said and so often repeated, that Clay lost the
election by his Alabama letter, that it seems to have been
accepted as a historical fact, but it is not true. He lost
New York by it, and New York's thirty-six votes taken
from Polk's one hundred and seventy electoral votes and
added to Clay's one hundred and five, would have given
Clay a majority of seven. But the demonstration should
go beyond this. He carried Tennessee by a popular ma-
jority of only one hundred and thirteen votes. If the
letter which lost New York had not been written, he would
have lost Tennessee, which had thirteen votes. Give him,
therefore, New York, and give Tennessee to Polk, and
Clay would have been beaten by nineteen votes.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE DOWNFALL OF THE WHIGS.
THE gubernatorial contest of 1845 manifested a reac-
tion against the intense partisan zeal of previous years.
A Democratic paper said: "It is observable by all that
the great mass of the people are less excited than they
have been in any canvass for many years." The only local
question of sufficient importance to elicit discussion was
the Tippling Act, and upon this there was no partisan
division. An act had been passed in 1838, prohibiting
the sale of spirituous liquors in less quantity than one
quart under any circumstances, and likewise in quantities.
larger than a quart if to be drunk at the place where
sold. The intent of this law was to abolish tippling
houses as far as possible. Its operation, however, had
effected the opposite result. In some places it was par-
tially enforced, in others not at all, and on the whole it
increased the number of houses where a single drink of
ardent spirits could be purchased. This law was repealed
by the Act of 1846, and the license system introduced
under strong penalties for the prevention of immoral ex-
cesses. The questions of national policy were again the
issues upon which the battle was fought. In addition to
the tariff, the distribution of the sales of public lands,
the veto power, and the bank, the annexation of Texas,
and the Oregon question were added to the topics of
discussion. The Whigs nominated Ephraim H. Foster,
who, with characteristic fire, accepted the nomination
after nearly every Whig in the State had positively and
THE DOWNFALL OF THE WHIGS.
425
in advance declined the dubious struggle. The election
of Polk to the presidency, and the death of Jackson in
January, 1845, with the incident revival of that feeling of
personal regard and devotion which had been weakened
during the years following the defeat of Hugh L. White,
added to the generally undecided attitude of the Whig
party towards Texas, made the prospects more than doubt-
ful. The nomination of Foster at this particular crisis
made this more doubtful still. His inconsistency on the
tariff was glaring and self-confessed. In 1839 he had op-
posed a protective tariff, and denounced it as a system
that "steals from unconscious purses." He frankly ad-
mitted the change-a change which Brown ridiculed as
taking place in one who had been a United States senator.
On the Texas question, his course was apparently more
inconsistent than it was in fact. While a member of the
national Senate he had been instructed to vote for the
annexation of Texas. He voted against the Tyler Treaty,
and after the election of 1844 himself introduced a bill
for annexation. Robert J. Walker offered as an amend-
ment that Texas should be one State, and admitted on
an equal footing with the existing States. Foster voted
against Walker's amendment, and then against his own
bill on the ground that the amendment contained a con-
cession to the abolitionists of the North. Brown attrib-
uted this vote to the opposition of Henry, Jones, Neil S.
Brown, Haskell, and other Whig leaders in the State.
He defended his vote on the ground that it left the ques-
tion of slavery open for future intrigue, and because it
contained no provision against the assumption of the pub-
lic debt of Texas.
Foster was born on the 17th of September, 1794, in
Nelson County, Kentucky, and was the son of Robert C.
Foster. In 1797 he removed with his family to Nash-
ville, where Ephraim graduated in 1813 at Cumberland
College. He studied law, and was admitted to the bar.
426
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
He was Jackson's private secretary during the Creek War,
and at the close of this resumed the practice of his pro-
fession, in which he was successful, even at a bar of which
Felix Grundy, Francis B. Fogg, Henry A. Wise, and
Balie Peyton were members. He had been at different
times elected to the House of Representatives, of which
he was speaker. He was twice a member of the state
Senate. He was tall, and had a commanding appearance.
His disposition was warm-hearted and generous, his bear-
ing was affable, courteous, and gracious. He possessed
great personal popularity, and was popularly called "Old
Eph." During the campaign with Brown, the Whig
papers frequently boasted "Eph's got him." His tem-
per was violent and inflammable. When a young man of
twenty-seven, he threw a book at a judge on the bench who
had let fall a sneering remark. He was proud and high-
spirited, and quick to resentment. He had a ready wit,
and was noted for his repartee and raillery. His elo-
quence was hurried and impetuous, if not brilliant, and his
diction was fluent. His enemies sometimes called him
Bombastes Furioso.
His opponent, Aaron V. Brown, was born in Brunswick
County, Virginia, August 15, 1795, and was educated in
North Carolina. He studied law under Judge Trimble
at Nashville, and began the practice of his profession at
that point. He removed to Giles County, and afterwards
formed a partnership with James K. Polk of Maury
County. He was frequently sent to the General Assembly
as senator or legislator, and from 1839 to 1845 was a
member of Congress. He was, after his gubernatorial
term of service, a member of Buchanan's cabinet. As a
public speaker, he possessed talents of a higher order than
his competitor. He showed the training of the Polk
school, and had a trick of entangling his opponent that
was worthy of Jones. Referring to Foster's vote against
the annexation of Texas, he described the latter standing
THE DOWNFALL OF THE WHIGS.
427
with blood-stained garments at the door of the Senate
leaning upon her sword, and begging permission to deposit
her glorious banner of San Jacinto beside those won at
Brandywine, Princeton, and Yorktown, and all the great
battles of the Revolution, while the senator from Ten-
nessee rushes forward, rudely slams the door in her face
and cries: "Begone, begone! Your sword is a traitor's
sword, and the blood on your garments is the blood of
rebels." The manner and the gesticulation were such that
it was long thought he was quoting Foster's exact words.
At times Brown's oratory broke out in passages of lurid
eloquence that were remarkably fine and effective before
an audience. In one of these flights he describes the
magnitude of the American continent.
"When did men-
tal vision ever rest upon such a scene? Moses, when
standing on the top of Mount Pisgah, looking over on the
Promised Land, gazed not on a scene half so lovely. Oh!
let us this day vow that whatever else we may do, by what-
ever name we may be called, we will never surrender one
square acre of this goodly heritage to the dictation of any
king or potentate on earth. Swear it, swear it, my coun-
trymen, and let heaven record the vow forever." The
Oregon question was rather diplomatic and historical than
political, and came in for a less share of attention. The
Democratic position on the annexation of Texas was more
acceptable than that of the Whigs, and the popular senti-
ment on this question was still more influenced by a visit
of Sam Houston to Tennessee during the pendency of the
contest. Brown was elected by a majority of 1470 votes.
The strength of political feeling in the ensuing General
Assembly was made manifest in the contest for the speak-
ership of the Senate, of which Harvey M. Watterson was
elected speaker on the 138th ballot. The Democrats had
elected a majority of the members of the General Assem-
bly. There was a vacancy in the United States Senate,
which it was supposed, as a matter of course, the Demo-
428
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
crats could fill. But by some legislative legerdemain a
man was elected who failed to receive even so much as a
large minority of Democratic votes. The exact details of
this intrigue have not been preserved. Enough remains,
however, to furnish us an instructive chapter in the his-
tory of state politics. It may also supply additional insight
into the tortuous methods to which unscrupulous politicians
with small talents resorted in those days, in the hopes of
defeating the will of a majority whose assent and approval
they could never hope to achieve by the strength of their
character, the force of their intellect, or the importance of
their public services. A. O. P. Nicholson, who had edited
with signal force the "Democratic Statesman," a cam-
paign paper set on foot to offset A. A. Hall's "Politi-
cian," was nominated by a conference or caucus of Dem-
ocrats.
""
Immediately after the August elections, the Whig papers
began to stir up strife by a kind of political barratry, and
threw out hints of the possibility of electing a Democrat
by the aid of Whig votes. Among the names mentioned
was that of H. L. Turney. The leverage for this purpose
existed in the feeling of local pride which the "Whig
assiduously cultivated. Two communications appeared in
the "Nashville Whig" organ, signed
organ, signed "Shelby," which
imperiously demanded as a right that a senator from the
Western District should be elected. The "Memphis Ap-
peal," the "Somerville Spy," the "Jackson Republican,'
and the "Trenton True American," all joined in the de-
mand. The "M'Minnville Gazette" suggested a Demo-
cratic caucus under the two thirds rule. When the legis-
lature met, the Democrats had fifty-two members and the
Whigs forty-eight. Turney refused to submit his claims
to a caucus on the score that he "believed the system to
be radically wrong, especially where the opposing party
had offered no candidate. It is anti-republican in its
tendencies, and virtually destroys the rights of suffrage of
THE DOWNFALL OF THE WHIGS.
429
those of the party who may prefer another political friend
to the caucus nominee." He accused Nicholson of being
Polk's candidate. He refused to answer a list of questions
tendered him by the Democrats, which he afterwards said
he intended to answer before he was denounced by Demo-
cratic members of the General Assembly. After the legis-
lature proceeded to a ballot for senator, on the earlier
ballots, A. O. P. Nicholson received forty votes, all Demo-
crats; H. L. Turney received eleven, John Bell thirty-five,
Gustavus A. Henry two, W. T. Haskell one, and W. C.
Dunlap seven. During the balloting, Turney was bitterly
denounced by the Democrats for "having betrayed his
party," and even by some of the Whigs who despised his
treason. He was charged with having written a letter to
the Whigs, meeting their views on the tariff, and the dis-
tribution of the sales of public lands, and pledging himself
to denounce Polk and his administration.¹ Before the
election, Joseph C. Guild withdrew General Trousdale,
who had been put in nomination, stating that General
Trousdale, if elected, desired to be elected by his own
party and would not receive the office unless elected by
his own party. Turney was finally elected by a vote of
fifty-three; of these, forty-seven were Whigs, and six were
Democrats.
Immediately after his election, Turney tried to defend
his course, and pointedly denied the coalition in a letter
to the "Shelbyville Free Press." He said: "I am proud
to know that by the use of my name, the system (i. e.
caucus) has been prostrated in the Tennessee legislature,
I trust, forever." He would have answered the interrog-
atories submitted to him, but before he could do so, the
violent assaults of the Democrats, especially H. M. Wat-
terson, forced him to refuse. In this letter he gives his
views on the public questions at issue, and deviates from
1 I have been assured by Mr. Harvey M. Watterson that he saw
this letter.
430
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
the Democratic position exactly on the two points upon
which it was charged he had made concessions to the
Whigs. In December thirty-one Democrats published an
address formally reading Turney out of the party. Fol-
lowing the election of Turney, Felix K. Zollicoffer, a
Whig, was elected comptroller of the State. If any one
has a taste for personal journalism in its most vigorous
development, let him read the "Union," of which Nichol-
son was now editor, for the few months succeeding Tur-
ney's election to the Senate.
The contest of 1847 came on during the Mexican War.
The Democrats had been outspoken in their declarations
that there would be no war as a result of the annexation
of Texas. In 1845 A. V. Brown had asked Foster,
"Where is your war?" In 1847 Neil S. Brown retorted
by pointing his long index finger toward the Southwest
and exclaiming, "Here is your war." Aaron V. Brown
was renominated by the Democrats. This was to be
again the opening skirmish of a presidential election in
1848. M. P. Gentry said, referring to this, "the politi-
cal position which Tennessee may then take will be a pow-
erful, perhaps a controlling influence upon the great con-
test of 1848." The whole weight of executive patronage
and influence will be thrown into the conflict,” said "The
Spirit of '76," "and Tennessee will become a battle-
ground." The Whigs were anxious not to repeat the
mistake of 1845. Foster was solicited to make the race,
but his refusal was accepted with unfeigned satisfaction.
The names most prominently brought forward were those
of G. A Henry, M. P. Gentry, and Neil S. Brown. Gen-
try made no effort and cut no figure in the struggle for
the nomination. It appeared probable at one time that
Henry would be selected by acclamation, and meeting
after meeting put him in nomination. His strongest
opponent was Neil S. Brown, one of the most amiable
characters and one of the brightest minds in Tennessee
THE DOWNFALL OF THE WHIGS.
431
history. Born in Giles County, Tennessee, in 1810, of
Scotch-Irish blood, he had fought his way up from pov-
erty and was in the noblest sense of the phrase a self-
made man. In 1834 he had gone to Texas, but returned
and entered the army destined for Florida, and was at the
battle of Mud Creek. In 1836 he was a White elector.
In 1837 he was sent to the legislature. He had taken a
prominent part in all the contests of the day. In 1843 he
was nominated to contest his congressional district with
Aaron V. Brown and reduced his majority from 1,600 to
460. In this year he was made adjutant-general. The
brilliancy of the reputation made in the Brown contest
and as elector in 1844, his war record, his lack of politi-
cal record, for he had never been to Congress, his popular
disposition, the keenness of his wit, the effectiveness of
his oratory, for he was a stump speaker of the first magni-
tude, all pointed to him as the available candidate. He
had not been involved in any of the wrangles which had
engendered bitterness among the Whig leaders, and he
was perhaps more acceptable to the various factions than
either Henry or Gentry. The scales were eventually
turned in his favor by the absence of the East Tennessee
delegations, who were detained by impassable roads, and
who would have given their votes to Henry.
The only great issue between the two candidates was
President Polk and General Zach Taylor. Neil S. Brown
attacked the general prosecution of the war on the part of
the administration and eulogized General Taylor, whom
he advocated for the presidency in 1848. Aaron V.
Brown having accused him of trying to ride on Taylor's
back, he turned and pointing his long finger squarely at
his opponent, exclaimed, "Who was it for twenty long
years without intermission rode upon the back of General
Jackson, even to the making spots upon his sides? Aaron
V. Brown, the governor of Tennessee, and James K.
Polk, the president of the United States."
432
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
Neil S. Brown accused Polk of making the Mexican
War a partisan war by appointing only Democrats to gen-
eralships. Brown retorted by claiming for the Demo-
cratic party the credit for the results of the war, for no
one doubted the result, and denounced the Whigs for orig-
inally opposing it. But the heartiness with which the
Whigs supported the military measures of the administra-
tion weakened the force of this blow. In June, 1846, the
Oregon question had been settled by a treaty in which the
line of forty-nine degrees was decided upon, after all the
turmoil of "Fifty-four-forty-or-fight," and Neil S. Brown
turned the Mount Pisgah comparison on his opponent
with effective sarcasm. The popularity of Polk's admin-
istration had in truth begun to wane and Neil S. Brown
ridiculed his opponent's attempt to stir up the old time
enthusiasm in his behalf by quoting a popular song,
"There was a piper had a cow,
He had no hay to give her ;
He took his pipes, began to play,
Consider, cow, consider."
Neil S. Brown was elected by a majority of 1,015 votes.
The contest between Taylor and Cass in Tennessee in
1848 was a faint echo of 1840. The Whigs literally
vociferated everything before them. There was an at-
tempt to make Taylor a people's non-partisan candidate,
but without success. The division between the pro-slav-
ery and free-soil Democrats destroyed the harmony and
unity of that party, and they entered the struggle with but
little enthusiasm. Taylor carried Tennessee by a major-
ity of 6,286. In this election the slavery question played
an important part. Cass was with the South - a North-
ern man with Southern principles. Van Buren, who was
the Abolition candidate, received 291,263 votes; in New
York alone, 120,510. It now became apparent that there
was a tendency within the ranks of the Democratic party
to divide upon the slavery question. The free-soil ele-
THE DOWNFALL OF THE WHIGS.
433
ment was gradually forced out. The issue was rather
sectional than political. The Whigs had no political
status in the presence of a controversy which recognized
no political division. The Whigs of East Tennessee man-
aged to survive the deluge of the Democratic victory and
in 1851 turned the tide and elected the last Whig gov-
ernor. They had no slaves they were for the most part
Unionists during the war and have been Republicans since.
But over the rest of the State the Democrats gained a su-
preme ascendency. The reaction from the Taylor move-
ment swept Governor Brown, the genial, the amiable, the
pure-hearted before it, and W. G. Brownlow, the caustic
Whig, the militant preacher, the Ishmael of Tennessee
politics, sharpened his wit and envenomed his pen to no
purpose. The Democrats had nominated against Brown,
General William Trousdale, whose popular sobriquet was
the "War Horse of Sumner County." He was born
September 23, 1790, in Orange County, North Carolina,
and was of Scotch-Irish descent. In 1796 his father re-
moved with him to Davidson County, Tennessee. When
a boy at school he had joined the expedition against the
Creek Indians and was at Tallahatchie and Talladega.
During the Creek War, in pursuance of some duty, he
swam the Tennessee River near the Muscle Shoals, being
on horseback, although unable to swim himself. He was
also at Pensacola and New Orleans during the War of
1812. In 1835 he was in the state Senate, and in 1836
major-general of militia. He fought through the Semi-
nole War of 1836. In 1837 he was an unsuccessful can-
didate for Congress. In 1840 he was a Van Buren elec-
tor. He fought through the Mexican War with great
bravery and was twice wounded at Chepultepec. He was
made brigadier-general by brevet in the United States
army for gallant and meritorious conduct in that engage-
ment. Trousdale was a man of sound understanding and
pure character and intellectually not inferior to his com-
434
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
petitor. He was elected by a majority of 1,390. In Knox
County, however, the future course of East Tennessee was
foreshadowed by a majority for Brown of 1,616 in that
county.
In 1851 William B. Campbell defeated Trousdale, who
was a candidate for reëlection. G. A. Henry, who had been
brought forward again by his friends, wrote on the 7th of
February, 1851, a letter which emphasizes the position
of the Whigs and which sounds strangely as coming from
a subsequent Confederate senator. He withdraws from
the race for governor and announces his candidacy for
the House of Representatives at Nashville. "I need not
inform you that I am a Whig — that I have so lived and
that I shall die in the faith. Above all, however, I am
for the Union of these States, under our present glorious
constitution, with all the guaranties which were thrown
around it by the foresight and wisdom of our fathers.
For its preservation I am now and at any time prepared
to pledge my life, my fortune, and my sacred honor.”
Campbell was elected by a conjunction of circumstances
which forced the Democrats into the position of favoring.
disunion. The Southern Convention had met at Nash-
ville in May, 1850, as the Whigs said, "to inaugurate a
Southern Confederacy." This convention was originally
called at the suggestion of A. J. Donelson, who repudiated
its action as soon as its anti-union tendencies became ap-
parent. W. L. Sharkey, the ablest judicial mind which
the Southwest has ever produced, presided over its de-
liberations, but his known union sentiments were more
than counterbalanced in the public mind by the presence
and active participation of R. Barnwell Rhett of South
Carolina, the impetuous Cassius who was ever ready to
sacrifice the common cause rather than yield individual
preferences. He introduced an address, a long - drawn
document condemnatory of the compromise measures then
before Congress, bristling with threats of an intangible
THE DOWNFALL OF THE WHIGS.
435
catastrophe and which contained this significant utterance:
"Until Congress adjourns, we cannot know what it will
do or fail to do. We must therefore meet again after its
adjournment to consider the final condition in which it
will leave us." The resolutions which were adopted were
such as could have been formally promulgated in America,
alone of all the nations of the world, without some ar-
rests for treason. The fifth resolution was very bold.
"The slave-holding States cannot and will not submit to
the enactment by Congress of any law imposing onerous
conditions or restraints upon the rights of masters to
remove with their property into the Territories of the
United States, or to any law making discriminations in fa-
vor of the proprietors of other property and against them.
In the seventh resolution is this passage: "The perform-
ance of this duty is required by the fundamental
law of the Union . . . the warfare against this right is a
war upon the constitution. The defenders of this right
are defenders of the constitution. Those who deny or im-
pair its exercise are unfaithful to the constitution, and if
disunion follows the destruction of this right they are dis-
unionists." The twelfth resolution declares that "it is
the opinion of this convention that this controversy should
be ended, either by a recognition of the constitutional
rights of the Southern people or by an equitable partition
of the Territories." The thirteenth contains a covert
threat against Congress and denounces the compromise.
measures as a plain violation of the Constitution of
the United States."
66
•
As soon as the Southern Convention adjourned, the
Democratic leaders were called on to face a storm in Ten-
nessee. During its sessions, meetings had been held from
one end of the State to the other indorsing the com-
promise measures then pending in Congress. A. O. P.
Nicholson and Aaron V. Brown, who had been prominent
members of the convention, repudiated its action. Nichol-
436
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
son attacked the address, Brown attacked the resolutions.
Both were frightened. Both attacked the doctrines of
nullification and secession with intense violence and fierce
vituperation. The passage of the compromise measures
was a merit of the Whigs; and though many Democrats
had voted for them, the Democrats of Tennessee were in
no condition to avail themselves of this fact. Trousdale
was compelled to bear the odium which gathered against
his party because of the Southern Convention, and this
was increased by a vote of sympathy for the South Caro-
lina agitators in the convention that nominated him.
William B. Campbell was put forward as the man
to redeem the banner from the hands of a candidate
"whose culminating feat was swimming the Muscle
Shoals." He was descended from a line of distinguished
Revolutionary heroes. He finished his education, which
was solid and liberal, under his uncle, Governor David
Campbell of Virginia, and under whose supervision he
studied law. He returned to Tennessee, and in 1829 was
elected attorney-general. In 1836 he resigned his seat as
a member of the legislature, and as captain entered the
Florida War, through which he fought with honor. In
1833 he defeated General Trousdale for Congress, and
again in 1839. In 1841 he was elected without opposition.
He fought gallantly through the Mexican War as colonel
of the First Regiment, whose desperate bravery won for it
the sobriquet of "The Bloody First." Campbell himself
led the charge at Monterey, and his troops hoisted the
first flag on the walls of the Mexican city. This was per-
haps the most brilliant feat of arms accomplished during
the war. The form of Campbell's command to charge-
"Boys, follow me e" - became historic and was also the
favorite battle-cry of the Whigs during the campaign that
elected him governor. In 1848 he was elected circuit
judge by the legislature, and in 1851 he was nominated
by acclamation for governor by the Whigs.
THE DOWNFALL OF THE WHIGS.
437
Trousdale and Campbell were cast in the same mould.
Both were men of pure character, of high purpose, of
stern integrity, possessing sound practical sense, without
brilliancy of parts or fluency of tongue, and both were
conservative and courageous. "Two gamer cocks,” says
one writer, "were never pitted against each other." The
joint debates were not full of the stirring blows which
drew crowds to hear the two Browns, and there was none
of the sparkle, the skill in fence, the broad caricature, and
the resounding laughter that distinguished the Polk-Jones.
The two military candidates argued like marti-
nets, and they who were the most headlong and stormy in
battle were the most formal and punctilious in debate.
Trousdale, who had defeated Neil S. Brown in 1849 by
1,390 votes, was now defeated by Campbell by 1,660 votes.
canvasses.
-
In 1852 the National Democratic party was again
thoroughly united and carried every State in the Union
except four — Tennessee was one of the four. Scott, who
was objectionable to many of the Whigs, carried the State
by a majority of 1,880 votes, in spite of the fact that M.
P. Gentry, a Whig member of Congress, made a speech
against him in the House of Representatives which was
declared to have been one of the ablest ever delivered
there. The Democrats had it printed in pamphlet form
and used it as a campaign document This embittered
the Tennessee Whigs. J. C. Jones, then in the Senate,
supported Scott earnestly. The year following, the
Jones faction nominated Gustavus A. Henry as their
candidate for the governorship. Henry was popularly
called "The Eagle Orator" and was noted for the flu-
ency of his speech, the brilliancy of his fancy, and the
dignity of his declamation. The Democrats nominated
Andrew Johnson, an East Tennessean who had served
several terms in Congress, and who, beginning as a me-
chanic, had slowly risen to power and eminence by the
strength of his character, the force of his intellect, and the
438
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
aggressiveness of his political methods. Nearly every
prominent Democrat in the State was opposed to him, but
he was nominated almost without opposition. He ac-
cepted the nomination with almost cavalier-like indiffer-
ence and practically repudiated the platform which had
been adopted. Johnson had certain theories upon national
questions which, if not original, were certainly startling.
This canvass and all subsequent ones were fought out upon
questions of national policy. Johnson was elected. In
1855 the Whigs brought forward M. P. Gentry, but his
part against Scott in 1852 had not been forgiven. More
than this, the slavery question was becoming daily less.
political and more sectional, and Tennessee was a Southern
State. In East Tennessee, where there were no slaves, sec-
tionalism was less developed. Johnson was an earnest
Democrat, and stood with the Southern Democrats upon
the questions of constitutional authority growing out of
the Kansas-Nebraska embroglio and the compromise meas-
ures. His popularity was overwhelining and his abilities
as a stump-speaker were supereminent even in a school of
which Jones, Henry, and Gentry were leading members.
The last Whig victory in Tennessee was in 1852. The
alliance with the Know-Nothing movement, its sympathies
with many of the measures of the new but rapidly grow-
ing Republican party in the North, the sectional phase of
the slavery question, were all instruments in the hands of
Andrew Johnson through which he cemented the power
of the Democratic party and utterly annihilated the
Whigs in Tennessee. In 1856 Buchanan carried the
State of Tennessee — the first time the National Dem-
ocrats had been successful since Jackson's second election.
One of the electors for the State at large upon the
Buchanan ticket was Isham G. Harris. By the universal
concurrence of the Democratic papers he contributed more
than any
other individual to the success of the Democratic
ticket. The year following, in 1857, he was nominated by
THE DOWNFALL OF THE WHIGS.
439
66
the Democrats as their candidate for governor
the first
who had ever been taken from West Tennessee. Against
him the Whigs, or as it had now become, the opposition
party, nominated Robert Hatton, a young politician who
had made some reputation as a Fillmore elector the year
before. His nomination was a cause of surprise to many,
and of indignation to the friends of the wayward and
brilliant Haskell, who addressed the nominating conven-
tion in a speech full of eloquence and bitterness. Hatton
possessed more than ordinary ability, was methodical and
exact in his methods, and singularly high-minded and
noble. But in Harris, who was put forward by the Dem-
ocrats as a matured statesman," he met more than his
match. History as a science can deal worthily only with
that which has been removed by the lapse of time and the
onward sweep of the current of events from the influence
of personal prejudice, partisan considerations, and the
biased judgment which comes from the wrangling and
jarring conflicts of political life. Those who have figured
in scenes which are passed upon by the historian, and who
still live in the activity of the present, are like those
spirits of whom Virgil tells that they wander restlessly
upon the banks of the river Styx, unable to pass over
until their bodies in the earth above have received the
last rites of sepulture. Isham G. Harris still lives, the
senior senator from Tennessee. A man of strong feeling,
the time has not come when his enemies can do full justice
to his virtues or his friends view his faults with critical
impartiality. In 1857 he aroused a degree of enthusiasm
which could only have been aroused by a man strong of
intellect and powerful in debate. He swept like a whirl-
wind from one end of the State to the other, and literally
buried his opponent beneath the weight of a majority
greater than had been given any candidate in Tennessee
since the Harrison campaign in 1840. He was renomi-
nated in 1859 and made the canvass with John Netherland,
440
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
a bright, witty, and genial speaker, but who, like Hatton,
was unable to bear up against the ponderous blows of his
opponent. The questions which were debated were each
leading in a direct line to the irrepressible conflict.
In 1860 a sectional candidate, as the Southern leaders
termed Abraham Lincoln, was elected. The Southern
States began to withdraw from the Union, and all the sen-
ators and representatives from seceding States left the
capitol. Andrew Johnson, who was in the Senate and
who from the first had repudiated the doctrine of seces-
sion, remained at Washington, and many leading Tennes-
seans, such as Emerson Etheridge and W. G. Brownlow,
gave him a hearty support. Governor Harris called an
extra session of the legislature to meet at Nashville on the
7th of January, 1861. The question of calling a state
convention to meet at Nashville to take into consideration
the secession of Tennessee from the Union was voted
upon by the people on the 9th of February, 1861, and
defeated. On the 12th of April, Fort Sumter was fired
upon. A great number of Tennesseans whose traditions
reached back to the time of Andrew Jackson were vio-
lently opposed to the disruption of the Union. These had
hoped for a peaceful settlement of the question. The
firing upon Fort Sumter was at once followed by a proc-
lamation from President Lincoln calling for 75,000 vol-
unteers. The legislature of Tennessee was again called
together in extra session, and the question of secession was
submitted to a popular vote on the 8th of June. John
Bell and other leading Constitutional Unionists declared
for secession and it was overwhelmingly carried. On the
18th of June the legislature met, and on the 24th of June
Governor Harris issued a proclamation dissolving the ties
which bound Tennessee to the United States of America.
The period of the war was practically a blank, in so far
as the history of Tennessee is concerned. With the close
of the war an entirely new era began the era in which
THE DOWNFALL OF THE WHIGS.
441
we live, varied of late by the spirit of industrial, com-
mercial, social, and political change which is emphasized
by the establishment of manufacturing enterprises, the
growth of towns and cities, the building of railroads, the
improvement in public schools, and the election of new
men to office, men whose memories do not reach back to
the bitterness of the ante-bellum period.
If we review the history of Tennessee from this point,
we shall be struck by several facts, curious in themselves.
and flattering to state pride. The history of Tennessee
is an epitome of the history of the United States. Its
financial history is the financial history of the general
government, even to an embryonic system such as we
now have in the national banks. The general avidity
with which internal improvements were pushed forward
after the completion of the Erie Canal found its reflex in
Tennessee. The slow and logical development of popula-
tion under the influence of governmental ideas, already
fully matured and expanded, is made more clearly com-
prehensible than upon the broader field of the continent.
The history of parties in Tennessee is the history of par-
ties in the United States; and in spite of the fact that the
results achieved were the same, the causes which produced
the Whig party in Tennessee were parallel but not the
same causes which produced the Whig party in American
politics. We find, after the formation of parties, the
same partisan rancor, the same sudden changes of popu
lar sentiment, the same alternations in party supremacy
which we find, not in other Southern or Southwestern
States, and indeed in very few of the Eastern States, but
in the country at large. We find here all the parapher-
nalia and insignia which distinguish great political battles,
-the ardent eloquence, the personal courage, the thor-
ough knowledge of political literature, the arts, the tricks,
the surprises of forensic display, the enthusiasm and
vehemence of desperate determination, the remorseless
442
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
trampling down of the weak, the exalting of the steadfast
and the strong, the glittering pageants and ostentatious
exultations of victory, and the stout-hearted acceptance of
defeat. Even the secession of the Southern States had
already been foreshadowed in this State. In one of the
debates which took place in the United States Senate on
the eve of the war, when a great Tennessean was making
a profound and eloquent argument against the doctrine
of secession, he was taunted with having come from a
State which was "born in secession and rocked in the
cradle of revolution."
It is no wonder that men trained in such a school should
have risen to places of great distinction on a field which
gave them merely an enlarged scope for the exercise of
their talents. Virginia and Massachusetts are the only
States which have furnished more names that stand higher
on the National Roll of Honor than Tennessee. Not to
mention Tennesseans who, like Tipton of Indiana, Hous-
ton of Texas, Benton of Missouri, Garland and Sevier
and Hindman of Arkansas, Claiborne of Louisiana, Henry
Watterson of Kentucky, Sharkey and Yerger of Missis-
sippi, Gwin of California, and Admiral Farragut, attained
influence and celebrity either local or national in other
States, Tennessee has given the national government a
number of presidents and cabinet officers entirely out of
proportion to its wealth and population. George W.
Campbell was secretary of the treasury under Madison.
Andrew Jackson was president from 1829 to 1837. John
H. Eaton was secretary of war under Jackson. Felix
Grundy was attorney-general under Van Buren. John
Bell was secretary of war under Harrison and Tyler.
Cave Johnson was postmaster-general under Polk, and
Polk himself was president from 1845 to 1849. Aaron
V. Brown was postmaster-general under Buchanan. Ten-
nessee has furnished the House of Representatives two
speakers, Bell and Polk, and the Senate one presiding
THE DOWNFALL OF THE WHIGS.
443
officer in the person of H. L. White in 1832. Andrew
Johnson was vice-president from the 4th of March, 1865,
to the 15th of April the same year, when he became presi-
dent and served until 1869. In addition to this, Tennes-
see has had two unsuccessful candidates for the vice-presi-
dency, James K. Polk in 1840, and A. J. Donelson, on
the ticket with Fillmore in 1856, and two unsuccessful
candidates for the presidency, H. L. White in 1836, and
John Bell in 1860. John Catron was on the supreme
bench of the United States from 1837 to 1865. Joseph
Anderson was the first comptroller of the United States.
from 1815 to 1836. William B. Lewis was second auditor
from 1829 to 1845. Daniel Graham was register of the
treasury from 1847 to 1849, and A. A. Hall from 1849 to
1850. S. D. Jacobs was first assistant postmaster-general
from 1851 to 1853. In addition to this Tennessee has
furnished innumerable representatives to the diplomatic
service abroad—two of them, George W. Campbell and
Neil S. Brown, to the same court, Russia. Most of these,
however, played their part upon the broader field of na-
tional politics, and though their fame was sufficiently
splendid to emerge above the limits of a merely local and
temporary distinction, they are of importance in a history
such as this only in so far as they influence the current of
politics within the bounds of the State. Another curious
feature in Tennessee history is the number of strongly
stamped and even bizarre individualities which have either
lived here or been produced within its limits. Henry S.
Foote, the wonderful Tamerlane of Southwestern politics,
who ran a muck at all the world, lived part of his life in
Tennessee and represented one of its districts in the Con-
federate Congress. Jere Clemens, the Alabama senator,
the Texas warrior, the author of several delightful books
and novels of adventure, and whom W. L. Yancey dubbed
a "political Hessian," lived for a time in Tennessee.
After the war Albert Pike, the record of whose life faith-
444
HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
fully told would make a charming addition to "The Tales
of the Alhambra," removed to Memphis. John Mitchel,
the stormy Irish patriot, once lived in this State.
The quaintest, the most striking, the most original fig-
ure in Southwestern history was David Crockett. Brown-
low, the fighting parson, the caustic writer, the politician,
was a Tennessean governor and senator. The fillibus-
tering expeditions just preceding the war were full of
romantic episodes. The leading figure in them was Wil-
liam Walker, the "Grey-eyed man of Destiny," whose
exploits in Nicaragua for a time attracted the gaze of
Europe and America, and whose sad and tragic fate has
been described in the glowing and sensuous verse of Joa-
quin Miller.
Walker was a Tennessean. The war be-
tween the States brought to the surface many men of
strong character and pronounced individuality. But the
most brilliant, the most original, the most attractive, the
most dashing of all was N. B. Forrest, a Tennessean. Joe
C. Guild, the odd wag and the quaint humorist, whose mem-
ory still lives in the traditions of the story-teller and the
anecdote-monger, was a Tennessean. Balie Peyton, the per-
ipatetic politician and brilliant orator, was a Tennessean.
The period from 1836 to 1860 was an era of great men and
great orators. The style of oratory was characteristic and
nearly always brilliant, full of fire and gorgeous flights
of fancy and rhetorical adornment. Gus Henry was "The
Eagle Orator." James C. Jones was a figure of national
prominence, and was frequently suggested as a candidate
for the presidency by leading papers outside of the State.
George W. Jones was often suggested as a fit candidate
for speaker. M. P. Gentry was a leader in Congress and
an orator of the first magnitude. After his first speech
in Congress, John Quincy Adams, who took pleasure in
observing new members of Congress, declared that he was
"the greatest natural orator in Congress." Landon C.
Haynes, the Confederate senator, was also noted for the
THE DOWNFALL OF THE WHIGS.
445
dazzling brilliancy of his rhetoric. At the Baltimore Con-
vention of 1852, Gideon J. Pillow of Tennessee received
twenty-five votes for the vice-presidency; and at the Cin-
cinnati Convention of 1856, A. V. Brown received twenty-
nine votes for the same nomination.
Tennessee had a commanding influence in the South-
west by virtue of its intellectual supremacy. But this
was increased and strengthened by the success which at-
tended Tennesseans who removed to other States. From
this came the sobriquet of "Mother of Southwestern
Statesmen." Another title often quoted was, “Volunteer
State." Tennessee carried on almost single-handed the
Creek War. It won the battle of New Orleans. It con-
tributed more than its share to the success of the Mexican
War. In 1846 there was a requisition for 2,400 volun-
teers. Thirty thousand offered their services. From the
time when Crockett and Autry upheld the honor of the
State at the Alamo, to the end of the Civil War, Tennes-
seans have been noted for the promptness with which they
are ready to face the dangers and hardships of war. They
are also noted for their intense love for their native State
which they carry to the end. Perhaps the glorious posi-
tion which the State has held in both military and civil
life since the time of Sevier may have had some influence
upon this natural and noble feeling.
LIST OF AUTHORITIES.
In the following list of authorities, works of a general nature, such
as Bancroft, books of reference, and the general histories of banks
and the churches are not included. In addition to those here given,
all the Journals of the Territorial Legislative Council, of the various
Constitutional Conventions, and of the House and Senate from Sevier
to Harris, as also the various Codes and Digests and Reports, the
Messages of the Governors, the reports of the State Officers, and the
records of Shelby County and DeBow's Review have been carefully
examined, and much more material collected than is here used. Man-
uscript material bearing upon the history of some counties, collected
during the Centennial year and preserved in the Tennessee Histori-
cal Library, has been sparingly utilized, as of doubtful authority.
The entire absence of all historical treatment of the period following
that covered by Haywood, Ramsey, and Putnam, in fact the entire
nineteenth century, has forced the author to make original investiga-
tions. This fact renders it necessary to give a detailed list of the
authorities consulted.
I have included in the list of authorities J. M. Keating's History
of Memphis, now in press. These pages had already gone through
the press before I saw that book. But by the kindness of the author
I was recently permitted to examine the advance sheets. It is a
scholarly and thorough treatment of the subject.
The author's grateful acknowledgments for various acts of kind-
ness are due to Mr. J. S. Carels, librarian of the Watkins Institute in
Nashville, Ex-Governor James D. Porter, Mr. H. M. Doak, Mrs.
Felicia Grundy Porter, Senator W. B. Bate, Mr. J. M. Dickinson,
Mr. John M. Lea, Mr. Lemuel R. Campbell and Mr. Thomas B.
Craighead of Nashville, Miss Elizabeth Garland of Clarksville, Mr.
J. H. McDavitt, Judge Eli Shelby Hammond, Mr. J. P. Young, and
Mr. Hugh L. Brinkley of Memphis.
Correspondence of General James Robertson in two volumes, ex-
tending from 4th of November, 1784 to July 30, 1814. (Vol. i. from
November 4, 1784 to January, 1795. Vol. ii. probably lost.) This
LIST OF AUTHORITIES.
447
contains also manuscripts and letters of William Blount, Carondelet,
Mero, James Winchester, and others.
De Soto's March through Georgia. By Charles C. Jones, Jr.
Savannah, 1880.
The Annals of Tennessee to the End of the Eighteenth Century.
By J. G. M. Ramsey. Philadelphia, 1853.
The Civil and Political History of the State of Tennessee from its
Earliest Settlements up to the Year 1796. By John Haywood.
Knoxville, 1823.
History of Tennessee, Western Monthly Review, vol. ii. p. 226.
The Siege of Fort Loudon and Massacre of its Garrison by the
Cherokee Indians in 1760. Copied from "The Whig," by "The Poli-
tician,” September 15, 1847.
Magazine of American History, vol. iii. p. 45.
Life and Times of Colonel Daniel Boone. By Cecil B. Hartley.
(This contains Boone's Autobiography as dictated to John Filson.)
New York, 1860.
Daniel Boone and the Hunters of Kentucky. By W. H. Bogart.
Boston, 1869.
Indian Battles, Murders, Sieges, and Forays in the Southwest.
Nashville. (Reprinted from Southwestern Magazine.)
Essay by Thomas Washington to prove that Tecumseh was not at
the attack on Buchanan's Station. (Manuscript in Tennessee His-
torical Society's Library.)
The Rear-Guard of the Revolution. By Edmund Kirke. New
York, 1886.
The Pioneers of the Southwest. Two papers by Edmund Kirke in
Lippincott's Magazine, July and August, 1885.
The Pioneer Mothers of the West; Catharine Sevier. By A. W.
Putnam. Godey's Lady's Book, vol. xliv. p. 71.
John Sevier as a Commonwealth Builder; a Sequel to the Rear-
Guard of the Revolution. By Edmund Kirke. New York, 1887.
Sketches of Western Adventure. By John A. McClung. Mays-
ville, Ky., 1837.
Annals of the West, embracing a Concise Account of the Principal
Events which have occurred in the Western States and Territories,
from the Discovery of the Mississippi Valley to the Year 1850, com-
piled from the most Authentic Sources. By James H. Perkins, re-
vised and enlarged by J. M. Peck. St. Louis, 1850.
Pioneers of Nashville and of Tennessee. By Charles May. Nash-
ville, 1880.
History of Greene County, Tennessee. By William Doak, D. D.,
of Tusculum, Tennessee. (MSS.)
448
LIST OF AUTHORITIES.
The Dunham Pioneers of Middle Tennessee. By A. W. Putnam.
(MSS. in Hist. So. Lib.)
The Life of Joseph Bishop, the Celebrated Old Pioneer in the First
Settlement in Middle Tennessee. By John W. Gray. Nashville,
1856.
Donelson and the Pioneers of Middle Tennessee. By Hon. John
M. Bright. Washington, 1880.
Thrilling Narrative, How the Judgment of Heaven fell on the
Indians who wounded the Rev. Joseph Brown in 1794. (MSS. in
Hist. So. Lib.)
History of Lexington, Kentucky. By George W. Rauch. Cincin-
nati, 1872.
Early Times in Middle Tennessee. By John Carr, a Pioneer of
the West. Nashville, 1857.
A Summary Notice of the First Settlements made by White Peo-
ple within the Limits which bound Tennessee. July, 1816. Mas-
sachusetts Historical Collection, vol. vii. p. 59.
History of Middle Tennessee, or Life and Times of General James
Robertson. By A. W. Putnam, Esq. Nashville, 1859.
The Government of the Notables in Middle Tennessee, May, 1780.
The Historical Magazine, vol. iii. p. 35.
History of Alabama. By A. J. Pickett. 2 vols. Charleston, 1851.
Life of Tecumseh and his Brother the Prophet. By Benjamin
Drake. Cincinnati, 1841.
Indian Wars of the West. By Timothy Flint. Cincinnati, 1833.
Red Eagle and the Wars with the Creek Indians. By H. C. Eg-
gleston.
Life and Times of General Sam Dale, the Mississippi Partisan.
By J. F. H. Claiborne. New York, 1860.
Old Times or Tennessee History for Tennessee Girls and Boys.
By Edwin Paschall. Nashville, 1869.
The Admission of Tennessee into the Union. By Professor Na-
thaniel Cross. (MSS. in Hist. So. Lib.)
Short Description of the State of Tennessee, with the Constitu-
tion. Philadelphia, 1796.
Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio; their Admission into the Union. Ar-
ticle by Professor J. W. Audrews in Magazine of American History,
October, 1887.
Journal of a Tour in Unsettled Parts of North America in 1796
and 1797. By the late Francis Baily. London, 1856.
Travels in the Interior of America in the years 1809, 1810, and
1811. By John Bradbury. Liverpool, 1817.
The Journal of the Rev. Francis Asbury. 3 vols. New York,
1821.
LIST OF AUTHORITIES.
449
Notes on the Settlements and Indian Wars of the Western Parts
of Virginia and Pennsylvania from 1763 to 1783 inclusive, together
with a view of society and manners of the settlers of the western
country. By Joseph Doddridge. Albany, New York, 1876. (Re-
print.)
Old Settlers of Tennessee, Household Words, vol. viii. p. 188.
The Survival of English Institutions, illustrated in the Legal and
Political History of North Carolina. (MSS.) By Professor Henry
S. Shepherd.
A Journal of the Proceedings of William Blount, Esq., Governor,
etc. (MSS.)
The laws of North Carolina and Tennessee respecting vacant lands
and deeds, which are no longer in force, but necessary to the investi-
gation of land titles in Tennessee. Printed by T. G. Bradford.
Revolutionary History of North Carolina in Three Lectures. By
Rev. Francis L. Hawks, Hon. David L. Swain, and Hon. William A.
Graham. Raleigh and New York, 1853.
The History of South Carolina. By William Gilmore Simms.
New York, 1860.
History of North Carolina, with Maps and Illustrations. By Fran-
cis L. Hawks. 2 vols. Fayetteville, 1859.
Sketches of North Carolina, Historical and Biographical. By
Rev. William Henry Foote. New York, 1846.
History of North Carolina from the Earliest Discoveries to the
Present Time. By John W. Moore. 2 vols. Raleigh, 1880.
Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical.
By C. L. Hunter. Raleigh, 1877.
Historical Sketches of North Carolina. From 1584 to 1851. By
John H. Wheeler. 2 vols. in one. Philadelphia, 1851.
The History of North Carolina. By Hugh Williamson. 2 vols.
Philadelphia, 1812.
Mecklenburgh Declaration of 1775. Summary of Historical Evi-
dence. By A. R. Spofford. New York Herald, May 14, 1875, p. 4.
See also authorities there cited by Governor Graham and Mr. Spof-
ford.1
Memoir of James Harvey Otey, D. D., LL. D., the First Bishop
of Tennessee. By William Mercer Green, D. D., Bishop of Missis-
sippi. New York, 1884.
The Constitution of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in the
United States of America. Russellville, 1821.
1 In the text (vide p. 39) I have followed the usual account, in referring to the Meck-
lenburgh Declaration of Independence. But the case made out by Mr. Spofford against
the Resolutions of May 20th, in his admirable paper cited above, seems almost conclusive.
450
LIST OF AUTHORITIES.
Origin and Doctrines of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.
In Two Parts. By E. B. Crisman. St. Louis, 1877.
Life and Times of Rev. Finis Ewing, one of the Fathers and
Founders of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. By Rev. J. K.
Cossitt. Louisville.
Thoughts on Various Subjects. By Rev. Robert Donnell of the
Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Louisville, 1854.
Brief Biographical Sketches of Some of the Early Ministers of
the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. By Richard Beard, D. D.
Nashville, 1867.
Life of Rev. George Donnell, First Pastor of the Church in Leb-
anon, with a Sketch of the Scotch-Irish Race. By Rev. T. C. Ander-
son. Nashville, 1859.
Methodist Pulpit South. Compiled by William T. Smithson.
Third Edition. Washington, D. C., 1859.
History of Methodism in Tennessee. By John B. McFerrin, D. D.
3 vols. Nashville, 1875.
History of the Organization of the Methodist Episcopal Church
South. Nashville, 1845..
Biographical Sketches of Eminent Itinerant Ministers, distin-
guished for the most part as Pioneers of Methodism. Edited by
Thomas O. Summers, D. D. Nashville, 1858.
The Life of Henry Biddleman Bascom. By Rev. M. M. Henkles.
Louisville, 1854.
Autobiography of Rev. James B. Finley, or Pioneer Life in the
West. Edited by W. P. Strickland. Cincinnati, 1859.
Autobiography of Peter Cartwright, the Backwoods Preacher.
Edited by W. P. Strickland. Cincinnati, 1859.
Ten Years of Preacher Life. Chapters from an Autobiography.
By William Henry Milburn. New York, 1859.
The Rifle, Axe, and Saddle-Bags, and Other Lectures. By Wil-
liam Henry Milburn. New York, 1857.
The Pioneers, Preachers, and People of the Mississippi Valley.
By William Henry Milburn. New York, 1860.
The Craighead Family. A Genealogical Memoir of the Descend-
ants of Rev. Thomas and Margaret Craighead; 1658-1876. By
Rev. James Geddes Craighead, D. D. Philadelphia, 1876.
The Works of Philip Lindsley, D. D. Edited by Leroy J. Hal-
sey, D. D., with Introductory Notices of his Life and Labors. By
the editor. 3 vols. Philadelphia, 1866.
A Sketch of the Life and Educational Labors of Philip Lindsley.
By Leroy J. Halsey. Hartford, 1859.
Address delivered before the Alumni Society of the University of
LIST OF AUTHORITIES.
451
Nashville. By Judge John D. Phelan, June 13, 1872. Nashville,
1872.
An Address delivered at Nashville, Tennessee, October 5, 1830.
Being the First Anniversary of the Alumni Society of the University
of Nashville. By John Bell, Esq. Nashville, 1830.
An Address by Hon. Edwin H. Ewing at the Celebration of the
Centennial Anniversary of the University of Nashville. Nashville,
1885.
Catalogue of the Officers and Graduates of the University of Nash-
ville, with an Appendix containing sundry historical notices, etc.
Nashville, 1850.
American Journal of Education, vol. vii. 1859.
Laws of the State of Tennessee, including those of North Caro-
lina now in force in this State from the year 1715 to 1820 inclusive.
By Edward Scott. 2 vols. Knoxville, 1821.
Laws of the United States, Resolutions of Congress under the Con-
federation, Treaties, Proclamations, and other documents having
operation and respect to the public lands, collected, digested, and
arranged pursuant to two acts of Congress. Passed April 2, 1810,
and January 20, 1817. Washington, 1817.
Report of Committee on Education to the General Assembly of
Tennessee, 1 November, 1821. (Very important on the subject of
lands and public education. Copied in Niles' Register, vol. xxi. p.
299.)
An Address prepared by Rev. Joseph I. Foot, D. D., for his inau-
guration as President of Washington College, East Tennessee.
Knoxville, 1840.
The History of Banks. Boston, 1837. (A manuscript note in the
copy in the Harvard College Library gives as the name of the author
Richard Hildreth.)
An Address on Banks and Banking. By W. N. Bilbo. Nashville,
1857.
Remarks of Hon. W. W. Guy, Representative of Hardeman
County in the Tennessee Legislature, Thursday, February 24, 1860,
on the amendment offered by himself to the Senate Bill to re-
charter the Union and Planters' Banks.
Some Suggestions on the Subject of Monopolies and Special
Charters. By W. H. Humphreys. Nashville, 1859.
Memorial of the Depositors in the Bank of Tennessee to the Forty-
fifth General Assembly of Tennessee. 1887.
Considerations on the Currency and Banking System of the United
States. By Albert Gallatin. Philadelphia, 1831.
A Short History of Paper-Money in the United States. By Wil-
liam M. Gouge. 2d edition. New York, 1835.
452
LIST OF AUTHORITIES.
Answers to the Questions; what constitutes Currency, etc. By
Henry C. Carey. Philadelphia, 1840.
Credit of the West. Nashville, 1833.
Proceedings of the General Internal Improvement Meeting,
held at Knoxville, 1847.
Internal Improvements (a review of Calhoun's Memphis Speech).
Southern Quarterly Review, vol. ix. p. 243.
Transcript of Record; Supreme Court of the United States; No.
781. Calvin Armory Stevens, Appellant, vs. The Chicago, St. Louis,
and New Orleans Railroad Co. Appeal from the Circuit Court of
the United States for the Western District of Tennessee, filed No-
vember 10, 1881.
Letters of Sam Tate to Jere Baxter, President, on the condition
of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, its finances and manage-
ment for twenty-four years. First letter dated November 30, 1881.
The State Debt. Report of the Committee appointed to investi-
gate it. Nashville, 1879.
Nashville, 1880.
A History of the State Debt.
Tennessee and her Bondage. A vindication and a warning.
Speech of Hon. John L. T. Sneed of Shelby County on the State
Debt Question. Delivered at Lagrange, Tennessee, November 26,
1881. Memphis, 1881.
The State Debt. Duty and Responsibility of the Tennessee De-
mocracy. William J. Sykes. Columbia, 1880.
History of Davidson County, Tennessee, with illustrations and
biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers. By Pro-
fessor W. W. Clayton. Philadelphia, 1880.
A History of Hardin County, Tennessee. By B. G. Brazelton.
Nashville, 1885.
A Historical Sketch of Maury County. Columbia, 1876. (By
W. S. Fleming.)
Reminiscences of the Early Settlements and Early Settlers of Mc-
Nairy County, Tennessee. By General Marcus J. Wright. Wash-
ington, 1882.
Historical Address, delivered by Colonel John A. Gardner, on the
Early Times in Weakley County. (MSS. in Hist. So. Lib.)
A Brief Sketch of the Settlement and Early History of Giles
County. By James McCallum. (MSS.)
Manuscript Memoranda in reference to Fayette, Robertson,
Obion, Lawrence, Montgomery, Dyer, Crockett, Lauderdale, Gibson,
Hickman, Sevier, Humphreys, Henry, and Gibson counties are in the
Historical Society's Library.
Historical Sketch of Tipton County, Tennessee, prepared by R.
LIST OF AUTHORITIES.
453
H. Munford for the Centennial Celebration, July 4, 1876, at Coving-
ton, Tennessee. (MSS. in Hist. So. Lib.)
The Industries and Resources of Tennessee, historical, descriptive,
and biographical. Commercial advantages of the City of Nashville.
1882.
Nashville Illustrated.
Nashville Directors.
1872.
1855, 1856, 1857, 1859.
Recollections of Nashville in Early Days. By Anson Nelson,
John M. Lea, and A. S. Colyar. (MSS. in Hist. So. Lib.)
Reminiscences, a Brief History of Davidson County, Tennessee,
mostly collected from the records of the county. Prepared for and
read before the Historical Society, June, 1849, by A. W. Putnam.
(MSS. in Hist. So. Lib.)
Sketch of the Life of Major Daniel Graham, late of Tennessee.
(MSS. in Hist. So. Lib.)
Rev. Thomas B. Craighead. By A. W. Putnam. (MSS. in Hist.
So. Lib.)
Recollections of Tennessee. By M. H. Howard. (MSS. in Hist.
So. Lib.)
Zion Church and Frierson Settlement in Maury County, Tennessee,
prepared for Historical Society. By A. W. Putnam.
Hist. So. Lib.)
(MSS. in
King's Mountain and Its Heroes: History of the Battle of King's
Mountain, October 7, 1780, and the events which led to it. By Ly-
man C. Draper, LL. D. Cincinnati, 1881.
Celebration of the Battle of King's Mountain, October, 1855.
Memoirs of the Services of General John Sevier, written by
Major James Sevier, 1839. (MSS. in Hist. So. Lib.)
Manuscript Letters of John Sevier, James Robertson, Evan Shelby,
Isaac Shelby, Willie Blount, Archibald Roane, David Crockett, An-
drew Jackson, and of many of the governors of Tennessee are in the
Historical Society Library.
Clark's Miscellany in Prose and Verse. By Isaac Clark of Sum-
ner County, Tennessee. Nashville, 1812.
The South-Western Monthly. A Journal devoted to the Early His-
tory of the South-West. 3 vols.
The Tennessee Gazetteer, or Topographical Dictionary. By Eas-
tin Morris. Nashville, 1838.
The Resources of Tennessee. By J. B. Killebrew, assisted by J.
M. Safford. Nashville, 1874.
The Tennessee Hand-Book and Immigrants' Guide, giving a de-
scription of the State of Tennessee. By Herman N. Bokum. Phila-
delphia, 1868.
454
LIST OF AUTHORITIES.
Report of the Committee of the House of Representatives of the
United States, appointed to prepare and report Articles of Impeach-
ment against William Blount, a Senator of the United States.
Printed by order of the House of Representatives.
Some Account of the Life and Public Services of William Blount.
By General Marcus J. Wright. Washington.
The Biography of the Principal American Military and Naval
Heroes, comprehending details of their achievements during the
Revolutionary and the late wars. By Thomas Wilson. 2 vols.
New York, 1819. (Contains biography of William Carroll.)
Address of the Hon. Abraham P. Maury on the Life and Charac-
ter of Hugh Lawson White. Delivered at Franklin, May 9, 1840.
Franklin, 1840.
A Memoir of Hugh Lawson White, with Selections from his
Speeches and Correspondence. Edited by Nancy N. Scott, one of
his descendants. Philadelphia, 1856.
Reminiscences of the Clarksville Bar. An Address by Hon. Gus-
tavus A. Henry. Nashville, 1877.
The Self-Vindication of Colonel William Martin against certain
charges and aspersions made against him by General Andrew Jack-
son and others in relation to sundry transactions in the campaigns
against the Creek Indians in the year 1813. Nashville, 1829.
Address of General R. G. Dunlap to the East Tennessee Volun-
teers. 1836.
The Life of Sam Houston.
ever published. Illustrated.
The only authoritative memoir of him
New York, 1855.
Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas. 2
vols. in one. By William Carey Crane, D. D., LL. D. Philadel-
phia, 1885.
Sam Houston. The Pioneer, vol. iv. p. 162.
Review of the Life of General Sam Houston as recently published
in Washington City by J. T. Towers. By D. G. Burnet, First Presi-
dent of Texas. Galveston, 1852.
Sam Houston and his Republic, American (Whig) Review, vol.
v. p. 566.
General Sam Houston. By Alexander Hynds. Century Maga-
zine, vol. xxviii. No. 4, p. 506.
Sketch of the Life of William B. Campbell, compiled and arranged
by Lemuel R. Campbell. (MSS.)
Ben Hardin, His Times and Contemporaries, with Selections from
his Speeches. By Lucius B. Little. Louisville, 1887.
Anecdotes of Public Men. By John W. Forney. 2 vols. New
York.
LIST OF AUTHORITIES.
455
Reminiscences of Public Men. By Ex-Governor B. F. Perry.
Philadelphia, 1883.
The Memories of Fifty Years, containing Brief Biographical No-
tices of Distinguished Americans and Anecdotes of Remarkable Men,
interspersed with Scenes and Incidents occurring during a long life
of observation, chiefly spent in the Southwest. By W. H. Sparks.
4th edition. Philadelphia, 1882.
Casket of Reminiscences. By Henry Stuart Foote. Washing-
ton, 1874.
Bench and Bar of the Southwest. By H. S. Foote. St. Louis, 1876.
Mississippi as a Province, Territory and State, with Biographical
Notices of Eminent Citizens. By J. F. H. Claiborne. 1 vol. Jack-
son, Mississippi, 1880.
Random Recollections of Early Days in Mississippi. By H. S.
Fulkerson. Vicksburg, Miss., 1885.
The Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi. By Joseph G.
Baldwin. San Francisco, 1883. (Reprint.)
The Bench and Bar of Mississippi. By James D. Lynch. New
York, 1881.
The Life and Times of Sergeant Smith Prentiss. Edited by his
Brother. 2 vols. New York, 1855.
Romantic Passages in South-Western History, including Ora-
tions, Sketches, and Essays. By A. B. Meek. 2d edition. Mobile,
1857.
Report of the Commissioners appointed to mark the Boundary
Line between the States of Kentucky and Tennessee to the Governor
of Kentucky. Frankfort, 1860.
Report of the Select Committee of the House of Representatives
in relation to the Southern Boundary Line of the State of Tennessee.
Nashville.
History of the South Carolina Cession and the Northern Boundary
of Tennessee. By W. R. Garrett, A. M. Nashville, 1884.
The Life of Andrew Jackson. By Alexander Walker. New
York, 1859.
The Life of Major-General Andrew Jackson. By John Henry
Eaton. Philadelphia, 1828.
Life of Andrew Jackson in 3 vols. By James Parton. New
York, 1860.
Andrew Jackson as a Public Man. By William Graham Sumner.
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Boston, 1883. (American Statesmen.)
Life of Thomas Hart Benton. By Theodore Roosevelt. Hough-
ton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, 1887. (American Statesmen.)
Colonel Crockett. Fraser's Magazine, xvi.
p. 610.
456
LIST OF AUTHORITIES.
Pictorial Life and Adventures of Davy Crockett, written by him-
self. Philadelphia.
David Crockett. His Life and Adventures. By John S. C. Ab-
bott. New York.
An Account of Colonel Crockett's Tour to the North and Down
East, written by himself. Philadelphia, 1835.
Colonel Crockett's Exploits and Adventures in Texas, written by
himself. London, 1837.
Review of this in (London) Monthly Magazine, New Series, vol. ii.
p. 215.
Sketches and Eccentricities of Colonel David Crockett of West
Tennessee. 11th edition. New York.
Life of Martin Van Buren, Heir Apparent to the Government and
the Appointed Successor of General Andrew Jackson. By David
Crockett. Philadelphia, 1837.
Colonel David Crockett of Tennessee. By Marcus J. Wright.
Magazine of American History, vol. x. p. 489.
Old Times in Tennessee, with historical, personal, and political
scraps and sketches. By Jo. C. Guild. Nashville, 1878.
Political Circulars of John L. Allen, G. W. L. Marr, Cave John-
son, M. Lea, A. O. P. Nicholson, and others.
Senator Grundy's Political Conduct, reviewed by Charles Biddle.
Nashville, 1832.
Biography of Felix Grundy in the United States Magazine and
Democratic Review, vol. iii. p. 161. Washington, 1838.
An Oration on the Life, Character, and Public Services of the
Hon. Felix Grundy. By Hon. John M. Bright. 1859.
The National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans, vol. iii.
1836.
Speech of William Humphreys of Fayette County on the Pream-
ble and Resolutions of William McLain of Smith, nominating
Judge White as a candidate for the Presidency, Thursday, October
15, 1835.
Preamble and Resolutions adopted by the Legislature of the State
of Tennessee, November 14, 1839, and the Reply and Resignations of
Ephraim H. Foster, a Senator of said State in the Congress of the
United States, delivered November 15, 1839. Nashville, 1839.
The same of H. L. White, delivered January 13, 1840.
Speech of Mr. Wheeler of the Senate upon the Instruction Resolu-
tions. Nashville, 1839.
Address of James K. Polk to the People of Tennessee, April,
1839. Columbia, 1839.
James K. Polk, and a History of his Administration. By John
S. Jenkins. Auburn, 1851.
LIST OF AUTHORITIES.
457
Democratic Review, vol. ii.
p.
197.
James K. Polk.
Life and Public Services of James K. Polk. By G. H. Hickman.
Baltimore, 1844.
A Political Register. By W. G. Brownlow, Editor of the Jones-
boro Whig. Jonesboro, 1844.
Speech of Mr. Turney on the Bill to suppress Indian Hostilities,
in the House of Representatives, 1838.
An Address of the Democratic Members of Congress for the State
of Tennessee to their Constituents, March, 1841.
Circular from Washington City, June 25, 1841, signed by A. O.
P. Nicholson, Cave Johnson, Hopkins L. Turney, A. McClellan, A.
V. Brown, and H. M. Watterson.
Cave Johnson. Democratic Review, vol. xvii. p. 241.
Sketch of the Life and Public Services of James C. Jones. By
W. G. Brownlow in his "Political Register."
The Life, Speeches, and Public Services of John Bell, together
with a Life of Edward Everett, Union Candidates for the Offices of
President and Vice-President of the United States. New York,
1860.
Speech of John Bell of Tennessee on the Tariff. Delivered in the
House of Representatives, June 15, 1832. Washington, 1832.
John Bell. His Past History connected with the Public Service.
(Published in 1860. Author unknown.)
Speech of Mr. Bell of Tennessee on the Bill to secure the Free-
dom of Elections. Delivered in the House of Representatives, Jan-
uary, 1837. Washington, 1837.
Proceedings of the Democratic State Convention, held in Nash-
ville on the 23d of November, 1834, for the purpose of electing Dele-
gates to represent the State of Tennessee in the National Convention
for the nomination of Candidates for President and Vice-President.
Nashville, 1843.
Speeches Congressional and Political, and other Writings of Ex-
Governor Aaron V. Brown of Tennessee. Nashville, 1854.
Aaron V. Brown. United States Democratic Review, N. S., vol.
xli. p. 140.
Speech of John M. Bright, Esq., against Know-Nothingism, at
Flat Creek, Bedford County, September 11, 1855. Nashville, 1855.
Speech of Ex-Governor Aaron V. Brown on Know-Nothingism, at
Gallatin, July 4, 1855. Nashville, 1855.
Reflections and Suggestion on the Present State of Parties. By an
Old Clay Whig. Nashville, 1856.
Address of the Democratic State Central Committee to the Voters
of Tennessee. Nashville, 1856.
458
LIST OF AUTHORITIES.
Letter of Hon. James C. Jones of Tennessee to his Constituents
on Political Parties; His Past Course and Future Intentions.
Washington, 1856.
A Political Romance. Putman's Magazine, N. S., vol. iii. p. 428.
The Life and Public Services of Andrew Johnson, Seventeenth
President of the United States, including his State Papers,
Speeches, and Addresses. By John Savage. New York, 1866.
Three Presidents of the United States. Blackwood's Magazine,
vol. c. p. 623.
Life and Times of Andrew Johnson, Seventeenth President of the
United States, written from a National Standpoint by a National
Man. New York, 1866.
Andrew Johnson. By Isaac Smucker, in Potter's American
Monthly, vols. iv. and v. p. 733.
Life, Speeches, and Services of Andrew Johnson, Seventeenth
President of the United States. Philadelphia.
Andrew Johnson, his Life and Speeches. By L. Foster. New
York, 1866.
Speeches of Andrew Johnson, President of the United States,
with a Biographical Introduction, by Frank Moore. Boston, 1865.
Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of Andrew John-
son (a Senator fron Tennessee). Delivered in the Senate and
House of Representatives, January 12, 1876.
The President on the Stump (Andrew Johnson). North Ameri-
can Review, vol. cii. p. 530. [J. R. Lowell.]
Life of General Robert Hatton. By James Vaulx Drake. Nash-
ville, 1867.
To Active Working Friends of the Opposition in Tennessee. Ex-
ecutive Committee Rooms. Nashville, July 23, 1859.
Sketches of the Rise, Progress, and Decline of Secession, with a
Narrative of Personal Adventure among the Rebels. By W. G.
Brownlow, Editor of the Knoxville Whig. Philadelphia, 1862.
(This is commonly called "Parson Brownlow's Book.")
The Annals of the Army of Tennessee and Early Western His-
tory. Edited by Dr. Edwin L. Drake, vol. i., April to December,
1878. Nashville, 1878.
Old Times in West Tennessee. By a Descendant of one of the
First Settlers. Memphis, 1873.
History of the Discovery and Settlement of the Valley of the Mis-
sissippi by the three Great European Powers, Spain, France, and
Great Britain, and the Subsequent Occupation, Settlement, and Ex-
tension of Civil Government by the United States until the Year
1846. By John W. Monette, M. D. 2 vols. New York, 1846.
LIST OF AUTHORITIES.
459
The History and Geography of the Mississippi Valley. By Timo-
thy Flint. 2 vols. in one. Cincinnati and Boston, 1833.
The Mississippi Question Fairly Stated and the Views of those
who clamor for War examined. In Seven Letters. By Camillus.
Philadelphia, 1803.
:
Elmwood Charter, Rules, Regulations, and By-Laws of Elm-
wood Cemetery Association of Memphis. History of the Cemetery.
Biographical Sketches. Attractive Monuments. Names of Pro-
prietors. Memphis, 1874.
De Soto and the Early Settlement of Memphis. By J. M. Keat-
ing, in the Southern Monthly Magazine for January, 1881.
Old Folks' Historical Record, from October, 1874, to September,
1875. Memphis, 1875.
Grant from the Original Proprietors to the Citizens of Memphis
(Broadside issued in 1828), signed by John Overton, John C. Mc-
Lemore, George Winchester, and William Winchester.
The History of the City of Memphis, being a compilation of the
most important documents and historical events connected with the
purchase of its territory, laying off of the city and early settlement.
Also "Old Times Papers." By James D. Davis. Memphis, 1873.
History of the City of Memphis, Tennessee. By J. M. Keating.
Syracuse, N. Y. 1888 (October).¹
A History of the Detection, Conviction, Life, and Designs of John
A. Murrell, the Great Western Land Pirate, together with his sys-
tem of villainy and plan for exciting a Negro Rebellion, with a cata-
logue of the names of 445 of his Mystic Clan, fellows and followers,
and their efforts for the destruction of Mr. Virgil A. Stewart, a
young man who detected him. To which is added a biographical
sketch of Mr. V. A. Stewart. By Augustus Q. Walton, Esq. 1835.
The History of Virgil A. Stewart and his Adventures in capturing
and exposing the great "Western Land Pirate" and his Gang, etc.,
compiled by H. R. Howard. New York, 1836.
A Refutation of the Charges against Mathew Clanton, together
with an Exposition of the Character of Virgil A. Stewart, its Author.
By Mathew Clanton. Pittsburgh, Miss. Printed by John J. Hamil-
1835.
ton.
Nashville Orthopolitan. October to January, 1845, July to Octo-
ber, 1846.
Speech delivered by James C. Jones at the Clay Whig Meeting at
Nashville on the 8th of April, 1848. Lebanon, 1848.
Address of Ex-Governor Aaron V. Brown before the Democratic
Association of Nashville, 24th of June, 1856. Nashville, 1856.
1 See p. 446.
460
LIST OF AUTHORITIES.
A History of the Life of General William Trousdale (MS.). By
J. A. Trousdale.
William Blount. By M. J. Lamb. Magazine of American His-
tory, vol. xiii. p. 313.
The Narrative of Colonel David Fanning (A Tory in the Revolu-
tionary War with Great Britain), giving an account of his Adventures
in North Carolina, from 1775 to 1783, as written by himself, with an
Introduction and Explanatory Notes. (Reprint.) New York, 1865.
A Topographical Description of the Western Territory of North
America. By Gilbert Imlay, a Captain in the American Army dur-
ing the war and Commissioner for laying out lands in the back settle-
ments. 3d edition. London, 1797.
NEWSPAPERS.
The Knoxville Register, 5 November, 1791, to 31 July, 1795; 10
March, 1830, to 19 February, 1834; 8 May, 1849, to 9 July, 1850.
Impartial Review and Cumberland Repository (Nashville), Febru-
ary, 1805, to December, 1808.
Nashville Whig, 1 November, 1814, to 20 November, 1815; 21
November, 1815, to 15 August, 1818; 1 January, 1823, to 29 Decem-
ber, 1824; 9 January to 31 December, 1838; 2 October to 31 De-
cember, 1839; 6 January to 30 December, 1840; 1 January to 31
December, 1841; 3 January to 31 December, 1842; 3 January to 30
December, 1843; 2 January to 28 December, 1844; 1 January to
31 December, 1846.
The Clarion and Tennessee Gazette (Nashville), 19 September,
1820, to 29 August, 1821. (On 20 February, sub-title was discon-
tinued.)
Nashville Gazette, 26 May, 1819, to 2 July, 1821.
Jackson Gazette (Jackson, Tennessee), May, 1824, to June, 1826;
June, 1828, to September, 1830.
National Banner and Nashville Whig, 3 January to 28 December,
1827; 1 January, 1828, to 29 December, 1829; 1 January to 31 De-
cember, 1830; 2 January to 30 December, 1835; 4 January to 22
August, 1837, when it was united with the Republican and contin-
ued under the title of Republican Banner to 30 December, 1837.
Nashville Republican and State Gazette, 8 January to 30 Decem-
ber, 1828; 1 December, 1831, to 31 December, 1832; 2 January to
13 November, 1834, and Nashville Republican to 30 December,
1834.
Southern Statesman (Jackson, Tennessee), 5 February, 1831, to
22 September, 1833.
LIST OF AUTHORITIES.
461
National Banner and Nashville Daily Advertiser, January to 21
October, 1833.
The Kaleidoscope (Nashville), 18 July, 1888, to 24 July, 1834.
Nashville Republican, 1 January to 31 December, 1835; 2 Janu-
ary to 16 December, 1836.
Commercial Transcript, vol. i. from January 2 to December 31,
1836.
Daily Republican Banner (Nashville), 1 January to 31 December,
1839.
Nashville Union, 2 January to 30 December, 1839; January to 28
December, 1840.
The Whig Banner (Nashville, a campaign publication). 13 May
to 29 July, 1843; 11 May to 26 October, 1846.
The Spirit of '76 (Nashville, a campaign publication). 25 April
to 26 October, 1844; 6 April to 26 August, 1847.
Democratic Statesman, (Nashville, a campaign publication). 12
April to 6 September, 1845.
The Politician (Nashville, a campaign publication). 18 April to
10 October, 1845; 17 October, 1845, to 10 April, 1846.
The Politician and Weekly Nashville Whig (a campaign publica-
tion). 2 April to 17 October, 1846; 9 October, 1846, to 9 April,
1847; 16 April to 6 October, 1847 ; 8 October, 1847, to 31 March,
1848.
Rough and Ready (Nashville, a campaign publication). 8 April
to 3 September, 1847; 1 July to 14 October, 1848.
Nashville True Whig and Weekly Commercial Register, 5 April
to 27 September, 1850; 4 October, 1850, to 28 March, 1851.
Memphis Daily Appeal, 4 July to 24 December, 1854; 1 July to
19 December, 1855; 1 January to 9 June, 1856; 23 August, 1856,
to 16 June, 1857; 18 June, 1857, to 24 March, 1858; 1 January to
20 December, 1859; 1 January to 27 June, 1861.
Weekly Appeal, (Memphis). 21 May, 1851, to 11 January, 1854;
21 December, 1859, to 25 December, 1860.
Memphis Daily Eagle and Enquirer, 3 January to 12 August,
1855.
Nashville Daily Gazette, January, 1858, to December, 1861 (in-
clusive).
The Opposition. (A campaign document designed to support
John Netherland for the governorship.) First number appeared 3
May, and last 29 July, 1859.
INDEX.
ABINGDON or Wolfs Hill, 30; church at,
218.
Academies established, 235; prejudice
against, 236.
Act of Congress of 1806, beginning of
schools, 235.
Act of Oblivion, 91, 98.
Adams, Prof. Herbert B., 191 (note).
Admission, cause of opposition to, 187, 188.
Adventure, The, 111.
Advocate. See Phoebus.
Etna, first steamboat at Memphis, 311.
Alamance, Battle of, 31, 216.
Alexander, Adam R., 309.
Alien Law of 1798, 341.
Ambrister, 9.
American System, 278.
Amusements, 181.
Anderson, Alexander, 224.
Anderson, Governor Charlie, of Ohio, 421.
Anderson, Joseph, 186, 443.
Anderson, Patton, 359.
Arbuthnot, 9.
Armstrong, Robert, 374.
Asbury, Bishop, quoted, 88, 172, 173, 175,
183, 187; his diary, 111, 182; at Ram-
sey's house, 182.
Asher's Station, 118; location, 120.
Ashley, Lord, 8.
Association. See Watauga.
Assumption, Fort, Bienville at, 11; built,
313.
Asylums, building of, 300.
Athens, 270.
Attorney-general, 194.
Authorities, list of, 446-461.
Autry at the Alamo, 445.
Baily, Sylvester, 340.
Balch, Hezekiah, 88, 218; scandalizes
the church, 220; removed, 221; president
of Greene College, 234.
Balch, James, 220.
Bank of Tennessee, 258; H. L. White,
president, 258; does not suspend specie
payment, 260.
Bank of the State of Tennessee (1820), Loan
Office changed to, 263; White's charge,
262; Jackson's protest, 263; opposed by
Carroll, 263; a failure, 265; Carroll sug-
gests winding it up, 266; irregularities in,
266; wound up, 266.
Bank of the State of Tennessee (1831), 267.
Bank of the State of Tennessee (1838), ob-
jects of, 237, 268; opposed by Neil S.
Brown, 237; chartered, 268; directors
nominated by governor, 269; branches
located, 270; sale of state bonds, 271;
dissatisfaction, 271; Cannon on, 271; used
to further secession, 273; wound up,
273; issues receivable for taxes, 274; de-
positors of, unjustly treated, 274; "ster-
ling bonds," 397; directors rejected by
the Senate in 1841, 410.
Bank at Gallatin and other places, 259.
Bankrupt Law, 411.
Barge, 352.
Barret, Peter, 140.
Barring teacher out, 181.
Barrow, Washington, 375.
Barton, Samuel, 132, 133, 134.
Batture at Memphis. See Mud-bar.
Bean, Russell, 21.
Bean, William, 21, 29, 34, 321.
Bean's cabin, 5, 20; location of, 21; built,
21.
Beard, John, kills Indian chiefs, 157.
Beatty's settlement in McNairy County,
305.
Bedford County, salt in, 279.
Begelow, E., 309.
Bell, John, 357, 404; attacks American
system, 351; opposes Grundy in 1827,
362; sketch of, 363; elected to the U. S.
Senate, 363; opposed by Jackson, 364;
Globe's attack on, 367; rivalry with
Polk, 367; driven into opposition, 367;
his design, 368; his political record, 368,
395; his speech of May, 1835, 368; re-
turned to Congress without opposition,
370; defeated for speaker, 371; Cassidy
letter, 372; enmity against Polk, 377;
prominent Democrat, 378; sustains
White, 366; New Whig, 379; on Polk's
address, 381; builds Whig cabin at Nash-
ville, 385; speeches in 1840, 387; leader
of Whig Junto, 403; attacks Polk in
1844, 415; vote for U. S. senator, 429; de-
clares for secession, 440; secretary of
war, 442; candidate for presidency, 364,
443.
Benton County, 311.
Benton, Jesse, duel with Carroll, 255;
settles Tipton County, 306; testimony as
to mouth of Wolf River, 319, 334; com-
missioner to lay off road, 322; his hatred
of Jackson, 361; his pamphlet, 361; fight
with Jackson in Memphis, 361.
Benton, Thomas H., 322, 442.
Bettis, William, 311.
464
INDEX.
Bickford, W. A., 335.
Bienville attacks Chickasaws, 11.
Bird, Colonel, builds fort on Holston, 11.
Black Bob, 182.
Blackburn, Gideon, 220.
Blair, John, 98.
Blair, John, 366.
Bledsoe, Anthony, runs boundary line in
East Tennessee, 32; resists departure
from Cumberland, 130; builds fort, 134;
opposes Hopewell Treaty, 140; letter to
Sevier, 144; killed, 151; two sons killed,
158.
Bledsoe, Isaac, 108; justice of the peace,
133; fort at Bledsoe's Lick, 134.
Bledsoe's Lick, 108.
Bledsoe's Station, 118; location of, 120.
Block-house, 119.
Blount College, 234.
Blount, Willie, Judge, 200; elected gov-
ernor, 250; urges Sevier to appoint Jack-
son, 250; sketch of, 250; services during
the Creek War, 250; on canal in New
York, 276; candidate for governor in 1827,
296.
Blount, William, disapproves Hopewell
Treaty, 139, 140; territorial governor,
148; his character, 148; his administra-
tion, 149; deceived by the Indians, 152,
155; reprimands Robertson, 162; mem-
ber of Constitutional Convention, 186;
U. S. senator, 187.
Bluffs, Battle of, 126; decides fate of Cum-
berland settlement, 127.
Bolivar, 306; canal to, 387.
Bolivar, Simon, 306.
Boone, Daniel, identified with Southwest,
14; explorations of, 14; at Sycamore
Shoals, 18, 29, 35, 112; cuts words on a
tree, 29; at Bean's cabin, 29; passes
through East Tennessee to Kentucky,
29; why he entered the wilderness, 111;
Byron's lines on, 112.
Boone's Creek, 5.
Boone, John, 35.
Boundary lines, ignorance of, in North
Carolina, 50; in act of 1777, 50; confu-
sion of, 49, 140; between Tennessee and
Mississippi, 315.
Bowman, Thomas, 221.
Boyd's Creek, Battle of, 63.
Bradbury, John, 309.
Branding, abolition of, urged by Carroll,
302.
Broadhead, Daniel, store at Ohio Falls,
177.
Broadhorn. See Kentucky Flat.
Brinkley, R. C., 287.
Brown, Aaron V., nominated for governor,
426, 430; partner of Polk, 426; member
of Buchanan's cabinet, 442; as a stump
speaker, 427; trick of debate, 427; style
of oratory, 427; Mount Pisgah metaphor,
427, 432; elected, 428; riding on Jack-
son's back, 431; at Southern Conven-
tion, 436; candidate for vice-president,
445.
Brown, Jacob, settles on Nollichucky, 31;
member of Committee of Thirteen, 34;
increases his purchase of lands, 36.
Brown, James, 308, 315; his stage line,
323.
Brown, Joseph, released by Sevier, 150,
160; captured by Indians, 160; leads ex-
pedition against Nickojack, 158.
Brown, Neil S., 416, 425; opposes bank of
1838, 237; suggests county taxation for
schools, 237; nominated for governor in
1847, 430; sketch of, 431; turns Mount
Pisgah metaphor on A. V. Brown, 432;
his ridicule of Polk, 432; elected, 432;
defeated by Trousdale, 433; minister to
Russia, 441.
Brown, Samuel R., 310.
Brown's settlement. See Nollichucky set-
tlement.
Brownlow régime, 291.
Brownlow, W. G., suggests investigation of
old bank, 273; of 1843, 410; in 1844, 415;
in 1851, 433; supports Johnson, 440;
Fighting Parson, 442.
Brownsville, 270, 308.
Buchanan's station attacked, 156; marvel-
ous escape, 157.
Bushy Head, 18.
Butler, or Untoola, or Gun Rod, killed by
Hubbard, 81-83.
Burr, Aaron, dreams of a Southwestern
empire, 103, 164.
Byron, lines on Daniel Boone, 112.
Cabin, how built, 24.
Cage, William, 78.
Caldwell, John, 216.
Calhoun, John C., at Memphis, 285.
Callaway, Caleb, 209.
Callaway, Samuel, 14.
Calvin, John, 216.
Cambreling, A. M., 308.
Cameron, Alexander, 41.
Campbell, Arthur, 104.
Campbell, David, judge of the superior
court of Franklin, 78; commissioner to
North Carolina, 89; letter to Caswell, 92;
accepts North Carolina judgeship, 97;
refuses to arrest Sevier, 99; territorial
judge, 148.
Campbell, David, member of North Carolina
assembly, 98; impeached for bribery,
245; defeated in 1809, 245 (note).
Campbell, George W., secretary of the
treasury, 251, 442; minister to Russia,
443.
Campbell, Col. William, joins Sevier and
Shelby, 59; made commander, 59.
Campbell, Wm. B., 434; candidate for
governor, 436; sketch of, 436; defeats
Trousdale, 437.
Campbell's Station, 173.
Camp-meeting, origin of, 223; the first, 223.
Canal between Hiwassee and Coosa River,
284; between Tennessee and Big Hatchie
Rivers, 284, 307. See New York Canal.
Caney Fork, lottery to remove obstruc-
tions from, 279.
Cannon, Newton, candidate for governor
in 1827, 296; defeated in 1821 by Hous-
ton, 297; lukewarm towards Jackson,
358; sketch of, 358; attracts Jackson's
attention, 359; denies statement in Life
of Jackson, 359; candidate in 1835, 370;
supports White, 370; elected, 370; re-
elected, 374; candidate against Polk, 379,
384; first Whig candidate, 379; abandons
INDEX.
465
stump in 1839, 381; defeated, 381; vote
in 1837 and 1839 compared, 384.
Canoe, 352.
Capitol built, 300 (note).
Carondelet, 106, 166.
Carlisle, John G., 376.
Carr, Anderson B., 310.
Carr, Gideon, 311.
Carr, Thomas D., 310.
Carrick, Samuel, 88, 218, 220; president
Blount College, 234.
Carroll County, 304.
Carroll, William, 201, 357; contest with
Ward, 252; significance of, 252, 253;
sketch of, 254; duel with Jesse Benton,
255; incurs Jackson's contempt, 255;
his desperate bravery, 255; his charac-
ter, 256; compared with M'Minn, 257;
his brilliant administration, 257; influ-
ence over the legislature, 257; protest
against law against United States Bank
in Tennessee, 262; opposes Bank in 1820,
263; rejects property laws, 263, 302;
effects of Carroll's message, 264; friend
of internal improvements, 279; compared
with Sevier, Polk, and Johnson, 301;
urges reform in courts, building of pen-
itentiary and abolition of barbarous
methods of punishment, 302; a friend of
education, 302; the Reform Governor,
302; opposed by Jackson, 357; candidate
for governor in 1835, 370; chairman Bal-
timore Convention in 1840, 385; attacks
Harrison, 385.
Carter, Landon, secretary Jonesboro Con-
vention of 1784, 71; speaker first Senate,
78; land speculations with Sevier, 242,
246.
Carter, John, member of Committee of
Thirteen, 34; delegate to North Carolina
Congress, 46; land office, 245.
Carter's Valley, 14, 30; fort in, 31; in
North Carolina, 32.
Carter and Parker's store, 32, 36.
Cass, Lewis, 418.
Cassidy letter, 372.
Castleman, Abraham, 128, 129; reports dan-
ger, not believed, 156; "The Fool War-
rior," 157.
Caswell County, 79.
Caswell, Governor, 84, 86, 95.
Catron, John, prominent Democrat, 378;
in White contest, 378; opposes White,
378; his career and character, 378; let-
ters against United States Bank, 379;
earnest friend of Jackson, 379; associate
supreme judge, 379, 443.
Caucus for election of U. S. senator, 428;
Turney declares it anti-Republican, 429;
and prostrated in Tennessee, 429.
Cavet's Station, 150.
Centreville, 304.
Cession of 1784, 69; causes of objection, 70;
repealed, 77.
Cession of 1789, 146.
Chancery Courts in North Carolina, 194
Chancery Courts in Tennessee, 202.
Chapman, Thomas, 78.
Charles II., grant of, 8.
Cherokee Trace, 316.
Cherokees, war with Virginia, 12; defeated
at Etchoe, 12; ratify cession of Six Na-
tions to England, 17; their country in-
vaded, 45.
Chester, Robert I., 310.
Chickamaugas, their character, 54,
Chickamauga towns destroyed by Sevier,
63.
Chickasaw Bluffs (Fourth), mentioned in
Marquette's Journal, 6; described, 312;
Spanish seize, 313; Washington's protest,
313; thought to be in Mississippi, 315.
Chickasaws, 5, 10.
Chisca, 7.
Church of England, 40.
Circuit Courts in North Carolina, 195.
Circuit Courts in Tennessee, 201.
Circuit rider, sketch of, 226–232.
Civil Jack, 122.
Claiborne, W. C. C., 186, 442.
Clan. See Murrell.
Clapboards, 24, 175.
Clarendon, grant of Charles II. to, 8.
Clark, Lardner, store at Nashville, 177.
Clark, Benjamin, 56.
Clark, Col. George Rogers, 55; supposed
to hold cabin rights, 114
Clarke, Col. Elijah, 57.
Clarksville, 115, 270.
Clay, Henry, on internal improvements,
278; his speeches on, 278; not a stump
speaker, 377; at Whig Convention in
1840, 390; his speech, 391; his Raleigh
letter, 414; position on annexation, 417;
Alabama letter, 417; carries Tennessee,
422; not defeated by Alabama letter,
423.
Clearing the land, 24, 27.
Clemens, Jere, 443.
Cleveland, Col Ben, 60.
Clique. See Whig.
Cocke, William, at Fort Heaton, 43; mem-
ber of Jonesboro Convention, 76; applies
for the admission of Franklin to Union,
85; commissioner to North Carolina, 89;
his speech, £; member of Constitutional
Convention of 1796, 186; U. S. senator,
187; candidate for governorship, 247;
letter of explanation, 247.
Coffee, John, 255.
Colbert's Gang, 178.
Coldwater Expedition, 142, 143.
Colleges, prejudices against, 236.
Colonies, relations between and Indians, 8;
combine with Cherokees, 9; trouble with
Cherokees and cause, 12.
Columbia, 270.
Commercial Convention. See Memphis.
Committee of Thirteen. See Watauga As-
sociation.
Committee of Notables, 132; records of,
preserved by Putnam, 132; jurisdiction
of, 132.
Common - fame letter against Cumberland
Presbyterians, 224,
Common law in North Carolina and Ten-
nessee, 192,
Common schools. See Schools, 233.
Compact of government, 118; details of,
120; revived, 131.
Compromise between two factions in State
of Franklin, 94; defeated by North Caro-
lina, party, 95.
Confederacy, 78.
466
INDEX.
Confession of Westminster, 216.
Constable, 210, 212. See County Officers.
Constitution of 1796, 192, 200, 253.
Constitution of 1834, 201; on school fund,
237; anticipated by Carroll's election,
252;
on internal inprovements, 281;
marks an era, 300.
Constitution of Franklin debated, 84; of
Frankland, 85; of North Carolina adopt-
ed, 85.
Constitutional Convention of 1796, 186.
Continental confederacy, its weakness, 134.
Convention (See Whig party, also Demo-
crats).
Convention of 1784 at Jonesboro, 71.
Convention, second at Jonesboro, 77; ac-
tion of, 78.
Convention at Greeneville in 1785, 85.
Corn-mill, 137.
Coroner, 212.
See County Officers.
Corn-stalk at Point Pleasant, 55.
Cossan, John, 220.
Cotton, first, in West Tennessee, 310.
Cotton gin, patent right purchased for
Tennessee, 279.
Cotton Grove, 309.
Council in North Carolina, 193; becomes
Upper House of General Assembly, 194.
Council of State, 198, 200.
Counties, established in North Carolina,
195; divided in 1833 into districts in
Tennessee, 210.
County courts in North Carolina and Ten-
nessee, 207; in 1360, 208; growth of ju-
risdiction, 208; jurisdiction of, 209-212;
at the present time, 212; to organize
schools, 236; to tax county for schools,
237; ordered to lay off roads, etc., 211,
276.
County officers, 212; elected by county
courts, 200, 253.
Court-house for Watauga Association, 56.
Court leet, 207, 209.
Courts of oyer and terminer and general
gaol delivery, 194; at Jonesboro, G7.
Courts of pleas and quarter sessions. See
County courts.
Courts of Tennessee, Carroll urges a reform
of, 302.
Covington, 306.
Cozby, James, helps Sevier escape, 99.
Craighead, Alexander, 217; pives the way
for the Mecklenburgh Resolutions, 217;
favors revival, 217.
Craighead, Thomas B., 137; comes to Ten-
nessee, 218; sketch of, 219; tried for
heterodox sentiments, 219; opposes re-
vival, 220, 222; president Davidson Col-
lege, 234.
Crawford, Edward, 220.
Crittenden, J. J., 391.
Crockett County, 311.
Crockett, David, 366; people of Memphis
support, 330; on Jackson, 358; father of
Tennessee Whiggery, 300; sketch of, 360;
votes for John Williams, 360; candidate
for Congress, 360; on Van Buren, 373;
his motto, 389; his position in South-
western history, 444; at the Alamo, 445.
Croghan, George, deposition of, upon Iro-
quois title to Southwestern region of
country, 16.
Crozat Grant, 314.
Cumberland College, 235, 239; lottery for
benefit of, 279.
Cumberland Gap, 14, 107.
Cumberland Mountains, 14.
Cumberland Presbytery, 224; dissolved,
225.
Cumberland Presbyterianism, compared to
other religious movements, 221; origin
in revival of 1800, 223; Cumberland Pres-
bytery established, 224; divided after ap-
pointment of laymen, 224; doctrinal dis-
sensions, 224; Craighead and others
write common-fame letter, 224; young
men refuse to submit to examination,
224; Independent Presbytery formed,
225; first General Assembly, 225; strong
leaning towards Methodism, 225.
Cumberland River, 14.
Cumberland Settlement (see James Rob-
ertson), compared with Watauga, 105;
attitude of Spanish towards, 106; takes
no part in Franklin movement, 107, 132;
first settler, 108; included in Transyl-
vania purchase, 113; compact of gov-
ernment, 120; names of stations, 118;
Henderson's policy towards, 119; severe
winter, 121; first man killed, 121; scar-
city of corn, 122; Robertson prevents
abandonment of, 122; Indians prepare
for general invasion of, 126; Battle of
the Bluffs decides its fate, 127; dangers
surrounding the settlers, 127; departure
again discussed, 130; government re-
vived, 131; forts rebuilt, 132; dangers
still great, 133; expenditures for, to be
paid by, 141; cane cut down, 153, 173;
pursuit of Indians forbidden, 154; in-
vaded by 600 Indians, 156; McGillivray
tries for ten years to destroy, 167; effect
of Nickojack expedition, 162.
Cummins, Charles, 218, 220.
Currency in State of Franklin, 79, 88; cow-
bells, etc., used as, 180.
Currin, R. P., 237.
Davidson Academy, 137, 234; united with
College in West Tennessee, 235.
Davidson County organized, 133.
Davis, James D., historian, 325; discovers
mud-bar, 334; quoted, 361.
Davis, William A., 311.
Deaderick, J. W., shingles his cabin, 175.
Dean, William, 311.
Decatur County, 311.
Democratic Convention of 1844, 418.
Democrats, prominent Democrats in 1832,
378; elect Polk, 381; Union their organ,
380; nominate Van Buren in 1840, 385;
confident of victory, 385; lose heart, 391;
their trick, 392; lose Tennessee in 1840,
392; their stoutness of heart, 393; pre-
pare for 1841, 393; follow Polk-Jones con-
test with eagerness, 394; record on Na-
tional Bank, 394; diversity of opinion on,
395; Bank Democrats read out of the
party, 395; enthusiasm in the Polk-Can-
non contest, 399: anecdote of party feel-
ing in 1841, 403; in the General Assem-
bly of 1841, 406; contest over senatorial
election in 1841, 408; protest, 409; reject
bank directors, 410; enter contest of
INDEX.
467
1843 under disadvantages, 410; effect of
1843 on 1844, 411; receive Polk's nomi-
nation with enthusiasm, 414; brilliancy
of 1844, 416; have the advantage in 1844,
417; convention at Nashville, 418; de-
nounce H. L. Turney, 429; nominate A.
V. Brown in 1847, 126.
De Mumbreun, 108.
De Peyster, 61.
De Soto in Tennessee, 6, 7.
Dirt and stick chimney, 25.
Divisions. See Grand Divisions.
Doak, Samuel, 76, 88; protest, 71; sketch
of, 218; first teacher and first preacher,
218; member Abingdon Presbytery, 220;
forms Independent Presbytery, 220;
erects first school, 233.
Doak, William, 309.
Dobbs, Fort, 11.
Donelson, A. J., calls Southern Convention
at Nashville, 434; candidate for vice-
president, 443.
Donelson, John, makes Indian treaty in
1769, 32; his Journal, 111, 115; agree-
ment with Robertson, 113; father of An-
drew Jackson's wife, 117; builds cabin
on Clover Bottom, 118; narrow escape,
122; plants corn, 136.
Donelson, Stockley, 149.
Douglass, Edward, 136.
Dragging Canoe, his expedition, 42; killed,
43.
Drake, Joseph, 108.
Dresden, 311.
Dug-out, 352.
Dunlap, E., 54.
Dunlap, R. C., 370.
Dunlap, W. C., 429.
Dunmore, Lord, 31.
Du Quesne built, 164; captured, 12.
Durant, George, 209.
Dyer County, 306.
Dyer, Col. Henry, 306.
Dyer, Robert H., 278.
Dyersburg, 306.
Eaton, Fort, 108; built, 115; location, 120.
Eaton, John H., life of Jackson, 359; de-
fection in 1840, 387; minister to Spain,
387; his speech and mention of Jackson,
387; secretary of war, 442.
East Tennessee and Georgia Railroad, sale
of state stock in, 293.
Edmiston, John, 154.
Education. See Schools.
Elholm, Major, negotiates treaty between
Georgia and State of Franklin, 96.
Embargo Act, effect of, 259,
Emigrant (see also Pioneer) described, 21;
his outfit, 22; method of clearing the
ground, 24; imagines himself on Virginia
soil, 23; builds the cabin, 24; furniture,
25; fare, 25, 26; clears the ground, 26 ;
sowing seed, 27.
Emigration, after Battle of Etchoe, 13; pours
over the mountains in 1769, 20, 29; pro-
duced by resistance to Stamp Act, 30;
by Battle of Alamance, 31; to Cumber-
land settlement, 114, 115, 122, 131, 133.
English, struggle with the French, 9; erect
forts among the Indians, 11.
Enoree, Battle of, 58.
Equity jurisprudence, 201.
Erie Canal. See New York.
Etheridge, Emerson, 440.
Evans, Nathaniel, helps Sevier escape, 99.
Ewin. See Ewing, 224.
Ewing, Andrew, member of Committee of
Notables, 132; clerk, 132, 133.
Ewing, Finis, 224; his circuit, 224.
Ewing, Henry, 269.
Excise law of 1792, 241.
Exploring expeditions, 30.
Farmers' and Merchants' Bank, 268.
Fayette County, 305.
Fayetteville Tennessee Bank, 259.
Fearne, Robert, hostility to proprietors,
322, 329; originates South Memphis
scheme, 340; leaves the State, 340.
Federalists in Tennessee, 241.
Female Academy, 235 (note).
Fentress, James, 322.
Ferguson, Alexander, 310.
Ferguson, Patrick, attacked by Clark and
Sevier, 58; threatens the mountaineers,
59; refuses to surrender at King's Moun-
tain, 61; is killed, 61.
Ferry over the Cumberland, 138; ferry
rights in Memphis, 321.
Fite, Thomas, 395.
Flat. See Kentucky Flat.
Fletcher, Joshua, 321.
Fletcher, Ralph, 209.
Fogg, Francis B., 426.
Foote, Henry S., 443.
Fooy, Benjamin, 311, 319, 333.
Forked Deer River, lottery to improve
navigation of, 279.
Forest, Gen. N. B., 444.
Fort Assumption. See Assumption.
Fort Freeland. See Freeland Station.
Fort Gillespie. See Gillespie.
Fort Lee. See Lee.
Fort Pickering, built, 314; struggle with
Memphis, 342; Winchester fears its ri-
valry, 342; Overton does not, 342; Mc-
Lemore's scheme, 343; crushed by Over-
ton's ownership of half the landing, 334;
sale of lots, 345.
Fort San Ferdinando de Barancas, 314.
Fort Union, location of, 120.
Forts, French, 10.
Foster, E. H., 404; speaker of House of
Representatives in 1835, 371; New Whig,
379; forced to resign U. S senatorship,
382, 406; speeches in 1840, 387; chair-
man of Whig Convention of 1840, 390;
denounces protection, 395; leader of
Whig clique, 403; admits right of in-
struction, 407; candidate for U. S. Sen-
ator, 407; elected, 412; candidate for
governorship, 424; his inconsistent rec-
ord, 425; sketch of, 425.
Foster, Robert C., candidate for governor-
ship, 251, 252; sketch of, 252; supports
Hall for speaker, 299.
Frankland, name proposed for new State,
85; constitution of, 85.
Franklin, Benjamin, 85.
Franklin, State of, 76; plan of association,
71; act of cession repealed, 77; first
Jonesboro Convention, 71; legislature,
78; organized, 78, 79; currency, 79;
468
INDEX.
named in honor of Dr. Franklin, 85;
contest between two parties, 87, 88; no
deaths, 88; marriages under, legalized
by Tennessee, 88; confusion of jurisdic-
tion, 89; Franklin party weaken, 93; com-
promise, 94; defeated by North Carolina
party, 94; memorial of Tipton and others,
95; rebuked by Governor Caswell, 95;
Governor Caswell's address, 96; end of
State of Franklin, 96-98.
Franklin Tennessee Bank, 259.
Free Banking Act, 272; contains germ of
present National Bank system, 272; re-
pealed in 1858, 272; in 1866, 274.
Freeland, Capt. George, member of the
Committee of Notables, 132.
Freeland Station, 120; saved by Robertson,
125.
French in Mississippi Valley, 9; upon the
Lakes, 9; their plan of conquest, 10;
their power broken, 12.
French Lick, 108, 114, 134.
French traders captured, 177.
Traders.
Fundamental constitution.
Model.
Furniture, primitive, 25.
Gaines, James L., 295.
Gallatin, Albert, 188.
See Spanish
See Grand
Gamblers hung at Vicksburg, 346, 354;
effects of this in the Southwest, 355.
Garland, A. H., 442.
Gasper's Station, 118; location of, 120.
Gates, General, defeated at Camden, 59.
Gazette of Knoxville, 149.
General Assembly of Tennessee, 187; ori-
gin of, 187; qualifications of members,
188; powers, 188.
General Banking Act of 1860, 273.
Gentry, M. P., 430; votes for tariff of 1842,
395; candidate for governorship, 438;
speech against Scott, 437; John Quincy
Adams's estimate of, 444.
George III., proclamation of, 15; establishes
rule for purchase of Indian titles, 15.
Gibson County, 305.
Gibson, Samuel, 305.
Gibson, Col. Thomas, 305.
Gibsonport, 305.
Gilkey, Robert, dies natural death, 127.
Gillespie, Fort, 31, 42, 150.
Gillespies settle McNairy County, 305.
Glasgow, James, 246.
Globe, supported by Overton, 329; attacks
Bell, 367; predicts Jackson will crush
White, 369; extra edition in 1835, 371.
Gomley, Thomas, 34.
Goodrich, Chauncey, 188.
Gooseherd, 205.
Governor-general in Carolina, 193; appoint-
ment of, 193.
Governors. See John Sevier, Archibald
Roane, Willie Blount, Joseph M'Minn,
William Carroll, Sam Houston, Newton
Cannon, James K. Polk, Jumes C. Jones,
Aaron V. Brown, Neil S. Brown, William
Trousdale, William B. Campbell, Andrew
Johnson, and Isham G. Harris.
Grice, Peggy, 320.
Granville, Lord, 49.
Graham, Daniel, 443.
Grand divisions of Tennessee, 201.
Grand model, devised by Locke, 8; fails,
8, 209.
Grant, Colonel, defeats Cherokees, 12.
Great Bend of the Tennessee River, 96.
Great Natchez Trace, 171, 179, 277, 316.
Great National Road, 279, 280.
Great Whig Convention. See Whig.
Greene County formed, 56; divided, 79.
Greene College, 234.
Greeneville, 56, 78.
Grundy, Felix, 357, 366; favors United
States Bank at Nashville, 262, 394; pri-
vate letter to president suggesting officers
for United States Bank, 262; prepares
bill for Loan Office, 203, 301; contest
with Bell, 364; sketch of, 361; supported
by Jackson, 364; in White canvass, 366,
369, 378; prominent Democrat, 378; pil-
lar of Jacksonism, 379; his reward, 379;
anecdote of Harris, 381; obeys instruc-
tions, 407; attorney-general, 442.
Guard certificates used as currency, 136.
Guild, Joe C., barring out escapade, 181;
quoted, 381; refuses to vote for Martin
Van Buren for president, 414; as a wag,
444.
Gwin letters, 369.
Hadden, D. P., 326.
Hagler, Joel, 304.
Haile, John, 46.
Hall, A. A., leader of Whig clique, 403 ;
edits Politician, 428; register of United
States treasury, 443.
Hall, William, succeeds Houston as gov-
ernor, 299; sketch of, 299; supported by
Carroll and Foster for speaker of Sen-
ate, 299; Houston's compliment to, 299.
Hamilton, Alexander, 241; plan for paying
state debts, 147.
Hamilton District, 200.
Hamilton, Thomas, 304.
Hammond, Eli, crosses Tennessee River and
raids Indian country, 157.
Hanover Presbytery, 217.
Hardeman, Col. Thomas J., 306.
Hardeman County, 306.
Hardin County, 305.
Hardin, James, 305.
Hard Labor, treaty of, 17.
Hargrave, John, 309.
Harris, Isham G., 269; recommends wind-
ing up of State Bank of 1838, 272; elector
for Buchanan, 438; his powers on the
stump, 439; senior senator in Tennessee,
439; arouses enthusiasm, 439; reëlected,
440; calls extra session, 440; issues proc-
lamation declaring Tennessee out of the
Union, 440.
Harris, J. George, 380; in 1840, 386; Har-
rison's letter, 392; acknowledges the
corn, 392; in 1844, 415.
Harrison, W. H., nominated by Whigs, 384;
accused of being an Abolitionist, 392;
carries Tennessee in 1840, 392.
Hart, Nathaniel, 36.
Hartsfield, Nathan, 306.
Harvey, Governor, appoints justices of the
peace, 209.
Haskell, Joshua, impeached, 301.
Haskell, W. T., 425; candidate for U. S.
INDEX.
469
senator, 429; in 1844, 416; defeated by
Hatton in 1857, 439.
Hatchie, county seat of Hardeman County,
306.
Hatton, Robert, 439; Fillmore elector, 439;
candidate for governorship, 439; defeat-
ed by Isham G. Harris, 439.
Hawkins, Benjamin, 147.
Hawkins County, 93.
Hay, David, takes part in Coldwater Expe-
dition, 142.
Hay, Joseph, killed, 121.
Haynes, Lanlon C., 444.
Haywood County, 308.
Haywood, John, Federalist, 241; county
named for him, 308.
Hearsay letter. See Common-fame.
Heaton, Fort, attacked by Inlians, 42.
Heath, Sir Robert, grant to, 7.
Henderson County, 365.
Henderson, Nathaniel, 98.
Henderson, Col. Richard, 18; at Sycamore
Shoals, 35, 112; Transylvania Purchase,
112; suggests compact of government,
119.
Henderson, Major Samuel, sent to Frank-
lin, 81.
Henry County, 304.
Henry, Patrick, stops attempt in Virginia
to join Franks, 84, 104; opinion of the
mountaineers, 90; suggests Mison of Vir-
ginia as territorial governor, 148.
Henry, Gustavus A., 404, 438; in 1844,
416; "Eagle Orator," 416, 437; vote for
U. S. sen tor, 429; refuses to be a can-
didate, 434; Confederate senator, 434;
nominated for governor, 437.
Henry's Station, 157.
Hickman County, 304.
Hickman, Edwin, 354.
Hindman, T. C., 442.
Hɔg³, 179.
Holman, Charles, 321.
Holmes, Jaines. See Mountain Academy.
Holston Circuit, 225; divided, 226.
Holston Tennessee Bank, becomes Eastern
Bank of Tennessee, 259.
Holt, Joe, 421.
Hominy pounder, 137.
Hooper, William, declares for total separa-
tion, 38.
Household, founding of, 20.
House of Burgesses in North Carolina, 193;
qualification of voters, 193; of members,
197.
Houston, John, 310.
Houston, Rev. Samuel, 88, 218; member of
Abingdon Presbytery, 220;
Presbytery, 220; dismissed
from same, 220.
Houston, Sam, 442; elected governor in
1827, 296; sketch of, 296; devoted to
Jackson, 297; his character, 297; mar-
ries and his wife leaves him, 297; he re-
signs and leaves Tennessee, 298; cause
of separation, 298; visits Nashville, 427.
Hubbard, James, kills Butler, 81-83.
Humphreys County, 304.
Humphreys, W. H., 370.
Hundred reeve, 208.
Hunt, Memucan, 304.
Huntingdon, 304.
Huntsman, Adam, 386.
Impeachment. See David Campbell, N. W.
Williams, and Joshua Haskell.
"Immortal Thirteen," 409.
Independent Presbytery of Abingdon. See
Presbytery.
Indian titles, 14-17.
Indians, spoliation of, 17; removal from
Tennessee, 149,
Indorsement laws, 201.
Ingraham, J. H., establishes schools in
Nashville, 238.
Institutes of Tennessee, 190; nothing new,
192.
Instructions to senators, 406, 407; right of,
not denied before the war, 406.
Internal improvements (see also State debt),
268; friends of, unite with friends of com-
mon schools, 269; beginnings of, 276; ca-
nal in New York, 277; M'Minn's message,
277; committee on, in 1823, 279; ham-
pered by local jealousies, 280; Carroll's
message, 280; first systematic plan (of
1829), 281; its details, 281; Constitution
of 1834, 281; plan of 1829 not succes. A,
282; plan of 1835 (Pensylvania Pln),
282; also Partnership Plan, 283; amount
of state bonds issued for, 283; repealed,
283; crash of 1837, 284; plan of 1848, 290;
amended, 291; Act of 1852, 292; amend-
ed, 292; Constitution of 1870 puts an end
to, in Tennessee, 295.
Iroquois cede Southwestern region, 15;
their title, 16.
Irwine, William, 310, 321.
Isbell, Zach, member of Committee of
Thirteen, 34; in both Watauga and Cum-
berland Settlements, 105.
Island Flats, Battle of, 44.
Itinerant. See Circuit rider.
Jack, Jeremiah, 66.
Jackson, Andrew, 442; compared with Se-
vier, 74; wife of, 117; superior judge,
135; the owl story. 136; pursues Indi-
ans, 151; not on Nickojack Expedition,
158; vote against Washington, 178; mem-
ber of Constitutional Convention of 1796,
186; did not name Tennessee, 186; mem-
ber of Congress, 189; trustee of David-
son College, 234; takes sides against
Sevier, 243; quarrel with Sevier, 244;
goes to Southwest Point, 245; friend of
Carroll in Benton duel, 255; recom-
mends United States Bank officers, 262;
protest against Loau Office, 263; Over-
ton gives him half of Rice Grant, 327;
disposes of his interest, 327; criticised
for Treaty of 1818, 327; Overton's dying
message to, 355; opposes Carroll, 357;
controls politics of Tennessee, 358; in-
tolerance of his friends, 358; Crockett
on, 358; marks Cannon, 359; fight with
Jesse Benton in Memphis, 361; opposes
Bell, 364; wants Van Buren to succeed
him, 364; estrangement from White, 365;
his threat against White, 366; inaugu-
rates campaign, 368; Gwin letters, 369 ;
letters to Blount and Grundy, 369; de-
nounces "White Whigs, 369; franks
Globe to Tennessee legislators, 371;
wants to redeem Tennessee, 375; rela-
tions with Polk, 378; four pillars in Ten-
470
INDEX.
nessee, 379; their reward, 379; dragged
into contest of 1840, 386; his popularity,
413; Jackson on Van Buren in 1844, 414;
denies recantation of bargain intrigue and
corruption charge, 415.
Jackson, town of, 270, 309, 310; first town
in West Tennessee, 309; the Pioneer,
the Gazette, the Southern Statesman,
310; centre of political activity, 310;
court-house, 310; first house, 311; its
present importance, 311.
Jacobs, S. D., 443.
James, Joseph, 321.
Jarnagin, Spencer, obeys instructions, 307;
candidate for United States Senate, 407;
is elected, 412.
Jay's Treaty, 178.
Jennings, Edmond, 128; swims Tennessee
River, 142.
Jennings, Jonathan, 122.
Jerks, 223.
Jetton, Robert, 322.
Johnny cake, 26.
Johns Hopkins University, 191.
Johnson, Andrew, 364, 404, 443; compared
with Sevier, Polk, and Carroll, 301; re-
fuses to allow election of Whig senator,
408; signs protest, 408; one of the "Im-
mortal Thirteen," 409; nominated for
governor, 437; opposed by all prominent
Democrats, 438; elected, 438; his position
on secession, 440; refuses to secede, 440.
Johnson, Cave, president State Bank, 269,
272; member of Congress, 375; postmas-
ter-general, 375, 442; prominent Demo-
crat, 378; in White canvass, 378; pillar
of Jacksonism, 379.
Johnson, Daniel, 305.
Johnson, John, 227.
Johnson, Thomas, 251.
Johnston, Samuel, 147.
Joiner, Zaccheus, 311.
Jones, Calvin, 303.
Jones, George W., his prominence, 444.
Jones, James C., 338, 438; advocates Mem-
phis and Charleston Railroad, 286; pres-
ident of it, 287; elected U. S. senator,
287; Whig candidate for governor in
1841, 394; his views on national ques-
tions, 394; sterling bonds charge again t
Polk, 397; his origin and character, 398;
ardent Clay man, 398; nominated “tɔ go
for Polk," 399; "Lean Jimmy," 399;
convass of 1841, 401; "What fine fur!
400; Polk's suckle-colt anecdote, 401;
with Polk at Nashville, 404; demolishes
Polk, 405; elected, 405; talent for polit-
ical management, 410; bankrupt liw of
1843, 411; "Lay on, Nancy," 411;
Jones elected, 412; attracts national at-
tention, 412; speaks for Clay, 415; sup-
ports Scott, 437; suggested as a candi-
date for the presidency, 444.
Jones, John, 34.
Jones, Lewis, 309.
Jones, William, 56.
Jonesboro laid off, 56; court of oyer and
Terminer and general gaol delivery, 67;
court-house, 175.
Judiciary of Carolina, 194; courts and
their jurisdiction, 194-196; officers and
mode of election, 194.
Judges, elected by General Assembly, 200;
number jucreased, 201; elected by the
people, 201; life tenure a failure in Ten-
nessee, 301.
Junto. See Whig.
Jurisprudence in Tennessee, 195.
Justice of the peace, in 1360, 208; in 1530,
208; in North Carolina, appointed by the
governor, 209; in Tennessee, until 1834,
by General Assembly, 209; appointed ac-
cording to captain's companies, 209;
elected, 210; jurisdiction, 208-211.
Kanawha, Battle of, 31.
Kaskaskia, 9, 114, 177.
Keel, 177, 352.
Kennedy, Daniel, 98.
Kentucky Flat, 177, 352.
Key Corner, 311.
Kilgores abandon their fort, 131.
Kimberlin, Jacob, finds lead, 181.
King, Samuel, 224.
King's Mountain, Battle of, 57; the fight,
60-62.
Kirbys, settle McNairy County, 305.
Kirk, Henry, 305.
Knox County, 149.
Knox, James, 30. See Long Hunters.
Knoxville, 149; branch bank at, 270; seat
of government, 149, 300; masonic hall
in, 279.
La Grange, 270, 305.
La Grange and Memphis Railroad, 282, 824-
286, 342.
Lake County, 311.
Lake, Joseph, 220.
Lambert, Jeremiah, first Methodist preach-
er in Tennessee, 225.
Lance de Grace. See New Madrid.
Land communities, 205.
Land office, in Watauga, 36; in Washing-
ton County, 47, 49, 52; reopened in Washi-
ington and Sullivan counties, 67; Cum-
berland land office, 133.
Land speculations, 247.
Land system of Tennessee, 233, 246; com-
pared with North Carolina, 47.
La Salle, 5, 10, 164, 313.
Latham, F. S., 307.
Lauderdale County, 306, 311.
Lauderdale, Col. James, 311.
Lawrence, William, 310, 328.
Lee, Fort, dismantled, 42, 44.
Legislative council, 199.
Lewis, Andrew, 11.
Lewis County, 304.
Levis, Major W. B., 361; second auditor, 443.
Lewis, William, 305.
Lillington, Alexander, 209.
Lincoln, Abraham, elected president, 440.
Lindsley, Dr. Philip, 238, 239.
Linsey, Isaac, 132, 133.
Loan Office, 261, 301; issues based on, 202;
bill for, prepared by Felix Grundy, 263;
title changed to Bank of Tennessee, 263.
Local self-government, 204; two systems,
204; compared, 204-207.
Locke, John, 8; fundamental constitutions,
8, 209.
Locke, G. B., 354.
Louisville and Nashville Railroad, 295.
INDEX.
471
Long Hunters, expeditions of, 30.
Long Island, 11.
Lookout towns destroyed by Sevier, 63.
Lotteries in Tennessee, 279.
Loudon, Fort, built, 11; garrisoned, 11;
cannon there, 12; captured, 12.
Lover, Samuel, ridicules Memphis, 318.
Lower Cherokee towns. See Nickojack.
Lucas, Robert, 34, 36, 105.
Luxembourg, 9.
Maclin, William, 200.
Macon, Nathaniel, 188.
McAdow, Samuel, 225.
McAlpin, R. C., 335.
McAlpins settle McNairy County, 305.
McClung, Charles, 186.
McDowell, Col. Charles, 57, 58, 59.
McEwen, Robert H., superintendent public
instruction, 236; plunderer of school
funds, 237, 397.
McGee, John, 223.
McGee, William, 223.
M'Gready, James, re-awakens the Christian
spirit, 222; sketch of, 222; excludes doc-
trine of fatality, 224; does not become
a Cumberland Presbyterian, 225.
McGillivray, Alexander, dupes Washington,
152; his character and intrigues, 166;
Robertson tries to placate, 167.
McIvers settle Madison County, 309.
McKenzie, 304.
McLean, Charles D., 309.
McLemore, John C., 306, 321, 343, 344, 395.
McMillin, Andrew, 267 (note).
M'Minn, Joseph, candidate for governor,
251; sketch of, 251; vote for, 252; com-
pared with Carroll, 302; on financial strin-
gency in 1820, 261; recommends property
laws, 261; Loan Office, 262, 263; message
of, 277; on navigation, 278.
McNairy County, 305.
McNairy, John, 186; judge, 200; county
named for, 305.
McNeal, Thomas, 306.
McNutt, of Mississippi, as a stump speaker,
377.
Madison County, 309.
Madison, James, 112, 188; on internal im-
provements, 278; county named for, 309.
Manifesto of Governor Martin of North
Carolina, 81; strengthens the cause of
North Carolina, 83; Sevier's reply, 84;
Caswell's reply to Sevier, 84.
Mansker, Casper, trip to Natchez, 108;
goes to Cumberland settlement, 114; ad-
venture with an Indian, 129.
Marquette, 6.
Marshall, Thomas F., 418.
Marshall, William, 98.
Martin Academy becomes Washington Acad-
emy, 233.
Martin, Alexander, governor of North Caro-
lina, 81.
Martin, Francis Xavier, 191.
Martin, John D., 336.
Martin, Joseph, 98; leads expedition against
Cherokees, fails, 150.
Martin, William, 245.
Martin and Donelson treaty, 139.
Mauldin, James, 132.
Mauldins abandon their fort, 131.
Maxwell, George, 98.
Meagher, Pat, 320, 321.
Mecklenburgh Resolutions, 39, 217.
Memphis (see Chickasaw Bluffs and South
Memphis), 7, 171, 270, 312; meetings to
abolish charter, 213; struggle with Ran-
dolph, 327; geographical position, 315;
thought to be in Mississippi, 315; ap-
pearance when settled, 316; Rice and
Ramsey grants, 316; proprietors agree
to lay off town, 317; origin of name,
318; contest between owners of Rice and
Ramsey grants, 318; first sale of lots,
318; mistake in laying off, 320; public
squares, 320; southern limits, 319;
change of county seat, 322; incorporated,
325; indignation meeting, 325; Winches-
ter first mayor, 326; Rawlings mayor,
326; from 1821 to 1833 an experiment,
327; Overton decides contest for suprem-
acy, 327; mail stages, 330; distributing
point for mail, 330; hostility towards
proprietor, see Proprietors; letter in
Portfolio, 331; typical lease, 331; Mem-
phis Advocate, 331; cutting of timber,
332; Promenade dispute, 332; mud-bar,
333, 334; landing, 335; navy-yard, 337;
Compromise Addition, 338; struggle be-
tween North and South Memphis, 339;
contest about landing, 340; united with
South Memphis, 341; McLemore, a dis-
advantage to Memphis, 344; flat-boat
war in 1842, 354.
Memphis and Charleston Railroad, 285,
286; J. C. Jones, president, 287; suc-
ceeded by A. E. Mills, 287; Sam Tate
president, 288; completion, 290; its ef-
fect on the Southwest, 290.
Memphis Commercial Convention, 285.
Memphis Interrogatories, 410.
Menees, James, 234 (note).
Menifee, John, 245.
Merchandise, 176, 177.
Meridith, Frederick, 304.
Mero, Governor, 106; his policy, 166.
Mero District, 165, 200.
Methodists in Tennessee, ascendency of,
215; relation to Cumberland Presbyte-
rianism, 225; vitalizing influence, 225;
sketch of, 225; first Methodist preacher
in Tennessee, 225; circuit rider, 226;
growth of, 226.
Mexican War, 430.
Middle Tennessee (see also Cumberland
settlements), a part of Charles II. grant,
106; Robertson saves, 106.
Militia company, unit of local self-govern-
ment, 71; elect two representatives in
each county, 71; in Washington District,
formed into a brigade, 77; organized to
protect Cumberland settlement, 135; in-
adequate, 143; nucleus of local self-
government, 209.
Miller, Austin, 315.
Miller, Joaquin, 444.
Miller, Phineas.
See Cotton gin.
Millikin, John, killed, 121.
Mills, A. E., 287.
Mills, first in Middle Tennessee, 179.
Mississippi River, navigation of, 141, 178;
Spaniards claim exclusive navigation,
154, 165; made free, 168.
472
INDEX.
Mitchel, John, Irish patriot lives in Ten-
nessee, 444.
Molloy, Thomas, 132, 134, 136, 178.
Monk, General, S.
Monroe's veto message, 278.
Montcalm, 10.
Montgomery, 160.
Moore, Captain, hand to hand fight with
Indian, 43.
Moore, Mark, 226.
Moore, Patrick, at Pacolet, 58.
Mountain Academy, 308.
Mount Florence, 138.
Morgan District organized, 67.
Morgan, Charles, erects fort on Bledsoe's
Creek, 134.
Mud-bar, 319, 333; discovered by Davis,
334; dispute as to ownership, 335; be-
comes navy-yard, 337; Compromise Ad-
dition, 338; donated back to Memphis,
339.
Murfreesboro, seat of government, 300.
Murrell, John A., 346; sketch of, 347;
methods, 347; example of, 348; organizes
a clan, 348; his strikers, 348; marries,
349; his character, 349; his ambition,
350; his vanity, 350; plans a negro in-
surrection, 351; convicted, 351.
Murray, Abel V., 305.
Murrays settle McNairy County, 305.
Muscle Shoals, efforts to improve, 277, 280.
Nachitoches on Red River, 164.
Nashborough, built, 118, 120; court-house
built, 133; becomes Nashville, 134.
Nashville succeeds Nashborough, 134; laid
off, 134; its prosperity, 179; common
schools, 238; first steamboat, 255; seat
of government, 300.
Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad, first
built in Tennessee, 284 (note).
Nashville Bank, 258; during war of 1812,
259; does not resume, 265; crippled, 265;
fails, 265.
Nashville Convention. See Southern and
Whig Conventions.
Nashville University. See University.
Natchez, 106, 164, 177.
Natchez Trace.
See Great Natchez Trace.
National questions in local contests, 381.
Navigation, inland, 276; appointment of a
board of managers, 277; M'minn's mes-
sage, 277.
Navy-yard, 337.
Negro-running, 350.
Netherland, John, 438; candidate for gov-
ernor in 1859, 439.
Newbern (now New Berne), 38.
New Brunswick Presbytery, 217.
New Light, 219.
New Madrid, 164.
New Orleans, 106, 177.
New Side, 217.
New York Canal, 276, 277.
Newspapers, take part in Ward-Carroll con-
test, 256; vituperation of, 380; the
Union, 380; their partisanship, 404.
Nicaragua. See Walker.
Nichol, William, 269, 272.
Nicholson, A. O. P., supports Van Buren,
387; U. S. senator, 307; candidate for
U. S. Senate, 427; vcte for, 429; editor
of Union after his defeat by Turney, 430;
at Southern Convention, 435.
Nickojack, origin of name 122; expedition
against and end of Indian hostilities in
the West, 149; preparation for expedi-
tion 158; Ore takes command, 158; plan
of attack, 159.
Nixon, Col. Richard, 308.
Nollichucky circuit, 226.
Nollichucky settlement,c ompelled to take
the oath, 34.
North Carolina, indifferent to its western
settlements, 33, 35, 69, 144; part in Rev.
olution, 38; Provincial Congress meets,
38; elects members of Congress, 38;
votes Sevier and Shelby sword and pis-
tols, 62; cedes its western territory to
United States, 69, 146; enters Union,
146.
Obion County, 311.
Oconostota, foresees fate of Indian tribes,
18; his character, 18; his speech, 19;
signs treaty, 19.
Ogden, Benjamin, takes charge of Nash-
ville circuit, 226; sketch of, 226.
Old Abraham, 44.
Old Side, 218.
Ore, Major, ordered to destroy lower Cher-
okee towns, 160; report to Governor
Blount, 163.
Ore's Expedition, See Nickojack Expedi-
tion.
Overseers of Roads, 213.
Overton, John, Federalist, 241; buys Rice
grant, 328; transfers half to Andrew
Jackson, 318; decides contest between
Memphis and its rivals, 328; his oversight
over Memphis, 329; his character, 329;
hac mail routes established in interest of
Memphis, 329; his treatment of visitors,
330; his letters, 330; friend of Jackson,
330; his idea of city building, 339; does
not fear Fort Pickering as a rival, 342;
his estimate of McLemore, 343; crushes
Fort Pickering, 344; his death, 345 (note).
Owen, William, 305.
Paris, 304.
Paris, Treaty of, 14.
Parish, 194, 210, 211.
Parrish, Joel, 266, 410.
Parsons, Enoch, candidate for governorship,
252.
Parsons, Thomas H., 321.
Partnership plan of internal improvements,
283.
Patrick Henry, Fort, 113, 115.
Patterson, J. T., 305.
Patdton's Still House, 182.
Peddler, 176.
Penitentiary, built, 300 (note); building of
urged by Carroll, 302.
Pennsylvania Plan of internal improve-
ments, 282.
Perkins, J. P., 311.
Perkins, W. O. N., 294.
Perry County, 304.
Peyton, Balie, at Whig Convention of 1840,
391; Polk's imitations of, 400; peripatetic
politician, 444.
Phrases, political, 367; from Carter to Shel-
INDEX.
473
by, 387; "hurrah-boys," 379; "Keep the
388;
ball rolling,”
66 Crow, Chapman,
crow," 388.
Phoebus, Thomas, 331; Memphis Advocate,
331.
Pike, Albert, at Whig Convention of 1844,
421; his romantic career, 421; his poetry,
421; "After the midnight, cometh morn,
421; lives in Tennessee, 443.
Pillory, abolition of urged by Carroll, 302.
Pillow, Gideon J., candidate for vice-presi-
dent, 445.
Pinch, origin of name, 340.
Pioneer (see Emigrant) learns Indian meth-
ods, 28.
Pirate, 177.
Pirogue, 177, 352.
Planters' Bank, 268.
Polk, Ezekiel, 306.
Polk, James K., 366, 442, 443; report on
school lands in Tennessee, 235 (note);
message on internal improvements, 283;
compared with Sevier, Carroll, and John-
son, 301; rivalry with Bell, 367; elected
speaker, 371, 376; fails of nomination
for vice-president, 375, 385; not an un-
known man, 376; sketch of character,
376; brilliancy of his administration, 377;
first stump-speaker, 377; his relations
with Jackson, 378; prominent Democrat
in 1832, 378; pillar of Jacksonism, 378;
candidate against Cannon, 379, 381; ridi-
cule of Cannon, 381; canvass with, 381;
address of 1839, 381; vote in 1839 com-
pared with vote of 1837, 384; speaks for
Van Buren and is presented as a nuisance,
387; contest with Jones followed by Dem-
ocrats, 394; his views on national ques-
tions, 394; Polk's record, 394, 395, 396;
Kane letter, 395; on internal improve-
ments, 396; speech on origin of Whigs,
396; sterling bonds, 397; Jones turns ta-
bles on, 400; one of Polk's anecdotes,
401; repudiates his own methods, 402 ;
his smile, 402: with Jones at Nashville,
403; Polk's speech, 404; has to defend
"Immortal Thirteen," in 1843, 410; Bank-
rupt Law in 1843, 410; nominated for
president, 414; Young Hickory, 414; Clay
magistrate elected at Columbia, 416; po-
sition on annexation, 417; not elected by
Clay's Alabama letter, 423; partner of A.
V. Brown, 426; riding on Jackson's back,
431.
Polk, Thomas, signs Mechlenburgh Resolu-
tions, 39.
Polk, William, 306.
Population, growth of Watauga settlement,
35; in 1776, 40; effect of better roads,
52; in 1790 and 1795, 170.
Porter, Benjamin, 311.
Porter, Benjamin T., 311.
Pound-master, 213.
Powell's Valley, 183.
Precinct courts, 194, 210; become county
courts, 195.
Prentice, George D., 380.
Prentiss, S. S., refuses to vote thanks to
Polk, 379; letter of Jones to, 412; at Whig
Convention of 1844, 422; sketch of, 422;
court-house speech, 422; "Die, Prentiss,
die!" 422.
Presbyterianism (see Cumberland), ascend-
ency in Tennessee, 215; from Scotch-
Irish, 216; line of emigration, 216; seeds
of discord, 220; doctrinal illiberality,
221.
Presbytery of Abingdon, 217; members of,
220; trouble in, 220; divided, 220; inde-
pendent formed, 220; secession of, 220.
President's Island, 6.
Priestly, James, president Cumberland Col-
lege, 337.
Prince Francis, 133.
Prince George, Fort, built, 11; besieged,
12; settlers around, 13; emigrants pass,
21, 39.
Proclamation of George III., 15; no effect
on traders, 15.
Property laws, 261, 302.
Proportionate representation, 197 (note),
200.
Proprietors of Memphis, hostility towards,
323, 331; their names, 328.
Protestants of Ireland, 216.
Prud'homme, Fort of, 5; built, 313.
Public lands and schools, 234; confusion in
laws relating to, 235.
Public schools. See Schools.
Public warehouse at Memphis, 316.
Puncheon floor described, 25.
Purdy, 305.
Putnam, A. W., rescues Compact of Gov-
ernment, 120 (note), 132.
Quakers oppose Church of England, 211.
Quarter sessions courts, 211, 214; origin
of county courts, 212.
Quilting, 181.
Railroads, attention turned to, 284; first
chartered, 284; first built, 284 (note);
projected, 285; ideas of the results they
accomplish, 286; State aid to, plan of
1848, 290; Act of 1852, 292; amount is-
sued to before war, 293; bonds issued to
after war, 293; take advantage of Acts
of 1869, 1870, 294; bonds issued to, 295.
Rains, John, comes to Cumberland, 114,
118; drives cattle across Cumberland on
ice, 120; mentioned, 143; on Coldwater
Expedition, 142; on other expeditions,
143.
Raleigh, Sir Walter, grant to, 6, 7.
Raleigh becomes county seat of Shelby
County, 322.
Ramsey, F. A., 78, 175.
Ramsey grant, 316; Ramsey's will not
recorded in Shelby County, 317; South
Memphis, part of, 339.
Randolph, 270; struggle with Memphis,
307; canal to connect Tennessee and
Hatchie rivers, 307; Recorder, 307;
bank, 307; Cambreling suit, 308; at-
tempt to become county seat of Tipton
County, 308; mail route, 307.
Ranger, 213.
Rankin, William, 66.
Rattle and Snap, 182.
Rawlings, Isaac, 311, 325; sketch of, 323;
compared with Winchester, 324; mayor,
324; his last vote, 325; defeated for
mayor, 338; enforces law against law-
breakers, 351.
474
INDEX.
Reconstruction, State saved from, 294.
Red Heifer, 137, 182.
Red River Meeting House, great revival
there in 1800, 223.
Reed, Joseph, 305.
Regulators, 31.
Religion in Tennessee, 215.
Renfroe, Moses, settles on Red River, 115.
Renfroe settlement massacre, 122.
Replevin laws, 263, 302.
Reporter, Somerville, 305.
Republicans. See Democrats.
Revival of seventeenth century, 221; great
revival of 1800, 223; its growth and ef-
fects, 224.
Reynolds, Benjamin, 322.
Reynoldsburgh, 304.
Rhett, R. Barnwell, 434.
Rhodes, Tyree, 306.
Rice grant, 316; its boundaries, 318; trou-
ble as to starting point, 318; shifting of
Wolf River, 319; in mud-bar dispute,
319; processioned in 1820, 320.
Rice, David, 224.
Rice, Elisha, 316.
Rice, John, 316; his death, 316.
Ripley, 311.
River life. See River towns.
River towns, exposed to evil influences,
352; life on the river, 353; flat-boat men
refuse to pay wharfage to Memphis, 354.
Roads (see Great National Road), from
Wolfs Hill, 39; by Fort Prince George
39; into Washington County from North
Carolina, 52, 170; allows passage of ve-
hicles, 52; from Nashville to Clinch
Mountain, 136, 171, 173; condition of
roads in early times, 172.
Roane, Archibald, member Constitutional
Convention of 1796, 186; judge, 200;
governor in 1801, 242; opposes Sevier,
243; teaches H. L. White, 243; sketch
of, 243; delivers papers about Sevier,
246.
Robertson, Charles, member of Committee
of Thirteen, 34; trustee for Watauga As-
sociation, 36; delegate to North Carolina
Congress, 46; allowed to coin money for
State of Franklin, 89.
Robertson, Felix, 393, 410.
Robertson, James, comes from North Caro-
lina, 30; trip to Indian village, 35; de-
fends fort, 44; in both Watauga and
Cumberland settlements, 105; why he
migrated to Cumberland, 110, 113; sets
out, 113; trip to Kaskaskia, 114; sug-
gests compact of government, 119; son
of, killed, 123; Robertson's character,
123; compared with Sevier, 123; is made
colonel, 124; chairman of Committee of
Arbitrators, 124; North Carolina Indian
Commissioner, 124; saves Freeland Sta-
tion, 125; powder runs short, 124; mem-
ber of Committee of Notables, 132; chair-
man of Committee of Notables, 132; mem-
ber of North Carolina General Assembly,
133; opposes Hopewell Treaty, 140; goes
on Coldwater Expedition, 141; organizes
battalion, 143; prepares for expedition
against Indians, 144; brigadier-general
of Mero District, 149; wounded, 151;
visits Indian nation, 152; organizes mili-
tia to resist Indians, 153; makes prepa.
rations for Nickojack Expedition, 158;
is reprimanded by Governor Blount,
162; offers his resignation, 162; intrigues
with Spain, 165; loses his way returning
to North Carolina, 172; member of Con-
stitutional Convention of 1796, 186; trus-
tee of Davidson College, 234.
Robertson, Mark, killed, 141.
Rogersville, 149, 270.
Rounsevall, David, 132.
Rucker, E., 367.
Running Water, 159, 161.
Russell, George, 34, 56.
Rutherford, Griffith, 149, 311.
Rutherford, Henry, 303, 311.
Salem Academy, 218.
Salisbury, District of, divided, 67.
Salt, manufacture of, 138.
Salt licks of the West, 108.
Salt springs, reserved by the State, 133;
sold, 138.
Sanderlin's Bluffs. See Raleigh.
School funds plundered, 236.
Schools, 233; first in Tennessee, 218, 233;
set on foot, 234; condition of, in 1801,
235; school lands entered, 235; impor
tance appreciated, 235; first definite plan
for public, 235; condition in 1837, 236;
self-taxation advocated, 236; introduced,
237; fund plundered, 237; Act of 1845,
237; Governor Brown on, 237; in Nash-
ville, 238; condition of educational ques-
tions in Tennessee, 239; to receive funds
of Bank of 1820, 267; State Bank of 1838,
208, 272.
Scotch-Irish, 216, 234.
Scott, A. M., 307.
Scott, James, 245.
Scott, John, 98.
Scott, John, plunders school-fund, 266.
Scouts, compared with regular troops, 143;
sent out by Robertson, 156, 162.
Secession, call of State Convention to con-
sider, 440; defeat of, 440; carried, 440;
Governor Harris's proclamation, 440;
foreshadowed in Tennessee, 442.
Sedition Laws of 1798, 241.
Self-taxation for support of schools advo-
cated, 236.
Settlements in the East, trouble about
boundary line, 31; found to be in North
Carolina, 32; Donelson's Treaty, 32;
made in violation of treaties, 33; obtain
ten years' lease from Cherokees, 35;
population in 1776, 40; growth of, in 1780,
65.
Settlers. See Emigrants.
Sevier County formed, 79; left without
any government, 101; organizes one it-
self, 101.
Sevier, John, member of Committee of
Thirteen, 34; clerk of Watauga Associ-
ation, 34; delegate to North Carolina
Congress, 46; forces annexation to North
Carolina, 50; alone had correct idea of
limits of State, 50; colonel of Washing-
ton County, 57; with Clark attacks Fer-
guson, 58; attacks Moore at Pacolet,
58; prepares for attack on Ferguson,
59; at King's Mountain, 60; voted sword
INDEX.
475
and pistols by North Carolina, 62; re-
quested to take up arms again, 62; Gen-
eral Greene writes to Sevier, 62; joins
Marion with two hundred men, 62; meets
Indians at Boyd's Creek, 63; invades
and destroys Indian country, 64; his
mode of warfare, 64; Tuckasejah Expe-
dition, 65; "is a good man," 66; clerk
of court, 67; president of Jonesboro Con-
vention of 1784, 71; sketch of, 71-75;
Nollichucky Jack, 72; foresaw future
greatness of Tennessee, 73; treaty
maker," 74; compared with Jackson, 74;
leader of movement to form a new State,
75; is reluctant to proceed to extremes,
75; made general of brigade, 77; thinks
this the end of Franklin, 77; reply to
Martin's manifesto, 84; term as gov-
ernor of Franklin expires, 96; negotiates
with Georgia, 96; meditates Indian ex-
pedition, 97; asks Shelby to accept
governorship of Franklin, 97; meditates
expedition against Spaniards, 98; be-
sieges Tipton's house, 99; makes expe-
dition against Cherokees, 99; arrested
on charge of high treason, 99; sent to
North Carolina, 99; escapes, 100; elected
member of North Carolina Senate and
takes his seat, 100; brigadier-general,
100; goes to Congress, 100; letter from
Bledsoe, 144; member of Legislative
Council, 149; brigadier-general of Wash-
ington District, 149; expedition against
the Indians, 150; the last expedition,
151; intrigues with Spain, 165; governor
of Tennessee, 187, 241; his administra-
tion, 242; style of living, 242; land spec-
ulations with Carter, 242, 246; accused
of fraud by Jackson, 243; encounter be-
tween Sevier and Jackson, 244; report of
committee on, 246; the evidence, 246;
state senator, 247; member of Congress,
247; his popularity, 247; his generosity,
248; his death, 249; no monument to,
250; compared with Carroll, Polk, and
Johnson, 301.
Sevier, Valentine, three sons killed, 153.
Shannon, Thomas, 310.
Sharkey, W. L., 434, 442.
Sharpe, major of territorial militia, 153.
Shaw, James, 134.
Shelby County, 310, 316; change of county
seat, 322.
Shelby, Evan, at Kanawha, 31; at Point
Pleasant and Fort Du Quesne, 55; Chick-
amauga Expedition, 55.
Shelby, Evan, arbitrator between two par-
ties in Franklin, 94; memorial to Gov-
ernor Caswell, 95; rebuked by Caswell,
95; requested by Sevier to accept gov-
ernorship of Franklin, 97.
Shelby, Isaac, at Battle of Island Flats, 44;
furnishes supplies for Chickamauga Ex-
pedition, 55; justice of the peace of Sul-
livan County, 56; also colonel, 56; pre-
pares for attack on Ferguson, 59; at King's
Mountain, 60; voted sword and pistols by
North Carolina, 61; requested to take up
arms again, 62; joins Marion, 62; leaves
before end of war, 62.
Shelbyville, 270.
Sheriff (see County officers), succeeds mar-
shal in North Carolina, 195; serves writs
for precinct and county courts, 210.
Shingles, 175.
Sinking Fund created, 272; under act of
1852, 292.
Six Nations claim southwestern region, 13;
cede this to England, 16.
Skiff, 177, 352.
Smith, Daniel, secretary of territory, 149;
allows invasion of Indian country, 150;
member of Constitutional Convention of
1796, 186; trustee of Davidson College,
234.
Smith, George W., 287;
Smith, James, 34, 36, 107.
Smith, Col. James, explorations of, 14.
Sodom, 340.
Solemn League and Covenant, 216.
Somerville, 270, 305.
South Memphis, 339; mania for city build-
ing, 339; Fearne originates, 340; plan of
operation, 340; incorporated, 340; in-
cludes Fort Pickering, 340; united with
Memphis, 341.
Southern Convention, 434; its action and
resolutions, 435; compromise measures
condemned, 435.
Southwestern Empire, Sevier dreams of,
98; also Aaron Burr, 103, 164; feared by
Continental Confederacy, 165; Spanish
designs, 165, 166.
Southwestern Railroad Bank, 271; does not
suspend 272.
Southwest Point, fort at, built, 157, 172.
Spaniards, in Florida, 9; and State of Frank-
lin, 102; their intrigues, 103, 163-168;
their dream of empire, 103, 164; their
intercourse with the Indians, 164; part
of Tennessee claimed by, 165; their pol-
icy, 165.
Spanish or French traders, 142, 144, 152,
166, 176; offer rewards for American
scalps, 166.
Sparta, 270.
Specie payment, suspended, 260; Carroll
recommends return to, 264; day set, 264;
resumption, 265; suspension of, forbid-
den, 273; resumption in 1839, 270.
Spencer County, formed, 79; changed to
Hawkins, 93.
Spencer, James, 305.
Spencer, Thomas Sharpe, first settler of
Middle Tennessee, 108; mentioned, 133.
Spickernagle, William, 354.
Spies, 162.
Spinoza, 8.
Spottswood, Governor, crosses Appalachian
mountains, 14.
St. Augustine, 9, 13, 106.
Ste. Genevieve, 164.
St. Louis, 164.
Standifer, James, 367.
State Debt, causes disquietude, 272; bonds
issued to turnpikes, 282; contracted un-
der Act of 1852, 290; at beginning of war,
291; war interest, 292; act to liquidate,
293; Act of 1870, 294; repudiation of
fraudulent bonds prevented, 294; rail-
roads take advantage of Acts of 1869-70,
294; a political issue, 295; settled, 296.
Station, how built, 31, 119.
Statutes of Westminster, 208.
476
INDEX.
Stay Laws, 261, 302.
Steamboats, on Mississippi River, 177; first
at Memphis, 311.
Steep Rock, 32.
Sterling Bonds, 397.
Stewart (or Stuart), James, 56, 86, 98, 200.
Stewart, Virgil A., 350; his account, 350;
arrests and convicts Murrell, 351.
Stocks, abolition of, urged by Carroll, 302.
Stoddard, John, 304.
Stone River named, 107.
Stuart, Henry, 42.
Stuart, James. See Stewart.
Stuart, John, 41.
Sullivan County, formed, 56; part of Mor-
gan District, 67.
Sumner County, 135.
Superintendent of Public Schools, office cre-
ated, 236, 237.
Superior Courts in North Carolina, 196.
Superior Courts in Tennessee, 200, 201.
Supervisor of Banks, 273.
Supreme Court established, 201.
Surplus revenue deposit, 271.
Sweats settle McNairy County, 305.
Sycamore Shoals (see Treaty of), 18.
Synod of Lexington, 219.
Synod of the Carolinas, 217.
Talbot, Thomas, 78.
Talon, 10.
Tappan, Arthur, 392.
Tate, Col. Sam, 393; his executive ability,
287; president of Memphis and Charles-
ton Railroad, 288; anecdote related by,
403.
Tatham, William, 34, 105.
Tatum. See Tatham.
Taverns, 174; rates in Greene County, 174.
Taylor, Parmenas, 149.
Taylor, Thomas, 310.
Taylor, Zach, 431.
Taxes, remission of, 92.
Taxation, self, for schools, 236.
Tennessee County, 149.
Territory south of the Ohio River, 47; Leg-
islative Council, 149; seat of government
removed to Knoxville, 149; its organiza-
tion, officers, etc., 149, 198, 199.
Terry, Scott, 237.
Thomas, D. B., 294.
Thomas, Joshua, swims Tennessee River,
142.
Thornton, Hamilton, 305.
Thornton, R. G., 305.
Tippling Act, 424.
Titus Ebenezer, 132.
Tipton County, 306.
Tipton, Capt. Jacob, 306.
Tipton, Gen. Jacob, 306, 310.
Tipton, John, lukewarm in Franklin move-
ment, 77; North Carolina senator, 86 ;
his character, 86; envy of Sevier, SC; at-
tacks Sevier's honesty, 86; delegate from
Washington County to North Carolina,
98; arrests Sevier, 99; fight with Roddy,
100; member of Convention of 1796, 186;
Tipton party, 241; wants to investigate
Sevier's land speculations, 245; address
of confidence in Jackson, 245.
Tipton, John, of Indiana, 442.
Tipton, Sam, 245.
Tithingman, 205.
Tobacco inspection, 136.
Toka, 142,
Toka Expedition. See Coldwater.
Torbett, G. C., 273.
Tories in Tennessee, 34, 41, 52.
Township system of local self-government,
in New England, 204, 206; in the West,
207.
Trace. See Great Natchez,
Trade, 177; Spanish intrigues, 177.
Traders, Indian, must have license, 15, 178.
Transportation, 177.
Transylvania, purchase of, 36, 112, 119;
purchase declared void by Gov. Martin,
39; ignored by North Carolina, 133.
Transylvania Presbytery divided, 224.
Traveling, 174.
Treaty of Dumplin Creek, 79, 101.
Treaty of Fort Stanwix, 139.
Treaty of Hard Labor, 139.
Treaty of Hopewell, 139.
Treaty of Lochaber, East Tennessee settle.
ments made in violation of, 33.
Treaty of Martin and Donelson, 139.
Treaty of New York, 152.
Treaty of Piomingo, 140.
Treaty of Sycamore Shoals, 18, 36, 112, 139.
Trenton, 270, 305.
Trester, flat-boat man, 354; killed, 355.
Trimble, James, 245 (note).
Trousdale, William, 436; candidate for U. S.
senatorship, 429; for governorship, 433;
sketch of 433; defeats Neil S. Brown,
433; defeated by Campbell, 437.
Truck Patch, 27.
Trustees, county. See County officers.
Tyron, governor of North Carolina, tries to
repress regulators, 31.
Tuckasejah, destroyed by Sevier, 65.
Turenne, 10.
Turnidge, Henry, 306.
Turney, Hopkins L., 408; scheme to elect
him to U. S. Senate, 408; refuses to an-
swer questions, 428; vote for, 429; de-
nounced by Democrats, 429; his pledges
to Whigs, 429; his letter of defense, 429;
read out of the party, 430.
Turney, Samuel, 406.
Tuscarora Indians, migration of, 9.
Tyger's Valley, 173.
Uchees, destroyed by Cherokees, 15.
Union Bank chartered, 267.
Union, Fort. See Fort Union.
Union Presbytery, taken from Abingdon,
221.
United States Bank in Tennessee, 258, 260;
law to prevent, 262; protest against, 262;
branch at Nashville, 265.
University of Nashville, 137; Philip Linds-
ley becomes president, 239; his plan and
his influence, 239; influence on South-
west, 239.
Untoola. See Butler.
Van Buren, 364, 367.
Vernon, 304.
Vestries in North Carolina, 211.
Vestrymen levy taxes, 210; how appointed,
210.
Veto, 193, 197.
INDEX.
477
Vicksburg, gamblers hanged, 346, 354.
Vigilance Committee in 1778. See Washing-
ton County.
Village communities, survival of, 205.
Vincennes, 164.
Virginia, attempt in, to join Franklin move-
ment, 84, 103.
Waddell, Seth O., 309.
Walker, Felix, 34.
Walker, Dr. Thomas, expedition in 1748,
13, 107.
Walker, William, or "Nicaragua," 444.
Wallen party of explorers, 14.
Wallen's Creek, 14.
Willen's Ridge, 14.
Walton, Jesse, 56.
Ward, Edward, candidate for governorship,
252; Federalist, 254; sketch of, 254;
supported by Nashville Whig, 256; and
Jackson, 255.
Ward, Nancy, warns settlements of Indian
invasion, 42; saves Jack and Rankin, 66.
Wardens in North Carolina, 211.
Washington County, 47; part of Salisbury
Judicial District, 47; restores order by
organizing companies, 52; part of Mor-
gan District, 67.
Washingto Judicial District, 77.
Washington District of Tennessee, 200.
Washington District of North Carolina,
named for George Washington, 40; de-
clares for the Colonial cause, 40; over-
run by the lawless, 40; threatened by
Indians, 41; ceded by Indians to North
Carolina, 45; courts of pleas and quarter
sessions established in, 47; sheriffs
and justices of the peace, 47; becomes
Washington County, 47.
Washington, George, 38, 112.
Watauga Association, beginning of, 33;
articles of, lost, 33; details of organiza-
tion, 33; Committee of Thirteen, 33; five
commissioners, 33; chairman, 34; non-
subscribers, 34; no provision for, 40;
petition for annexation, 46; court-house,
56.
Watauga Fort, one of the earliest, 31; pro-
tects Watauga settlement, 31; attacked
by Indians, 42; defended by Robertson,
44.
Watauga River, 5.
Watauga settlement, resting-place for em-
igrants and surveyors, 30; an independ-
ant colony, 33; secure ten years' lease,
35; buy the reversion, 36.
Watson, Samuel, trustee of State Bank, 274.
Watterson, Henry, 442.
Watterson, H. M., 421; elected speaker of
state Senate, 427; sees Turney's letter,
429; denounces Turney, 429.
Waverly, 304.
Wayne County, 304.
Weakley County, 79, 311.
Weakley, Robert, candidate for governor-
ship, 251.
Webster, Daniel, estimate of Prentiss, 422.
Wells, Heydon, 132, 179.
Western District. See West Tennessee.
West Tennessee, its history not yet written,
302; account of in 1819, 303; priority of
locations in, 303.
Wharton, Jesse, on committee to investi-
gate Sevier's land speculations, 245; U.
S. senator, 251; candidate for governor-
ship, 251.
Wheatley, Seth, 338.
Whig clique or junto at Nashville, 403, 410.
Whig Convention of 1840, 387; Henry Clay
present, 390; details of, 387–391.
Whig Convention of 1844, 418; called the
the Great Whig Convention, 419; its bril-
liancy of colors, 420, 421.
Whigs, cut off from Federalists, 242; rise
of in Tennessee, 357; White Whigs, 369;
New-born Whigs, 369; date from White's
candidacy, 371; Anderson accepts title of
Whig, 375; efect of Polk-Cannon con-
test, 375 first contest of parties, 379;
New Whigs, 379 first Whig candidate,
379; Polk's address of 1839, 381; organ-
ized for 1840, 383; the Union denounces
their organization, 384; Harrison nomi-
nated, 384; the plan of campaign, 385;
festivals, processions, and emblems, 385;
Harris's doggerel, 386; Convention of
1840, 387; carry Tennessee in 1840, 392;
record of, on National Bank, 394; on
tariff, 395; Polk's speech on origin of,
396 in the General Assembly of 1841,
406; contest over senatorial election in
1841, 408; canvass of 1843 and its effects
on 1844, 411; last great struggle, 413;
send delegates to Baltimore in 1844, 413;
determine to defeat Polk in Tennessee,
444; brilliancy of 1844, 416; carry Ten-
nessee in 1844, 421; nominate Foster in
1845, 424; nominate N. S. Brown in 1847,
420; carry Tennessee in 1852, 438; al-
liance with Know-Nothings, 438; become
opposition, 439.
Whiskey, 137, 174, 182.
White County, cotton manufactures in,
279.
White, Hugh Lawson, 258, 443; on Loan
Office of 1820, 262; offered seat in Jack-
son's cabinet, 365; his friendship for
Jackson, 365; estrangement from and
causes, 365; Jackson's threat, 366; be-
comes candidate for presidency, 366;
letter from Tennessee members of Con-
gress, 365; Van Buren and Jackson, 367;
Jackson denounces him as a Federalist,
368; White Whigs and New-born Whigs,
369; Tennessee press for White, 369;
issue between, and Jackson not made, 369;
his course on Expunging Resolutions,
371, 374; carries Tennessee legislature,
371; is defeated, 374; his political prin-
ciples, 372; carries Hermitage District,
374; opposes Van Buren's administration,
374; forced to resign, 382; supports
Harrison, 387; death of, 387; president
of United States Senate, 443.
White, James, lays off Knoxville, 149;
member of Constitutional Convention of
1796, 186.
White, Richard, 76, 86.
Whitney, Eli. See Cotton gin.
Whittaker, Mark, 225.
Wilkinson, James, has store at Lexington,

177.
Williams, Col. James, 60.
Williams, John, 361.
478
INDEX.
Williams, N. W., impeached, 301.
Williamson, Jones, 304.
Willis, Benjamin, Jr., 310.
Willis, Henry, 225.
Wilson, Adam, 304.
Wilson, W. M., 311.
Winchester, James, member of Legislative
Council, 149; speaker first state Senate,
200; runs southern boundary line, 315;
interest in Memphis, 327.
Winchester, M. B., 310, 321; on railroads,
286; sketch of, 324; compared with Raw-
lings, 324; postmaster and mayor, 324;
agent for proprietors of Memphis, 324;
suspected of being a Whig, 330; on La
Grange and Memphis Railroad, 342; vili-
fied by Murrell's clan, 351.
Winchester, William, 328.
Winchester and Carr, 323.
Winterbotham's History of America, 187.
Wise, Henry A., 426.
Wolcott, Oliver, Sr., 188.
Wolf River, shiftings of its mouth, 319;
Jesse Benton's testimony, 319, 334.
Wolf tax, 316.
Wolfs Hill. See Abingdon.
Womack, Jacob, 34.
Wood, John, 56.
Wood's party of explorers, 56.
Woods, John, 304.
Yancey, W. L., 443.
Yarbrough, H., 306.
Young's Warehouse. See Public Warehouse.
Zigler's Station, destroyed, 153.
Zollicoffer, Felix K., elected comptroller,
430.
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