history of Tennessee, are only known to a few as family traditions,
and remembered by the descendants of those who bore a part, as stories
of the nursery and not as chapters in the great historic record of the
past. Yet the experience and conduct of a single individual may often
better illustrate the condition, progress, and character of a people,
than whole chapters devoted to the details of a campaign.
The traditional recollections detailed in the following sketch of the
family of James Brown, connected as they were intimately with some of
the most important political events of that period, cannot fail to
throw new light upon the pioneer history of the country, and inspire
our hearts with renewed gratitude to those hardy, but wise men and
women, who built up so goodly a State amidst so many troubles, in the
dark and bloody valleys of the Shauvanon, Tanasees, and Ho-go-hegee.
Jane Gillespie was born in Pennsylvania about the year 1740. Her father
was a pioneer in the settlement of North Carolina. Her family was
one of the most respectable as well as the most worthy in the county
of Guilford, where they resided during the Revolutionary war. Two of
her brothers, Col. and Maj. Gillespie, were distinguished for their
gallantry and devotion to the cause of liberty, and were honored as
brave officers. Herself and most of her family were members of the
Rev. David Caldwell’s church at Guilford, and ardently espoused his
political and religious principles.
About the year 1761 or 1762, Miss Gillespie became the wife of James
Brown, a native of Ireland, whose family had settled in Guilford some
years before. At the beginning of the Revolution, Mrs. Brown had a
large family of small children, but she freely gave up her husband
when his country demanded his services. During the masterly retreat of
General Greene, in the winter of 1781, on Dan and Deep rivers, Brown
was the pilot and guide of Colonels Lee and Washington, and by his
intimate knowledge of the country, its bypaths and fords, contributed
not a little to the successful countermarches of the American army, by
which they were enabled to elude and break the spirit of the army of
Lord Cornwallis. When the Americans assumed the offensive, and, from a
retreating, suddenly became a pursuing army, Brown pressed eagerly into
the fight with the bold troopers of Lee and Washington.
Being in moderate circumstances, and pressed by the cares of a large
and increasing family, Brown’s ardent temperament was not satisfied
with the prospect of a plodding life of toil in Guilford. For his
Revolutionary services he had received from the State of North Carolina
land-warrants, which entitled him to locate a large quantity of land
in the wilderness beyond the mountains. His neighbors had made him
sheriff of his county, and a justice of the County Court, and he was
rapidly rising in the estimation of his countrymen for his patriotism,
integrity, and many other virtues of a good citizen. But he readily
saw the advantages which he might secure to his rising family by
striking out into the deep forests, and securing for them the choicest
homes in the Tennessee and Cumberland valleys. He could command only
a trifle in money for his land scrip, but by exposing himself to a
few years of hardship and danger, he could secure independent estates
for his numerous children. With him, to be convinced was to act: his
decision and his action went together. Tearing himself from the bosom
of his family and all the endearments of a happy home circle, he
set out on his journey to explore the valley of the Cumberland. The
whole of Tennessee was then a wilderness, except a small spot on the
Holston or Watauga, on the east, and a small spot around Nashville and
Bledsoe’s Lick, on the west of the Cumberland Mountains. Taking with
him his two eldest sons, William and John, and a few tried friends,
he explored the Cumberland valley. He secured lands on the Cumberland
river below Nashville, at the place now known as Hyde’s Ferry. He
also explored the wilderness south, as far as Buck river, and located
a large body of land south of Duck river, near Columbia. The whole
country was then almost untrodden by the foot of the white man. It was
the hunting-ground of the Chickasaws, Creeks, and Cherokees, and was
full of deer, elk, bears, and buffaloes. The rich uplands, as well as
the alluvial bottoms of the rivers, were covered with cane-brakes,
which were almost impervious to man. Whoever penetrated these regions,
did so with knife and hatchet to cut away the cane, and with rifle
to oppose the savage beasts and savage men who sheltered in its deep
fastnesses. But Brown’s heart was a bold one, and his hopes for the
future animated him to perseverance. Having located by actual survey
several fine tracts of land, he determined to return to Guilford, and
remove his family to their new home in the West. Leaving William as a
deputy surveyor under Col. Polk, and John to open and cultivate a small
field, and build some cabins at the mouth of White’s Creek, he returned
to North Carolina.
In the winter of 1787-8, Brown and his family, having disposed of their
property, found themselves on the banks of the French Broad in what
is now Hawkins county, Tennessee, waiting the opening of the spring,
before beginning their journey across the mountains to the Cumberland
valley.
In 1785, the treaty of Hopewell had been concluded with the Cherokees,
guaranteeing reciprocal friendship between that nation and the
Americans. At the time Brown arrived on the banks of the French Broad,
there was apparent acquiescence in the terms of this treaty, and the
Cherokee and the white man seemed, for a time, to have smoked the pipe
of peace, and buried the tomahawk for ever.
There were two routes to the Cumberland Valley at this time, the one by
land, the other by water. The land route was a long and tedious one,
through the Cumberland Gap, across the head waters of the Cumberland,
Green, and Barren rivers in Kentucky, to Bledsoe’s Lick, or Nashville.
The other route was easier of accomplishment, and more desirable;
because, being by the descent of the river, it admitted of the
transportation of goods and aged persons. Brown, on his recent visit to
Cumberland, had heard of Col. Donaldson’s voyage down the Tennessee, up
the Ohio and Cumberland, to Nashville, and of one or two other parties
who had succeeded in making the same voyage. As he had women and small
children, and packages of valuable goods, which he was taking to the
West, he resolved to hazard the descent of the Tennessee river.
He was not ignorant of the fact that there were many populous Indian
towns on the Tennessee river, of both the Cherokee and Chickasaw
nations, and that marauding parties of Creeks and Shawanees were often
on its shores and in the towns. He knew the danger of the voyage, on
account of the hostile Indians; and he also knew its numerous shoals,
rapids and eddies, rendered its navigation perilous to such frail
open boats as could then be constructed. But he trusted in the honest
disposition of the Cherokees to conform to the treaty of Hopewell,
and judged that the marauding Creeks and Shawanees would prove less
dangerous on the water than on the circuitous land route to the
Cumberland. Having been habitually exposed to danger for many years, it
is probable he rather sought the most perilous route, feeling a sort of
manly desire to meet and overcome it.
Having built a boat in the style of a common flatboat, modeled as much
as possible after Noah’s ark, except that it was open at the top, he
prepared to adventure the fearful voyage. About the 1st of May, 1788,
having taken on board a large amount of goods suitable for traffic
among the Indians and the pioneers in Cumberland, his party embarked
upon the bosom of French Broad. The party was a small and weak one,
considering the dangers it had to encounter, and the valuable cargo it
had to defend. It consisted of Brown, two grown sons, three hired men
and a negro man; in all, seven grown men; Mrs. Brown, three small sons
and four small daughters; an aged woman, the mother of one of the hired
men, and two or three negro women, the property of Brown.
To make up for the weakness of his party, Brown had mounted a small
cannon upon the prow of his boat, and no doubt relied as much for his
security upon the known terror which such guns inspired in the savages,
as upon any damage which he expected to inflict upon them with it.
Thus appointed and thus equipped, this happy family began its eventful
descent of the river. All was gladness, all was sunshine. The land of
their fathers, of their loved friends and pastor, was behind them;
beneath their oars flashed the bright waters of a lovely stream, whose
winding channel would soon bear them to their new home in the valley of
the fairy Cumberland. As they passed rapidly along, the father sat in
the midst of his little children, hopefully describing their new home
in the deep forests of the West.
They thus descended the French Broad to the Tennessee, and went on
merrily down its waters to Chickamauga, a considerable town of Cherokee
Indians, not far from the present site of Chattanooga. Here the
Indians appeared friendly; the principal chief went on board the boat,
and made inquiry for various articles of goods, proposed to trade,
and finally took his leave, with many professions of kindness. Our
voyagers continued their descent, rejoicing in the happy omen which the
friendship of the Chickamauga chieftain opened for their future. The
next day, the 9th of May, the solitary pirogue or flatboat had passed
several Indian villages, and had come in view of the towns of Running
Water and Nickajack, the last Cherokee towns where there was any
considerable body of Indians. The voyagers began to rejoice in their
happy deliverance from the principal dangers which had threatened their
journey. They would in a few hours be through the mountain passes, on
the wide bosom of a noble river, where they would be comparatively
free from the ambuscades of lurking savages.
Suddenly four canoes, with white flags raised, and naked savages
kneeling in them as rowers, glided out into the river, and rapidly
approached; fearing some mischief, Brown immediately turned his cannon
upon the approaching canoes, and with lighted match, bade them keep off
at the peril of their lives.
Struck with astonishment at the bold threat, they paused, and pulled
their frail canoes a little out of the range of the big gun. A man
by the name of John Vaun, a well-known half-breed, who spoke good
English, was the leader of the party. He spoke to Brown, and said that
his party came in friendship; as an evidence of that they had raised a
white flag; they came as his friends to trade with him. Brown, who was
a bold and fearless man, and dared to face a thousand savages, still
kept them off; but at last, confiding in the assurances of Vaun that
he was a white man, and that the Indians would respect the persons and
property of his party, in an unguarded moment he consented that several
of the Indians might come on board. A dozen Indians now came on board,
and lashed their canoes to the side of the boat. As they came near the
town, hundreds dashed out into the river in their canoes, and came
alongside of the boat. Having thus secured possession, the leading men,
especially Vann, assured Brown that no harm was intended. In the mean
time, each Indian seized upon whatever he fancied and threw it into his
canoe. In this way several boxes and trunks were instantly rifled. Vann
pretended to order his followers to abstain, but they paid no attention
to him. A bold warrior now demanded of Brown the key to a large chest,
that contained his most valuable stores, which he refused to give,
telling the Indian that Mrs. Brown had it. The Indian demanded it of
Mrs. Brown, but she boldly refused to give it up. He then split the top
of the chest open with his tomahawk, and his example was immediately
followed by the other Indians, who broke open and rifled every box and
package on the boat. While this was going on, a savage rudely took
hold of Joseph Brown, a lad fifteen years old, but was forced by the
father to let the boy go. An instant after, the Indian seized a sword
lying in the boat, and while Brown’s back was turned to him, struck
him on the back of the neck, almost severing his head from his body.
Brown turned in the agony of death and seized the Indian, and in the
struggle was thrown into the river, where he sank to rise no more. The
boat was now turned into the mouth of a little creek, in the town of
Nickajack, and the whole party taken on shore, in the midst of several
hundred warriors, women and children. In the mean time, Vann continued
to tell the sons of Brown that all this was a violation of the treaty
of Hopewell, and that Breath, the chief of Nickajack and Running Water,
who was expected there that night, would punish the marauders, restore
their goods, and send them on their voyage. Several leading warriors
of the upper town had seized Brown’s negroes as lawful spoil, and had
dispatched them in canoes to their several homes. Whatever may have
been Vann’s true motives, his interference on this occasion had the
effect to place the whole party at the mercy of the Indians, without
resistance. If he acted in good faith, he was shamefully deceived by
his followers; but if he only used his address to disarm the voyagers,
that they might the more easily fall victims to savage ferocity, his
conduct exhibits the climax of perfidy.
A party of Creek braves, who were engaged with the men of Nickajack and
Running Water in this outrage, having seized upon their share of the
plunder, and having taken possession of Mrs. Brown, her son George, ten
years old, and three small daughters, immediately began their march to
their own nation. While the Cherokees were deliberating upon the fate
of the prisoners and a division of the spoils, they adroitly withdrew
from the council, on the plea that this all belonged to the head men of
Nickajack. Thus, in one short hour deprived of husband, sons, friends,
liberty and all, this devoted woman, with her five smallest children,
began her sad journey on foot along the rugged, flinty trails that led
to the Creek towns on the Tallapoosa river.
At the time of this outrage, there was living at or near Nickajack, a
French trader, named Thomas Tunbridge, married to a white woman, who
had been taken prisoner near Mobile, when an infant, and raised by the
Indians. After she was grown, she was exchanged, but refused to leave
the Indians, distrusting her ability to adapt her habits to civilized
life. She had been married to an Indian brave, by whom she had a son,
now twenty-two years old, who was one of the boldest warriors of the
Cherokee towns. He had already killed six white men in his forays to
the Cumberland settlement. Having all the versatility of his mother’s
race, as well as the ferocity and courage of his father, he was fast
rising into distinction as a warrior, and bade fair to reach the first
honors of his nation. His praises for daring and chivalry were in the
mouths of all.
His mother was now growing old, and having no young children, her
son desired to present to her some bright-eyed boy as a slave; for
according to the savage code of the times, each captive became a slave
to his captor. This woman’s son, whose name was Kiachatalee, was one of
the leaders of the marauding party who had seized upon Brown’s boat,
and from the first knew the fate of the party. Before the boat landed,
he tried to induce Joseph to get into his canoe, with the intention of
withdrawing him from the general massacre that was soon to take place,
but the boy would not go with him. When the boat landed, Kiachatalee
took Joseph to his stepfather, Tunbridge, who in good English told the
boy he lived a mile out of the town, and invited him to go and spend
the night with him. This the boy did, after asking the consent of
his elder brothers. Tunbridge seized the boy by the hand and hurried
him away. They had scarcely gone out of the town before they heard
the rifles of the savage braves, who were murdering his brothers and
friends. What were the feelings of the poor boy at this moment! His
father slain; his brothers and friends weltering in their blood, amidst
the yells of savage assassins; and his mother, brother and sisters
borne off, he knew not whither, by a band of lawless Creek marauders!
To add to his agony at such a moment, an aged Indian woman, with
hair disheveled, and her round, fat face discolored with excitement,
followed them to the trader’s house, calling upon Tunbridge to produce
the white man, exclaiming, with a fiendish air of triumph, “All the
rest are killed, and he must die also!”
The trader calmly replied to her, “He’s only a little boy. It’s a shame
to kill children. He shall not be killed.”
The old hag was excited, and vowed that the boy should be killed. She
said, “He was too large to allow him to live. In two or three years he
would be a man; he would learn the country, its towns and its rivers;
would make his escape and come back with an army of white men to
destroy us all.” She said her son, Cutty-a-toy, was a brave chief, and
that he would be there in a few minutes to kill the boy.
In a few minutes Cutty-a-toy, followed by many armed warriors, rushed
upon the trader’s house, and demanded the white boy, saying that he was
too large, that he would be grown, would make his escape, and bring
back an army to destroy their town.
The trader stood, with cool courage, in the door of his lodge, and
refused to surrender the prisoner, saying it was not right to kill
children, and also warning the angry chief that the boy was the
prisoner of Kiachatalee, his son, and if he was injured or slain,
Kiachatalee would be revenged for it. As Kiachatalee was only a young
warrior, and Cutty-a-toy a chief and a gray-beard, this threat of
revenge greatly incensed him. In an instant he raised his tomahawk,
and, with the air of a man who intends a deed of murder, demanded of
the trader, “And are you the friend of the Virginian?”
Answering the look rather than the words, the trader stepped out of his
door, and said to the bloody brave, “Take him.”
Cutty-a-toy then rushed into the trader’s lodge, seized the boy by the
throat, and was about to brain him with his tomahawk, when the wife of
Tunbridge interposed in a tone of supplication which at once succeeded.
“Will the brave chieftain kill the boy in my house? Let not the boy’s
blood stain my floor.”
The appeal of the woman reached the savage’s heart. He dropped his
weapon, and slowly dragged the boy out of the lodge into the midst of a
crowd of savages, who waved their knives and hatchets in the poor lad’s
face, in order to enjoy his terror.
In the path which led from the house, the boy fell upon his knees,
while the savages were tearing off his clothes, and asked the trader
to request the Indians to give him one half hour to pray. The trader
roughly replied, “Boy, it’s not worth while; they’ll kill you.” As he
stood in momentary expectation of his fate, the trader’s wife again
interposed, and begged the savage chief not to kill the boy in her
yard, or in the path along which she had to carry water, but to take
him out into the mountains, where the birds and wolves might eat up his
flesh, where she could not see his blood!
The appeal of the woman was again heard, and giving the boy his
pantaloons, they held a short talk, and agreed to take him down to
Running Water, saying to the trader’s wife, “We will not spill this
boy’s blood near your house; but we will take him to Running Water,
where we will have a frolic knocking him in the head.”
Having gone about three hundred yards, they halted and formed a circle
around the victim. He again fell upon his knees, and with his face
upturned towards heaven, and his hands firmly clasped on his breast,
remained in prayer, expecting at each moment the fatal blow. At this
dreadful moment he thought of Stephen, to whose vision the heavens
were opened at the moment of his death, and was happy. As the savage
braves stood around him, young Brown saw their stern aspect of revenge
suddenly relax, and a smile of sympathy and pity succeed. They called
the trader, told him to take the boy, that they would not kill him;
and Cutty-a-toy said he loved the boy, and would come back in three
weeks and make friends with him. It was afterwards ascertained that
Cutty-a-toy had taken some of Brown’s negroes, and claimed them as
his prisoners, and that his fear lest Kiatchatalee might retaliate by
killing his negro prisoners, was the thought which suddenly turned him
to mercy and pity. So thought his own followers; for when he said he
_loved_ the boy, and would not kill him, his savage followers replied:
“No, no, he does not love the boy; it’s the boy’s negroes he loves.”
When Cutty-a-toy’s mother saw that the boy’s life would not be taken,
she seemed displeased; went up to him and cut off his scalp-lock, and
kicked him so rudely in the side as almost to kill him, exclaiming,
“I’ve got the Virginian’s scalp.”
The Tuskegee chief, Cutty-a-toy, led his party away, leaving Joseph in
the hands of the trader and his wife. In two or three days he was taken
into Nickajack, and the kind old chief, Breath, who greatly regretted
what had taken place in his absence, took him by the hand, calmly heard
a narrative of his situation from the trader’s wife, and then told the
boy that he must be adopted into his tribe, and become an Indian if
he would save his life; that there was no other way in which his life
could be saved. To that end, the chief adopted him into his own family,
and told Joseph that he was his uncle, and that Kiatchatalee was his
brother. His head was then shaved, leaving only a fillet of hair on
the top, in which a bunch of feathers was tied, his ears pierced for
rings, and his clothes taken off; the flap substituted for trowsers,
and a short shirt for a coat, shirt, and vest, his nether vestments
consisting of a pair of deer-skin moccasins. In this condition he was
pronounced an Indian, with the exception of a slit in each ear, which
the kindness of the chief deferred making until cold weather.
The trader’s wife took him to see his two sisters, Jane, aged ten, and
Polly, aged five years, who had just been brought back to Nickajack; a
party of Cherokees having pursued the Creek braves, and recaptured from
them these two small girls, after they had been taken some distance
towards the Creek towns. From his sister Jane, Joseph learned the
destination of the party who had carried off his mother, his brother
George, and sister Elizabeth. The children were now in the same town,
adopted into different families, and it was a source of consolation
to them to be allowed to see each other occasionally. In the various
toils which were imposed upon the little captives, such as carrying
water and wood, pounding hominy, and working corn in the fields, and
on the part of the boy, looking after the stock, nearly a year passed,
without many incidents worthy of note. Hostile parties of savages came
and went, and tales of barbarous deeds done by them on the distant
frontiers were often told in the hearing of the children, but none
brought deliverance for them. Yet in but few instances did the savage
neighbors of these captive children treat them unkindly. Three or
four times Joseph’s life was in danger from lawless braves, whose
bloodthirsty natures panted for the blood of the white man. The good
old chief, Breath, hearing of these things, caused young Brown to be
armed, and declared that it should be lawful for him to slay any Indian
who should maltreat him.
In a few months Joseph was allowed a rifle and a horse, and permitted
to go into the woods to hunt. He might often have availed himself
of the kindness of his savage friends, and made his escape to the
frontiers, but he loved his little sisters, and his love for them
restrained his desire for freedom, lest his escape might add to the
rigors of their slavery, or perhaps for ever prevent their deliverance.