principles. When the question of the introduction of the new version of
the Psalms was agitated in the Church at Centre Meeting-House, after
much debate, it was put to the vote, and Haynes was left alone as the
advocate of the old version. His brethren tauntingly asked him if he
was going to stand out alone. He replied, “yes, as long as the world
stands;” and so he did to the end of his life.
A rude and humble stone now marks the last resting place of both, at
their own home, near Centre Meeting-House, Iredell County, N. C.,
where, more than a century ago, they sat down amidst the dim solitudes
of the western wilderness. The old homestead is now the residence of
James Sloan, a relative of the family.
The three sons, Joseph, John and James, and the son-in-law, Capt.
Scott, bore arms against the Cherokees, and against the British and
loyalists. They were brave young men, of active habits, and accustomed
to hard service; rode much about the country, and were always ready for
any enterprise requiring toil and exposure, or skill and daring. In
proportion as they made themselves useful to the whig party, they were
of course persecuted by the loyalists. Their irregular life in military
service never caused them to do aught contrary to the strict principles
of their faith; they never travelled, except when rigid necessity
required it, on the Sabbath, being Puritans enough to look upon
profanity and Sabbath-breaking with as much abhorrence as upon horse
stealing. They served--John bearing a prominent part--in the first
battle fought in North Carolina in which the whigs were victorious,
after the suspension of hostilities succeeding the fall of Charleston;
that of Ramsour’s Mill, in Lincoln County.[23]
Capt. Scott, the son-in-law of Mrs. Haynes, was killed at Cowan’s Ford,
at the same time with Gen. Davidson, who had been stationed there by
Gen. Greene, with a small force, to delay the passage of the British
army across the Catawba. Joseph Haynes barely escaped with his life in
this action. Soon after, the British passing, as already mentioned,
near the house of the elder James Haynes, stopped and plundered it,
took him prisoner, and boasted in the hearing of his family, that they
had killed his son-in-law at the Ford, hinting that his sons also
were either killed or captured. The old man was over sixty, and in
feeble health; his venerable appearance and Quaker habiliments should
have secured their respect, but the crime of sending so many brave
sons to battle was not to be forgiven. Family tradition, confirmed by
the recollection of his daughter-in-law, states that they pulled off
his coat, overcoat, and silver knee and shoe-buckles, and made him
dismount and walk on through mud and water, urged forward by the prick
of bayonets; also that the news of his capture and the pillaging of
his house was carried to his sons by his daughter Hannah, who made her
way through bypaths for forty miles, eluding the marauding parties
scattered through the country, to the American army. Her brothers
immediately set off in pursuit, found their father at length by the
roadside, watched over by a wounded American soldier, and conveyed him
home.
Another adventure is remembered, in which John Haynes figured, during
that memorable retreat of Gen. Greene. He was sent as a scout, with
three others, to give notice of the approach of Tarleton’s dragoons.
While posted on a hill they were suddenly startled by the appearance
of a squadron of his light horse turning round a clump of trees close
at hand, with the design of cutting off their retreat. The only point
left open was a lane, a mile or so long, through a wide plantation.
The four whigs instantly commenced the race, closely pursued by the
British dragoons with their drawn sabres, the parties near enough to
hear each other’s voices--the royalists calling upon the rebel squad to
surrender, and now and then discharging a pistol to enforce the order.
The hindmost fugitive, one George Locke, was at length cut down by a
sabre-stroke, and killed; the others, hotly pursued, reached the end of
the lane, and instantly turned into the thick woods, where they could
ride with ease, being practised woodsmen, while the progress of the
heavy-armed dragoons of Tarleton was retarded. As they dashed into the
cover, they discharged their pistols over their shoulders, killing the
leading horseman, a subaltern, who had the moment before cut down their
companion, and was almost in the act of performing the same office for
them. Fearing an ambuscade, the party hastily retreated, leaving the
body of the subaltern where he fell. His uniform was taken off by a
negro, and often worn by him after the close of the war.
In his advanced age John Haynes often amused his friends by recounting
this and other anecdotes of races with the British troopers. On one
occasion he was alone, hemmed in by pursuing horsemen, and driven to
the banks of Candle Creek, at a point where the height of the banks and
the width of the channel seemed to preclude all hope of escape. Being
well mounted and a fearless rider, he dashed to the stream, his enemies
close upon him with drawn sabres, cleared the creek at a bound, and was
safe from his pursuers who dared not make the leap.
The two other sons, Joseph and James, were with Gates and Greene, and
in many of the most trying scenes of the war. Joseph was one of the
first who broke the cane and hunted the buffalo in the valley of Duck
River, Tennessee. He was a brave soldier and an ardent patriot. It was
his boast, that of all his kinsmen who were able to bear arms, there
was not one who did not fight on the side of the Republic. He survived
most of them who served with him, and after a long and useful life in
the land to which he had gone as a pioneer, he died in July 1845, at
his residence on Silver Creek, Maury County, Tennessee, in the 96th
year of his age.
His brother John was born in a fort or station in the valley of the
Catawba, where his family had taken shelter from the incursions of
the Cherokee Indians in 1759. All three brothers with their families
emigrated to Tennessee in the beginning of the present century, and
established themselves in the southern part of Middle Tennessee.
John Haynes and his sons opened the road from the north side of
Duck River, near Cany Spring, to the south side of Elk-ridge, where
Cornersville now stands. Here father and sons opened farms, aided
in erecting churches and school-houses, and soon found themselves
surrounded by crowds of emigrants from Carolina and Virginia. They
never forgot the precepts of their venerable ancestor, nor neglected
their duty to pander to the taste of a less rigidly moral population.
John lived to the age of seventy-seven, and kept his character for
rapid riding to the last. It was often averred by his friends that he
never rode in a walk, but always in a gallop. He died in 1838, but
his widow, Margaret Haynes, survived him many years, dying the 3rd
July, 1851, at the residence of her son, James S. Haynes, Esq., in her
88th year. Even at that advanced age, she retained her physical and
intellectual faculties so perfectly, as to render her reminiscences of
the times of peril and bloodshed both reliable and interesting. She
remembered to have heard Rev. James McCree preach the funeral of Gen.
Davidson at Centre meeting-house soon after the war, at which were
present more than a dozen widows of those who had fallen in defence of
their country. Her chief employment was reading religious books and
studying the Scriptures. She gave food to the hungry and clothing to
the needy, encouraging, reproving, and admonishing those around her,
and diligently following every good work.
There were other children, daughters of James and Ann Haynes, who
married worthy men in Rowan and Mecklenburg, North Carolina, where most
of them continued to live. Their descendants are now widely scattered
through the West and South, probably numbering three or four hundred,
and many of them have been active in the service of their country.
Several were engaged in the war of 1812; others subsequently in the
Florida or Seminole war, and in the recent war with Mexico; Milton A.
Haynes being a subaltern in the Florida war, and a Captain of Tennessee
Volunteers in the Mexican war, and two of his brothers serving as
subalterns. One of them lost his life in the service. The Rev. Cyrus
Haynes, of Illinois, and the Rev. John Haynes of Mississippi, are the
grandsons, and several other respectable clergymen of different States
are descendants of the subject of this sketch.
VIII.
RUTH SPARKS.
Ruth Sevier was the second daughter of Gen. John Sevier, by his second
marriage with Catharine Sherrill. She was born--the precise date is
not known--at Plum Grove, their residence on the Nolachucka in that
part of North Carolina now known as East Tennessee those settlements
then forming the extreme borders of the country inhabited by civilized
Americans.
During some five and twenty years, the greater part of the time from
1769 to 1796, the settlers--as it has been seen--were troubled more or
less every year by Indian depredators, and murders and bloody battles
were common occurrences. It cannot be wondered at that females born
and reared in the midst of such perils should be imbued with a sturdy
courage, and a self-reliance acquired only by familiar acquaintance
with danger and hardship. Boldness and force of character might be
expected, with the occasional manifestation of a daring more than
feminine, and a love of wild and romantic adventure; while the
cultivation of the gentler graces, and the refinement which is such an
ornament to womanhood, might be supposed to be frequently neglected.
It will not be rational, therefore, for modern judgment to condemn
too rigidly what in the manners of that period did not accord with
the ideas of etiquette in vogue at the present day. The heart and the
morals of our ancestors were uncorrupted, and we should not mark for
disapproval their non-observance of external properties. “Times change,
and we change with them,” is an admitted truth; whether for the better
or not, perhaps it would not be easy to decide.
Throughout Western Virginia and North Carolina but few opportunities
or advantages were then offered for the education of children, and the
duty of instructing them, particularly daughters, devolved chiefly
upon the mothers among the frontier settlers. This duty was in general
attended to as diligently as circumstances permitted, and women who had
themselves enjoyed in a very limited degree the privilege of schooling,
but had graduated under the rough but thorough tutoring of hard
experience, did not often fail to impart to their little ones, with a
portion of their own energy, perseverance, and spirit of enterprise,
such a knowledge of practical matters at least, as proved sufficient
for all purposes of life. Often too, they incited their children to
avail themselves of opportunities presented to acquire even what might
be termed learning. Such training had the parents of our heroine,
and such they gave her; and thus without any regular schooling, she
made rapid attainments, having been gifted by nature with a powerful
and active mind, a ready apprehension, and great energy and strength
of purpose. The condition of society in those unsettled and eventful
times, and the stirring incidents in which her parents and their
associates were continually forced to participate, had also much effect
in forming her character, imparting a force, decision, and promptness
which she might not otherwise have possessed.
During the Indian wars in which Gen. Sevier commanded the troops and
was the leader in so many expeditions and successful encounters, being
acknowledged as “the friend and protector of the exposed settlements,”
Ruth evinced a strong interest in the history and character of those
warlike tribes. She learned not only the names of the chiefs, but of
many of the common warriors. Some of them she saw at her father’s house
in the intervals of peace, and availed herself of the opportunity to
become well acquainted with them, and acquire a knowledge of their
manners and customs. She manifested a particular curiosity to learn as
much as possible of their mode of living and domestic habits. All the
information she sought was readily communicated to her by the Indians,
who were influenced by grateful feelings towards her father for his
generous kindness to the friendly savages who had visited him, and to
some thirty prisoners whom he brought to his house and took care of
liberally at his own expense. These had been selected from about one
hundred captives taken in the year 1781. Ten of these thirty remained
for three years at the residence of Gen. Sevier. Ruth was a great
favorite with them all, and not only learned the Cherokee language,
but so completely won the regard of every one of them, that on their
return to the nation they named her to the chiefs and warriors with
such expressions of commendation as amounted to a pledge of safety to
the family, in case of any future difficulty, to be considered more
sacred than the guarantee extended to other settlers. The kindness
shown by “Nolachucka Jack” and his wife to the captives and other
Indians, was mentioned the more frequently, as it gave occasion to
speak of “Chucka’s Rutha.” “She will be chief’s wife some day,” was the
prediction of many.
Mrs. Sevier had been accustomed to place much confidence in her friends
among the children of the forest, which she never found betrayed.
While the captives were at her house she permitted the Indian girls
to play with Ruth and accompany her in errands and visits to the
neighbors. The watchful solicitude they manifested at all times for
her safety, and their desire to please her by any little service in
their power, convinced the mother that the little girl was entirely
secure in their company, while the unlimited trust she placed in the
savages was returned on their part by gratitude, and a determination
to merit her kindly regard. Thus, prisoners as they were, they lived
contented and happy, bound to their host more strongly than bonds or
imprisonment could have fettered them. The effect of these mutual
good offices was seen long afterwards, and repeatedly acknowledged in
various negotiations and treaties, where the presence and “talks” of
Gen. Sevier exercised a decisive influence in persuading the savages
to accede to the wishes of the whites for the extension of boundaries
and the promotion of peace.
Many instances are mentioned which caused alarm to the family of Gen.
Sevier and the settlers living on the Nolachucka, in which Ruth’s
courage and spirit were of service. Once she gave notice of the
approach of tories in time for her mother to have the most valuable
articles removed from the house, and concealed in an old lime-kiln.
On another occasion, while playing or bathing in the stream with one
of the captive Indian girls, she fancied she saw enemies lurking near
the banks, and hastened to give warning. Once an attempt to cross the
river with the same or another Indian maiden, had nearly proved a fatal
experiment, when two young men of the same band of Cherokee captives,
came unexpectedly to their relief. Ruth learned in her earliest
childhood to shoot well with the musket and rifle, and could take a
surer aim than many an ordinary huntsman.
The prediction of the Indians that “Chucka’s Rutha” would become
the wife of a chief was fulfilled singularly enough, as we proceed
to explain. In the early settlement of Kentucky, when violent and
destructive attacks were made on the settlements--during frequent
incursions by the tribes living north of the Ohio river, a number of
children had been captured, and for the most part carried off to the
Indian villages near the Lakes. Among others thus taken, was a child
four years of age, who was either captured or purchased by one of
the principal chiefs of the Shawanese, upon the head waters of the
Scioto River. This Indian had two sons nearly of the same age with
the youthful captive, who was adopted as a third son, and immediately
placed with them as a companion and brother, rather than as a slave,
being treated with unusual kindness and indulgence. He received a new
name on his adoption--Shawtunte--a cognomen which was changed after his
release for that of Richard Sparks; though whether the latter was his
true and original name or not, we have no means of ascertaining. His
Indian playmates were Tecumseh, and his elder brother the Prophet. Both
these were afterwards well known as chiefs of power and influence, and
as resolute and dangerous enemies of the United States. Tecumseh was
ambitious, bold and energetic, and withal of a more amiable disposition
than his brother; but neither of them was deficient in the qualities
necessary to form the brave and successful warrior. By their enterprise
and exertions the plan was organized for an extensive combination among
the tribes of the West and Northwest, including some of the Southwest,
for the purpose of a general war upon the Americans. This mischievous
conspiracy among the tribes was got up chiefly through the influence
of agents of the British government, and threatened a vast amount of
misery and bloodshed to the extensive and exposed American settlements
on the frontier. The confederacy was broken up by the victories gained
by Gen. Harrison at the battle of Tippecanoe, Nov. 6th, 1811, and upon
the Miami River, followed by that of the Thames, Oct. 5th, 1813. The
British Government had conferred upon Tecumseh the commission of a
Major General. He lost his life in the battle of the Thames.
To return to Shawtunte. He remained in the family of Tecumseh about
twelve years, till he was sixteen years old, acquiring the habits
of the Indians, and becoming a proficient in their language; for he
had, indeed, little knowledge of any other. Some time before the
victories of Gen. Wayne over the Indians on the Miamies, gained in
1794, he was exchanged or released, and having bid adieu to his Indian
friends, returned to Kentucky. Thence he proceeded to the settlements
on the Holston and Nolachucka. His relatives did not recognize him,
particularly as he could not speak English. His mother only knew him by
a mark she remembered.
Having heard of Gen. Sevier, and being inspired with profound respect
for one who had obtained so high a reputation as a military officer,
he ventured at length to seek his acquaintance. The General became
deeply interested in the history of the young man, and was anxious
to obtain from him some account that could be depended on, of the
numbers and disposition of the northern tribes of Indians. He desired
also an accurate description of the country stretching between the
Ohio and the Lakes, over much of which Shawtunte had passed in his
various travels while domesticated among the savages. He was quite
willing to gratify his friend by stories of Indian life and adventure,
and his accounts of the perils and hardships he had encountered in
his sojourn in the wilderness, awakened the lively sympathy of his
auditor. It may be supposed that the General was not the only listener
on such occasions, to these tales of adventure wilder than romance,
as he had without hesitation admitted Shawtunte to the acquaintance
and hospitality of his family. The interest expressed in fair faces
at his narration, could not fail to encourage vivid details of “most
disastrous chances,
Of moving accidents by flood and field,”
such as might well enchain the hearing of those who had seen enough
of Indian life to take an interest in all that concerned their savage
neighbors. As an evidence of his regard, Gen. Sevier promised to exert
his influence in procuring him a military appointment; and did so with
such good effect that he was honored with a captain’s commission. He
performed service as a spy, and it is said was very useful in Gen.
Wayne’s army; also, that he stood high as an officer and a gentleman.
Meanwhile he had been aiming at a conquest of another sort in the
family of the Governor-General, having become deeply enamored of his
fair daughter, Ruth. Her appearance at this time is described as being
very prepossessing. In symmetry of form and grace of attitude she was
unrivalled. It was said, “she was never in the least awkward; she never
sat, stood, or walked, but with a natural ease and grace that was
perfect; and she was always a figure for a painter.” She had regular
and delicate features, with a complexion extremely fair, blue eyes,
and a chiselled mouth, expressive of intelligence and lively humor.
Her personal attractions were enhanced by a cheerful and sociable
disposition, a self-possessed and unembarrassed manner, and a faculty
of accommodating herself to any situation or circumstances, with powers
of entertaining conversation which made her society sought eagerly by
both sexes. It will not be wondered at that she never failed to make an
impression, or that she was an acknowledged centre of attraction; yet
as she was entirely free from vanity or arrogance, and seemed animated
not so much by a love of display as by a cheerful and kindly spirit,
and a desire to enjoy and contribute to the enjoyment of others, she
was not so much envied as loved.
It may seem strange enough that the affections of a creature so lovely
and accomplished, should be bestowed on one as untutored as the wild
Indian; but so it was, notwithstanding the difference between them
in education and manners, station and prospects in life. At the
time of his marriage with the Governor’s daughter, the liberated
captive was wholly unlettered, not knowing how to read or write. His
youthful and charming bride became his teacher, and he soon made such
proficiency, that “he might have passed tolerably in an examination
of boys in the spelling-book.” His attainments, however, were not
such as to enable him to spell or read with perfect correctness, or
to write with elegance, when he was promoted to the rank of colonel
in the United States army, and was ordered to Fort Pickering, on the
Mississippi. Here he was stationed in 1801-2. This military station,
now the beautiful and flourishing city of Memphis, was established on
the borders of the territory of the Chickasaw Indians, as a link in
the chain of military defences on the waters of the great river, for
the purpose of preserving peace with the savage nation, and protecting
emigration. The purchase of Louisiana followed soon after, and Col.
Sparks proceeded with his regiment to New Orleans when the country was
given into the possession of the American government. After this he
was stationed for a short time at Baton Rouge, and for a longer period
at Fort Adams, in the Mississippi territory. Mrs. Sparks accompanied
her husband to each of these places, and remained as long as it was
his duty to stay at the post. She always performed the duty of his
secretary, keeping his accounts, writing his letters, and making out
his reports to superior officers and the War Department.
In Natchez and other towns where there was anything that could be
called society, the claims of Mrs. Sparks to the respect and admiration
of social circles, did not fail to be recognized; she was, indeed, “the
cynosure of neighboring eyes,” and her influence became very extensive.
During her residence in Louisiana and at Fort Adams, several of the
Choctaws were in the habit of calling almost daily at her house, to
bring venison and wild turkeys or ducks, receiving in recompense some
token of remembrance from the “tyke (wife) of Shawtunte,” for they had
learned the history of Col. Sparks, and knew his Indian name; also that
Mrs. Sparks was the daughter of a warrior whose deeds were well known,
and whose bravery was highly esteemed by the southern tribes of Indians.