It is related of Daniel Boone that when (in 1764) he climbed to the summit
of the Alleghanies and looked down upon the vast herds of deer and buffalo
that were grazing at his feet, he said to his companion Callaway, "I am
richer than the man in Scripture who owned the cattle on a thousand hills:
I own the wild beasts in a thousand valleys."
It may be questioned if Boone had an adequate conception of the stupendous
possessions of the "man in Scripture," but he was certainly justified in
boasting of the wide magnificence of this domain which, by right of
discovery, he claimed as his own. An Indian might have told him that it
would require "three moons, two paddles, and two stout braves" to skirt
its southern and western boundaries and reach its northern limit on the
Ohio; but no phraseology known to the Red Man could have expressed the
boundless wealth, animate and inanimate, that lay hidden in its unexplored
recesses. By the leaves on the trees, or the stars in a cloudless night,
he might have indicated the countless herds of wild animals that roamed
upon it; but how would he picture the leafy magnificence of its forests,
or the grassy luxuriance of the many "openings" that everywhere dotted its
surface?
It was a tract of country larger than the combined kingdoms of England and
Scotland, and, from the exceeding richness of its soil, it was capable of
sustaining a far denser population than now inhabits the British Islands.
And yet throughout its entire extent there was at this period not a single
human habitation, not the solitary hut of a white settler nor the smoky
wigwam of a roving Indian. It was the hunting-ground and battle-field of
the Indians, claimed by hostile tribes, but occupied by none, and hence
the more inviting as a field for civilized settlement.
It is difficult for us to conceive of the enthusiasm which this new
country awoke in the mind of the primitive explorer. To him it was a new
world, more genial in climate, more beautiful in scenery, and more
magnificent in extent than any he had ever beheld; and it is not
surprising that the glowing accounts he gave of it on his return were
received with wondering incredulity by the simple farmers on the sterile
banks of the Yadkin. Accustomed to a sandy soil a few inches in thickness
and covered with a scanty growth of slender pines, how could they believe
in a yellow loam four feet or more in depth, and supporting dense forests
of oak and poplar ten feet in diameter and towering aloft a hundred feet
before they broke into branches? The tale was incredible, and it was years
before the wonderful story was believed among the rural population of
North Carolina, and then not until it was confirmed by the report of one
of their number,--a young farmer, selected by themselves to accompany
Boone on his third exploration, in 1769.
This young man was James Robertson, of Wake County, North Carolina, and,
as he was to become a principal agent in the settlement of the Southwest,
he requires here a few words of description. He was at this time about
twenty-seven years of age, a little above the medium height, and of a
well-knit, robust, manly frame. He had prominent features, and thick dark
hair falling loosely over a square, full forehead which rose in the
coronal region into an almost abnormal development. His eyes were large,
of a light blue, and shaded by heavy dark eyebrows; and they had an
habitual look of introspection, showing a mind of more than common
thoughtfulness. He was grave, earnest, self-contained, with the quiet
consciousness of power which is natural to a born leader of men. And yet
there was in his manner no self-assumption or arrogance. On the contrary,
he was courteous and conciliatory, and had that rare blending of
self-respect and deference for others which, while it repelled undue
familiarity, put the rudest at his ease, and extracted from an old
Cherokee chieftain, who all his life had been the enemy of the white race,
the unwilling praise, "He has winning ways, and he makes no fuss."
Though clad in homespun, and too much absorbed in things of greater moment
to be over-careful of his personal appearance, he was a man of so marked a
character that he would have attracted attention in almost any assemblage.
Cautious, careful of consequences, and watchful of danger, he was at the
same time bold, fearless, and ever ready to undertake enterprises which
would stagger men of fewer mental resources. So exactly was he fitted to
the time and the circumstances in which he was placed, that the conclusion
is irresistible that he was a providential man, especially appointed to
his work by a Higher Power.
This was his own conviction, but he came to it at a later time, when
experience had shown that he bore a charmed life, and he had realized what
his single arm and brain might accomplish. But now, in his own eyes, as in
those of others, he was a simple countryman, able to "read, write, and
cipher" and to do small jobs of surveying, but with little knowledge of
any book except the Bible, though in that so deeply versed that it moulded
his speech and regulated his every action. His nature was deeply religious,
but he had, as yet, no higher aim in life than to make a home for himself,
his wife and child in some new region, where he might acquire a competence,
and rise, perhaps, to a station of some little influence and consideration.
And now, merely stating that he was born in Brunswick County, Virginia, of
Scotch-Irish parentage, on the 28th of June, 1742, and that at the age of
twenty-five he had married Charlotte B. Reeves, a woman nine years younger
than himself, but everyway worthy to be his wife, I will go on with him
and Boone in his first journey over the Alleghanies.
His equipment was a horse, a blanket, a hatchet, and a hunting-knife. Over
his shoulder were slung a long Deckard rifle, a powder-horn, and a bag of
bullets; and on the horse behind him were balanced a sack well filled with
parched corn, a package of salt, and a tin cup for drinking purposes. This
was his entire outfit. On the parched corn and the game to be procured by
his rifle he was to subsist on his journey.
There were half a dozen in the party, and they followed the trail hitherto
taken by Boone, for there was no road, nor even a bridle-path. After
leaving the settlements their way lay through an almost unbroken forest;
but there was no difficulty in keeping the trail, for it had been
carefully blazed by Boone on his previous journeys. At night they encamped
under some spreading tree, and, tethering their horses among the timbers,
lighted a fire with the extra flint which each one carried in his
bullet-pouch. Their mode of lighting a fire is peculiar to the
backwoodsman. A handful of dry grass or leaves is gathered, then twisted
into a nest, in which is placed a piece of ignited punk; then the grass is
closed over the punk, and the ball is waved, in the air till it breaks
into a blaze, when it readily ignites the bundle of dry sticks with which
the fire is kindled. Then the limbs of dead trees are heaped upon the
blaze, and one of the travellers sets about preparing supper for the whole
party. It is probably of venison, for there are plenty of deer in that
region. As soon as the burning logs have deposited a good bed of ashes, a
hole is scooped in them, and in it is deposited the haunch or other
portion. When sufficiently done, it is taken out, the ashes are knocked
away, and then--no civilized man, whose appetite has never been sharpened
by open-air exposure in the woods, can understand the keen avidity with
which the delicious viand is consumed.
Supper over, each traveller lights his pipe of fragrant "Honey-Dew," or
still more fragrant "Kinnikinnick"; and the evening is most likely whiled
away in pleasant talk and narrative of "moving accidents" by field and
forest. Boone was a good narrator, and, though but five years the senior
of Robertson, had already a large experience of thrilling adventure. At
last, heaping fresh logs upon the fire, to keep up the blaze till morning
and scare away the wolves and panthers that might be attracted by the
scent of the venison, the travellers would spread their blankets upon the
ground, turn their feet to the fire, and sink into slumber.
Thus they encamped by night and journeyed by day, till they reached the
summit of the Stone Mountains, the northerly portion of the long range
which is now the boundary between Tennessee and North Carolina. And here a
view broke upon them such as Robertson, accustomed as he was to the
comparatively tame scenery of Wake County, had never beheld. Spread out at
their feet was a beautiful valley, some thirty miles in length by twenty
in width, and covered by a luxuriant forest, broken here and there by
grassy openings, one of which, larger than the rest, was the "Watauga Old
Fields" of the Pioneers. Some twenty miles away, two small rivers united
their currents and flowed together to the west through a gap in the
encircling mountains. Tracing their courses up among the hills, the
explorers would catch glimpses of numerous smaller streams, which feed the
larger ones and water the whole of this enchanting region.
The valley, which is itself two thousand feet above the sea, is hemmed in
by huge mountain-ranges,--the Holston on the north and west, and the Iron
and Stone Mountains on the south and east,--which break into peaks--the
White-Top, the Bald, and the Roan--the lowest of which towers more than a
mile into the air. These mountains protect the valley from the chill winds
of winter, and temper the summer breezes to a delicious coolness, making
the atmosphere the most delightful that can be imagined. The bottoms along
the rivers are wide and productive, bearing then a thick crop of tall
grass, on which multitudes of deer, elk, and buffalo were browsing. The
soil of the bottoms is a deep, dark loam, capable of yielding immense
crops of wheat and Indian corn, while the higher and less fertile land
along the base of the mountain will produce fruits of the most delicate
flavor and in astonishing abundance.
Altogether, the scene is picturesque beyond description,--a charming
valley, threaded by limpid streams, and dotted with dense forests of oak,
pine, poplar, cherry, and walnut, the whole encircled by huge sandstone
ridges, their loftier peaks capped by the clouds, and standing there grim,
silent, and sublime, like giant sentinels guarding the gates of an earthly
paradise. Years afterward, speaking of the scene as it then broke upon him,
Robertson said, "It seemed to me the Promised Land."
As the explorers prepared to descend into the valley, they noticed a few
miles away, at the north, a slight smoke curling up from among the trees
near the banks of what is now known as Boone's Creek, a small tributary of
the Watauga. Was it from the encampment of some Indian hunter, or the
cabin of a white man who had settled there since the visit of Boone, five
years before? With the caution of old hunters they descended the mountain
and approached the spot whence the smoke issued. It was a log hut, newly
built, and around it, in the stacked corn and the cattle browsing near,
were evidences of a white inhabitant. He was a former comrade of Boone,
his companion during his visit here in 1760, and he had returned during
the previous summer and built a home for his family. His name was William
Bean, and he was the first white settler west of the Alleghanies.
The explorers were hospitably entertained by Bean and his wife, but, after
a few days spent in piloting Robertson about the valley, Boone set out on
his first long tramp through Kentucky. Robertson remained behind, and was
not long in deciding that he had happened upon the right spot for a
settlement. This decided on, he set about making preparations for the
incoming settlers. Selecting a spot of fertile soil, he broke it up and
planted a crop of corn,--enough to carry the expected colonists through
another season,--meanwhile making his home with Bean, the hospitable first
settler.
It was autumn before his corn was gathered, and the rainy season had set
in when he started to return to North Carolina. He had carefully husbanded
his small stock of powder and lead, and with what remained, and enough
parched corn and jerked venison to last, with what game he might kill, for
ten or more days, he set out on his solitary journey homeward. There soon
came on a heavy rain, which drenched him completely, and, worse than this,
wet through and through every ounce of his powder. Wrapping his blanket
closely about him, he tried to dry the powder with the warmth of his naked
flesh; but all his efforts were unavailing: the precious grains had
totally lost the power of ignition. Reduced now to his prepared food, he
determined to push on with all speed, and, before his supply should be
exhausted, reach the settlements on the other side of the mountains.
On the westerly part of the route the explorers had neglected to blaze the
way, and now, day after day, the sun was hidden by thick clouds. Robertson
had no difficulty so long as he could take his bearings by the course of
the Watauga, but when he had passed the sources of that stream he was all
at sea, with neither sun nor star nor compass to guide him. He scanned the
heavens with anxious eye, but they disclosed no glimpse of the blessed
sun: all was mist and rain by day, and by night the blackest of darkness.
Tired, drenched, bewildered, he wandered aimlessly on, lost, completely
lost, in an almost interminable forest. His food, too, was fast running
low, and the scant herbage still left among the trees would no longer
sustain his jaded animal. Then he turned the trusty beast adrift, to find
its own way out of starvation.
He had eked out his scanty provisions with the nuts of the beech and
chestnut, but now this resource was exhausted; the last handful of corn
was consumed, and he was in a region of rocks and precipices (probably
near the western base of the mountain), where nothing grew that would
sustain life. Exhausted nature could hold out no longer. His strength was
gone, he could not articulate above a whisper, and, sinking down at the
foot of a cliff, he resigned himself to the inevitable.
How long he lay there he never told, and perhaps never knew; but at last,
when his senses were nearly gone, he heard voices, and then approaching
footsteps. They were two hunters, probably the only two human beings
within a radius of a hundred miles. They came directly to the spot where
he was lying, but did not see him till actually upon him. Dismounting from
their horses, they lifted him in their arms, revived him with some spirits,
and then, sparingly at first, ministered to him of the food in their
knapsacks. Slowly his strength returned, but they stayed by him, and, when
he was able to mount, seated him on one of their horses, and then guided
him out of the mountain and for more than fifty miles on his way to the
settlements. Then the good Samaritans went as they came, into the wide
forest, leaving not even their names to a wondering tradition.
His friends and neighbors were enraptured with the description Robertson
gave of the country he had discovered. To them the sterile plains and
rocky uplands of Wake County lost their attractions when compared with the
fertile valley which he pictured, and sixteen families prepared to go with
him in the following spring to a new home west of the mountains.
When the April rains were over, they set out, about eighty souls, men,
women, and children. They journeyed slowly, the men mostly on foot, the
women on pack-horses, with the younger children in their arms or strapped
upon the horses behind them, and the older ones trudging along by the side
of their fathers, or aiding to drive the neat cattle, a score or more of
which were the advance-guard of the cavalcade. The outfit of the party was
simple. The men carried the usual equipment of the hunter, the women some
light articles of clothing; and loaded on several led horses were such
bedding and kitchen-utensils as would be needed at the end of the journey.
They followed the route taken by the explorers, sleeping at night on the
ground, beneath the open air, or sheltered by an improvised tent made of
two forked poles thrust into the ground and supporting a longer pole, over
which was stretched a heavy blanket. Should it rain, these tents were
quickly pitched and all the travellers were soon under shelter. At the
halting-place for the night a fire was built, the cows were milked, the
journey-boards unpacked, and the delicious journey-cake (misnamed
"Johnny-cake") was set before the fire or baked in the ashes. To this was
added the deer or wild turkey shot by the men during the day, and they had
a repast "fit to set before a king." The same was done before setting out
in the morning; but at noon only a short halt was made for a cold lunch
from the remains of the breakfast.
Thus they journeyed for about ten days, until they reached the base of
Stone Mountain. Here they struck into a cove which breaks into the
mountainside, and climbed by a winding route, but by easy stages, to the
summit. Robertson rode by the side of his wife, and in front of her,
astride of the pommel of the saddle, was their child, now a bright little
fellow of two or three years. Later on he will appear again in our pages,
and then disappear forever from human history.
As they wearily climbed the toilsome way, and paused to rest, as they
probably did, at the summit, did not that young wife and mother look back,
to gaze again upon the scenes she was leaving behind her? What girlhood
associations she had I do not know, but she was leaving them all, and the
old roof-tree beneath which she had spent her young days: all were about
to pass out of her life forever. As she glanced forward into the tangled
wilderness, would she not have turned back had a vision come to her of the
hardships and dangers and death that lay before her?--her life at first
buried amid the solitudes and dangers of Watauga, and then consigned to a
frail boat which was to bear her a thousand miles, through untold perils,
to a still more distant wilderness, where her home would be encircled with
savage fire and the babe at her breast would be laid scalped and dying at
her feet!
As they began the descent of the western slope of the mountain, an
unexpected scene met the eyes of Robertson. When he left it in the
previous autumn, the valley was an almost unbroken solitude; now the smoke
was rising from a score of cabins, about which were many evidences of
civilization. Nearly a hundred settlers were there, and the place was
already a busy community.
There was not house-room for the large influx of strangers, but the spring
weather was mild and genial, and they could encamp under the spreading
trees until half-faced cabins were erected for their temporary shelter.
These cabins were built of split saplings, one end resting on the ground,
the other supported by a frame of forked poles about high enough for a man
to enter standing upright. They were open at the front, but the sides and
rear were covered with thick blankets, so as to afford shelter and
privacy. Of no recognized order of civilized architecture, they would
still serve to keep out the wind and the rain, and under them, on blankets,
or now and then on the precious feather bed, spread on the ground, the
tired immigrants might sleep as soundly as the renowned Sancho Panza of
sleepy memory.
Their food was supplied from the corn planted and harvested by Robertson
on his previous visit, and from the deer, buffalo, or wild turkey brought
down by the unerring riflemen among them. On deer and wild turkey they had
regaled before, but buffalo-meat was a delicacy with which they were not
acquainted, and, its rich, juicy, tender steak once tasted, all other meat
lost its flavor. None of them had ever even seen the animal, and we may
imagine the wonder with which they first beheld the vast herds that almost
darkened the valley. Lolling in the shade of the trees, or cropping
leisurely the thick grass of the "openings," their coal-black beards
sweeping the ground, and their long tails lashing their sleek dun sides,
the noble beasts would gaze unconcernedly on the intruder, totally
unconscious that this slender biped, with the slim smoke-breathing tube he
bore in his hand, was ere long to wellnigh exterminate the lordly race and
drive its scanty remnant far west of the Rocky Mountains. They were an
easy prey to the early hunter, and thus the rude larders of the first
settlers were filled to abundance.
Their wives and children provided with temporary shelter, the immigrants
looked about for locations for more permanent dwellings, Virginia offered
to every actual settler who should erect a log cabin and cultivate a small
patch of ground four hundred acres so located as to include his
improvements, together with the right to buy a thousand acres adjoining,
at a price scarcely more than enough to cover the cost of surveying. The
immigrants knew they were near the North Carolina boundary, but they
supposed they were north of the line which starts "at a white stake on the
Atlantic Ocean, at north 39° 20', and runs thence west to the South Seas,"
and thus were within the limits of Virginia and entitled to avail
themselves of its cheap munificence,--cheap, because the whole territory
had been bought by King George from the Six Nations for a few trinkets the
total value of which did not exceed the cost of the wedding-outfit of a
modern lady of fashion.
This line, "west to the South Seas," had not then been run farther west
than the "Steep Rock," near the White-Top Mountain. When it was
subsequently extended, the settlers found themselves within the limits of
North Carolina and not entitled to the benefit of the Virginia law. But of
this more hereafter. Now they were unconscious of encroaching on any
rights of white man or red, and went on with their improvements, confident
that they were acquiring an indefeasible title to their new possessions.
Nearly all the settlers whom Robertson found at Watauga were from Fairfax
County, Virginia, and they had been attracted to the country by the report
given of it by Dr. Thomas Walker, who with other gentlemen had made a
hunting and exploring-tour through it as early as 1748. They were mostly
from the farming population, somewhat uncouth in manner, and not much
acquainted with books, but not illiterate, for in a document subscribed
soon afterward by upward of a hundred of them only two names are signed
with a cross. They had but little wealth; but they had what in a new
community is far better,--frugal and industrious habits, enterprise, firm
self-reliance, and the cool intrepidity which is fostered by frequent
exposure to danger. No better material could have been selected to subdue
the wilderness to the purposes of agriculture.
Among them, however, were some who had received the best education then
afforded by the colonies. Prominent among these were the Seviers,--a
father and four sons, who some time before had emigrated from Shenandoah
County, Virginia, and settled about thirty miles farther north, near what
is now Bristol, in Tennessee. There they were neighbors to the Shelbys,
--another father and four sons,--who also have left an heroic record in
the history of the Revolution.
Some of the younger Seviers, coming upon this valley on a
hunting-expedition, had induced their father to remove to it; and here,
"higher up the river, on its north side, and near the closing in of a
ridge," he had built a roomy log mansion, a portion of which was still
standing in 1844. The sons had erected dwellings lower down the river, and
nearer the "Watauga Old Fields."
The Seviers were of French descent. The family name in France was Xavier,
and they originally came from Xavier, a town at the foot of the Pyrenees,
in Navarre, which was the birthplace of the famous ecclesiastic and
missionary St. Francis Xavier. After the death of the saint the family
became Huguenots, and on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 the
direct ancestor of the Seviers of whom I am writing fled from France and
settled in London, where he is said to have engaged in trade and
prospered. The grandson of this man, Valentine Sevier, emigrated to
Shenandoah County, Virginia, shortly prior to 1740; and this is the
gentleman who, with his four sons, had now settled in the valley of the
Watauga.
Each of these young men displayed qualities in after-life that would have
rendered him worthy of notice in the annals of any community; but the
oldest, John, born in 1744, is the one whose life and exploits will demand
much the larger space in the following pages. Though so young, he had
already acquired some distinction in his native State, for he had been
appointed a captain in the "Virginia line" by the Earl of Dunmore, the
last royalist governor of Virginia. In that capacity he had come in
contact with Washington, who was a colonel in the same service; and it was
doubtless owing to their early association that twenty years afterward,
when Sevier was under the ban of outlawry by North Carolina, Washington
appointed him to the military command of East Tennessee.
This young man was destined to become one of the most unique characters in
American history. I know of no other of whom it can be said that he was
loved by both his friends and his enemies. Indian mothers were wont to
hush their children to sleep with the terror of his name, but Indian
chieftains were known to plead when in distress, "Send us John Sevier. He
is a good man, and he will do us right." In the times that "tried men's
souls" to the uttermost he was to stand firm when most men faltered. He
was to be "the rear-guard of the Revolution," and in its darkest days was
to throw his sword into the trembling scale and turn it to final victory
at King's Mountain.
At this time he was about twenty-six years of age, nearly six feet in
height, and of a slender but wiry and athletic figure. His carriage was
erect, his movements quick and energetic, and his bearing commanding. He
had light hair, a fair skin, and a ruddy complexion, and his large
dark-blue eyes were singularly expressive of vivacity, good feeling, and
fearlessness. He had handsome features, a lofty forehead, a prominent nose,
and a mouth and chin of absolute perfection. His manners were exceedingly
winning, and he had about him a sort of magnetic force that would convert
into a friend the most stubborn of enemies. However, it is doubtful if,
with but one exception, he ever had an enemy. His individuality was so
marked that, if told John Sevier was present, any stranger could have
pointed him out in the most crowded assemblage. His career will read more
like romance than history, but it was entirely in keeping with the man,
who was altogether great, unselfish, heroic, one of those choice spirits
who are now and then sent into the world to show us of what our human
nature is capable. Next to the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, the
coming together of those two bodies of emigrants on the Watauga was the
most important event which up to that time had occurred in American
history; but it was no more important than the meeting there of John
Sevier and James Robertson, for, humanly speaking, had those two men not
met, and acted thereafter in harmony together, the civilization there
planted could never have survived the struggle it was destined to
encounter with savage foes and fratricidal enemies.
There were now between thirty and forty men in the settlement, and, the
location of the new-comers being decided on, they all set about the
erection of their dwellings. Trees were felled, cut into logs, hewn into
joists, split into flooring, and rived into shingles, and in an incredibly
short time the various families were domiciled in their new abodes. These
were generally one and a half stories high, about twenty feet square, and
built of rough logs, chamfered at the ends, so as to fit closely together.
They had a solid plank door, hung on wooden hinges, and two or three small
windows, formed by sawing through one or two of the outer logs. The
windows were entirely open, or closed only with a stout blind, and glazed
with thick paper saturated with bear's grease to render it transparent;
but the larger number of the cabins, if destitute of glazing, were
furnished with blinds, which were necessary as a protection against
intruders. The roof was covered with large split shingles, held down by
long weight-poles, and the floors were of puncheons,--wide pieces of oak
or poplar, two or three inches thick, split and hewn with an axe, and laid
upon sleepers. If the hewing is well done, such floors are as level and
smooth as if fashioned of machine-made material. The chimney was of sticks
or stones, laid up in clay, and it went up on the outside in a pyramidal
form, and of a size totally disproportioned to the dwelling, for these
people were fond of a wide roaring fire in winter, and in summer the huge
flue was the best of all ventilators. If it is added that the roof of some
of these cabins was extended in front so as to cover a wide veranda, that
the bark and moss were left clinging to the logs, which by another season
would be covered with honeysuckles and the Virginia creeper, we shall see
that they must have presented no unpicturesque appearance.
The interiors need only a brief description. There were generally but two
rooms, one below, the other above, approached by a ladder in a corner. The
lower floor was parlor, kitchen, and often bedroom. The fireplace was deep
and wide, surmounted, perhaps, by a broad mantel of unpainted oak, on
which were a few trinkets and the violin so precious to the backwoodsman.
In one corner was a spinning-jenny, in another an uncushioned settle, and
opposite the fireplace a bureau or chest of drawers of native wood and
home manufacture. These, with a small table, a few chairs with rustic
frames and deerskin coverings, also of home manufacture, and a couple of
forked sticks nailed to one of the logs and supporting the trusty rifle,
would probably complete the furniture of the apartment.
This is a description of the smaller houses. Others, adapted to larger
families, were what were termed "double-barrelled" cabins, having two
rooms on the ground-floor, separated by an open passage-way, and a
"lean-to" in the rear to serve as a kitchen. Still others, it may be, were
like the mansion of the elder Sevier,--half a dozen single cabins tacked
one upon the other and covering space enough to serve for the foundation
of a cathedral.
From these details we can easily form for ourselves a picture of the first
civilized settlement beyond the Alleghanies. A score or more of these
cabins were scattered here and there in the very heart of the forest, the
great trees crowding so closely around them as often to overhang their
very roofs. Near them horses and cattle were grazing on the thick native
grass that grows among the trees, or housed in rude sheds at the rear of
the dwellings, while farther away, along the margin of the many streams,
deer and elk and buffalo were browsing. Glimpses of foot-paths leading
from one widely-separated dwelling to another might be here and there seen;
but there were no roads, for no wheeled vehicle had yet invaded the
sylvan solitude.
Their families being properly housed, the settlers began to think of a
school for the instruction of their children. Books were scarce among them,
especially such as were suited to the instruction of the young. Paper,
ink, slates, and pencils, also, were not easily procured. Even years later
important letters and despatches were often written with ink made of
gunpowder and on a blank leaf torn from a family Bible. But books and
writing-implements were now imported from Virginia, and, a teacher being
selected from among the better educated of the settlers, a school was
opened, and the young ideas were taught to shoot in the right direction.
The people now numbered, all told, about two hundred souls, not more than
forty of whom were able to bear arms. On the east a mountain barrier shut
them off from all civilized aid and succor, and on every other side they
were exposed to savage tribes, at least a hundred thousand strong, of whom
not less than fifteen thousand were warriors. Three thousand of these, and
those nearest the settlement, were Cherokees, a fierce, warlike race, by
instinct and tradition the foe of the white man. How this handful of
pioneers came to venture upon such dangerous ground, or, being there,
escaped total extermination, may well excite our wonder. They understood
their exposed situation, but they went peacefully about their daily
pursuits, tilling the soil, planting and harvesting, and "gathering into
barns," or, more correctly, into ricks,--for as yet there were no barns
among them,--unmolested by the Indians, and in harmony with one another,
for two full years of genuine prosperity. They send accounts of their
prosperity to the friends they have left beyond the mountains, and new
immigrants come to the settlement, some of them men of means, who aid
materially in its development. However, they are an abnormal community.
Two colonies claim jurisdiction over them, but the claim is never enforced,
and never extends beyond a discussion in State papers; so they are
without law or anything to assert its majesty. There is no power to
enforce a right or punish a wrong, and not a solitary lawyer in the
settlement. Every man is a law unto himself, but, strange to say, not a
single crime is committed among them.
The new-comers spread, in search of choice locations, west as far as the
Chimney-Top Mountain, and south to the fertile valley of the Nolachucky.
The more remote settlers were therefore in a very exposed position,
--almost alone, and beyond them a wide wilderness,--but they had no fear
from the Indians. The few who came to the settlements were friendly, and,
after smoking and eating with the settler, they would go away, grasping
his hand and assuring him that the red man was his brother. Those were
halcyon days; but Satan entered into Paradise, and one of his legitimate
children,--a Scotchman named Cameron,--in the early spring of 1772,
invaded this Eden on the Watauga.
He was the British agent residing among the Cherokees; and he came with
several of the chieftains to warn the settlers that they had encroached
upon the Indian lands, and must move off, or be removed by the British
soldiery. However, he whispered into the ear of Sevier and Robertson that
for a reasonable consideration paid to him--the representative of the
British government--the settlers would be permitted to remain undisturbed
in their possessions.
Unfortunately, the Indian agent was right. Virginia had left her exposed
citizens to the tender mercy of the Cherokees by admitting that they had
settled upon Indian territory. By a treaty made with the tribe only a
short time before, the State had acknowledged the Cherokee title to the
entire region lying south of a line running due west from the White-Top
Mountain. It was idle for the white settlers to say that the Six Nations,
who had been the original owners of the soil, had in 1768 transferred it
to the government by treaty, and that the Cherokees had never before
claimed any right to it but as a hunting-ground. The parent colony had
acknowledged in the Cherokees a right to the soil, and hence, as the
settlers were south of the treaty-line, had made them trespassers upon the
Cherokee territory. It was an unfortunate and dangerous position; but
Robertson and Sevier were not disposed to purchase security by bribery.
They spurned the overtures of the British agent, and decided to negotiate
directly with the Indians.
Some of the visiting Indians expressed a desire that the order of the
British agent should not be enforced; others were willing that the
settlers should remain, provided they made no further encroachments. But
Robertson and Sevier were not willing to occupy their homes by any title
so precarious as the word of a few Indian warriors. They determined, while
they ignored the British agent, to recognize the Indian title, but to
treat for their lands with the whole Cherokee nation. Accordingly, they
requested the visiting chiefs to call together the head-men of the tribe
in a friendly council at the "Watauga Old Fields."
They came at the appointed time,--six hundred half-naked red men, clad in
buckskin leggings and hunting--shirts and head-dress of turkey-feathers,
and all the male settlers, now nearly a hundred, together with all the
women and children in the near-by plantations, assembled to receive them.
Robertson, from his "winning ways," had been appointed master of
ceremonies, and he resorted to every device to placate and amuse the
savage gentlemen. Dances, ball-plays, and foot-races were improvised, in
which the young men of both races joined in good-natured rivalry; but,
while attending to the festivities, Robertson did not forget the real
object of the gathering. For the consideration of five thousand dollars,
to be paid in powder, lead, muskets, and other goods of value to the
Indians, he obtained from them a ten years' lease of all the lands on the
Watauga and tributary streams. This lease was executed by the head-king,
Oconostota, and other leading men of the tribe, and it was supposed that
it would remove for a long time to come all difficulty with the Cherokees.
But this dream was only the next day rudely dispelled by a most
unfortunate occurrence.
It was the last day of the convocation, and it had been arranged that a
great foot-race should take place on the open ground near the river,
between the younger braves and the young men of the settlement. The race
was in full progress, and among the younger men all was mirth, hilarity,
and good-natured emulation, while even the older chiefs, catching the
spirit of the occasion, had relaxed from their habitual gravity and were
cheering on the contestants, when suddenly a musket-shot echoed over the
grounds, and one of the young Indians--a near kinsman of a chief--fell in
his tracks lifeless. The smoke came from the woods near the race-ground,
and pursuit failed to discover the assassin, but he was evidently a white
man.
It was as if the shot had been fired into a magazine of gunpowder. The
Indians had come without arms, or there might have followed a bloody
tragedy. As it was, they gathered their blankets about them, and, with
threatening gestures and faces presaging a terrible revenge, silently
stole away into the forest.
It was afterward learned that the murderer was a man named Crabtree, from
the Wolf Hills, now Abingdon, in Virginia. A brother of his had been
killed by the Shawnees a short time before while exploring with Boone in
Kentucky, and, lurking in the woods near by, he had taken this inopportune
time to wreak a bloody revenge.
The Indians had left hastily, giving no time for explanation or parley.
Revenge--blood for blood--was the cardinal doctrine of their theology, and,
unless something were done to avert it, war, bloody and exterminating,
would soon be upon the white settlers.
But what could be done? To flee the country was only to invite pursuit; to
remain would be to invite a conflict with three thousand infuriated
savages. Hastily they gathered in council; and then it was that Robertson
volunteered, like Curtius, to ride into the breach,--at the peril of his
life to visit and endeavor to pacify the Indians. It was a journey of a
hundred and fifty miles through an unbroken forest, and death might lurk
behind every bush and tree on the way; but what was one life perilled to
save perhaps five hundred? Thus Robertson reasoned with his friends and
neighbors, and then, mounting his horse and giving a parting kiss to his
wife and child, he rode off into the wilderness.