When the state of Georgia, by force, took possession of the Cherokee
lands within her borders, some of the prominent Indians sought
refuge in Tennessee. Among those who were chased out of Georgia was
Joseph Vann of Spring Place, a dozen miles east of Dalton. James
Vann, the father of Joseph, had married a full-blooded Cherokee. He
was a prosperous farmer. The two and a half-story brick residence
he erected about the year 1797 still stands at Spring Place and has
been tenanted through the years. It is looked on today as a splendid
example of early architecture.
[Illustration: An old boatman on the Tennessee River operating his
hand-propelled paddle wheel boat.]
After leaving Georgia, Joseph Vann settled on the south bank of the
Tennessee River, a few miles above the Chickamauga Dam. He was very
industrious, and soon there were thirty-five houses erected and
occupied on his property. The village was known as Vanntown. There
was scarcely a moment’s rest, however, for the poor Indians. The
greedy whites kept encroaching on their real estate until only a
small portion of their once large territory remained. Several years
previously the government had induced some of the Cherokees to move
to the Arkansas, west of the Mississippi. The last of the Cherokees
departed in 1838. At that time the white settlers took possession of
the lands lying south of the Tennessee River. Three years previous to
that date, however, the whites had slowly been slipping into their
lands. Hamilton County’s boundary was then extended to take in the
Cherokee lands from the Tennessee River to the Georgia line. It was
at that time that Dallas lost the county seat, since Vanntown was
chosen and a court house was erected. This happened about the time
that William H. Harrison was elected President of the United States,
so Vanntown became Harrison, Tennessee.
[Illustration: A Near View of the Chickamauga Dam and Lock.]
About the year 1815, following the close of the Creek War, John
Ross, Cherokee, and Timothy Meigs, son of Return J. Meigs, the
Indian Agent, established a trading post seven miles south of the
Chickamauga Dam. They operated a ferry as well as a general store.
The place became known as Ross’ Landing, but when the Indians had
departed for the lands in the West, the whites had the town surveyed,
and the name was changed to _Chattanooga_. John P. Long became the
first postmaster, March 22, 1837. However, this was not the first
post office established in the old Cherokee lands, for on April 5,
1817, Rossville post office was established four miles to the south
with John Ross as postmaster. This was said to have been the first
post office established in this part of the Cherokee Nation.
The word _Chattanooga_ is a corruption in the spelling of the
Muskogean word _Chatanugi_, which years previously had been the name
of Lookout Mountain, meaning “rock coming to a point.” In the narrow
valley between the east side of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge
is a small stream which was also known as _Chatanugi Creek_. Near its
mouth where it empties into the Tennessee was, in the 18th century, a
small Indian village by the same name.
It is an interesting geological fact that in ages past the water we
now know as the Tennessee River flowed south of the east base of
Lookout Mountain and emptied into the Coosa River in what is now
Alabama. A later upheaval blocked its southern passage and forced it
to seek a new route, which it did by cutting out its way through the
rough rocks of the Cumberlands.
The town of Chattanooga kept growing and was chosen as the county
seat. Harrison, which for many years had been full of promise for
growing into a large and thriving city, began to dwindle until it was
left behind as an ordinary village, which was wiped off of the map
by the waters after the building of the Chickamauga Dam. The forming
of the Chickamauga Lake created so many beautiful sites along its
margin that hundreds of families could not resist the advantages
offered by the board of the TVA to take up sites for summer homes
and camps. At various places on the lake are to be found beautiful
cottages and bungalows where families enjoy recreation as well as the
pure atmosphere and the cool currents of air that come from the fresh
waters. There they enjoy boating, fishing and other sports, not only
along the shores of Harrison Bay State Park, but also at Soddy and
other choice situations. When the town of Harrison was obliterated by
the impounded waters of Chickamauga Lake, there came into existence
new Harrison, whose people today enjoy boating and fishing where
Joseph Vann and other Cherokees once produced crops of hay and corn.