Chapter XXV: Elizabeth Kenton, 428 (1)

THE PIONEER WOMEN OF THE WEST.

I.

MARY BLEDSOE.

“Men’s due deserts each reader may recite,
For men of men do make a goodly show;
But women’s works can seldom come to light,
No mortal man their famous acts may know;
Few writers will a little time bestow,
The worthy acts of women to repeat;
Though their renown and the deserts be great.”

The poet’s complaint might be made with peculiar justice in the case of American women who followed the earliest adventurers into the unknown forests of the West. One of their own number often said--“A good Providence sent such men and women into the world together. They were made to match.” Such a race will probably never again live in this country. The progress of improvement, art, and luxury, has a tendency to change the female character, so that even a return of the perils of war, or the necessity for exertion, would hardly develop in it the strength which belonged to the matrons who nursed the infancy of the Republic. They were formed by early training in habits of energetic industry, and familiarity with privation and danger, to take their part in subduing the wilderness for the advance of civilization. Though their descendants cannot emulate their heroic deeds, it will be a pleasing task to call up recollections of them; to observe their patient endurance of hardship, and to compare their homely but honest exterior with the accomplishment and graces of the sex in modern days.

A large portion of the history of the early settlers of the West has never been recorded in any published work. It is full of personal adventure, and no power of imagination could create materials more replete with romantic interest than their simple experience afforded. The training of those hardy pioneers in their frontier life; the daring with which they penetrated the wilderness, plunging into trackless forests, and encountering the savage tribes whose hunting grounds they had invaded, and the sturdy perseverance with which they overcame all difficulties, compel our wondering admiration. It has been truly said of them, “The greater part of mankind might derive advantage from the contemplation of their humble virtues, hospitable homes, and spirits patient, noble, proud, and free; their self-respect, grafted on innocent thoughts; their days of health and nights of sleep; their toils by danger dignified, yet guiltless; their hopes of a cheerful old age and a quiet grave.”

But less attention has been given to their exploits and sufferings than they deserve, because the accounts read are too vague and general; the picture not being brought near, nor exhibited with lifelike proportions and coloring. A collection of memoirs of women must of necessity include some reliable account of the domestic and daily life of those heroic adventurers, and may perhaps supply the deficiency. Commencing with the first colonists of Tennessee, which claims priority of settlement, we light upon a name associated with its early annals, and distinguished among pioneers--that of Bledsoe. But before entering on a sketch of this family, a brief view may be given of the general state of the country.

Until the year 1700, the territory of North Carolina and Tennessee, and an indefinite region extending south-west and north-west, in the language of the royal British charters, to the South Seas, was known as “our county of Albemarle, in Carolina.” Even as late as 1750, the country lying west of the Appalachian mountains was wholly unknown to the people of the Carolinas and Virginia. When, a few years later, the British army under Braddock crossed the mountains from Maryland and Pennsylvania, and marched to Fort Du Quesne, that march was described by the writers of the times as an advance into the deep recesses and fastnesses of a savage wilderness. At that time the French owned all the Canadas, the valley of the Ohio and all its tributaries, and claimed the rest of the continent to the confines of Mexico, westward from the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. The old French maps of that period, and the journals and letters of French traders and hunters, together with the traditions of the Indians, afford the only reliable information in relation to the then condition of the country now composing Kentucky and Tennessee. In the French maps of those times, the Kentucky, Holston, Tennessee, and Ohio are laid down. The Kentucky is called Cataway, the Holston the Cherokee, and the Little Tennessee the Tanasees. This river, after the junction of the Holston and Tennessee, is called Ho-go-hegee, and the only Indian town marked on its banks is at the mouth of Bear Creek, near the north-west corner of Alabama. There were forts which were little more than trading posts, at several points on the Ohio and Mississippi; Fort Du Quesne, where Pittsburg now stands, and one at the mouth of the Kenhawa river; another at the mouth of the Kentucky, and Fort Vincennes, near the mouth of the Oubach, or Wabash; Fort Massac, half way between the mouth of the Ohio and the Tennessee, on the Illinois side, and another on the Tennessee, twelve miles above its mouth. They also had a fort where Memphis now stands, called Prud’homme; another at the mouth of the Arkansas, called Ackensâ; another near Natchez, and one at the junction of the Coosa and Tallapoosa, called Halabamas. South of these last forts, the Spaniards had possession in Florida, Louisiana, and Texas. The greater part of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Western Virginia, was represented on these maps as wholly uninhabited. Certain it is that not more than a dozen years afterwards, when the pioneers of Tennessee and Kentucky first explored that region, they found the banks of the Watauga, Cumberland, and Kentucky, with their tributaries, in this state. It was all one vast wilderness, into which hunting parties of Indians from its distant borders entered and roamed in pursuit of game, but in which they made no permanent lodgment. Numerous warlike nations lived south, west, and north of this wilderness, and hither it was that the lion-hearted pioneers of the Cumberland and Watauga came, with axe and rifle, to subdue at once the savage and the forest.

In 1758, Col. Bird, of the British army, established Fort Chissel in Wyth county, Virginia, to protect the frontiers, and, advancing into what is now Sullivan county, Tennessee, built a fort near Long Island, on the Holston or Watauga. There was not then a single white man living in the borders of Tennessee. The year before, Governor Dobbs of North Carolina had, at the request of the Cherokee Indians, built Fort Lowdon, and the Indians agreed to make grants of land to all artisans who would settle among them. Fort Lowdon was on the Little Tennessee, near the mouth of Tellico river, in the centre of the Cherokee nation, and about one hundred miles south of the fort at Long Island. Between these forts were the first settlements, which struggled for several years against the fearful ravages of Indian wars, before the beginning of the Revolution.

At irregular intervals from 1765 to 1769, came pioneer parties from Virginia and North Carolina, forming “camps,” “settlements,” and “stations.” Some of the earliest emigrants were from Raleigh and Salisbury, and settled upon the Watauga. The first settlement attempted on the spot where Nashville now stands, is said to have been in 1778, the “French Lick,” as the locality was named, having been discovered, according to Haywood, in 1769 or 1770, by a party of adventurers, who were descending the Cumberland on their way to Natchez, to dispose of articles which they had, and purchase others which they wanted. They saw an immense number of buffaloes and wild game. The lick and adjoining lands were crowded with them, and their bellowing resounded from the hills and forest. The place had previously been visited by French hunters and trappers from the north. The surrounding hills were then covered with cedars, whose foliage deeply shaded the rocky soil from which they sprung, and there was no appearance of former cultivation. No prospect spread before the eye but woods and cane, inhabited by buffaloes, elks, wolves, foxes, and other wild animals. Not deterred by the neighborhood of these, or fiercer savages, the new comers here erected cabins, constructed a stockade fort, and maintained possession against several attacks by the Indians.

Two brothers of the name of Bledsoe--Englishmen by birth,--were living in 1769 at Fort Chissel, then upon the extreme border of civilization. It was not long before they removed further into the wild, and they were among the earliest pioneers in the valley of the Holston. This portion of country, now Sullivan county, was at that time supposed to be within the limits of Virginia. The Bledsoes, with the Shelbys, settled themselves about twelve miles above the Island Flats. The beauty of that mountainous region attracted others, who, impelled by the same spirit of adventure and pride in being the first to explore the wilderness, came to join them in establishing the colony. They cheerfully ventured their property and lives, and endured the severest privations in taking possession of their new homes, influenced by the love of independence and equality. The most dearly prized rights of man had been threatened in the oppressive system adopted by Great Britain towards her colonies; her agents and the colonial magistrates manifested all the insolence of authority; and individuals who had suffered from their aggressions bethought themselves of a country beyond the mountains, in the midst of primeval forests, where no laws existed save the law of nature--no magistrate, except those selected by themselves; where full liberty of conscience, of speech, and of action prevailed. Yet almost in the first year they formed a written code of regulations by which they agreed to be governed; each man signing his name thereto. These settlements formed by parties of emigrants from neighboring provinces were not, in their constitution, unlike those of New Haven and Hartford; but among them was no godly Hooker, no learned and heavenly-minded Haynes. As, however, from the first they were exposed to the continual depredations and assaults of their savage neighbors, who looked with jealous eyes upon the approach of the white men, it was perhaps well that there were among them few men of letters. The rifle and the axe, their only weapons of civilization, suited better the perils they encountered from the fierce and marauding Shawnees, Chickamangas, Creeks, and Cherokees, than would the brotherly address of William Penn, or the pious discourses of Roger Williams.

During the first year, not more than fifty families had crossed the mountains; but others came with each revolving season to reinforce the little settlement, until its population swelled to hundreds. During the Revolutionary struggle, that region became the refuge of many patriots driven by British invasion from Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, some of the best families seeking homes there. Patriotic republicans who had sacrificed everything for their country, hoped to find in the secluded vales and thick forests of the West that peace and quiet which they had not found amidst the din of civil and foreign war. But they soon experienced the horrors of savage warfare, which swept away their property, and often robbed them of their wives and children, either by a barbarous death or slavery as captives dragged into the wild recesses of the Indian borders. They took up their residence, for mutual aid and protection, in clusters around different stations, within a short distance of one another, and many lived in the forts. Notwithstanding the frequent and terrible inroads upon their numbers, they increased to thousands within ten or fifteen years.

Not long after the Bledsoes established themselves upon the banks of the Holston, Col. Anthony Bledsoe, who was an excellent surveyor, was appointed clerk to the commissioners who ran the line dividing Virginia and North Carolina. Bledsoe had before this ascertained that Sullivan County was comprised within the boundaries of the latter province. In June, 1776, he was chosen by the inhabitants of the county to the command of the militia. The office imposed on him the dangerous duty of repelling the savages and defending the frontier. He had often to call out the militia and lead them to meet their Indian assailants, whom they would pursue to their villages through the recesses of the forest. In this month more than seven hundred Indian warriors advanced upon the settlements on the Holston, with the avowed object of exterminating the white race through all their borders. The battle of Long Island, fought a few miles below Bledsoe’s station, near the Island Flats, was one of the earliest and hardest fought battles known in the traditionary history of Tennessee. Col. Bledsoe, at the head of the militia, marched to meet the enemy, and in the conflict which ensued was completely victorious; the Indians being routed, and leaving forty dead upon the field. This disastrous defeat for a time held them in check; but the spirit of savage hostility was invincible, and in the years following there was a constant succession of Indian troubles, in which Col. Bledsoe was conspicuous for his bravery and services.

In 1779, Sullivan County having been recognized as a part of North Carolina, Governor Caswell appointed Anthony Bledsoe colonel, and Isaac Shelby lieutenant-colonel, of its military company. About the beginning of July of the following year, General Charles McDowell, who commanded a district east of the mountains, sent to Bledsoe a dispatch, giving him an account of the condition of the country. The surrender of Charleston had brought the State of South Carolina under British power; the people had been summoned to return to their allegiance, and resistance was ventured only by a few resolute spirits, determined to brave death rather than submit to the invader. The whigs had fled into North Carolina, whence they returned as soon as they were able to oppose the enemy. Colonels Tarleton and Ferguson had advanced towards North Carolina at the head of their soldiery; and McDowell ordered Col. Bledsoe to rally the militia of his county, and come forward in readiness to assist in repelling the invader’s approach. Similar dispatches were sent to Col. Sevier and other officers, and the patriots were not slow in obeying the summons.

While the British Colonel Ferguson, under the orders of Cornwallis, was sweeping the country near the frontier, gathering the loyalists under his standard and driving back the whigs, against whom fortune seemed to have decided, a resolute band was assembled for their succor far up among the mountains. From a population of five or six thousand, not more than twelve hundred of them fighting men, a body of near five hundred mountaineers, armed with rifles and clad in leathern hunting-shirts, was gathered. The anger of these sons of liberty had been stirred up by an insolent message received from Col. Ferguson, that “if they did not instantly lay down their arms, he would come over the mountains and whip their republicanism out of them;” and they were eager for an opportunity of showing what regard they paid to his threats.

At this juncture, Col. Isaac Shelby returned from Kentucky, where he had been surveying land for the great company of land speculators headed by Henderson, Hart, and others. The young officer was betrothed to Miss Susan Hart, a belle celebrated among the western settlements at that period, and it was shrewdly suspected that his sudden return from the wilds of Kentucky was to be attributed to the attractions of that young lady; notwithstanding that due credit is given to the patriot, in recent biographical sketches, for an ardent wish to aid his countrymen in their struggle for liberty by his active services at the scene of conflict. On his arrival at Bledsoe’s, it was a matter of choice with the colonel whether he should himself go forth and march at the head of the advancing army of volunteers, or yield the command to Shelby. It was necessary for one to remain behind, for the danger to the defenceless inhabitants of the country was even greater from the Indians than the British; and it was obvious that the ruthless savage would take immediate advantage of the departure of a large body of fighting men, to fall upon the enfeebled frontier. Shelby on his part insisted that it was the duty of Bledsoe, whose family, relatives, and defenceless neighbors looked to him for protection, to stay with the troops at home for the purpose of repelling the expected Indian assault. For himself, he urged, he had no family to guard, or who might mourn his loss, and it was better that he should advance with the troops to join McDowell. No one could tell where might be the post of danger and honor, at home or on the other side of the mountains. The arguments he used no doubt corresponded with his friend’s own convictions, his sense of duty to his family, and of true regard to the welfare of his country; and the deliberation resulted in his relinquishment of the command to his junior officer. It was thus that the conscientious, though not ambitious patriot, lost the honor of commanding in one of the most distinguished actions of the Revolutionary war.

Col. Shelby took the command of those gallant mountaineers who encountered the forces of Ferguson at King’s Mountain on the 7th October, 1780. Three days after that splendid victory, Bledsoe received from him an official dispatch giving an account of the battle. The daughter of Col. Bledsoe well remembered having heard this dispatch read by her father, though it has probably long since shared the fate of other valuable family papers.

When the hero of King’s Mountain, wearing the victor’s wreath, returned to his friends, he found that his betrothed had departed with her father for Kentucky, leaving for him no request to follow. Sarah, the above mentioned daughter of Col. Bledsoe, often rallied the young officer, who spent considerable time at her father’s, upon this cruel desertion. He would reply by expressing much indignation at the treatment he had received at the hands of the fair coquette, and protesting that he would not follow her to Kentucky, nor ask her of her father; he would wait for little Sarah Bledsoe, a far prettier bird, he would aver, than the one that had flown away. The maiden, then some twelve or thirteen years of age, would laughingly return his bantering by saying he “had better wait, indeed, and see if _he_ could win Miss Bledsoe who could not win Miss Hart.” The arch damsel was not wholly in jest; for a youthful kinsman of the colonel--David Shelby, a lad of seventeen or eighteen, who had fought by his side at King’s Mountain--had already gained her youthful affections. She remained true to this early love, though her lover was only a private soldier. And it may be well to record that the gallant colonel, who thus threatened infidelity to his, did actually, notwithstanding his protestations, go to Kentucky the following year, and was married to Miss Susan Hart, who made him a faithful and excellent wife.

During the whole of the trying period that intervened between the first settlement of east Tennessee and the close of the Revolutionary struggle, Col. Bledsoe, with his brother and kinsmen, was almost incessantly engaged in the strife with their Indian foes, as well as in the laborious enterprise of subduing the forest, and converting the tangled wilds into the husbandman’s fields of plenty. In these varied scenes of trouble and trial, of toil and danger, the men were aided and encouraged by the women. Mary Bledsoe, the colonel’s wife, was a woman of remarkable energy, and noted for her independence both of thought and action. She never hesitated to expose herself to danger whenever she thought it her duty to brave it; and when Indian hostilities were most fierce, when their homes were frequently invaded by the murderous savage, and females struck down by the tomahawk or carried into captivity, she was foremost in urging her husband and friends to go forth and meet the foe, instead of striving to detain them for the protection of her own household. During this time of peril and watchfulness, little attention could have been given to books, even had the pioneers possessed them; but the Bible, the Confession of Faith, and a few such works as Baxter’s Call, Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, etc., were generally to be found in the library of every resident on the frontier.

About the close of the year 1779, Col. Bledsoe and his brothers, with a few friends, crossed the Cumberland mountains, descended into the valley of Cumberland River, and explored the beautiful region on its banks. Delighted with its shady woods, its herds of buffaloes, its rich and genial soil, and its salubrious climate, their report on their return induced many of the inhabitants of East Tennessee to resolve on seeking a new home in the Cumberland Valley. The Bledsoes did not remove their families thither until three years afterwards; but the idea of settling the valley originated with them; they were the first to explore it, and it was in consequence of their report and advice that the expedition was fitted out, under the direction of Captain (afterwards General) Robertson and Col. John Donaldson, to establish the earliest colony in that part of the country.[1]

The daughter of Col. Bledsoe has in her possession letters that passed between her father and Gen. Robertson, in which repeated allusions are made to the fact that to his suggestions and counsel was owing the first thought of emigration to the valley. In 1784, Anthony Bledsoe removed with his family to the new settlement of which he had thus been one of the founders. His brother, Col. Isaac Bledsoe, had gone the year before. They took up their residence in what is now Sumner County, and established a fort or station at “Bledsoe’s Lick”--now known as the Castalian Springs. The families being thus united, and the eldest daughter of Anthony married to David Shelby, the station became a rallying point for an extensive district surrounding it. The Bledsoes were used to fighting with the Indians; they were men of well known energy and courage, and their fort was the place to which the settlers looked for protection--the colonels being the acknowledged leaders of the pioneers in their neighborhood, and the terror, far and near, of the savage marauders. Anthony was also a member of the North Carolina Legislature from Sumner County.

From 1780 to 1795, a continual warfare was kept up by the Creeks and Cherokees against the inhabitants of the valley. The history of this time would be a fearful record of scenes of bloody strife and atrocious barbarity. Several hundred persons fell victims to the ruthless foe, who spared neither age nor sex; and many women and children were carried far from their friends into hopeless captivity. The settlers were frequently robbed and their negro slaves taken away; in the course of a few years two thousand horses were stolen; their cattle and hogs were destroyed, their houses and barns burned, and their plantations laid waste. In consequence of these incursions, many of the inhabitants gathered together at the stations on the frontier, and established themselves under military rule for the protection of the interior settlements. During this desperate period, the pursuits of the farmer could not be abandoned; lands were to be surveyed and marked, and fields cleared and cultivated, by men who could not venture beyond their own doors without arms in their hands. The labors of those active and vigilant leaders, the Bledsoes, in supporting and defending the colony, were indefatigable. Nor was the heroic matron--the subject of this sketch--less active in her appropriate sphere of action. Her family consisted of seven daughters and five sons, the eldest of whom, Sarah Shelby, was not more than eighteen when they came to Sumner. Mrs. Bledsoe was almost the only instructor of these children, the family being left to her sole charge while her husband was engaged in his toilsome duties, or harassed with the cares incident to an uninterrupted border warfare.

Too soon was this devoted wife and mother called upon to suffer a far deeper calamity than any she had yet experienced. Anthony Bledsoe had removed his family into his brother Isaac’s fort at Bledsoe’s Lick. On the night of the 20th of July, 1788, a number of Indians approached, and placed themselves in ambush about forty yards in front of a passage dividing the log houses occupied by the two families. To draw the men out, they then sent some of their party to cause an alarm by riding rapidly through a lane passing near. Roused by the noise, Col. Anthony Bledsoe rose and went to the gate. As he opened it, he was shot down, the same shot killing an Irish servant, named Campbell, who had been long devotedly attached to him. The colonel did not expire immediately, but was carried back into the house, while preparations were made for defence by Gen. William Hall, and the portholes manned till break of day. The wife of Isaac Bledsoe suggested to her husband, and afterwards to her brother-in-law, in view of the near approach of death, that it was proper to make provision for his daughters. He had surveyed large tracts of land, and had secured grants for several thousand acres, which constituted nearly his whole property. The law of North Carolina at that time gave all the lands to the sons, to the exclusion of the daughters. In consequence, should the colonel die without a will, his seven young daughters would be left destitute. In this hour of bitter trial, Mrs. Bledsoe’s thoughts too were not alone of her own sufferings, and the deadly peril that hung over them, but of the provision necessary for the helpless ones dependent on her care. Writing materials were procured, and having called Clendening to draw up the will, he being too much agitated to write, Isaac Bledsoe supported his dying brother while affixing his signature. Thus a portion of land was assigned to each of the daughters, who in after life had reason to remember with gratitude the presence of mind and affectionate care of their aunt.

Mrs. Bledsoe’s sufferings from Indian hostility were not terminated by this overwhelming stroke. A brief list of those who fell victims, among her family and kinsmen, may afford some idea of the trials she endured, and of the strength of character which enabled her to bear up, and to support others, under such terrible experiences. In January, 1793, her son Anthony, then seventeen years of age, while passing near the present site of Nashville, was shot through the body, and severely wounded, by a party of Indians in ambush. He was pursued to the gates of a neighboring fort. Not a month afterwards, her eldest son, Thomas, was also desperately wounded by the savages, and escaped with difficulty from their hands. Early in the following April, he was shot dead near his mother’s house, and scalped by the murderous Indians. On the same day, Col. Isaac Bledsoe was killed and scalped by a party of about twenty Creek Indians, who beset him in the field, and cut off his retreat to his station near at hand.

In April, 1794, Anthony, the son of Mrs. Bledsoe, and his cousin of the same name, were shot by a party of Indians, near the house of Gen. Smith, on Drake Creek, ten miles from Gallatin. The lads were going to school, and were then on their way to visit Mrs. Sarah Shelby, the sister of Anthony, who lived on Station Camp Creek.

Some time afterwards, Mrs. Bledsoe was on the road from Bledsoe’s Lick to the above mentioned station, where the court of Sumner County was at that time held. Her object was to attend to some business connected with the estate of her late husband. She was escorted on her way by the celebrated Thomas Sharp Spencer, and Robert Jones. The party was waylaid and fired upon by a large body of Indians. Jones was severely wounded, and turning, rode rapidly back for about two miles; after which, he fell dead from his horse. The savages advanced boldly upon the others, intending to take them prisoners.

It was not consistent with Spencer’s chivalrous character to attempt to save himself by leaving his companion to the mercy of the foe. Bidding her retreat as fast as possible and encouraging her to keep her seat firmly, he protected her by following more slowly in her rear, with his trusty rifle in his hand. When the Indians in pursuit came too near, he would raise his weapon, as if to fire; and as he was known to be an excellent marksman, the savages were not willing to encounter him, but hastened to the shelter of trees, while he continued his retreat. In this manner he kept them at bay for some miles, not firing a single shot--for he knew that his threatening had more effect--until Mrs. Bledsoe reached a station. Her life and his own were on this occasion saved by his prudence and presence of mind; for both would have been lost had he yielded to the temptation to fire.

This Spencer--for his gallantry and reckless daring named “the Chevalier Bayard of Cumberland Valley,”--was famed for his encounters with the Indians, by whom he had often been shot at, and wounded on more than one occasion. His proportions and strength were those of a giant, and the wonder-loving people were accustomed to tell marvellous stories concerning him. It was said that at one time, being unarmed when attacked by Indians, he reached into a tree, and wrenching off a huge bough by main force, drove back his assailants with it. He lived for some years alone in Cumberland Valley--it is said from 1776 to 1779--before a single white man had taken up his abode there; his dwelling being a large hollow tree, the roots of which still remain near Bledsoe’s Lick. For one year--the tradition is--a man by the name of Holiday shared his retreat; but the hollow being not sufficiently spacious to accommodate two lodgers, they were under the necessity of separating, and Holiday departed to seek a home in the valley of the Kentucky River. But one difficulty arose; those dwellers in the primeval forest had but one knife between them! What was to be done? for a knife was an article of indispensable necessity; it belonged to Spencer, and it would have been madness in the owner of such an article to part with it. He resolved to accompany Holiday part of the way on his journey, and went as far as Big Barren River. When about to turn back, Spencer’s heart relented; he broke the blade of his knife in two, gave half to his friend, and with a light heart returned to his hollow tree. Not long after his gallant rescue of Mrs. Bledsoe, he was killed by a party of Indians, on the road from Nashville to Knoxville. For nearly twenty years he had been exposed to every variety of danger, and escaped them all; but his hour came at last, and the dust of the hermit and renowned warrior of Cumberland Valley now reposes on “Spencer’s Hill,” near the Crab Orchard, on the road between Nashville and Knoxville.

Bereaved of her husband, sons, and brother-in-law by the murderous savages, Mrs. Bledsoe was obliged alone to undertake, not only the charge of her husband’s estate, but the care of the children, and their education and settlement in life. These duties were discharged with unwavering energy and Christian patience. Her religion had taught her fortitude under her unexampled distresses; and through all this trying period of her life, she exhibited a decision and firmness of character, which bespoke no ordinary powers of intellect. Her mind, indeed, was of masculine strength, and she was remarkable for independence of thought and opinion. In person she was attractive, being neither tall nor large until advanced in life. Her hair was brown, her eyes gray, and her complexion fair. Her useful life was closed in the autumn of 1808. The record of her worth, and of what she did and suffered, may win little attention from the careless many, who regard not the memory of our “pilgrim mothers:” but the recollection of her gentle virtues has not yet faded from the hearts of her descendants; and those to whom they tell the story of her life will acknowledge her the worthy companion of those noble men to whom belongs the praise of having originated a new colony and built up a goodly state in the bosom of the forest. Their patriotic labors, their struggles with the surrounding savages, their efforts in the maintenance of the community they had founded--sealed, as they finally were, with their own blood, and the blood of their sons and relatives--will never be forgotten while the apprehension of what is noble, generous, and good survives in the hearts of their countrymen.

II.

CATHERINE SEVIER.

In one of the pioneer parties from the banks of the Yadkin, in North Carolina, who crossed the rugged mountains to seek new homes in the valley of the Watauga, came Samuel Sherrill, with his family consisting of several sons and two daughters. One of these daughters, Susan, married Col. Taylor, a gentleman of considerable distinction; the other, Catharine, became the second wife of Gen. Sevier. Mr. Sherrill’s residence was finally upon the Nola Chucka, and known as the Daisy Fields. He was a tiller of the soil, a hard-working man, “well to do in the world” for an emigrant of that day, and he was skilled in the use of the rifle, so that it was said, “Sherrill can make as much out of the grounds and the woods as any other man. He has a hand and eye to his work; a hand, an eye, and an ear for the Indian and the game.”

Buffalo, deer, and wild turkeys came around the tents and cabins of those first emigrants. A providence was in this that some of them recognized with thankfulness. These settlements encroached upon the rights and hunting-grounds of the natives; and although some had been established and permitted to remain undisturbed for several years, yet when Capt. James Robertson arrived from Virginia, in 1772, with a large party of emigrants, and selected lands on the Watauga, he endeavored to secure an occupation with the approbation of the Indians; therefore he effected a “lease” from the Cherokees of all the lands on the river and its tributaries for eight years.

Jacob Brown, with his family and friends, arrived from North Carolina about the same time with the Sherrills, and these two families became connected by intermarriage with the Seviers, and ever remained faithful to each other through all the hostile and civil commotions of subsequent years. The family of Seviers came among the very earliest emigrants from Virginia, and aided in the erection of the first fort on the Watauga.[2]

With few exceptions, these emigrants had in view the acquisition of rich lands for cultivation and inheritance. Some indeed were there, or came, who were absconding debtors or refugees from justice, and from this class were the tories of North Carolina mostly enlisted.

The spirit of the hunter and pioneer cannot well content itself in a permanent location, especially when the crack of a neighbor’s rifle, or the blast of his hunting-horn may be heard by his quick ear; therefore did these advanced guards often change their homes when others crowded them at a mile’s distance. It must be remembered that these advances into the wilderness could only be made by degrees, step by step, through years of tedious waiting and toilsome preparation. And thus, though they had a lease from the Indians, a foothold in the soil, stations of defence, and evidently had taken a bond of fate, assuring them in the prospect of rich inheritances for their children, they could not all abide while the great West and greater Future invited onward. Richer lands, larger herds of buffaloes, more deer, and withal as many Indians were in the distance, upon the Cumberland and Kentucky Rivers. The emigrants advanced, and they took no steps backwards. In a few years they were found organizing “provisional governments” upon “the dark and bloody ground” of Kentucky, and at the Bluffs, the site of the beautiful capital of Tennessee. And these Watauga and Nola Chucka pioneers were the leading spirits throughout.

Lord Dunmore, in fitting out the expedition against the Indian tribes, which ended with the memorable battle of Point Pleasant, gave John Sevier the commission of captain.

In the first Cherokee war of 1776, the early settlements were in great danger of being destroyed. The prowling savages picked off the emigrants in detail, and being somewhat successful resolved to attack the settlements and stations at different points on the same day--in June, 1776. But they were so defeated in the battles of Long Island and at the Island Flats, on the Holston, and in their attack and siege of the Watauga Fort, that a happy change was wrought, and hopes of quiet were encouraged. The attack on the latter station was conducted by an experienced Indian chief, Old Abraham, of the Chilhowee Mountain region. It was a fierce attack, but the fort fortunately held within it two of the most resolute men who have ever touched the soil of Tennessee, and to whom East and Middle Tennessee were subsequently more indebted than to any other men who have ever lived--James Robertson and John Sevier--they having then no higher titles than captains. Some thirty men were under their command or direction.

The approach of the Indians had been stealthy, and the first alarm was given by the flight and screams of some females, who were closely pursued by the savages in large force. One of the women was killed, and one or two captured. In this party of females was Miss Catharine Sherrill, daughter of Samuel Sherrill, who had removed into the fort only the day previous.

Miss Sherrill was already somewhat distinguished for nerve, action, and fleetness. It was said “she could outrun or outleap any woman; walk more erect, and ride more gracefully and skilfully than any other female in all the mountains round about, or on the continent at large.” Although at other times she proved herself to know no fear, and could remain unmoved when danger threatened, yet on this occasion she admits that she did run, and “run her best.” She was very tall and erect, and her whole appearance such as to attract the especial notice and pursuit of the Indians; and as they intercepted the direct path to the gate of the fort, she made a circuit to reach the enclosure on another side, resolved, as she said, to scale the walls or palisades. In this effort, some person within the defences attempted to aid, but his foot slipped, or the object on which he was standing gave way, and both fell to the ground on opposite sides of the enclosure. The savages were coming with all speed, and firing and shooting arrows repeatedly. Indeed, she said, “the bullets and arrows came like hail. It was now--leap the wall or die! for I would not live a captive.” She recovered from the fall, and in a moment was over and within the defences, and “by the side of one _in uniform_.”

This was none other than Capt. John Sevier, and the first time she ever saw him. This was the beginning of an acquaintance destined in a few years to ripen into a happy union, to endure in this life for near forty years. “The way she run and jumped on that occasion was often the subject of remark, commendation, and laughter.” In after life she looked upon this introduction, and the manner of it, as a providential indication of their adaptation to each other--that they were destined to be of mutual help in future dangers, and to overcome obstacles in time to come. And she always deemed herself safe when by his side. Many a time did she say: “I could gladly undergo that peril and effort again to fall into his arms, and feel _so out of danger_, But then,” she would add, “it was all of God’s good providence.” Capt. Sevier was then a married man, his wife and younger children not having yet arrived from Virginia. His wife’s name was Susan Hawkins, and she was a native of Virginia, where she died.

In 1777, Capt. Sevier received a commission from the State of North Carolina, and was thus decidedly enlisted in the cause of American independence; and not long after this, he was honored with the commission of colonel, bearing the signature of George Washington. In 1779, his wife died, leaving him ten children. Several of the eldest were sons, who had come with their father to gain and improve a home in the wilderness. They were trained to arms and to labor. He had selected land on the Watauga and Nola Chucka, his chosen residence being on the latter stream, and for many years known as Plum Grove. In the year 1780, he and Miss Sherrill were married, and she devoted herself earnestly to all the duties of her station, and to meet the exigencies of the times. It may well be supposed that females spun, wove, and made up most of the clothes worn by these backwoods people. Girls were as well skilled in these arts as were the boys in such as more appropriately belonged to their sphere and strength.

Not long after the marriage, Col. Sevier was called to the duty of raising troops to meet the invasion of the interior of North Carolina, under Tarleton, Ferguson, and other British officers. Preparations were hastily made, and the various forces assembled which fought the important battle of King’s Mountain. Col. Sevier had three sons and one brother in that engagement. His favorite brother, Joseph, was killed, and one son wounded. These sons were between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one. Boys were early taught to use the rifle with skill. This was the formidable weapon in pursuit of game, and in all the Indian wars.

It was always a source of much gratification to Mrs. Sevier, and one of which she fondly boasted, that among the first work she did after her marriage, was to make the clothes which her husband and three sons wore the day they were in the memorable battle of King’s Mountain. And she would say, “Had his ten children been sons, and large enough to have served in that expedition, I could have fitted them out.”[3]

In the course of years, Mrs. Sevier became the mother of eight children, three sons and five daughters; and thus Col. Sevier was the father of eighteen children, all of whom maintained good characters, were “given to hospitality,” and lived comfortably and usefully, although none of them acquired great wealth. Mrs. Sevier was often left alone to manage domestic affairs, not only within doors, but without. The life of the Colonel was one of incessant action, adventure, and contest. The calls of his fellow-citizens, and the necessities of the times, withdrew him frequently from home. The history of the Indian wars of East Tennessee, of the settlement of the country, and of the organization of the State Government, is the record of the deeds of his life. No commander was more frequently engaged in conflicts with the Indians with equal success and such small loss of his men. And yet it is a notable fact that he enjoyed, to a remarkable extent, the respect of the tribes and chiefs with whom he contended. It is a known historical fact that in 1781 he had taken to his own home, on the Chucka, a number of Indian prisoners, it is said thirty, where they were treated with so much kindness by his wife and family that several of them remained for years, although they performed very little work, and this wholly at their option. The influence of Mrs. Sevier was intentionally and happily exerted upon these captives, that it might tell, as it did, upon their friends within “the nation;” and the family, no doubt, enjoyed more protection than otherwise they could have expected.

Col. Sevier acquired a sobriquet among the Indians, which was some evidence of their familiarity with and attachment to him, and probably of advantage. As long as he lived they called him “Chucka Jack.” He was afterwards called the “Treaty-maker.” They had a name for Mrs. Sevier also, which is now not remembered. The tories were the worst enemies, and perpetrated more damage to Col. Sevier’s property than did ever the Indians; and from them Mrs. Sevier had repeatedly to hide most of her small stock of household articles. She usually remained at the farm, and never would consent to be shut up in a blockhouse, always saying--

“The wife of John Sevier
Knows no fear.”

“I neither skulk from duty nor from danger.”

And we believe this was emphatically true. We have seen her in advanced age--tall in stature, erect in person, stately in walk, with small, piercing blue eyes, raven locks, a Roman nose, and firmness unmistakable in her mouth and every feature. She was able to teach her children in the exercises conducive to health and usefulness, to strength of nerve and to action. None could, with equal grace and facility, placing the hand upon the mane of a spirited horse, and standing by his side, seat herself upon his back or in the saddle. She had the appearance and used the language of independence, haughtiness, and authority, and she never entirely laid these aside. Yet was not her pride offensive, nor her words or demeanor intended heedlessly to wound. It could be said of her without any question, that she “reverenced her husband,” and she instilled the same Scriptural sentiment into the minds of his children. The very high respect and deference which one of her dignified appearance ever paid to him, no doubt had a favorable influence upon others; for though he was a man of remarkable elegance of person, air and address, and of popular attraction, yet it must be confessed that she contributed much to all these traits, and to his usefulness and zeal in public service. She relieved him of his cares at home, and applauded his devotion to the service of the people.

Her reply to those who urged her “to fort,” or to take protection in one of the stations, was, “I would as soon die by the tomahawk and scalping-knife as by famine! I put my trust in that Power who rules the armies of Heaven, and among men on the earth. I know my husband has an eye and an arm for the Indians and the tories who would harm us, and though he is gone often, and for weeks at a time, he comes home when I least expect him, and always covered with laurels. * * If God protects him whom duty calls into danger, so will He those who trust in him and stand at their post. * * Who would stay out if his family forted?”

This was the spirit of the heroine--this was the spirit of Catharine Sevier. Neither she nor her husband seemed to think there could be danger or loss when they could encourage or aid others to daring, to duty, and to usefulness. Col. Sevier at one time advised her to go into the fort, but yielded to her respectful remonstrance. At one time the tories came to her house and demanded her husband’s whereabouts, and finally avowed that their intention was to hang him on the highest tree in front of his house; but that if she would tell them where he was, she and her children should be safe. Of course she refused to give them the information. One man drew a pistol and threatened to blow out her brains if she did not tell or at least give up all the money she had.

“Shoot! shoot!” was her answer. “I am not afraid to die! But remember, while there is a Sevier on the earth, my blood will not be unavenged!”

He dared not--he did not shoot. The leader of the gang told the man to put up his pistols, saying, “such a woman is too brave to die.” She knew some of the party, and that they were noted thieves and tories.

At another time they came to her smokehouse to carry off meat. She took down the gun, which her husband always left with her in good order, and said to them: “The first one who takes down a piece of meat is a dead man!” They could not mistake her resolution. Her tone, manner, and appearance avowed clearly enough that she uttered no vain warning; that she knew her rights and dared maintain them. They left without taking anything. In the fall of 1780, a noted loyalist by the name of Dykes planned the seizure of Sevier, but the plot was discovered to Mrs. Sevier by his wife, as she stood by the smokehouse with her apron held out to receive meal and a slice of meat from the Colonel’s lady.[4]

Some of their negroes were stolen and never all recovered, being taken into the Indian nation by the tories, and thence to Savannah or Charleston while in possession of the British. There was a mortal enmity between some of the active tories and the Seviers, resulting in the hanging of some of the former on two occasions. It fell to the lot of Mrs. Sevier to do acts of hospitality and kindness to some of this set and their descendants many years after the war. And these kindnesses she performed, although she acknowledged that she felt at the same time the spirit of revenge rankling in her bosom. “Some of them,” she would say “and perhaps all their children, may make worthy people and good citizens if they are not kept continually ashamed and mortified by being reminded of their bad conduct or of their tory origin.”

The sick and wounded soldier ever found a welcome and nursing at the home of Sevier. The supplies for many of the Colonel’s Indian expeditions were from his own private means. His wife, sons, and servants were remarkably successful in raising corn and hogs, and cheerfully were these given to the furtherance of the great objects in hand.[5]

All her life long was Mrs. Sevier distinguished for her kindness and liberality to the poor. Towards children she was gentle, though she had an appearance and manner which prevented them from giving that annoyance they are apt to do to the aged. It was usual with her to keep a supply of maple-sugar and cinnamon-bark in her spice-box, from which she would gratify them, and then wave them kindly away. This motion of her hand was expressive, and easily understood.

In 1784 occurred the scenes of the “State of Frankland.” The people of East Tennessee, becoming dissatisfied with the condition of affairs under North Carolina, and impelled, as they urged, by the necessity of self-protection, organized a separate and independent government, giving that name to the new State. John Sevier was its first and last Governor. The establishment of this little republic was declared by the Governor of North Carolina to be no less than revolt, and all concerned in it were commanded to return to their duty and allegiance, and to refuse obedience to any self-created authority, unsanctioned by the legislature of North Carolina. Notwithstanding this remonstrance, the new government proceeded in the exercise of sovereignty. In the conflict of authorities and the civil and personal contests which grew out of this state of things in the revolted territory, the prudent and judicious conduct of Mrs. Sevier added to her husband’s reputation as well as her own. His house became the place of general resort. It was proclaimed open and free to all the friends of the rights of self-defence and independence, and the impressive dignity and noble bearing of Mrs. Sevier made a deep and lasting impression upon all who resorted to that home for counsel, aid, or hospitality.

The supporters of the new State were obliged in time, however, to enter into measures of adjustment. When the Governor was seized by its enemies and spirited away into the interior of North Carolina, Mrs. Sevier, with the promptness, energy, and daring which qualify for any occasion of utmost moment, aroused his friends, and would have gone, as a fearless leader, “to conquer or to die.” But seeing that her relatives, his relatives, sons and friends were resolved upon his release and restoration, she little doubted his speedy return, and she was not disappointed.

And when a returning sense of justice, and the revulsion of public sentiment and power of popular gratitude, produced a repeal of “the odious acts of exclusion” of North Carolina, placing him “in lone conspicuity,” and the people called him, by unanimous voice, again and again, and yet again, to preside as Governor of Tennessee, and to a Seat in Congress of the United States, then did her great heart swell with thankfulness to God and her fellow-citizens. Then did she acknowledge that her husband had not endured peril, toil, and sacrifice in vain, though far short of the reward to which she thought him justly entitled. And we doubt not posterity will coincide in this judgment.