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History of Old
Sumner
Bledsoe’s Creek, Part Three
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A People Governing Themselves
The greatest thing in the world
is for a man to know he is his own. – Montaigne
It was December of
1779 and Captain Isaac Bledsoe was in a devilish predicament. He was
lost, cold and hungry. As guide and hunter for Daniel Smith’s survey
party drawing the line dividing Virginia from North Carolina he had
a lot of responsibilities to think about: horses, men, Indians,
game, getting his bearings and separating two parties of quarreling
surveyors battling each other over hundreds of square miles of
territory. Eventually the North Carolinians quit and left the
Virginians to survey the line.
Meanwhile James
Robertson’s party was making its way overland from Virginia down
through Kentucky to stake their claim on the high bluffs above
French Lick. There they would build Fort Nashborough on a location
later to become Nashville. When they arrived the river was frozen
and they were able to walk across to the bluffs.
A New Beginning – David Wright - Artist
James Robertson’s Party Crossing the Ice at the Bluffs Christmas Day
1779
The surveyors who got
the job of carving up this unimaginable treasure were not unmindful
of the opportunities. It was not one Isaac and Anthony Bledsoe
intended to miss. Smith, who ultimately led parties to survey every
boundary of Tennessee, received for his efforts 2,500 acres of prime
farmland at the mouth of Drakes Creek in today’s Hendersonville. The
largest residential real estate development currently underway there
today is a project of one of his descendants out of that grant.
American Rifleman – David Wright, artist
Once the ice thawed,
the party divided, with Daniel Smith and Anthony Bledsoe descending
the river by boat and Isaac bringing the horses around to a
downriver rendezvous. The river trip was 115 sinuous miles and took
longer than expected. but Isaac’s party had neither river nor map to
go by and lost their way. The men were hungry, cold and had their
hands full keeping the horses on their feet and stopping them
nuzzling under the snow for forage. Then he heard big brother
Anthony’s strong voice hallooing through the woods looking for him
and they were saved. They joined the others February 21st, in time
for a warming fire, roast venison and toddy as a steady rain melted
the last of the ice.
When they reached
James Robertson’s settlement downstream at French Lick in January
they found the settlement abuzz with excitement. These people, like
Isaac, had come for land and they were here to take it. The problem
was, it was not clear who had the power to give it.
Richard Henderson
claimed he did, by virtue of a purchase he had negotiated earlier
with a few Cherokee as supported by the line Smith was now
surveying. But Virginia and North Carolina had not relinquished
their claims, nor had England, France, and Spain. The Indian nations
recognized none of these claims, and would resist tooth and claw.
But Isaac had earned his land, by his service during the Revolution,
as a guide and hunter for Smith’s survey, and, first and foremost,
by discovery – discovery of Bledsoe’s Lick.
Alone in the
wilderness, surrounded by hostile Indians, far from governments
across the mountains, these people decided they had to govern
themselves, and did. Henderson lost no time in drawing up The
Cumberland Compact, signed by 250 settlers on May 1, 1780. This
document set out the terms for political representation as well as
for the acquiring of land and the registration of good title.
Although North Carolina later voided Henderson’s purchase as well as
titles settlers acquired under it, it served to define government
and regulate transactions along the Cumberland until the creation of
Davidson County, North Carolina, in 1783.
Under it, Isaac agreed
to manage the construction of a fort at Bledsoe's Lick. For this
service and for others he was to receive additional grants of land
of his choice, which eventually aggregated over 6,000 acres of the
best land in Sumner County. Anthony got more than 11,000 acres. And
they were to have one of the twelve votes shared among the forts
along the Cumberland. France, Britain, Spain the Continental
Congress, North Carolina, and Virginia, were a long way away; the
settlers along the Cumberland would govern themselves.
But not for a while.
The Indians were on the warpath, furious over white men clearing,
plowing and building on land they considered theirs under the
pretext of a purchase agreement signed by a few of their members. So
dangerous was the frontier that Isaac was forced to shelter his
family at Mansker’s fort until 1783, when he brought them out to
Bledsoe’s Fort.
Construction of Bledsoe’s Fort – Bill Puryear, Artist
The new government
struggled to survive as the reign of terror preempted the reign of
the county court and of North Carolina. Today we can barely imagine
how it must have been. Isolated cabins in small stump-filled
clearings dotted the creek valleys, connected by remote trails
through tangled woods, with a few stockade forts into which settlers
might crowd during times when Indians were sighted. A man traveled
to a meeting of court at the risk of his life. Thus the court of
triers first began to meet regularly on January 7, 1783. (1) Isaac
Bledsoe was one of the judges of this court, as well as Captain of
the militia at Manskers, where he still resided.
On April 14th of 1783
Davidson County, North Carolina, was created, replacing the
Cumberland Compact. The Governor of North Carolina appointed both
Isaac and Anthony to be on the first County Court and Anthony was
selected as the county’s State Senator. As well as first colonel of
militia. Isaac chaired the first meeting of the court on October 6,
1783 and was named first major of militia, making him and Anthony
its ranking officers.
If James Robertson is
the father of Middle Tennessee Anthony Bledsoe is the father of
Sumner County. By the time he came to Middle Tennessee in 1780, he
already had a distinguished military, commercial and political
career behind him in the east. In Virginia he had been a merchant
and surveyor, built Fort Bledsoe, been a Justice of the Peace and
Captain of Militia for two counties, served in the Virginia House of
Burgesses, served as a Captain in Lord Dunmores’ War, and served as
a Major in the Virginia Militia during the Revolution. He married
Mary Ramsey, daughter of the noted Indian fighter Thomas Ramsey. In
North Carolina he was the clerk of the Sullivan County Court in 1780
and Lieutenant Colonel of the Sullivan county Regiment of Militia.
There he acquired considerable lands along the Holston River. (3)
Patrick Henry addresses the Virginia Burgesses 1765 – Peter
Frederick Rothermel, Artist
“If this be treason, let us make the
most of it.”
Patrick Henry served five terms as
Governor of Virginia and was supportive of westward expansion of the
frontier. As a member of the Burgesses and of the Virginia
Legislature, Anthony Bledsoe knew and corresponded with Gov.
Patrick Henry. Consistent with custom and his station in life,
Bledsoe, according to Harriett Arnow, wore a wig. (5)
This illustrious
career gave Senator Anthony Bledsoe all the contacts he needed to
help persuade the North Carolina Legislature on November 17, 1786 to
honor John Hamilton’s petition to establish a second county on the
Cumberland. It was to be named Sumner, the fifth county established
in the state and the second in Middle Tennessee, it was, by virtue
of Isaac Bledsoe’s fort being the refuge on the migration from the
east, soon to be the most populous of the two counties of the
Cumberland.
The first meeting of
Sumner County, North Carolina’s, court was held in April of 1787 at
John Hamilton’s house up Station Camp Creek. Isaac was there, but
Anthony had written earlier to Daniel Smith from East Tennessee on
February 21, 1787, where he had stopped to await his friend James
Robertson’s return from the Assembly:
“I have only to
mention to you that I had every success in the Assembly I could have
expected. Herewith you will receive inclosed orders for raising 200
troops for the protection of our frontiers. And our county divided
according to our agreement. I hope to be at the first Court, though
this is a matter not certain …(I) should esteem it a favor if you
and the gentlemen in the Commission of the Peace think that my
conduct heretofore might embolden me to ask a favor. I should
request that David Shelby might be appointed Clerk of the Court.”
Anthony did not get back in time for the first meeting, but his
request was granted. David Shelby, his son-in-law was elected clerk.
(4)
The second meeting of the new county’s court was held in July of
1787. Anthony Bledsoe was its Chairman. The first order of business
was communication and security. Two roads were ordered cleared wide
enough for pack horses to pass, one from Isaac Bledsoe’s fort to the
Kentucky State Line, the other west from nearby Winchester’s mill
downriver to Kuykendal’s. A county militia was established, with
Anthony its colonel commandant and Isaac first major.
Reenactment of frontier militia muster at Martin’s Station, Virginia
Courtesy David Wright, photographer
The Bledsoes had
gained the power to wrest order out of chaos and used it. The court,
which now met quarterly, in January of 1788 was hearing trial
matters. The next three quarterly meetings saw:
-
Ephraim Peyton fined
12 shillings ten pence for “ profane swearing and Sabbath breaking”
-
Basil Fry charged with
living in an unlawful manner with Jane Mansker
-
Jane Kendrick fined 25
shillings for “having a base born child”
-
Jane Mansker found
“not guilty” of adultery, at the same time she was fined 25
shillings for a “base born child”
-
Jane Kendrick making
oath that “she has a bastard child and George Winchester is the
father thereof” At the next session she sued him for trespass and
assault and battery and won a judgement of five pounds.
-
Ephraim Peyton suing
Joshua Campbell for slander, winning a judgement against him of six
pence and costs. (6)
Litigation and sexual
misconduct are no more a modern phenomenon than are jealousy and
assault.
The Indians were having none of this, and redoubled their attacks on
the settlers incursions into their territory. The stockaded forts
only protected families if they knew when to avoid the trails and
stay inside their log walls. For this intelligence they depended
upon scouts, or as they were then called, spies, hired to watch for
signs of Indians in the area.
They generally worked
along the river, which they could patrol by boat on foot, looking
for telltale signs of the crossing by large war parties coming form
the tribes to the south of them They were to report, not to engage
with the Indians.. They worked in pairs, eating their lunch back to
back, sleeping in shifts. Their well-honed hunting skills taught
them to identify the smallest sound or the meaning of a sudden hush
in the woods. This sixth sense, re-enforced by their rifled guns,
tomahawks, knives, gouging nails and teeth, were their defenses. All
the same, many that went out were never heard from again.
The Indians knew the
power of those accurate rifles and feared them – their guns were
mostly smoothbore, inaccurate muskets supplied by the British, which
they had to fire in volleys to have effect. But they also knew that
once fired, the rifle took near a full minute to recharge with
powder, ram with wad and ball and to refit with a flint. The best
defense for riflemen was their threat of firing, and numbers.
Numbers of rifles, with accurate fire, extra guns and wives as
reloaders could withstand attacks from superior numbers of yelling
Indians in disorganized attack, particularly from inside a stockade.
Only one defended stockade – Zeigler's – fell to Indian attack, when
its roof burned and forced its defenders into the open where they
were massacred.
Indian Attack – Reenacted at Martin’s Station – David Wright,
photographer
His superior weapon
was little comfort to the settler caught alone while hunting outside
the walls or ambushed on a narrow trail on his way to help a
neighbor in distress. Even the listing for a short period in the
one-year from mid-1787 to mid 1788, typical of the fourteen years
following the beginning of settlement of Sumner County, makes
melancholy reading:
-
A man named Price and
his wife killed on Town Creek just south of Gallatin, and the
children chopped.
-
John Beard murdered
with a tomahawk and scalped near the headwaters of Big Station Camp
Creek.
-
April of 1787 three
sons of William Montgomery killed on Drakes Creek, three miles below
Shackle Island. One was on crutches from an earlier attack.
-
Radliff, from Gallatin
area, goes to Davidson County volunteering to help defend the forts
under attack, receiving there the message that twelve hours after
his departure his own house was broken into and his young wife and
three babies slaughtered.
-
June 3rd. James Hall,
young son of Maj. William Hall, killed and scalped while going from
his barn to a neighboring field for some horses near his fathers
residence east of Bledsoe’s Lick.
-
Aug 2nd, Major William
Hall’s family ambushed by thirty Indians while moving their
possessions and children the mile from their residence to Bledsoe’s
Fort. Killed were Major Hall, his son Richard, and a neighbor,
Hickerson, who went along as guard. His son-in-law, Charles Morgan,
was wounded, recovered but was himself killed and scalped later that
year, together with Jordan Gibson, between Halls and Greenfields
Stations.
-
Esquire John Morgan,
builder of Morgan’s Fort on Dry Fork at Bledsoe Creek, killed just
outside his stockade.
-
Later in the year a
Negro was killed and Samuel Campbell was wounded outside Bledsoe’s
Fort. Harmless shots were fired at two of Isaac Bledsoe’s daughters
who were caught at the spring below the hill.
-
Robert Jones killed
two miles east of Gallatin near Wilson place.
-
Jesse Maxey knifed and
scalped near Asher's, but survived.
-
Waters, fishing on
Bledsoe Creek below Cragfont, killed, scalped and mutilated. (1)
Anthony Bledsoe’s
letter to North Carolina Governor Caswell of August 1787 conveys the
urgency of the settlers’ distress (3)
“Dear Sir:
“When I last had the
pleasure of seeing your excellency, I think you were kind enough to
propose that in case the perfidious Chickamaugas should infest this
country, to notify your excellency, and you would send a campaign
against them without delay. The period has arrived that they, as I
have good reason to believe, in combination with the Creeks, have
done very great spoil by murdering numbers of our peaceful
inhabitants, stealing our horses, killing our cattle and hogs, and
burning our buildings through wantonness, cutting down our corn,
etc.
“I am well assured
that the distress of the Chickamauga tribe is the only way this
defenseless country will have quiet. The militia being very few, and
the whole, as it were, frontier, its inhabitants all shut up in
stations, and they, in general, so weakly manned, that in case of an
invasion, one is scarcely able to aid another, and the enemy daily
in our country committing ravages of one kind or another, and that
of the most savage kind. Poor Major hall and his eldest son fell a
sacrifice to their savage cruelty two days ago, near Bledsoe’s Lick.
They have killed about twenty-four persons in this country in a few
months, besides numbers of others in settlements near it. Our
dependence is much that your Excellency will revenge the blood thus
wantonly shed.”
Durham continues with
the comment “That this letter was addressed to ‘John Sevier,
Governor of the State of Franklin, to be forwarded to Governor
Caswell of North Carolina’ was indicative of the unsure and
unsettled conditions of the government at that time…Probably, the
direction of this letter to Sevier for forwarding to the Governor of
North Carolina was intended as a thinly veiled threat form the
Cumberland people to join the Franklinites in their withdrawal from
North Carolina unless that state should fulfill its promises of
assistance against the Indians.”(7)
This meant, first,
armed militia, and they arrived at long last in late 1787. But the
promised battalion Major Evans commanded was far understrength - a
mere 93 men and officers – and was inadequate, whether concentrated
in the blockhouse they first constructed near the Lick, or spread
thinly amongst a dozen stations. By the time they concentrated and
arrived at the scene of action, the Indians were gone with their
scalps or prisoners and were often lying in ambush up the trail.
On the second Monday
in October of 1788 the quarterly court met without a Chairman.
Anthony Bledsoe had been brutally murdered two days before in an
ambush at Bledsoe’s fort. The only order of business was for the
magistrates to sit silently to hear the reading of Anthony Bledsoe’s
will, which was duly entered in the records. In an act of respect to
the late Charmin, court was adjourned to meet the next day.
This event and the
circumstances of the will are best recounted by Isaac’s ten-year-old
daughter Mary Bledsoe Read, as recorded in the transcript of a title
dispute which found its way twice into the annals of the U.S.
Supreme Court.
In the year 1788 (July
20th,ed.) her father, Isaac Bledsoe, was living in the fort near
Bledsoe's Lick; it was very troublesome times with the Indians.
Colonel Anthony Bledsoe had left the Greenfield tract, and was
living in one end of my father's house. About midnight of the 20th
of July, 1788, after the families had retired to bed, James
Clendening announced that he had discovered some Indians near the
houses. Colonel Anthony Bledsoe got up and went into the passage
with Campbell, it being a clear moonlight night, when Campbell was
killed dead, and Colonel Anthony Bledsoe mortally wounded by a shot
from the Indians, the ball having passed directly through his body.
I was in the house of Isaac Bledsoe, my father, at the time; there
was difficulty in getting light; at length Hugh Rogan went to the
kitchen and got fire; immediately after, Anthony Bledsoe was shot;
he was drawn into the house, having fallen from the shot; when the
light came, his wound was examined and discovered to be mortal; he
was in extreme agony; no mortal could have suffered more; his
intestines were shot and torn; and what is called his caul fat came
out to a considerable length; he continued to suffer immensely till
his death, which occurred about sun up next morning; there was great
confusion in the room, great lamentation and grief among the family,
and those present; with all, a momentary attack was expected from
the Indians till day. Shortly after the light came, Anthony Bledsoe
asked my mother, Caty Bledsoe, what she thought of his case. She
told him he must inevitably die, and that he ought to make
preparation for another world; he seemed to have a great deal of
concern about that; after a little, my mother suggested to him that
four of his oldest children were girls, and if he died without a
will his girls would get none of his lands, and the chief of his
estate consisted in lands; and suggested the idea of his making a
will, in order to make some provision for his daughters; he seemed
to hesitate, and said he did not know who they would marry, but said
in the presence of my father and mother, and others, 'I distinctly
recollect, that he said that he wanted his Kentucky and Holston land
sold, and the proceeds applied to the education of his children;
that he wanted a small tract of land given to his daughters, at the
discretion of his executors; the balance of his lands to be equally
divided among his sons; that the four oldest negroes to be kept by
his wife during her life, and the balance of the property to be
equally divided among all his children. James Clendening approached
a table near where he lay, and commenced writing the will. I did not
hear what he said when the will was writing, if he said any thing. I
was present all the time, from the time the will was first suggested
to him to the time of his signing his will; heard him make no other
disposition of his estate, but that which is detailed above. My
mother got behind Anthony Bledsoe, and held him up with her knees;
he talked but little, was in extreme agony all the time; when he
talked, he talked sensibly up to his death. I do not know whether
the will was read over to him or not; he signed his name to it. My
father, Isaac Bledsoe, was standing by him when my mother suggested
to him the propriety of making the will; was present during the
whole time of the writing of the will, and was over him when he
died. I was about ten years of age at that time; the occurrences of
that night made a deep and lasting impression on my mind; I
recollect what was said and done more distinctly than transactions
of late date, and this has been impressed upon my mind by
conversations with others since’(8).
The Bledsoes in their
lifetime participated in a modern miracle: the movement of sovereign
government from London, England to Bledsoe’s Lick. In 1786 a new
county was formed and Isaac’s brother Anthony was its Chairman. In
less than two years he was dead, but not the heritage he wrought.
But it was under seige.
And worse was to come for the Bledsoes.
Next Chapter – Bledsoe Under
Seige
Bibliography and
References
(1) The Great Leap
Westward, A History of Sumner County Tennessee From Its Beginnings
to 1805,
Walter T. Durham, p. 50
(2) ibid
(3) ibid pp195ff
(4) ibid p56
(5) Seedtime On The Cumberland, Harriette Simpson Arnow, The
Macmillan Company 1960
(6) Durham, ibid, pp 58-60
(7) Ibid, p.
(8) Polly Weatherhead 52 U.S. 329
Bibliography:
In addition to the sources specifically cited above, I have drawn
generally from the following sources in writing these articles:
Wynnewood ,1994, Walter T.Durham, Bledsoes Lick Historical
Association
The Southwest Territory, 1790-1796, Walter T. Durham, Rocky Mount
Historical Association, 1990
Daniel Smith, Walter T. Durham, Sumner County Library Board, 1976
Tennessee, The Dangerous Example, Watauga to 1849, Mary French
Caldwell, Aurora Publishers
Seedtime On The Cumberland, Harriette Simpson Arnow, The Macmillan
Company 1960
Historical Background of Bledsoe’s Lick, A Cooperative Project of
the Bledsoe’s Lick Historical Association, Sumner County and Middle
Tennessee State University, Project Director, Kevin E. Smith
Early History of Middle Tennessee, Edward Albright, 1908
Historic Sumner County, Tennessee, Jay Guy Cisco, 1909
Historical Sketches of Southwest Virginia Publication 5 – March
1970, The Long Hunters
Early History of the South-West by General William Hall, The
South-Western Monthly, 1852
Draper Manuscripts, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison,
Wisconsin
History of Tennessee, The Goodspeed Publishing Co., 1887
Bledsoe Station:Archaeology, History, and the Interpretation of the
Middle Tennessee Frontier, 1770-1820, Kevin E. Smith, Tennessee
Historical Quarterly, Fall 2000, Vol 59, issue 3
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