Few places in America
have a richer history than Sumner County, Tennessee.
Here trod the earliest
pioneers, opening the way for westward expansion to New Orleans, the
Rio Grande, and California. Wars have washed over her, from twenty
savage years of Indian warfare, through the cataclysm of Civil War,
to the training of Patton’s army for the invasion of Europe in World
War II.
Here young Andrew
Jackson opened his law practice, later returning as a General to
recruit the Militia that saved New Orleans and the Mississippi
Valley from British domination. Texas began here, with Sam Houston’s
bitter flight from a failed local marriage, to the Alamo, where
another Sumner Countian, Jim Bowie, commanded the outnumbered
Tenensseans.
Sumner furnished the
largest number of early Governors, Senators, and leaders of an
infant Tennessee. The earliest immigrant roads crossed her, and
river and rails supported her bountiful commerce. As racehorses,
cotton, slavery and tobacco gave way to cattle and commerce, Old
Sumner, due to her marvelous central location today draws thousands
of tourists, travelers and new settlers. Her history is not past;
the parade is still passing.
Hidden in deep woods
north of Saundersville there is a curious feature, which may hold
the key to a mystery which has long puzzled historians. Why was such
a rich, well watered land devoid of people when the first settlers
came into it from the east?
Here, near a 400 year
old white oak is a shallow bowl, overgrown, about 6 feet deep on the
uphill side, three feet on the downhill side, and about 120 feet
across.
That the area had once
been heavily populated was evident from the large number of graves,
artifacts, and ceremonial mounds found by the earliest settlers
along the Cumberland. Yet these people had long since vanished. Even
more mysterious was the total absence of any of the modern Indians.
It was the custom of all Tribes of Eastern America to settle in
permanent villages situated in fertile land along streams. Yet there
were none here in 1760 - Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Shawnee or
Chickasaw. At most a few isolated travelers hunted at certain times
of the year.
There is a persistent
local legend, published by at least one historian, of an interview
with an old Chief in which he told of a blinding flash from the
heavens which buried itself in the earth. The crater burned and
smoked for weeks and the tribes gathered in their lodges to ponder
the meaning of such a thing as this. After weeks of deliberation
with their shamans they concluded it was a sign that they should
evacuate the area and move to their villages along the Tennessee and
Mississippi rivers. And they did.
Whatever the reason,
when the first longhunters and earliest settlers came, there were no
Indian towns along the Cumberland – not even one. The Indian towns
were all clustered along the Tennessee and Mississippi rivers to the
South and in Alabama.
Middle Tennessee was
an empty quarter.
We begin with the
entry of our ancestors into the vast and unpopulated wilderness
along the Cumberland River.
Fairvue, Part One – The Franklin Era
Fairvue, Part Two – The Reed Era
Fairvue, Part Three – Grasslands
Fairvue, Part Four – The Wemyss Era,
Chapter 1
Fairvue, Part Four – The Wemyss Era,
Chapter 2
Fairvue, Part Four – The Wemyss Era,
Chapter 3
Bledsoe’s Creek, Part One
Bledsoe's Creek, Part Two
Bledsoe's Creek, Part Three
Bledsoe's
Creek, Part Four - Bledsoe Under Siege
Bledsoe's Creek, Part Five - Attack &
Counterattack, Chapter 1
Bledsoe's Creek, Part Six - Attack &
Counterattack, Chapter 2
|
