. Tennessee the Volunteer State 17691923: Volume 1 THE CUMBERLAND SETTLEMENT It may be said as a final word concerning this battle that the right to the sobriquet, The Volunteer State, really begins at this time. When Shelby and Sevier summoned the men of the Holston and the Watauga to volunteer for service against the British commander, Major Ferguson, all responded with the exception of a few notorious Tories; and, when they assembled at Sycamore Shoals, it was necessary to resort to a draft, not to force them to undertake the campaign, but to compel enough men to remain at home to defend their wives, children and possessions from attacks by Indians. Tennessee the Volunteer State 17691923: Volume 1 THE CUMBERLAND SETTLEMENT While the stirring events narrated in the chapter immediately preceding were taking place, another history-making enterprise was being put on footthe establishment of the settlement on the bend of the Cumberland River. Tennessee the Volunteer State 17691923: Volume 1 THE CUMBERLAND SETTLEMENT It will be remembered that James Robertson had been appointed Indian agent with his residence among the Cherokees. He lived with them at Chota and his influence on them was great and salutary. In 1779, he notified the pioneers of the Watauga that the Indians were planning an attack. Thereupon Evan Shelby, anticipating the threatened movement, attacked the savages and completely defeated them. The time was opportune for the location of the settlement at the French Lick. Tennessee the Volunteer State 17691923: Volume 1 THE CUMBERLAND SETTLEMENT Of this enterprise James Robertson and John Donelson were the leaders. They formed a partnership under the impulse and direction and, more than all else, under the inducements of Richard Henderson. It seems strange, indeed, that historians so generally have ignored Henderson's connection with the Cumberland enterprise. Haywood and Ramsey say nothing of this man who was the directing and controlling impulse in both the colonization and early government of the wilderness empire of the Cumberland. Henderson's ability is nowhere seen more clearly than in his selection of his leaders. That he could induce such a man as James Robertson to leave a self-governing community which he had largely founded and where he had a prosperous and happy home to brave again the hardships and dangers of a primeval and almost unknown country, shows most conclusively Judge Henderson's powers of persuasion. John Donelson, too, was a man of standing, substance and influence in Virginia before he came to Tennessee. Yet Roosevelt, following Ramsey and Haywood, says that, after the Virginia Legislature, in 1778, had discountenanced the validity of the Transylvania purchase, Judge Richard Henderson drifts out of history. Tennessee the Volunteer State 17691923: Volume 1 THE CUMBERLAND SETTLEMENT But Dr. Archibald Henderson, a descendant of Judge Richard Henderson says: Footnote Tennessee Historical Magazine, Vol. II, p. 160. Tennessee the Volunteer State 17691923: Volume 1 THE CUMBERLAND SETTLEMENT page 103 With the bursting of the Transylvania bubble and the vanishing of the golden dreams of Henderson and his associates for establishing the fourteenth American colony in the heart of the trans-Alleghany region, all might have seemed lost. But is Richard Henderson disheartened by this failure of his imperialistic dreams? Does he, as Mr. Roosevelt crassly affirms, drift out of history? No; the purest and greatest achievement of his meteoric career still lies before him. The genius of the colonizer and the ambition of the speculator, in striking conjunction, inspire him to attempt to repeat on North Carolina soil, along solidly practical lines, the revolutionary experiment which the extension of the sovereignty of the Old Dominion over the Kentucky area had doomed to inevitable failure. It was no longer his purpose, however, to attempt to found an independent colony, separate from North Carolina and hostile to the American Government, as in the case of the Transylvania, which [p.103] had been hostile to the royal government and founded in defiance thereof. Millions of acres within the chartered limits of North Carolina had been purchased by him and his associates from the Cherokees on March 17, 1775. One of the courses of the Great Grant, as it was called, read: down the sd. (Cumberland) River, including all its waters to the Ohio River; and James Robertson in his deposition before the Virginia Commissioners, April 16, 1777, describing the Sycamore Shoals Treaty, categorically stated: The Indians then agreed to sell the land as far as Cumberland River and said Henderson insisted to have Cumberland River and the waters of Cumberland River, which the Indians agreed to.* Tennessee the Volunteer State 17691923: Volume 1 THE CUMBERLAND SETTLEMENT Henderson was of the opinion that the Cumberland region was within the limits of North Carolina. Robertson thought it was in Virginia. The truth could be ascertained only by a survey. In 1779, these two states appointed a joint commission to make a survey and extend their boundary. North Carolina appointed Richard Henderson and William B. Smith; Virginia appointed Dr. Thomas Walker and Daniel Smith. Tennessee the Volunteer State 17691923: Volume 1 THE CUMBERLAND SETTLEMENT While their survey was proceeding, James Robertson, with the untiring energy and sure efficiency which characterized him, proceeded actively to recruit a party for the preliminary exploration. Tennessee the Volunteer State 17691923: Volume 1 THE CUMBERLAND SETTLEMENT Preceding this time for many years hunters had come into the country surrounding the French Lick. We have already spoken of Charleville, Demonbreun, Dr. Thomas Walker and his party, and of others. As a matter of fact there is no question that numerous parties and individuals ventured into this region, but few of whose names have been preserved and of whose journeys and discoveries there is no verbal or written account. Of those who are known and who made some impress of their presence were: John Rains, Kasper Mansker, Abraham Bledsoe, John Baker, Joseph Drake, Obediah Terril, Uriah Stone, Henry Smith, Ned Cowan, Joseph Holliday and Thomas Sharp Spencer, the last named of whom was the most important. He came in 1776 and remained until the arrival of the permanent settlers in 1779. Haywood, Ramsey, Putnam and other historians tell many ancedotes of him in connection with his gigantic size, strength and fearless intrepidity. Many anecdotes are also told by these historians of other hunters, trappers and traders of these times. These forerunners subserved an indispensably useful purpose in preparing the way for the permanent settlers. In 1778, the first settlement of about a dozen families located near Bledsoe's Lick, now Castalian Springs, in Sumner County. Near this settlement Richard Hogan, Spencer and Holliday planted corn in the same year. About the same time a number of French traders advanced up the Cumberland River as far as the Bluff, where they erected a trading post and a few log cabins. ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com