This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/wNHBAIB/2842.1.1.1 Message Board Post: For what it's worth -- Phillip Shaw Paludan in his book "Victims -- A True Story of the Civil War" about the Shelton Laurel, writes that "in the early 1790's, just after the land was taken from the Cherokees, two brothers named David and Martin Shelton came to the palce from Virginia. Martin chose to live in the burned out insides of a hollow tree. David sought more humane surroundings, but both brothers were living in the wilderness when the boundary commissioners came through in 1799...." This particular paragraph is not source cited, although the next one is. It is unclear if that citation, which has 4 separate sources, is meant to cover both paragraphs. However, this particular paragraph is rather embellished -- the "burned out insides of a hollow tree" -- which tends to suggest a specific history or remembrance that was recorded somewhere.