Evidently, my first messages I sent regarding the Records of John Sevier did not go thru. I will resend them all over. Thanks Steve ------------------------ Concerning the events in Powell Valley regarding the Indian lands, there is information in "Old Speedwell Families", and other records found in East Tennessee Historical Library in Knoxville, and the Tennessee Archives in Nashville in the documents of John Sevier. Steve Smith ------------------------- Roulstone’s Knoxville Gazette and Weekly Advertiser, February 6, 1797 To the People residing in Powell’s Valley, and elsewhere, on Lands to which the Indian Claim is not extinguished. Fellow Citizens, Fully impressed with a just sense of the duty enjoined upon us, by the President of the United States, thro’ the secretary of war, and duly empowered to pursue a line of conduct, which will conform to an act of Congress, passed the 19th day of May, 1790 “entitled an act to regulate trade and intercourse with the Indian tribes, and to preserve peace on the frontiers,” (to which no doubt you have all had reference) we have come forward, and now address you, in full confidence of your treating the subject, coolly and dispassionately. It is not our wish to enter rashly upon the duty assigned us; nor do we conceive there will be a necessity for it; and in order, therefore, to give you full time to prepare your minds for the event, we have deemed it proper notify you, that on or about the 20th instant, we shall meet you at YOCUM’s Station, where we hope your numbers will be full and respectable, and your tempers calmly disposed to argue on a subject which involves in itself consequences of material magnitude to the Union at large, and to you in particular. We are assured, that the reflection of a moment will evince to you, how much better it is, to observe a strict obedience to the laws, than, by a refractory disposition, involve your fellow citizens in the tumults of anarchy, and probably in the horrors of war, and create in your own minds a self reproach, which will forever be felt. Fellow Citizens, At our meeting, we shall not scruple to read to you, the instructions we have received, and by which we are to be governed; and after your hearing them, we cannot admit of a doubt, but that you will I a given time remove to that side of the line to which we have a just claim, and save the necessity of any unnecessary altercation. We are Your Friends and Humble Servants, Richard Sparks, Capt. 3rd Regiment US Army John Wade Capt. 3rd Regiment US Army Knoxville, February 2d, 1797