|
Shields Mountain and the Shields Fort
Robert and several of his older sons, including our William, went to the Sevier County location, and began clearing the land and building a cabin. At that time, it was still a part of North Carolina, later known as Franklin, now the state of Tennessee. Nancy and the rest of the family followed about a year later. The only way into this mountain wilderness was by pack-horse- - no roads, bridges, villages or towns, and very few settlements. This was the new frontier--as far west as any white man had gone until then.
A large number of families, particularly the Irish and Scotch-Irish settlements of Virginia and North Carolina, moved westward. With this tide of immigration, came Robert and Nancy Shields, with their daughter, Janet, and the Ten Brothers. During that year, the new settlements extended westward as far as the big island in the French Broad River, thirty miles above the present site of Knoxville, and on the very outskirts, on the banks of Middle Creek, which flows into the Little Pigeon, which is in turn a tributary of the French Broad, Robert established his family in Shields Fort, near the present village of Pigeon Forge, at the foot of
Shields Mountain, in what is now Sevier County, Tennessee.
The Shields Fort took nearly four years to build, and when completed was a long building
16 x 100 feet, with low ceiling and attic, constructed of logs with a fireplace at each end. There were four outside doors, several small window openings--without glass, and numerous portholes at convenient places upstairs and down. The original building contained quarters for six families, with a large common kitchen at one end, and a common living room at the other. The building was in the midst of an oblong yard of about a quarter acre, surrounded by walls twelve feet high. The walls consisted of a double row of logs standing on end, closely spaced, sharpened at the top, and fastened together with wooden pins. High sentry boxes at each of the stockade gave a commanding view of the clearing of several acres. The spring was within the enclosure, as were the stables for stock and all other buildings.
The fort was a dozen miles off the regular Indian trails, and was never attacked by a large war party. It was frequently disturbed by small roving bands of two or three Indians. The fort housed Robert, Nancy, their eleven children, grandchildren and a widowed sister of Nancy, with her children. Seven of the ten sons brought brides to the fort . As the families grew, the size of the stockade was enlarged. Some of the sons, and Janet, moved to their own separate quarters outside the fort when it seemed safe a few years later. Of this large family, only one son, Thomas, was killed by Indians, when during this period nearly one of every two men was killed. Another son, Joseph, was severely wounded when he and his brother-in-law, Joshua Tipton, were ambushed and attacked by Indians.
|
|