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The
Long Hunters
By
Emory L. Hamilton, published in Historical
Sketches of Southwest Virginia (Bulletin of the Historical Society
of Southwest Virginia), #5, March 1970; pages 29-61.
The Long
Hunter was peculiar to Southwest Virginia, only, and nowhere else
on any frontier did such hunts ever originate. True, there were
hunters and groups of hunters on all frontiers in pioneer days,
but they were never organized and publicized as the long hunts which
originated on the Virginia frontier. Most, if not all of the long
hunts originated on the Holston in the vicinity of present day Chilhowie,
but were made up of hunters who lived on both the Clinch and Holston
rivers. The idea of this manuscript is to prove, beyond a reasonable
doubt, that these long hunters were native to the area and were
land owners, or residents along the waters of these two rivers.
Perhaps
no group in history, who contributed so much to the knowledge of
the topography of our country, have been so nearly completely by-passed
by historians as have the long hunters of the late colonial days.
In almost every instance when the pioneer settler moved toward the
extreme frontier, he had long since been preceded by the long hunter.
When the first settlers were arriving at Wolf Hills (Abingdon) and
Cassell's Woods in 1768 and 1769, the long hunters had long ago
by-passed these points and were then hunting far away in the Ohio
and Cumberland river basins of Kentucky and western Tennessee. Most
of the rivers and streams, gaps, salt licks, mountains and valleys
had long ago been named by these hunters. When the first settlers
arrived, they, in most cases, adopted the names bestowed by the
long hunters on natural land marks, with very few changes, and we
are still using most of them after a lapse of nearly two centuries.
Dr. Thomas Walker, on his trip to the Ohio, entered in his Journal
on April 9, 1750, this statement: "We traveled to a River,
which I supposed to be that which hunters call Clinche's River,
from one Clinch, a hunter who first found it."1
This entry was made almost twenty years before a settlement was
made on the Clinch River and leaves little doubt as to how the river
got its name.
In the
annals of American history there is no braver lot than these early
hunters. Not only did they endure the rigorous winters in crude
shelters, but the danger of sickness, privation, exposure, hunting
accidents, and the very real and ever present danger of being scalped
by the Indians. They were especially disliked by the Indians, being
looked upon as robbers of their hunting grounds, which they truly
were, and also, as forerunners of the ever-spreading, land-clearing,
soil-tilling settlers. Just why was this particular group of men
given to hunting, instead of tilling the soil as most settlers?
Perhaps there are three answers to this question; first, the spirit
of adventure born in some people which they are unable to quell,
among whom were James Dysart and Castleton Brooks who were quite
well-to-do, as well as Colonel James Knox, who is referred to as
the leader of the long hunters and who later became very wealthy.
Secondly, there were those who enjoyed, above all else, the spirit
of the hunt, among whom were Elisha Wallen, William Carr, Isaac
Bledsoe, and others, who, all their lives were hunters and nothing
but hunters. The last answer, but certainly not the least, was the
profit derived from these hunts. It was not uncommon for a hunter
to realize sixteen to seventeen hundred dollars for his season's
take, and this was far in excess of what he could earn in almost
any other lucrative endeavor. The hides and pelts were sold along
the coast, where animals were no longer plentiful, and in England,
for making leather, especially buffalo skins. The British market
was lost at the outbreak of the Revolutionary War and the long hunts
were never again pursued after the Revolutionary War began.
The long
hunter today would be called a scientist, naturalist, explorer,
or some other high-sounding name, for he had to be master of many
arts. He knew the sky and what a sunset foretold; he knew the wind
and could tell it by smell, as to whether dry or moist, and could
wet his finger with spittle and tell in which direction it was blowing.
He could, in numerous ways, tell the seasons, predict the weather,
and by the stars he could tell the time and direction. He knew the
plants and where they grew, and by feeling the moss and shaggy bark
of a tree, determine the north and find his direction by night.
He knew the medicinal properties of plants and how to treat his
wounds and ailments therefrom. He knew his rifle, how to use it,
repair it, and even in some instances how to make one. He knew the
use of the hunting and skinning knife, the tomahawk, and other tools
and weapons of the hunt and the kill, which was oft times the kill
of an Indian whose skill and cunning he was forced to match and
outwit in order to survive. He was aware of, and knew the habits
of animals and birds and was able to distinguish the true call of
such from the imitation by an Indian. He received his training from
masters, for all who lived on the frontiers had to be masters of
natural history to survive. The very toys of his childhood were
imitations of his future life.
The long
hunters usually went out in October and returned the latter part
of March, or early in April. Their winter's take consisted of both
fur pelts and hides, especially the hides of buffalo which were
wantonly slaughtered for the hides only, the carcass left to be
devoured by animals and vultures. There are recorded events where
hundreds and, a few times, where thousands were slain, and certainly
the Indian was justified in his feelings that his hunting grounds
were being robbed.
The best
descriptions of the long hunter have been left to us by John Redd,
who knew many of them intimately, both in his native Pittsylvania
County, and also in Powell Valley when he came out to Martin's Station
in 1775.2 According to Redd, the long
hunters seldom hunted in parties larger than two or three men. Their
reasons for this were two-fold; first, larger parties were more
apt to scare game away, and secondly, the Indians were less likely
to become suspicious of a small group robbing their hunting grounds,
not to mention that smaller parties were less likely to be discovered
by the Indians. Redd tells a very interesting story about Powell
Valley that was related to him by the long hunter, William Carr.
"Twelve
miles south of Martin's Station on Powell River, there was a very
rich piece of bottom land called 'Rob Camp'. In this there was
the remains of an old hunting camp from which the land took its
name. Some five years before Martin's Station was settled, three
men, with two horses each, and with their traps, guns and other
necessary equipment for a long hunt, settled down in the bottom
above alluded to, built a camp and spent the fall, winter and
part of the spring there in hunting."
At that
time peace existed between the whites and Indians. These hunters
were very successful in killing game and lived in perfect harmony
with the Indians, who frequently visited the hunters and congratulated
them upon their success in taking game. This intimacy continued
until the spring, at which time, the hunters concluded that they
had as much fur and skins as they could conveniently carry home.
Accordingly, they commenced packing, loaded their horses and were
in the act of setting off for home, with the earnings of their successful
hunt, when twelve or fifteen Indians came up, took possession of
their horses, furs, guns, and in fact all the hunters had, and in
exchange gave them three of their old guns, and told the hunters
that the land they were hunting on belonged to the Indians, and
also the game, that they would spare their lives that time, but
cautioned them never to return.3 Redd
tells of another interesting camp he saw in Powell Valley. He states:
"I
was born on the 25th day of October, 1755. In January 1775, when
we were on our way out to settle Martin's Station in Powell's
Valley, in going down Wallen's Creek, near its junction with Powell
River, where the hills closed in very near the creek, was found
the remains of an old hunting camp, and in front of the camp the
bones of two men were lying bleached. They were said to be the
bones of two men who went out hunting in the fall of 1773 and
never returned. Their names I have forgotten."4
In another
letter to Dr. Lyman C. Draper, Redd has this to say in his answer
to a query made by Draper:
"The
remains of the camp I saw in Powell Valley were on its north side;
and as well as my memory serves me, were within forty or fifty
yards of the mouth of Wallen's Creek at the ford of Powell's River.
The camp was built beside a large limestone rock which served
for the back of the camp. The names of the persons whose bones
I saw there I should be unable to accurately distinguish were
I to hear them. This may be possibly the camp pitched by Boone's
war party. The bones I saw were not known certainly to be those
of the two long hunters having gone on a long hunt in Powell Valley
in 1773, who had not returned. The camp was eight or ten miles
from Martin's Station."5
Redd's
reference to "Boone's war party" must be a reference to
the spot where Daniel Boone's party camped in 1773 to await the
party coming to join them from Castlewood, which was ambushed and
massacred near the head of Wallen's Creek on October 10, 1773. The
location described by Redd also fits the general location of Elisha
Wallen's long hunting camp of 1761. Redd says the long hunters set
out with two pack horses each, a large supply of powder and lead,
a small hand vise and bellows, a screwplate and files for repairing
their rifles, and while he makes no mention of it, they also carried
a supply of flour for bread. In fact, on the way out they could
carry quite a lot of supplies as each hunter had two pack horses.
The long
hunters went out together in large parties, built a station camp,
then fanned out in twos and threes to range and hunt over large
areas. The first known station camp established in Powell's Valley
was that of Elisha Wallen in 1761. It is thought his party consisted
of eighteen or nineteen men, but since no list has been preserved,
only the names of a very few are known certainly to have been in
the party. Wallen's Station camp, set up at the mouth of Wallen's
Creek, was probably like other station camps, built of poles, sometimes
only eight by ten feet, covered with puncheons or bark, walls on
three sides, the front open, along which a fire was built for warmth.
Upright poles were set up—often a forked pole was driven into
the ground, with a cross pole on which the bark or puncheons were
laid, sloping toward the back in order to drain melting snow or
rain away from the fire. This type of shelter was known as "half-faced"
camps. Other times an extra large, already-fall tree or large rock
was used for the backwall of such a camp shelter. Some of Wallen's
party are said to have seen the eleven-year-old carving of the name
of Powell and so named the Valley, river and mountain. Ambrose Powell
had been a member of Dr. Thomas Walker's exploring party of 1750.6
Redd
says that when he knew Wallen on Smith's River in Pittsylvania County
in 1774, he was then some forty years old and had been a long hunter
for many years before. That he usually hunted on a range of mountains
lying on the east of Powell's Valley and from Wallen the mountain
took its name. Wallen described the ridge and surrounding country
on which he hunted as abounding in almost every known specie of
game. The animals and birds had been intruded on so seldom that
they did not fear his presence, but rather regarded him as a benefactor,
but soon learned to flee from his presence. Wallen, along with the
Blevinses and Coxes, who were connected with him by marriage, lived
on Smith's River in Pittsylvania County in 1774. They owned no land,
but were squatters. During the Revolutionary War, the Virginia Legislature
passed a law that British subjects who owned land must come in and
take the oath of allegience or their lands would be confiscated.
Redd says that some in Pittsylvania County did this, and Wallen,
the Blevinses and Coxes, packed up 'enmass' and moved to the frontier
for fear they would have to pay many years back rent as squatters.
He states that the Blevins and Cox families settled on Holston River,
above Long Island, (now Kingsport) and that Wallen settled on the
Holston about eighteen miles above Knoxville, and that in 1776 he
stopped by to see him, and was informed by Wallen's wife that he
had then been on a hunt for two months. Redd further states that
Wallen later moved to Powell Valley, lived there a short time and
then moved to Missouri.7
Redd's
statement of Wallen's movements is borne out by a letter written
to Dr. Draper by F. A. Wallen, a nephew to Elisha, from Fairland,
Livingston County, Missouri, dated October 15, 1853, in which he
says: "He (Elisha) moved from Virginia to Tennessee, thence
to Kentucky, thence to Washington County, Missouri, at a very early
date." That Elisha Wallen lived for sometime in Powell Valley,
near Martin's Station is further proven by a letter of Colonel William
Martin, son of General Joseph Martin who built Martin's Station.
This letter is dated Dixon Springs, (Tennessee) 7 July 1842, and
is also to Dr. Draper. In the letter William Martin tells of going
on hunting trips with Wallen who lived near his father's station
in Powell Valley. He said Wallen told him of going back and forth
to Pittsylvania County where he lived, of his helping Colonel (William)
Byrd establish Fort Chiswell (1761), of being at Fort Loudon, and
of building a fort
at Long Island (Fort Robinson) of Holston. Col. Martin
says that he was intimately acquainted with Wallen in his latter
days. The time Col. Martin knew Wallen was in 1785 or thereafter,
as he did not come out to his father's station in Powell Valley
until 1785.8
In Wallen's
party of 1761, some were known to hunt as far away as the Cumberland
River in western Tennessee. Among those known to have been in this
party, besides Wallen, there was his father-in-law Jack Blevins,
his brother-in-law, William Blevins, Charles Cox, William Newman,
William Pitman, Henry Scaggs, Uriah Stone, Michael Stoner, James
Harrod and William Carr. At this time, William Pitman was in
his early twenties, six feet tall and of fine appearance. There
were several Pittmans and more than one named William.9
Of this William Pittman, John Redd says:
"In
the latter part of February, 1776, Pittman and Scaggs came to
Martin's Station in Powell Valley. They were returning from a
long hunt they had taken in the "Brush" on the northwest
side of Cumberland Mountain. They returned earlier than usual
and their reason for doing so was that they had seen a great smoke
some distance off which they knew was Indians "ring-hunting",
and besides, they had seen Indian tracks through the woods where
they were hunting; whereupon they set out for home. They spent
some eight or ten days at the Station. While they were with us,
they showed some silver ore they had found on top of a little
hill in their hunting ground. They said that while they were hunting,
a snow fell some twelve to eighteen inches deep. Scaggs and Pittman
went out through the snow to kill some game. After going a short
distance from their camp, they discovered that on top of a certain
hill, there was no snow, while all the surrounding hills were
covered with it. This led them to go upon the hill and see the
cause of its not being covered with snow like the rest. On arriving
at the summit of the hill, they discovered that it was covered
with a very heavy kind of ore. Each of them put some of the ore
in their shot bag and returned to camp."
"When
they arrived at the camp, they took some of the ore, and by means
of their hand bellows and some thick oak bark, it was melted and
they found it to be silver ore. They brought it back with them
to Martin's Station—the silver they had extracted and some
of the ore. The silver was pronounced by all who saw it to be
very pure."
"Scaggs
and Pittman were said to be men of a very high sense of honor
and very great truth. By the next fall the war with the Indians
broke out and they went no more on their long hunts."10
He further
states that in 1776 Scaggs and Pittman lived on New River. In Washington
County, Virginia Land Entry Book 1, page 86, dated November 8, 1782,
I find where William Pittman once owned the land on Sugar Hill,
overlooking St. Paul, Virginia. This is the land upon which John
English settled in 1772, where his wife and children were killed
by Indians in 1787, and which he sold to the French Baron Pierre
De Tubeuf in 1791, and the site where the Baron was murdered in
1795. The land had changed hands many times by assignment of warrant
before the Baron bought it. English obtained it from Henry Hamlin,
who had obtained it from Joseph Drake, another Long Hunter, and
Drake had gotten it from William Pittman, who in turn had received
it from Thomas Pittman and he (Thomas) had it assigned to him from
Chippy Allen Pucket. Thomas Pittman was supposedly a son of Uriah
Pittman. On May 5, 1774, Arthur Galbraith sued this Thomas Pittman
and Joseph Drake. Just what relation Thomas was to the long hunter,
William Pittman, is unknown.
Henry
Scaggs left the area and moved on into Kentucky, dying on Pittman's
Creek in Taylor County, Kentucky about 1808 or 1809, upwards of
80 years old.11 Collins, in his History
of Kentucky, says:
"He
was six feet tall, dark skinned, bony, bold, enterprising and
fearless. He and his brother (perhaps Charles) were noted hunters,
and nothing but hunters. It was from Scaggs that Scaggs Creek
in Rockcastle County, Kentucky, got its name."
In 1779
Henry Scaggs was living on the Clinch in Tennessee. He had been
hunting for twenty years on the other side of the mountain, and
this fall in addition to a party of upwards of twenty men, with
extra pack horses, he took his young son. In Powell Valley, his
party had the not-very-unusual luck of being attacked by Indians,
who, though they killed no man, took all but eleven of their horses.
All the hunters turned back except Scaggs, his son, and a man remembered
only by the name of Sinclair. (Undoubtedly this was Charles Sinclair
who lived on New River at Sinclair's Bottom.) Scaggs' young son
sickened and died on this trip and because of the severe winter
of 1779-80, the ground was so frozen he had to bury him in a hollow
tree.12 The severity of this winter
is attested in many Revolutionary pension claims. In 1779, William
Pittman was recommended for Lieutenant in Captain John Dunkin's
Militia Company, Captain Dunkin lived in Elk Garden in Russell County.
William Pittman also reflects in the 1772 tithable lists on the
Clinch. Whether these entries are for the long hunter Pittman or
another, there is no way to ascertain. Of William Carr little is
known, except the little left to us in the Reminiscences of John
Redd, who says:
"He
was raised in Albemarle County, Virginia, and at a very early
age removed to the frontier. In 1775 I became acquainted with
him in Powell's Valley. He lived on the frontier for twenty years
or more and had spent the whole time hunting. Carr hunted over
in Kentucky, beyond the Cumberland Mountains to the right of Cumberland
Gap in a place called 'The Brush.' Carr always returned with his
horses laden with furs and skins. He described the game as being
so gentle the animals would rarely run from the report of his
gun."
"Carr
was the most venturesome hunter I ever knew. He would frequently
go on these hunting expeditions alone. After the breaking out
of the Indian war of 1776, few men ventured on these long hunts.
Carr determined to take one more long hunt, and as no one would
go with him, he determined to go alone. Accordingly, he supplied
himself with a good supply of powder and lead, his steel traps,
two good horses, and set out on a long hunt and was never heard
of afterward. He was no doubt killed by the Indians."13
I do
not know just where Carr resided on the frontier. It is hard to
trace the name since the records show both a William Carr and William
Kerr, and whether they are one and the same I do not know. In a
land suit in Augusta Superior Court in 1809, (Fugate vs Mahan) with
the land in question lying on Moccasin Creek, Agnes Fugate Mahan,
widow of Francis Fugate, said: "That in 1771, Francis Fugate
purchased the land in question from William Carr, a 'Negro man of
color,' and that Carr was supposed to have bought the land from
John Morgan, one of the first settlers in that area." In the
same suit John Montgomery, another witness said: "William Carr
is supposed to be a near relation to General Joseph Martin."
In connection with Agness Fugate Mahan's statement about William
Carr being a Negro man of color, John Redd tells this intriguing
story:
"William
_____ was born in Albemarle County, Virginia. He was the first
son of his mother; notwithstanding his mother and her husband
were both very respectable and had a fine estate, yet when William
was born he turned out to be a dark mulatto. The old man being
a good sort of a fellow and withal, very credulous, was inducted
by his better half to believe the color of his son was a judgement
sent on her for her wickedness. William was sent to school and
learned the rudiments of an English education and, at the age
of eighteen, he was furnished with a good horse, gun and some
money and directed by his reputed father to go to the frontier
and seek his fortune and never return."
"In
the early part of the spring of 1775, I became personally acquainted
with William at Martin's Station in Powells Valley. He was then
about forty years of age; he never married, and had been living
on the frontier something like twenty years. He lived in the forts
and stations and lived entirely by hunting. Notwithstanding his
color he was treated with as much respect as any white man. Few
men possessed a more high sense of honor and true bravery than
he did. He was possessed of a very strong natural mind and always
cheerful and the very life of any company he was in. He had hunted
in the 'brush' for many years before I became acquainted with
him. He was about the ordinary height, little inclined to be corpulent,
slightly round shouldered and weighed about 160 or 170 pounds
and very strong for one of his age."14
One William
Carr was in Captain Robert Doak's militia company June 2, 1774,
and a William Carr was also in the Cherokee Campaign under Colonel
Christian in the same year. Bickley, in his "History of Tazewell
County," tells of a hunter named Carr making an early settlement
in Tazewell County, Virginia. Another long hunter, who was in the
Clinch area for sometime, was Uriah Stone, and it seems he made
land improvements in many places were he hunted, probably with the
hope of selling them as he did one in the present Tazewell County,
as shown by a land suit in Augusta County Superior Court, Maxwell
vs Pickens, filed 1807. In this suit James Maxwell stated:
"In
1772 I went from Botetourt County where I lived to present Tazewell
County to make a settlement. I was in company with Samuel Walker.
Found a tract with some improvements, viz.: the foundations of
a cabin, some rails split and some trees deadened. That night
we fell in with a party of hunters, among them Uriah Stone, who
claimed to have made the improvement, and I purchased it."
In the
same land suit Lawrence Murray stated:"Thirty-three years ago
(1774) I was in Wright's Valley at Uriah Stone's cabin." Another
land suit in the same court, Wynn vs Engle's heirs, the same Samuel
Walker referred to in the other case, stated that he came to the
head of the Clinch in 1771, and the following year he came again
with Robert Moffett. Shortly thereafter two men came out, viz.:
Uriah Stone and John Stutler.
James
Smith, a Pennsylvanian, left his home in the fall of 1765, and the
following spring of 1766 found him in the Holston country of Virginia
where settlement was thickening in the general vicinity of Samuel
Stalnaker's place. There, Smith, in company with Joshua Horton,
William Baker, Uriah Stone, for whom Stone's River in Tennessee
was named, and another James Smith from near Carlisle in Pennsylvania,
had gone west.15 Stone returned to
middle Tennessee again in 1767, and at this time, or soon after,
Stone made an improvement on a claim to "A certain place known
as Stoner's Lick, on the east side of Stone's River."16
Stone was a juror in the Fincastle Court of July 7, 1773, and on
this same date, he, along with Obediah Terrell, Gasper Mansker and
Castleton Brooks were witnesses in the case of John Baker versus
Humphrey Hogan, all of whom were long hunters. Then again in the
Fincastle Court of November 3, 1773, there was a motion by Uriah
Stone to stay the proceedings of a judgement obtained against him
by Obediah Terrell. The last mention of Stone in the Fincastle records
was on December 6, 1774, when Gasper Mansker was plaintiff against
Uriah Stone and Jacob Harmon. Michael Stoner, whose real name was
George Michael Holsteiner, along with Isaac Bledsoe, Gasper Mansker,
John Montgomery and Joseph Drake were on the Cumberland in 1767
and are said to have had a station camp in 1768 on what is now Station
Camp Creek, north of Cumberland in middle Tennessee.
A group
of hunters from South Carolina, who were on the Cumberland in 1767,
make mention of meeting James Harrod and Michael Stoner on Stone's
River, who were from Fort Pitt by way of the Illinois.17
This is the very same Michael Stoner who was at Castlewood and went
with Daniel Boone in 1774 to Kentucky to warn the surveying parties
of Indian dangers just prior to the outbreak of Dunmore's
War, and without proof, there is every evidence that Stoner
was much better acquainted with Kentucky than was Boone, for Boone's
first trip through Cumberland Gap was in 1769, and after having
missed finding the gap on previous trips, he was at this time led
through the gap by John Findley, another long hunter and settled
on the Cumberland River in Tennessee. While trying to find someone
to send to Kentucky to warn the surveying parties, on June 22, 1774,
Colonel William Christian wrote to Colonel William Preston that
he was thinking of sending out a certain Crabtree to search for
the surveyors, having him do this as a sort of atonement for his
late achievement in murdering some friendly Cherokees. Having some
doubt about the ethics of this, however, he next thought of sending
out Joseph Drake, who, a one of the long hunters, was tolerably
well acquainted with Kentucky. Colonel Preston wrote Captain William
Russell of Castlewood about this matter, and Russell, on the 26th
of June, 1774, answered Preston saying: "I have engaged to
start immediately, on the occasion, two of the best hands I could
think of, Daniel Boone and Michael Stoner, who have engaged to search
the country as low as the Falls (Louisville), and to return by way
of Gasper's Lick on Cumberland, and through Cumberland Gap."18
Michael
Stoner went to Kentucky with Boone when he made his settlement at
Boonesboro, and Cotterill, in his "Kentucky in 1774"
implies that Stoner was with Boone's party when they made their
unsuccessful attempt to settle in Kentucky in 1773, and that he
had been a close associate of Boone for several years before, Boone
and Stoner having first met on the New River, and that, when Boone's
party was turned back in 1773, he had probably been living with
the Boone family on the Clinch. Stoner, born about 1748, was also
a member of Boone's road-cutting party through Cumberland Gap and
was still alive in 1801, when he made a deposition in Wayne County,
Kentucky.19 He married a daughter of
Andrew Tribble. He was wounded at the siege of Boonesboro, fainted
from loss of blood after he had refused to let anyone come to him,
for he was outside the fort walls. His wounds were only flesh wounds,
one in the hip and another in the arm. After losing his land grants
he settled with his father-in-law near Price's Station.
Two other
long hunters of Powell Valley were William Crabtree and James Aldridge,
both of whom were probably in Wallen's hunting party of 1761. Of
these two, John Redd, says: "I have seen them both frequently,
but know nothing of interest connected with their long hunts. More
of an Indian scout and hunter than a farmer, William Crabtree was
a real backwoodsman, tall, slender and with slightly red hair."21
The Crabtrees lived on the Holston, a numerous family, with many
of the same name, therefore it is hard to distinguish which William
was the long hunter, but it is believed he was the William who was
a son of William and Hannah Whittaker Crabtree whose residence was
at the Big Lick near Saltville. If so, he was born in Baltimore
County, Maryland, circa 1748. His first wife was Hannah Lyon, sister
to the long hunter, Humphrey Lyon. After her death he was married
in 1777 to Katherine Starnes and she died in Tazewell County in
1818. The father of William Crabtree, whose name was also William,
lived near the Salt Works (now Saltville) where he died in 1777.
Redd says: "I know not where Crabtree was from originally.
In 1777 he was living on Watauga, not far above its junction with
the Holston. I know not what finally became of him. He was about
thirty years of age."
Of the
long hunter, James Aldridge, this writer has been unable to recover
any data of significance, as he seems to be mentioned in none of
the court records. Some writers have said that he lived on the New
River, but John Redd says he lived in the neighborhood with the
Crabtrees on Holston. He is described as being about 30 years of
age, a dark haired, heavily built man, stoop shouldered, but with
a spritely mind.
Humberson
Lyon was another of the long hunters who early hunted on the Cumberland.
He was a brother-in-law to William Crabtree, having married his
sister, Hanna Crabtree. His will was exhibited in Washington County,
Virginia, court on March 16, 1784, and proven by the oaths of Isaac,
Job, and Hanna Crabtree, and who, along with William Crabtree were
witnesses to the will. Abraham Crabtree was Administrator and his
Securities were William and James Crabtree. The will was probated
March 16, 1784, and he left his estate to his wife and sons, William,
James, Stephen, and Jacob, and daughter Susanna. Humerson Lyon was
a Juror in Fincastle County in 1773, and was recommended Captain
in the Washington County, Virginia militia, October 9, 1780.
Elisha
Wallen went out again in 1763 with much the same group as were in
his party of 1761. Glowing reports of the Cumberland and Ohio River
basins brought back by Uriah Stone, Joshua Houghton, or Horton,
and others of the long hunters fanned the urge for exploration to
the boiling point. Plans were laid for a great hunt in Tennessee
and Kentucky. The rendezvous was to be on New River, eight miles
from Fort Chiswell, in June 1769. This party consisted of at least
twenty or more men, and Williams, in his "Dawn of Tennessee
History," names ten, to wit: John Rains, Gasper Mansker, Abraham
Bledsoe, Joseph Baker, Joseph Drake, Obediah Terrell, Uriah Stone,
Henry Smith, Ned Cowan and Robert Crockett.22
To these ten, the following names also should be added: Isaac Bledsoe,
William Carr, James Dysart, Jacob Harmon, William Crabtree, James
Aldridge, John Baker, Thomas Gordon, Humphrey Hogan and Castleton
Brooks.
Passing
through Cumberland Gap and far into Kentucky, a station camp was
built, and the company there dispersed into small hunting parties,
as was the custom. Traveling southeast, one of these parties reached
Roaring River and Caney Fork of the Cumberland. On what is now known
as Matthews Creek of Roaring River in Overton County, Tennessee,
Robert Crockett was killed, Indians firing upon him from ambush.
Of the above group of nineteen long hunters, not heretofore mentioned,
is John Rains who became one of the first settlers on the Cumberland,
going there from the New River settlements in Virginia, where he
had first settled after emigrating from Culpepper County, Virginia.
He was noted for his woodcraft and Indian fighting, became an officer
of militia, and like Gasper Mansker, survived close to twenty-five
years of Indian warfare, fifteen of these on the Cumberland; yet
he lived to be 91.23
Of Humphrey
Hogan, little is known. The only record found of him is in the Washington
County, Virginia, court where on November 17, 1778, he was on bail
for Alexander Hamilton. He moved to Tennessee where he became one
of the first school teachers. It is not known just what he taught
for he signed his name with an "X".
Gasper
Mansker, luckier than most long hunters in that he kept his scalp,
but was engaged in more skirmishes than most, was outspoken and
then only twenty years old. He had been born aboard ship, of emigrating
parents, and spoke with a heavy German accent, but sometimes described
as a "Dutchman." He was reared on the Virginia borders
in the region of the South Potomac. After twenty-five years of Indian
warfare in which he got several wounds, he died in 1822 on the lands
over which he had hunted in 1769. He built a Station Camp near Gasper's
Lick in 1779, and had a wife and a brother George Mansker. It was
to Mansker's Station about twelve miles above what was to be Nashville,
that Andrew Jackson's future wife, Rachael Donnelson, fled with
her kin in the troubled Indian times of 1780.24
Gasper Mansker lived on Moccasin Creek in present day Scott County,
Virginia, prior to his going to Tennessee. On the 6th of December
1774 he entered 190 acres of land in old Fincastle Land Entry records,
lying on Moccasin Creek. He was married to Elizabeth White of Virginia,
who eloped with him. He had a Station near Goodlettsville, in Davidson
County, Tennessee. He lived at Mansker's Lick in 1792, and never
had any children.
Obediah
Terrell, for whom Obey's River in Tennessee, was named, was a chunky,
small-sized man with a club foot.25
He spent several years on the Cumberland as a farmer and hunter,
and before permanent settlement was made in Tennessee, hunted and
camped along the river in what later became Cumberland and Pulaski
counties. In 1780 Daniel Smith spent one night in his camp near
the mouth of Obey's River while on a buffalo hunt.26
It is highly probable that Captain Daniel Smith and Terrell knew
each other back on the Clinch in earlier years, for Smith was a
militia officer and Surveyor for Fincastle and Washington counties
in Virginia, before his removal to Tennessee. While on the Clinch
frontier, Obediah Terrell lived on Obey's Creek in Scott County,
Virginia, which was named for him. The last official court record
pertaining to him in Washington County, Virginia, was April 22,
1778, when he was appointed Overseer of the road from "two
big springs" on Copper Creek to the head of Moccasin Creek,
and on August 18, 1778 when he was appointed Administrator of the
estate of Thomas Kindrick. It was perhaps soon after this date that
he moved to Tennessee, for less than sixteen months thereafter Daniel
Smith was spending the night with him on Obey's River in middle
Tennessee.
Joseph
and Ephraim Drake were brothers, and Ephraim seems to have been
much less a hunter than was his brother, Joseph. Joseph Drake had
apparently been in Daniel Boone's party to Kentucky in 1773, when
his son, James Boone and Henry Russell, with others were killed
on Wallens Creek on October 10, 1773. He probably left the Clinch
with Boone in 1775 for he was killed by Indians at Boonesboro in
1778.27 He married Margaret, a daughter
of Colonel John Buchanan, and after his death, she married a man
named William Jones. Drake left one son John who was living in Nicholas
County, Kentucky. Joseph Drake went from his father's home near
New River, and near Anchor and Hope Plantation (present Max Meadows)
to Southwest Virginia, at least by 1772, and probably before, according
to the court records. He took up a tract of 326 acres on Carlock's
Creek. This is the creek that flows into the Holston just east of
Chilhowie, and along the road that leads from Chilhowie to Saltville
today. Drake got a tract from Colonel John Buchanan's land, the
Hall's Bottom land (South of the Bristol Howard Johnson Restaurant)
and went to live there, but there was a German living there, named
Jacob Young, who had moved in on the land and squatted. He came
to Drake's home and fired a pistol across the front porch and heckled
Drake in general until he moved. James Dysart was Sheriff of Washington
County and wanted to help Drake run Young off, but Drake moved away
nonetheless. Dysart wanted to help Drake because of his attachment
to him. He said he had been hunting on three long hunts with Drake
- one in 1769 for seven months, in 1771 for nine months, and a third
for eleven months in 1772.
Drake
moved to Kentucky in 1777 from the Hall's Bottom land. He had bought
his Carlock tract from the Loyal Land Company early—about 1771-1772.
Drake had moved his family to the Hall's Bottom tract in 1775, and
then with the outbreak of the Cherokee War in 1776, moved back up
New River near his father's home.28
It will be recalled that William Christian to Colonel Preston, in
a letter dated June 22, 1774, in regard to sending someone to Kentucky
to warn the Surveyors, said, "Next thought of sending out Joseph
Drake, who, as one of the long hunters was tolerably well acquainted
with Kentucky." In Fincastle County court of January 6, 1773,
Joseph Drake was granted permission to keep an Ordinary (Inn), and
on January 5, 1773, he was appointed road Overseer from the Town
House to Eighteen Mile Creek, proving his residence in the vicinity
of Chilhowie at that date.
Joseph
Drake was killed by Indians near Boonesboro in August, 1778. He
had married Margaret, a daughter of Colonel John Buchanan, and his
brother Ephraim Drake had married her sister, Anna Buchanan. These
Buchanan girls who married the Drake brothers were first cousins
to General William Campbell (whose mother was a Buchanan), and of
Captain James Thompson, whose mother and wife of Colonel Buchanan
were sisters and the daughters of Colonel James Patton.29
Part
III In 1769, a party of approximately forty hunters, with James
Knox as their leader spent more than a year in the Cumberland country.
Many conflicting accounts of this party of 1769 have been written.
Much of the confusion because the party split into several smaller
parties, each going in a different direction. Everybody is pretty
well agreed that they went in a body over the Hunter's Trail to
Flat Lick (near Stinking Creek, about eight miles north and a little
west of Cumberland Ford.)30 Just about
all the long hunters heretofore mentioned in this manuscript were
on this hunt, and those not mentioned previously being the Bledsoe
brothers, Anthony, Abraham and Isaac, John Baker, Thomas Gordon,
Jacob Harmon, Castleton Brooks, John Montgomery, James Dysart, Humphrey
Hogan, David and William Lynch, Christopher Stoph, William Allen,
Joseph Brown and Ned Cowan. The Bledsoe brothers, Anthony, Abraham
and Isaac were tall men of fair complexion and of English origin.
Their parents had come from England to Culpeper County, Virginia.
Their mother died and they left home because of an unkind step-mother.
They came about 1767 to the New River country. Anthony, the eldest,
married Mary, the daughter of Thomas Ramsey, a noted Indian fighter
and active in
French and Indian War.31 Abraham
Bledsoe became a professional hunter, but Isaac and Anthony were
interested in land. Both settled in middle Tennessee about 1784.
Isaac, at this time about twenty-four years old, and after surviving
years of border warfare in Virginia and Eastern Tennessee, spent
two or three years in Kentucky, and, when that was safe from the
Indians, went back to Bledsoe's Creek, and there he was killed,
as was his brother Anthony, by the Indians. Isaac Bledsoe was a
Captain in the Cherokee Campaign in 1776. He lived on Highway 58,
between Bristol and Gate City, about five miles outside Bristol.
His land is now the property of the Spahr family who bought from
him in 1782. A very interesting letter is to be found in the Draper
Collection written by General William Hall, of Locustland, Tennessee,
to Dr. Draper, dated 21st of July 1845, wherein he says:
"Sir,
you wish to know something about Colonel Bledsoe's discovering
Bledsoe's Lick, and the route of the long hunters, and Colonel
Mansker's killing the buffaloes at Bledsoe's Lick for the tallow
and tongues.
"The
long hunters principally resided in the upper country of Virginia,
and North Carolina, on the New River and Holston River, and when
they intended to make a long hunt, as they called it, they collected
near the head of Holston, near where Abingdon now stands. Thence
they proceeded a westerly direction passing through Powell's Valley
crossing the Cumberland mountain where the road now crosses leading
to the Crab Orchard in Kentucky. Then crossing the Cumberland
River where the said road now crosses Rockcastle, and leaving
the Crab Orchard to the right and continuing nearly the said course,
crossing the head of Green River, going on through the Barrens,
crossing Big Barren River at the mouth of Drake's Creek; thence
up Drake's Creek to the head, crossing the ridge which divides
the waters of the Ohio River from the waters of the Cumberland,
and the hunters, after crossing the ridge, either went down Bledsoe's
Creek, or Station Camp Creek to the river and then spread out
in the Cumberland ready to make their hunt.
"The
first trip that the long hunters made was about 1772 or 1773.
There were several very enterprising, smart, active members along.
I will name a few: Colonel Isaac Bledsoe, Colonel John Montgomery,
Colonel Gasper Mansker, Henry Scaggs, Obediah Terrell, two Drakes
(this would be Joseph & Ephraim), and a number of others could
be named. When the hunters crossed the dividing ridge first named,
they fell on the head of Station Camp Creek, and went down it
about three miles and from Cumberland River, came to a very large
plain, buffalo path, much traveled, crossing the creek at right
angles north and south. The south side of the creek was a pretty
high bluff and a beautiful flat ridge made down to the creek.
The hunters pitched their camp on the bluff and on the buffalo
path, and they made that their Station Camp from which the creek
took its name. Colonel Bledsoe and Colonel Mansker, the first
night they pitched their camp, agreed that the buffalo path that
ran by their camp must lead at each end to Sulphur Licks or springs,
and they made an agreement that night for Colonel Bledsoe, in
the morning, to take the north end of the path, and Colonel Mansker
to take the south side of the path, and each to ride one half
day along the path to see what discoveries they could make and
give themselves time to return to camp that night and report what
they had seen.
"They
were both successful in their expectations. One found Bledsoe's
Lick at the end of thirteen miles, and the other found Mansker's
Lick at about, twelve miles. They both returned that night, with
great joy, to their companions at the camp, and made known their
discoveries of the two licks.
"Colonel
Bledsoe told me when he came to Bledsoe's Creek, about two miles
from the lick, he had some difficulty in riding along the path,
the buffaloes were so crowded in the path, and on each side, that
his horse could scarcely get through them, and when he got to
the bend of the creek at the Lick, the whole flat surrounding
the lick of about one hundred acres was principally covered with
buffaloes in every direction. He said not only hundreds, but thousands.
"The
space containing the Sulphur Springs was about two hundred yards
each way across, and the buffalo had licked the dirt away several
feet deep in that space, and within that space there issued out
about a dozen sulphur springs, at which the buffalo drank. Bledsoe
said there was such a crowd of buffaloes in the Lick and around
it, that he was afraid to get off his horse for fear of getting
run over by the buffaloes, and as he sat on his horse he shot
down two in the lick and the buffaloes trod them in the mud so
that he could not skin them. The buffaloes did not mind the sight
of him and his horse, but when the wind blew from him to them
they got the scent of him, they would break and run in droves."
The same
year that Bledsoe discovered the lick, a Frenchmen by the name of
Denumbre, who lived at Kaskaski on the Mississippi River, with a
party of French hunters, in a keel boat, came up the Cumberland
River to the mouth of Bledsoe's Creek, and came to Bledsoe's Lick
and killed at the Lick, and around in the vicinity of the Lick a
sufficient number of buffaloes to load their boat with tallow and
buffalo tongues. The second year after, when Bledsoe and the long
hunters returned, when they crossed the ridge and came down on Bledsoe's
Creek, in four or five miles of the Lick, the cane had grown up
so thick in the woods that they thought they had mistaken the place
until they came to the Lick and saw what had been done. Bledsoe
told me that one could walk for several hundred yards around the
lick, and in the lick on buffalo bones. They then found out the
cause of the canes growing up so suddenly a few miles around the
Lick which was in consequence of so many buffaloes being killed.
"Sir, you was mistaken in thinking that I told you that Colonel
Mansker was the person that had killed the buffaloes at Bledsoe's
Lick for tallow and tongues."32
The Frenchman
referred to as Denumbre, in the foregoing letter, was really Demunbreun,
and of him Williams, in his "Dawn of Tennessee History,"
states: "Some long hunters about 1766 or 1767 observed on the
bluff near French Lick, a hut or trading post - evidently that of
Timothe Demunbreun who, about that time arrived at that place in
a sail boat and began to trade with Indians and hunters." In
a long footnote William tells a lot about this Frenchman. The footnote
says in part:
"He
and his family for some time lived in a cave on the banks of the
Cumberland between the mouth of Mill Creek and Stone's River.
A marker at the cave has been erected by the Daughters of the
American Revolution. Demunbreun had a lineage and a career more
remarkable than our historians conceived. His name in full and
correctly was Jacques Timothe Boucher de Montbrun, descendant
of Pierre Boucher who was the first French Canadian to be raised
(1661) to the rank of nobility in recognition of his work in bringing
colonists into Canada."
Williams,
in " Dawn of Tennessee History," says, in speaking of
Castleton Brooks, that he also came to the Cumberland, most possibly
merely to see the country, for he was a man of means, and six years
later, served as witness for the biggest land deal in all the history
of the west.33 (Henderson's
purchase of the Cherokee land.) Castleton Brooks lived on the Holston
and served as a Juror in Fincastle in 1773, and in 1777 was appointed
by the Washington County Court as "Constable from Patterson's
Mill as far down the river as there was settlers." James Knox
was referred to as "leader" of the long hunters, because
of his instrumentality in organizing these hunts. He organized the
group who went out in 1769 and in 1771. Knox, a Scotsman, had emigrated
from northern Ireland when he was fourteen. He had soon learned
the ways of the border, for by that date any community west of the
Blue Ridge had plenty of good teachers. Most of his life, like that
of the other long hunters, was to be spent in skirmishes with the
Indians and British. He rose to the rank of Major in the militia
and settled in Kentucky, where he married the widow of Benjamin
Logan, whom some say he loved before she was married to Logan. He
lived to become rich, a Kentucky Colonel and member of the Legislature
from Jefferson County in 17888, and a member of the Kentucky Senate
from Lincoln County from 1795 to 1800.
James
Knox was a member of the Surveying party under John Floyd in 1774,
when Governor Dunmore sent Daniel Boone and Michael Stoner to Kentucky
to look for them and warn them of danger prior to the outbreak of
Dunmore's War. Knox deserted Floyd's party with a man named Allen,
perhaps William Allen, another long hunter. Knox and nine others,
perhaps all deserters from Floyd's party, were fired upon by the
Indians while encamped on Salt River and James Hamilton and Jared
Cowan were killed. Jared Cowan is perhaps the long hunter sometimes
referred to as Ned Cowan.34 After this
Knox and his party made their way back to the Clinch, arriving at
Castlewood on July 9, 1774.
In 1784,
James Knox led a caravan, which had started out from Augusta County
over the Wilderness
Road, to Kentucky. This caravan had been joined by settlers
along the way down from Augusta and many from the Clinch and Holston
settlements joined it, and when Knox took command at Bean's Station,
it numbered some 300 people. Many of these pioneers settled in Jessamine
County, Kentucky.
Another
Scotch hunter from Northern Ireland was young John Montgomery. As
previously stated, he was related to the Bledsoe brothers through
marriage, marrying a daughter of Josiah Ramsey, and a niece to Anthony
Bledsoe's wife. The Montgomerys lived in what is now Montgomery
County, Virginia, and from the family the county derived its name.
Lieutenant Colonel John Montgomery who had been commissioned very
young, was sent by Virginia in April 1779 to help George Rogers
Clark in his Illinois campaign and received distinction for his
efforts in that campaign. He went down the Holston-Tennessee rivers
by boat to Chattanooga with General Evan
Shelby, going on to the Illinois in the same boats. Drury Bush
from Castlewood, and the Kincaid brothers, James and Joseph, who
lived directly across Clinch River from St. Paul, were with Montgomery
on this trip.35 Colonel John Montgomery
founded Clarksville in Tennessee, and died there in 1794.36
Still
another Scotchman from Northern Ireland was James Dysart, an orphan,
who came to America as a teen-age boy. He, like many immigrants,
had landed at Philadelphia and gradually worked his way south and
west to the Holston River country. His old home "Brook Hall"
stood east of Abingdon on Highway U. S. 11. "He may have, on
his way to Southwest Virginia, carried a few books. In his old age,
after service at King's
Mountain where he was wounded, he removed to a remote section
of Rockcastle County, Kentucky, but when a friend commented on his
isolation he answered, 'I am never lonesome when I have a good book
in my hand.' He, in time, collected quite a library and lived to
enjoy it, dying when he was 74 in 1831."37
After
settling on the Holston River in Fincastle County, Dysart married
Agnes, a daughter of John and Eleanor Beatty. He served as Captain
in General William Campbell's regiment at the Battle of King's Mountain.
He was a signer of the call for the Rev. Charles Cummings in 1772,
and, when Washington County was organized in 1776, he became a Justice
of the Court and first Sheriff of Washington County in 1776. He
rose to Major in the Washington County Militia, and held many minor
offices. He had a mill and owned more than 2000 acres of land scattered
from the Holston to Powell Valley, mostly in small tracts.
John
Finley, another long hunter and the one who led Daniel Boone through
Cumberland Gap on his first trip to Kentucky, after Boone had previously
missed finding the gap, was also a resident of Southwest Virginia,
and was on early trips to the Cumberland country. I first find him
mentioned in the Fincastle Court records November 2, 1773 when he
bought land. In the Washington County, Virginia Court of 26th of
February, 1777, is entered this order:
"John
Finley making it appear to the satisfaction of the court of Washington
County that he upon the 20th day of July, 1776, received a wound
in the thigh in the battle fought with the Cherokees, near the
Great Island, and it now appears to the said court that he, in
consequence of said wound, is rendered unable to gain a living
by his labor as formerly. Therefore his case is recommended to
the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia."
Finley
was in Edmondson's Company at the Battle of Long Island Flats (now
Kingsport) when he was wounded, and was probably in the same company
at King's Mountain.
At one time he was probably a resident of the Watauga Valley.
Jacob
Harman was one of the long hunters, but there was more than one
Jacob Harman, as well as many other Harmans, and all were hunters,
so it is hard to determine just which Jacob was the long hunter.
The long hunter may have been Jacob Harman, Jr., a son of Jacob,
Sr. The Harmans, who were all descendants of Henrich Adam Herman,
a German immigrant who settled on the New River in the late 1740s
or early 1750s with a large family of boys who were all born prior
to his emigration to the New River Settlement. All these boys were
great hunters and Indian fighters. In speaking of the long hunters,
Jonathan Daniels, in his book, "The Devil's Backbone,"
says that John Rains, one of the long hunters who settled in Tennessee,
in referring to the lawyers, doctors and politicians arriving on
the frontier, said,
"We
used to think we had the Devil to pay (and a heavy debt, running
in long installments) before the doctors and lawyers came, but
the doctors introduced disease and the lawyers instituted suits,
and now we have all to pay."
— End
(1) Journal of Dr. Thomas Walker
(2)
John Redd's Narrative, VA Magazine of History & Biography, Vol.
4 & 7
(3)
Ibid, Volume 7, page 10
(4)
Ibid, Volume 7, page 9 & 402
(5)
Ibid, Volume 7
(6)
Arnow, Seedtime on the Cumberland, & Filson Quarterly II, page
70.
(7)
Virginia Magazine of History & Biography, Volume 4
(8)
Draper MSS 6 XX 8
(9)
Virginia Magazine of History, 1893
(10)
Virginia Magazine of History & Biography, Volume 7, page 250
(11)
Draper MSS 3 B, 230, 238
(12)
Draper MSS 3 C 74
(13)
Virginia Magazine of History & Biography, Volume 7, page 249
(14)
Ibid, Volume 6, page 335
(15)
Arnow, Seedtime on the Cumberland, page 134
(16)
Ibid, page 157
(17)
Ibid
(18)
Filson, Quarterly Volume I, page 24
(19)
Arnow, Seedtime on the Cumberland, page 57 v (20) Williams, Dawn
of Tennessee History
(21)
Virginia Magazine of History & Biography, Volume 7, page 249
(22)
Williams, Dawn of Tennessee History
(23)
Arnow, Seedtime on the Cumberland, page 159
(24)
Draper MSS 6 XX 52-54, 85, 86 & 5S62
(25)
Draper MSS 5 S 62
(26)
Tennessee Magazine of History, Volume 1, page 58 - Smith's Journal,
Tuesday 6/4/1780
(27)
Draper MSS 10 DD 80-83
(28)
Historical Collection, Gordon Aronhime, Bristol, VA.
(29)
Ibid
(30)
Williams, Dawn of Tennessee History
(31)
Draper MSS 31 S, 191-201
(32)
Draper MSS 6 XX 8
(33)
Williams, Dawn of Tennessee History, page 329.
(34)
Draper MSS 6 XX 85
(35)
Pension Statement of James Kincaid, National Archives
(36)
Draper MSS 36 J 22 & Calendar of Virginia State Papers, Volume
I, page 382
(37)
Arnow, Seedtime on the Cumberland, page 168
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