Eastern Tennessee and Western Virginia Mountain Ballads- Cambiaire, 1934
[Cambiaire was a teacher and apparently his students and others at his school collected these songs and ballads in Tennessee and Virginia. The book is divided into three sections. In Section I are songs and ballads with several references to the informant and collector (most are unattributed). In Section II are a few play-party songs and in Section III are original songs/poetry composed by Cambiaire. I've changed section III to songs about liquor and drunkenness and left of Cambiaire's original poetry- sorry Cam. I've also decided not to include the complete Introduction- which is excellent- it's so long (41 pages) and time consuming and I don't want to focus on the history right now. The first 20 pages are found below.
Here's a brief biography written by the University of Iowa in 1924:
Celestin Pierre Cambiaire born at St. Affrique, France, December 23, 1880. His early education was received at St. Affrique. In 1891 he entered the college of Bordeaux. In 1897 he received the degree of Bachelier-es-Lettres, premiere partie at the University of Lille, France. In 1898 he received the degree of Bachelier-es-Lettres-Philosophie, at the University of Paris. He entered the University of Missouri in in 1920, and received there the degree of Master of Arts in 1923. He followed the summer courses of the University of Chicago in 1922 and entered the University of Iowa in 1923. He has taught one year at year at Grubbs State College, Arlington, Texas, and five years at the School of Mines, Rolla, Missouri.
I'm attaching Section I, Section II and Section III on three separate pages. Below the Table of Contents is the Introduction.
R. Matteson 2014]
East Tennessee and Western Virginia Mountain Ballads
(THE LAST STAND OF AMERICAN PIONEER CIVILIZATION)
By
CELESTIN PIERRE CAMBIAIRE, Ph.D,
Officer d'Academie
Author of The Influence of E. A. Poe in France, The Black Horse of the Apocalypse, Fleurs d'Amerique, Le Roi Louis-Philippe aux Etats-Unis, Le Role de la France dans l'agrandissement des Etats-Unis, etc.
LONDON: THE MITRE PRESS, 1934
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
[Section I] Attached to this page
After the Ball
A Gentleman's Meeting
A Wild and Reckless Hobo
Barbara Allen
Billie Boy
Blue Eyes
Botany Bay
Brown Girl
Cold Winter Night
Cruel Ship Carpenter
Disappointed Lover (The)
Down Yon Riverside
Drunken Captain (The)
Early, Early in the Spring
Evelyn
Farewell, Lovely Polly
Frankie Baker
Frozen Girl (The)
Frozen Girl (The) (other version)
George Collin's
Girl I Left on New River (The)
Gypsy Laddie
Hustling Gamblers
I'm Sad and Lonely
I Wish I was a Little Sparrow
Jesse James
John Riley
Little Mary Fagan
Little Sadie
Lonesome Dove
Lord Daniel
Lord Thomas
Loving Henry
Loving Nancy
Mary Golden Tree (The)
May I Sleep in Your Barn to-night Mister?
More Pretty Girls than One
Nightingale, (The)
Number Nine
O Bury me Beneath the Weeping Willow Tree
Oma Wise
On a Cold Winter's Eve ...
Orphan Girl (The)
O, Waly, Waly!
Pearl Bryant
Peddler and His Wife (The)
Please Mr. Barkeeper
Pretty Little Black-Eyed Susie
Pretty Polly
Railroad Bum
Red River Valley
Sailor's Return (The)
Sallie
Sally Gooden
Soldier Boy (The)
Songs About Liquor and Drunkenness
Sourwood Mountain ...
Swapping Song
Sweet Evelena
Sweet Willie
The Boston Burglar
The Dying Soldier
The Hangman's Song
The Pretty Mauhee
Three Babes
Tornado Blues
Two Little Children
Two Little Girls in Blue
When I was Single
When the Roses Bloom Again on the River
Wild Bill Jones
Willie Down by the Pond
Wreck of Latona
Wreck of the Old NinetY-Seven (The)
Wretched Rambling Boy (The)
You're Welcome as the Flowers in May
[Section II] Attached to this page
Ballads for Dances and Games
Introduction
Captain Jinks
Howsers (The Game of)
Hunting Ballad
I Measure My Love to Show You
Jenny Put the Kettle On
London Bridge
Miller's Boy (The)
Old Dan Tucker
Skip to My Lou
Susie Brown
Tideo
Weevilly Wheat
We'll Shoot the Buffalo
[Section III]
My Rosary of dreams
A Beautiful Unknown
An Hour with You
Autumn Leaves
Boy and the Bluebird (The)
Broken Dreams
Christmas Legend
Christmas Night in France
Fairies and Flowers
Give Me Youth and the World is Mine
God Forgives, Men Do Not
I Love You
Inspiration
Kiss of Allah (The) ...
Life's Trail
Morrow (The)
Music
Opportunity
School Memories
September Dream
Sleep, Baby, Sleep
Spring
Symphony
Those We Left Behind
Years Gone By
You
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INTRODUCTION [proofed once- incomplete- first 20 pages]
INTRODUCTION TO PART I
The Last Stand of American Pioneer Civilization
The mountains of East Tennessee and western Virginia harbour a race of people who represent what is left of the pure Anglo-Saxon or rather, Anglo-Norman race in America. Indeed, Henry Adams has proved with mathematical precision that every American with English blood has Norman blood. Everywhere else in the United States millions of immigrants of various nationalities have come to be Americanized in the immense melting pot of all races, but in the mountains of East Tennessee and Western Virginia we find, almost exclusively, descendants of pioneers of pure English strain, who in 1769 began to settle this part of the country, then peopled by Indians, and almost inaccessible. These mountaineers have a distinct physical type, speak the English of the eighteenth century without any slang and modernisms, and have a pronunciation which differs to a certain extent from that of other Americans. Their vocabulary is unusually rich for people living far away from cities and educational centres, and they can express themselves with some degree of elegance and wit. Most men are very tall, and raw-boned, and have blue eyes and a fair complexion. The girls generally have tall stature, are slender and elegant with refined features, blond hair, and blue eyes. Of course, there are also some men and women with black hair and dark eyes, but they are in the minority. Most of the girls are industrious, and unusually attractive when they are young, they marry at an early age, sometimes at fourteen, and make excellent, loving, and loyal wives. There is no race suicide among East Tennessee mountaineers. Families of ten and twelve children are the rule rather than the exception. The writer has a neighbour who has sixteen children, all fine looking, strong, and healthy.
East Tennessee and Western Virginia mountaineers are a very hardy race. Many of them reach a very old age, without ever being sick. One of them, for instance, who born very close to the farm where these lines were written, and who is now ninety-five years old, made a trip in an automobile, last summer, 1933, from Texas, where he has been living for the last forty-six- years, back to his old Tennessee home, without feeling the least fatigue. These descendants of pioneers seem to be immune, to some extent, to diseases. Exceedingly few of them the young, however, there are a few cases of consumption among them while, when they settled this section, the pioneers live mostly on meat of wild game, especially of buffalo, many of their descendants, at present, are to a great extent vegetarians. There is no big game left in the mountains. Even squirrel, are scarce, and rabbits are far from being as plentiful as in other parts of the United States. There are too many hunters, and as East Tennessee mountaineers are among the very best marksmen in the world, they bring down almost every game they shoot at. These robust people can live, and even standard work and great fatigue, on scanty and coarse food, which would be absolutely insufficient to other Americans. often sheltered in badly constructed and sometimes dilapidated frame buildings or even old log cabins, and wearing light clothing, these mountaineers can stand very cold weather in winter without any apparent inconvenience. In summer time, they can work under hot sun in the middle of the day without seeming to suffer in the least from the heat. While they generally take life in an easy way, and do not work with the continuous intensity of some other races, who want to make money as fast as possible they have a great reserve power, and after several days or weeks of idleness can stand the greatest fatigue. Their endurance and adaptability to all sorts of climates is remarkable. Often one can see women and children coming down on foot from mountain peaks or faraway hills, and carrying on their backs loads of apples, wild grapes, and other wild fruit, which other American women and children of the same age and size could scarcely lift.
Indefatigable and fast walkers, sure-footed, quick, robust, very strong, exceptionally good marksmen, and very calm in face of danger, these mountaineers make incomparable soldiers. In all the years of the United States, Tennessee mountaineers have distinguished themselves by their extraordinary efficiency and bravery. This calmness of the inhabitants of East Tennessee and Western Virginia is indeed surprising. The present economic crisis, which causes other Americans in all walks of life to worry and ponder, seems to leave these highlanders practically unmoved. Some of the poorest among them receive Government help to support their families. They take the rations allotted to them, and feel just as unconcerned and happy as in the days of relative prosperity.
East Tennessee mountaineers were never spoiled by too much prosperity, and many of them never knew anything about life's luxuries. With enough to eat, some kind of a passable roof to shelter them, fairly good clothes to wear, most of them feel perfectly satisfied. A few of them would consider life's happiness very incomplete without a few drinks of whisky occasionally. The valiant pioneers who settled on these mountains made a liberal use of whisky, and a certain number of their descendants like the taste of it once in a while. Prohibition had very little effect in these mountains. Clandestine whisky was made before the Eighteenth Amendment, and some mountaineers kept on making it, and found ready buyers, when the Volstead Law did away with all legal distilleries.
For nearly two hundred years these mountaineers, most of them in Cumberland mountains, have been almost isolated from the rest of the world. The first wagon-way through Cumberland Gap, which is nature's gateway North and south, was built by Governor Duncannon in 1796. The first railroad, which passed through East Tennessee and Cumberland Gap, began to operate in 1889, up to that time this part of the century was almost completely isolated from other sections of the United States. Before the advent of the automobile practically all roads in East Tennessee and Western Virginia were nothing but mountain paths. Up to the latter part of the nineteenth century most of the traffic with the outside world was done by water through the Powell river, the Clinch River, and down the Tennessee river. Traveling by water was possible only at certain times of the year. With the advent of the automobile, after considerable length of time, some good roads were built, but these fine highways reach only the most important towns. In the mountains of East Tennessee and Western Virginia there are no large cities, and good size towns are very few. Many settlements are inaccessible to automobiles in bad weather. Others cannot be reached at all in cars at any time. One must go there on horseback or on foot. Some settlements and farms can be reached only through roads so bad and dangerous that only people raised in the mountains or who have lived there for some time dare drive through them. Very often tourists who happen to venture in less frequented mountain roads get off the automobile and let the driver lead the way. Automobile accidents with fatal results are not uncommon in these steep, winding, narrow, and often slippery roads hanging over immense precipices.
While in the valleys the soil is excellent, it is very poor in the hills and mountains. The first settlers took up the valleys, and when their children grew up they divided their property among them. These in their turn divided their farms among their offspring. on account of isolation, great distance from markets, difficulty of access, and no opportunities to become rich, no foreign element came into these new settlements. Most settlers were poor men, and exceedingly few of them brought with them negro slaves. In fact, there are no negroes in East Tennessee mountain farms. Occasionally one finds a few negroes in mountain towns, but none in real mountain villages. Even at this date there are no Italians, no Jews, no Greeks, and no foreigners of any kind in the highlands of East Tennessee and Western Virginia. Only in coal mining towns one sees occasionally a few foreigners, who came there in the last few years.
MELUNGEONS
In Hancock County, on Blackwater creek, lives a people which does not belong to the same race as the rest of the inhabitants of East Tennessee. They have dark complexion, black hair, and brown eyes. Their type resembles that of Indians. Their language is the English of two centuries ago. Their names are typical English names. They claim Portuguese ancestry, but there is nothing in their names, their language, and their habits to justify this claim. The word Melungeons is evidently a slight transformation of the French word melangeons. The pronunciation of "an" before a consonant or at the end of a word in French resembles that of "un" in English. The French came into Tennessee a long time before the English. In 1714 Charleville had already a store on the site where Nashville stands now. In 1760 de Montbrun had a store in the same part of the country, which is now Tennessee. Some French traders or trappers must have given the name of Melangeons to the descendants of a few white men and Indians, who originated the settlement of the strange race of people now lost among descendants of first American pioneers. As melangeons, from the French word melanger, means mixed breed, and as all these people have English names and speak old-time English, they certainly have English ancestry. As their type resembles the Indian type, it is clear that they have Indian blood. In the beginning of the English occupation of America there was a considerable number of children born from English fathers and Indian mothers. In Oregon, very many families of people born there and descendants of the first American settlers have Indian blood. Most of the first settlers married Indian girls. In the case of the Melungeons or rather Melangeons, descendants of English settlers and Indian women inter-married, and formed a race which now resembles more the Indian type than the Anglo-Norman type. Half-breeds were looked down upon to a certain extent by white people, and it is natural that some of them should have moved away to some remote place to form a new settlement. It seems that the Melungeons (Melangeons) came into Hancock County between 1810 and 1815. They could not have invented their name, because they do not want it, and the few American settlers in Tennessee at that time did not know enough French to call these new-comers, Melangeons. Either they brought this name with them after some Frenchmen gave it to them, or some Frenchmen who lived or trapped in the vicinity gave it to them. They have no French ancestry, because if they had they would not speak the English of about two hundred years ago, and they would have at least a few French names. In 1805 in their journey of exploration to the Columbia river across the Rocky mountains, Lewis and Clark met Indians who spoke French. These Melungeons do not like to be called by this name. The current belief among the white people of their vicinity is that they are a mixed race of whites and Indians with at least a little mixture of negro. The chances are that if they had much negro blood the French would have called them muldtres. These Melungeons have not inter-married either with whites or with negroes since they came into Tennessee. With the exception of this strange race of people, whose origin no one up to this time has been able to trace very definitely, practically all the inhabitants of East Tennessee and Western Virginia are descendants of English pioneers.
PATHFINDERS AND FIRST SETTLERS
In order to be better acquainted with Tennessee mountaineers, and to understand better their pioneer civilization and their ballads, it is important to know some details about their ancestry and the first white settlers of these mountains. In or about 1750 Dr. Thomas Walker, born in 1715 in Virginia, made a trip from his native state to Cumberland Gap. He was the first man who left an authentic report of his explorations through this region. He crossed Cumberland Gap into Kentucky, and discovered Cumberland River, to which he gave this name in honour of the Duke of Cumberland, son of George II of England. He named the Gap, "Cave Gap." Afterwards Cave Gap was called Cumberland Gap, and the mountains were called Cumberland Mountains by analogy with Cumberland River. Dr. Walker's companions were William Tomlinson, Colby Chew, Henry Lawless, John Hughes, and Ambrose Powell, after whom Powell River and Powell Valley were named. Members of his party built near Cumberland River a cabin, which was the first house erected by English-speaking people in Kentucky. Before that time the French had built cabins for the Indians, opposite the mouth of the Scioto [Big Scioto fiddle tune], and on the south side of Big Paint Creek, at Flat Rock, now in Paintsville, and in several other places. Frenchmen must have passed through Cumberland Gap before Dr. Walker, who in his journal mentions crosses cut on trees, undoubtedly by French trappers or explorers.
In 1769 Daniel Bone, guided by John Finley, passed with a small party through Cumberland Gap. It is claimed that he blazed the trail through the pass, the same road has 'been kept. It is very probable that Boone followed a buffalo trail, through which bufialoes were going north and south. In many instances these wonderful animals, who had a very practical instinct, blazed the way for the white men. This road became the great highway for travel through Cumberland Gap, and bore various names, "Wilderness Road," " Boone's path," "Buffalo Trail," the " Warrior's Path," and the "Kentucky Road."
It is only after the Treaty of Paris in 1763, when the territory which comprises Tennessee, and several other states, was ceded by France to England, that settlers began to move into the section of the country which is now Tennessee. Land grants attracted settlers. The men who had served in war against the French and the Indians were granted by royal proclamation lands as follows: " Every person having the rank of a field officer, 5,000 acres; every captain 3,000 acres; every subaltern or staff officer, 2,000 acres; every non-commissioned officer, 200 acres; and every private, 50 acres." It is true that in order to allay the apprehensions of the Indians, who feared, with great reason, that they were going to be dispossessed of all their hunting grounds, a subsequent proclamation was issued on October 7th, 1763, prohibiting " the provincial governors from granting lands or issuing land warrants to be located west of the mountains, or west of the sources of those streams flowing into the Atlantic ocean. And all private persons were strictly enjoined from purchasing any lands from the Indians, such purchases being directed to be made, if made at all, at a general meeting or assembly of the Indians, to be held for that purpose by the governor or commander-in-chief of each colony, respectively." This proclamation was looked upon by George Washington, chancellor Livingston, and other intelligent men as "an article to quiet the Indians," and the occupancy and purchase of Indian lands for nominal prices went on as before.
A convention was held at Fort Stanwix, New York, October 24th, 1768, and attended by the Indian Commissioner for the northern tribes and 3,200 Indians of seventeen different tribes. On November 5th a treaty and a deed of cession to the King of England were signed. In this deed the Iroquois and other northern tribes sold to England their title to all the lands between the Ohio and Tennessee Rivers. A council was called at Hard Labor, South Carolina, by the commissioner for the southern tribes. These tribes sold him the title to the above-mentioned lands, except a few reservations from the Cherokees. These treaties, the first ones in which any lands within the present boundaries of Tennessee were ceded by original tribes, were completed in December, 1768. Without any delay pioneers looking for homes in a fertile region began to settle on the banks of the Watauga River, and the real history of the state of Tennessee began. Early in 1769 William Bean was living in his log cabin on Boone Creek, near where it empties into the Watauga River.
THE WATAUGA SETTLEMENT
The nucleus of the Watauga settlement, first permanent white settlement within the boundaries of the present state of Tennessee, was formed in the latter part of December, 1768, and the early part of December 1769. The settlers were principally from North Carolina, and from Virginia. Some of the settlers from North Carolina had been among the troops raised by that province and sent to the relief of Fort Loudon in 1760, and others had wintered at Fort Long Island in 1758. On account of the comparative unproductiveness of the hills and valleys of some parts of both North and South Carolina and the political unrest and dissatisfaction- in these provinces, a considerable number of their inhabitants were glad to be able to acquire, practically without cost, large tracts of good land in a new and fertile country. Hunting and trapping were very profitable, and the mountains and valleys of the region just opened to settlers were full of wild game and fur-bearing animals. Thus with a gun and a few traps the new-comers could not only get all the meat they wanted for themselves and their families, but acquire without work, considerable wealth for those days through the sale of peltry.
James Robertson, colonel John carter, and Valentine Sevier, Sr., father of General John Sevier, first Governor of Tennessee, are perhaps the three most prominent early pioneers of Tennessee. James Robertson came to Watauga in 1770, and the next year settled beyond the bluff opposite the mouth of Doe River. Colonel John Carter started a settlement one-half mile north of the site of Elizabethtown in 1770 or 1771. Valentine Sevier, Sr., built his cabin between sycamore shoals and, Elizabethtown at about the same time as John Robertson built his not far from Doe River. The descendants of valentine Sevier are numerous in Tennessee. one finds also many Carters and many Robertsons. Sevier belonged to a family of French Huguenots, who fled from religious persecution in France. A considerable number of French names are found among the old families of East Tennessee mountaineers. The ancestors of these French families came mostly from North Carolina, and occasionally from Virginia, with the earliest settlers. It must be remembered that there was a time when, as says Frederick Nolte, in his History of the united states (Paris, 1879, p. 147, I) there were at least as many as 16,000 French Huguenots in the city of Charleston, South Carolina. Moreover, in 1622, when some English settlers attacked by the Indians fled from Virginia into Carolina, they met some French Bretons, descendants of French people left in the vicinity of Fort Carolina in 1665. As these Bretons were still speaking their native language, which resembles that of the welsh, those among English settlers who had come from wales thought that these Frenchmen were the descendants of an ancient welsh colony. (Rouchelle, Roux de Etats-unis d'Amerique, Parisn 1838, p. 64.) The French element of East Tennessee and west Virginia mountain pioneers explains to some extent the similarity of a certain number of tunes prayed by highland- fiddlers, and old French country dance melodies. In remote parts of Louisiana, old French fiddlers, who never were out of their native state, and who learned these melodies by ear from their a tunes and dances which are played by old Tennessee and Western Virginia troubadours.
When the Watauga settlements started, it was thought that the section which new-comers were colonizing was in Virginia. The Virginia legislature passed an act granting to every actual settler having a log cabin erected and some ground cultivated, the right to four hundred acres of land so located to include his improvements, and subsequently extended the right to each settler to purchase 1,000 acres adjoining "at a merely nominal cost." This generous Act of the Virginia Legislature encouraged immigration to the West. There, every man could acquire for nothing a very valuable estate. When the boundary line was made, it was found that these new settlements were in North Carolina. The majority of the pioneers were from this state. White men acquired land not only through grants but also through purchases from the Indians, who in many instances sold very valuable tracts for almost nothing. Thus in March, 1755, a deed was made to Jacob Brown, by which for the consideration of ten shillings a "Principality" embracing much of the best land in Washington and Green Counties was conveyed to him The Watauga settlement increased in numbers always drawing its pioneers from North Carolina, and to some extent from Virginia. The settlers instituted a tribunal of five commissioners chosen between themselves to settle all controversies. They organized themselves into a district, which under the suggestion of John Sevier, it is claimed, was called Washington District. These pioneers of Tennessee were probably the first to honour Washington. In 1776 they sent a petition in the hand-writing of John Sevier, and signed by one hundred persons, to the General Assembly of North Carolina asking to annex to that state as a county, district or some other division. The fact that out of a very small population, one hundred and twelve men were able to affix their signature to a petition, puts the lie to the statement often made and repeated that Tennessee pioneers were all illiterates. In those days women did not vote. Evidently the majority of these early settlers had some knowledge of reading and writing.
At the time of the war of Independence there were already a considerable number of white settlers in Tennessee. When the British and the Tories had captured almost all the. important places in North and South Carolina, several American colonists fled from their homes in these provinces into the woods and mountains of Tennessee. The Tennesseeans were called the Rear
Guard of the Revolution. Colonel Patrick Ferguson decided to destroy the mountain settlements. Under the leadership of
Colonels John Sevier, Shelby, and Campbell, the mountaineers attacked Ferguson entrenched at King's Mountain, routed his
army, killed him, and made the enemy forces prisoners, who had not fallen under their guns, on October 7th, 1780.
In 1782 the General Assembly of North Carolina passed an act granting to every soldier of the state, in service and in good
standing at the end of the Revolutionary War, 640 acres of land. Every non-commissioned officer was entitled to 1,000 acres, each Brigadier-General to 12,000 acres. Other officers received from 2,560 to 7,200 acres, according to rank. If an officer or soldier should fall in battle, his heirs were entitled to the grant of land he would have received if he had served to the end of the war. Of course, the individual rights of the Indians were entirely disregarded. A vast immigration to the new territory in Tennessee followed this Act. It was close home, and old soldiers could readily acquire a fine piece of property and even become wealthy. Many new settlers came from North Carolina. Pioneers who were already in Tennessee before the Revolutionary War, and joined the American army' acquired new lands. Most of these men had come also from North Carolina. At one time it was estimated that nine-tenths of the population of Tennessee were from the mother state. (History of Tennessee' Goodspeed Publishing Co., Chicago, 1887, p. 140)
As there were a considerable number of French Huguenots in North Carolina, several Frenchmen were among the brave pioneers who settled the mountains and valleys of Tennessee. Thus, among the first settlers of Grainger county, which took his name from some Frenchman, since the word Grainger is French, we find the Bassets and the Lebons, who were evidently Frenchmen. The Frenchmen Lenoir, Maynard, and LaFollette gave respectively their names to Lenoir city, Maynarclville and LaFollette. Sevierville and Sevier county were named after John Sevier, whose family's original French name was Xavier. Two out of the three highest peaks in the Great Smoky Mountains have French names, Mount Le Conte, and Mount Guyot. Guyot was from Neufchatel in Switzerland. There may have been also in this part of the country a few descendants of former French traders or trappers. Several topographical names such as French Broad, French Lick, Big Pigeon, French Salt Springs on Cumberland River, Pigeon Fig., remind one of French former occupation of a part of Tennessee. This French influence explains why many old violin melodies and dances played by mountain fiddlers are typically French. Perhaps also some old tunes go back to prehistoric times when the French race and English race were yet the same tribe. Some old mountain dances are exactly the same as old country dances in small Brittany and other parts of France.
In the same manner, one finds among most mountaineers habits of hospitality, which are typically French, and which are found nowhere else developed to such an extent in the United States, except in Louisiana. Besides having among them a few French Huguenots from North Carolina and Virginia, Tennessee pioneers came in contact with a few Frenchmen who belonged to the French colony of Louisiana in North America. Thus in 1714 Monsieur Charleville had a store on a mound in the immediate vicinity of the site of Nashville. In 1760 Monsieur de Montbrun had a store in the same vicinity. About 1775 the same Captain de Montbrun, wrongfully spelt de Monbreun in American histories, came to Middle Tennessee and established his residence at Eaton's station. He hunted through Montgomery County. During the summer of 1777 he saw white men at Deacon's pond, near the present city of Palmyra. " At about the same time (1777) some Frenchmen established a trading post at 'The Bluff' with the approval of the Chicasaws." (History of Tennessee, Goodspeed Publishing Co., Chicago and Nashville, 1887, p. 127).
The valley lands were taken up first, then the new-comers put up their log cabins in the mountains, wherever they could find a patch of tillable land or in coves between the mountains. Thus, small settlements sprung up, which were almost completely isolated from other parts of the country. These pioneers were very robust and strong people. Most of them were veterans from Indian and French Wars, and afterwards veterans from the War of Independence. The majority of the others were worthy, poor men, who wished to improve their fortunes going West, where they could acquire for nothing large tracts of land, part of which they could give to their children when they grow up. However, near this excellent element, which settled the mountains of East Tennessee and some remote parts of Western Virginia, there was another element, which was far from being desirable. As says G. R. McGee, (History of Tennessee, American Book Co., New York . .