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An Account of Some Sand Mountain Families, Part 1
A human life is like a single letter in the alphabet. It can be meaningless, or it can be part of a great meaning.
---Jewish Theological Seminary of America
Our story starts with an Isaac Cooper who served as a witness in a famous legal case. The record shows him giving a deposition in the home of James Cooper in newly-formed Jackson County, Alabama. The case concerns the Great Salt Works of the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River in Wayne County, Kentucky:
- The Big South Fork of the Cumberland River empties into the Cumberland
- River in Pulaski County East of Burnside. Today, the River is mostly in
- McCreary County KY, and then crosses the border into Scott and Fentress Co's.
- TN. Years ago, before McCreary County was formed, the West/North bank of the
- River was Wayne County KY, and Fentress County TN. The East/South bank (the River runs mostly North to South, with a large bend near Bear Creek that turns
- the flow East to west for a few miles, then it turns South once more), was
- Pulaski and Whitley County KY, and Campbell and then later on Scott County TN. In the 1900's, this was a coal mining area, and today, it is a National Park. It is stunningly beautiful place, with large bluffs along the River canyon.
- In 1807, John Francis first reported the discovery of saltwater along the
- Big South Fork of the Cumberland River. This initial discovery was
- reported to be "near the mouth of Bear Creek, where Richard Slavey now lives".
- (I believe that Richard Slavey and John Francis where in laws, as both
- married a woman named Mounts.) Francis and Slavey petitioned the State
- Legislature, and in 1811, received a Grant for 1000 acres, conditional upon
- their production of a 1000 bushels of salt. The time limit for this production
- was later increased, due to the War of 1812. By the time the 1000 bushels
- were produced (around 1818), several other items of interest occurred:
- John Francis received another Grant just South of the 1000 acres for the same
- purpose; Marcus Huling, working with Col. James Stone, sank another
- saltwater well, on the sight of Francis's other Grant; Stephen F. Conn,
- Martin Beaty, and a host of other people became involved in these
- enterprises in several different ways. This activity started a series of
- Law Suits, lasting up into the 1830's, as well as the accidental sinking
- of the world's first oil well.
- River in Pulaski County East of Burnside. Today, the River is mostly in
Adkins
The Adkins (also spelled Atkin, Atkinson, Aiken, etc.) were intermarried with our pioneer Cooper, Blevins and Burke families from Wayne County, KentucKentucky Before settling as one of the leading families in Watauga, they came from Pittsylvania County, Virginia, an important staging area for the movement of Melungeon families on the northern and eastern boundaries of the Overhill Cherokee (see sidebar).
Old Survey Book No. 1 pg. 7 Pittsylvania County |
---|
William Atkinson 200 A on both sides Pig River Survd Mar.311747 at a gum on the Lower side of Pig River and thence N10E 90p. to a red OakN65 W137pto a Beech on a branch S10 W204p. crossing a branch to a red oak S10E110p. to a red oak on Pig Riverand thence down the same & across it to the beginning.William Atkinson150A on both sides Pig River Survd 31Mar. 1747 beginning at a red oak on the upper sidedriver thence N81W48p.crossing sd River to a maple on Harping Creek S89W184p. crossing sd Harping Creek & the River to a white OakN8W96p. crossing a Branch to a pine N60E70p. to ared oak E98p to a red oakS64E70p. to a pine S10E103p to the begin.Transcribed by James Burnett From notes of Mrs. Anderson, dec'd |
The Adkins are traced to a James Atkinson, a Quaker who came to Philadelphia in the 1600s, probably from a Welsh port. His great-grandson William Adkins left a will dated Jan. 22, 1784, probated March 15, 1784 (D&W Bk. Vol. 11 p.136), and was buried near Cooper's Old Store, Pittsylvania County. William's son Owen was born about 1750 in Lunenberg County, Virginia (the parent county of Pittsylvania) and died in Watauga, Hawkins County, Tennessee about 1790. He married Agnes Good/Goad, from the same family that provided the spouse of Valentine Sevier (1701/02-1803). They were the parents of John Sevier, the first governor of Tennessee, and one of his sons, Valentine, married Sarah Cooper. The Seviers go back to Don Juan de Xavier of a Sephardic family taking refuge in Narvarre during the Spanish Inquisition.
In 1836, Benjamin Adkins built a log mill on the Little South Fork of the Cumberland near Parmleysville, Kentucky, made of huge squared logs. This mill, with rifle slits on two levels, is still standing. He left a will in 1839 showing $10,000 in debts owed him and an estate of great value. Numerous family members moved first to Sequatchee (Marion County, Tennessee) and subsequently to Sand Mountain and to a hidden cove at the foot of Fox Mountaincalled Anawaika, or Deerhead, on the Georgia state line. Some proceeded west to Arkansas. William E. Adkins (about 1828-1862) married Susan E. (Sukie) Cooper (about 1831-1901), the daughter of Isaac and Mahala Jane Cooper, April 20, 1847, in Henry County, Tennessee Descendents filed unsuccessful applications to be enrolled as Cherokee in Indian Territory.
William Adkins enlisted in the 1st Arkansas Union Cavalry (Company M) on September 17th, 1862 in Marion County, Arkansas. His muster-in roll is dated October 1st, 1862 in Springfield, Missouri. He served under Brigadier General J. M. Schofield in the Army of the Frontier and was killed during a battle at Crane Creek, Stone County, Missouri on November 20th, 1862. His "Inventory of effect of a Deceased Soldier" signed by William S. Johnson.
Black
Black is a Scottish name associated with clans Lamont, Macgregor and Maclean. About 1790, Mary Ann Black married William Davis, a Revolutionary War soldier born in Virginia in 1753. Davis died and was buried in Maynard's Cove on Sand Mountain near the former Chickamauga capital of Creek Path in 1848. She was a daughter of Black Fox, who at that time was a lieutenant in Dragging Canoe's Chickamauga army fighting the Tennesseans.
Black Fox signed the Holston Treaty, July 2, 1791 (but not the stipulation of February 7, 1792) and delivered the funeral oration for his brother-in-law Dragging Canoe. He was originally chief of the lower town of Ustanali and became principal chief of the Cherokee after the death of Little Turkey in 1802.He signed the October 20, 1803 agreement for opening a road through the Cherokee Nation as "Principal Chief," as well as the Oct. 27, 1805, Jan. 7, 1806, and Sept. 11, 1807 treaties. On March 3, 1807, the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives enacted a statute at large giving "the Cherokee chief, called Black Fox" a life annuity of $100. He sided with Chief Doublehead during the rebellion of 1806-1810 and was deposed for it, with Pathkiller taking his place. On April 18, 1810, he and others signed an act of the Cherokee Nation abolishing clan revenge. After this he was reinstated as principal chief. He last received his $100 stipend by proxy on July 11, 1810; the agent Return J. Meigs referred to him as "Black Fox Cherokee King." The chief had his nation cede 7,000 square miles of land to the government, giving a ceremonial wampum belt to Col. Meigs as a token of his faith in transferring Muscle Shoals, with its iron ore deposits. Younger chiefs forged his name to certain treaties and acts. He died in 1811 and was buried in an ancient tomb on the boundary between Cherokee and Creek lands in Blount County, Alabama His name was carried on by the Black Fox who signed the treaty of 1828 and emigrated west. Some descendants remained in the East around his former chief's residence at Creek Path on Sand Mountain. A sister married John Looney of the family that established the Looney Tavern, near where Black Fox was eventually entombed. There are rumors that a Black Fox changed his name to Henry White and moved from Alabama to Ohio. Black Fox's hunting camp was on the Stones River near Murphreesboro, Tennessee and is mentioned on a map of 1783.
Blackfox in English designates the medium-sized fur-bearing animal known as the fisher, a type of very elusive martin that lives in caves and feeds primarily on bats, as we saw in chapter 10. The red or gray fox is called chula. Inola may have been the name of Black Fox's mother. In the same way, another Chickamauga mixed blood chief, Thomas Glass, who signed the treaty of Tellico next to Chief Black Fox, was known as The Glass, or "Tunnquetihee" (Dagwadihi "Cawtaba-killer"). His residence was Nickajack Town opposite the end of Sand Mountain near ChattanooGeorgia Glass is a Scottish clan, originating in France. It is remembered for the religious sect known as the Glassites, who taught that every meeting of worshipers constituted a church in itself. Chief Glass appears to have begun life in white S.C. and served in the home guard:Glass, Thomas (S. C.). 2d Lieutenant S.C. Rangers, in service 1779 and1780. A William Glass then bought land in Watauga near John Sevier and James and Charles Robertson; see Wash. County Deeds, Vol. 5, pp. 220, 223. A granddaughter, Sarah, married William L. Cooper, the son of Isaac and Mahala Jane Cooper, in Marion County, Tennessee about 1830 and they moved to Wilkes County, N.C. in the Melungeon heartland.
On Chief Black Fox's tomb the following description was written in An Account of Some Creek, Cherokee and Earlier Inhabitants of Blount County (George Powell, "A Description and History of Blount County," Transactions of the Alabama Historical Society at the Annual Meeting in the City of Tuscaloosa, July 9 and 10, 1855, pp. 60-64):
- At the time Blount was settling, we must recollect that the Cherokee Indians were the lords of all that portion of country lying between Wills Creek [in the valley between Sand Mountain and Lookout Mountain] and the Chattahoochee river.... Some years after [1820], the northeast boundary of Blount was extended to Cherokee and Creek Indians, then residing in Brown's and Gunter'sValleys....
- Most of the first settlers of Blount as well as those of the adjoining counties, believed that lead mines existed in Blount and Jefferson counties, and that the Indians knew their location and obtained lead from them. Perhaps, this general belief originated from the following circumstance, which occurred in 1810:
- An old Cherokee Chief, named Black Fox, died in the north of our county, and was buried in an old mound; and in digging his grave, the Indians found some pieces of lead ore. This trivial discovery was magnified and circulated in Madison Count, and many intelligent persons in the county believed a lead mine really existed, at, or near the grave of the old Chief. This opinion became so strong, that Alexander Gilbreath, who then resided in Huntsville, was induced to visit the grave of Black Fox. His search there, proving unsuccessful.... Mr. George Fields, at that time fifty or sixty years old, informed him that the Indians knew of no lead mines nearer than those of Missouri and Illinois, and gave it as his opinion, that the lead found in the grave of Black Fox, had been brought from one of those States. John Gunter, (another old inhabitant of the valley, who had been brought up among the Chickasaws, and spent all his life with the Indians,) gave the same opinion, as to the pieces of lead which had been found in different parts of the county, viz: that they had been brought by the Indians from the northern mines. These twopersons informed Mr. Gilbreath, that as far back as Indian memory extended, it was the custom of the Creeks to cross the Tennessee river near Deposit, (Baird's Bluff) and make long hunting expeditions, annually to the north, bringing with them, on their return, lead ore. - That the settling of Tennessee by the whites was a great obstacle in their way to the mines - particularly to those of Rock river. - That the Indians had then, in order to reach the mines, to bear lower down the Tennessee river, and that as the whites of Tennessee continued to extend their settlements westward, the difficulties in the way of the Creeks to the mines, were continually increasing. To this account, it may be added, that a company of Creeks, on a returning expedition of the above kind, murdered two or three white families, which led to the Indian war of 1812, at the close of which, they were finally barred from the mines by treaty.
- Although it cannot be doubted, that the Indians brought lead ore into Blount from distant mines, yet this fact does not account for the pieces which have been found in the mounds....The mounds above spoken of, are heaps of earth in the form of pyramids. They are supposed to mark the burial places of the Chiefs. Some of them are very old, having upon their tops, growing trees of very large size. These mounds are to be found in thirteen different places in our county. Two or three of them are generally grouped together, or within a half mile of each other. In Murphree'sValley, there is one group consisting of three mounds,from four to seven in height. In the trough of the Locust Fork, there are five distinct groups. - In Blountsville Valley, (and near Blountsville) there is one; and in Brown's Valley one. North-west of the Mulberry Fork, there are four groups. These mounds are invariably in the valleys, on, or near the best bodies of land. This fact proves pretty clearly that the Indian settlements were in the valleys. Some knowledge of agriculture, may have led them to settle there, or it may have been the greater abundance of game and water found in such places. About these mounds, great quantities of flint spikes are found, which some persons believe were used as arrow-heads, but they seem unfit for such a purpose. The efficiency of the arrow, depends in a great degree upon its velocity; and arrows of sufficient strength to give great velocity to these spikes, would be so heavy, that all the power of the archer would fail to give them the force requisite to enter the vitals of a large animal. If we consider them as knives, there would be many uses for them: - such as skinning animals, severing the carcass, scaling fish, and cutting or sawing vegetable substances. Some of these spikes are six inches long, and weigh nearly a pound.
- These placed on poles would be similar to the Mexican lance, and would be very useful against dangerous animals....Besides the mounds mentioned above, we find in different places in our county, heaps of stones, which are supposed to be graves of Indians. In many other places, numerous pieces of broken pottery are found; and near the junction of the Little Warrior and Locust Fork, we have the remains of an old fortification, (enclosing about half an acre) three sides of which are yet plainly to be seen .
- It has been stated on a previous page, that the settlement of Blount might be considered as complete with the close of the year 1818. The settlement at that date, however,did not include the portion, since known as Brown's Valley. It is difficult to determine accurately, when that portion of our county was first settled by the whites. The Cherokee Indians, held a kind of possession of it until 1838, or '39. Besides the Cherokees, there was a colony of two hundred refugee Creeks settled there, and governed by John Shannon, a half-blood Creek. The Indians called him John Ogee. This colony of Creeks was brought there for protection, soon after the Creek war commenced, by Col. Richard Brown, (a Cherokee Chief who resided in the valley,) and remained there until the removal of the Cherokees, with whom they emigrated.
- In 1818, Col. Brown went to Washington City for the avowed purpose of selling to the whites, or ceding by treaty, all that portion of country. He advised the Indians to hold themselves in readiness to leave the country on his return. They accordingly assembled at Gunter's Landing, for the purpose of emigrating; but the death of Col. Brown shortly afterwards, (who died at Rogersville, in Hawkins County, Tennessee,) prevented, for many years, the ratification of the treaty, and consequently the removal of the Indians. As soon, however, as it was known that the Indians had collected together with a view to emigrating, the restless whites thronged into the country which they had abandoned, and obtained such hold, that they could never be entirely driven out. Brown's Valley at this time, showed a motley population of Cherokees, Creeks, and whites. The United States troops cut down the growing crops of the whites, and burned their houses; but with all this severity, they were unable to clear the valley of their presence. This portion of territory gave great trouble to the citizens of old Blount, as it prevented theordinary execution of the laws in many instances...It continued to annoy the people of our county until the year 1832, when the Legislature extended the laws of the State over it.
- Most of the first settlers of Blount as well as those of the adjoining counties, believed that lead mines existed in Blount and Jefferson counties, and that the Indians knew their location and obtained lead from them. Perhaps, this general belief originated from the following circumstance, which occurred in 1810:
Blevins
The Blevinses were an old Welsh family that emigrated in the 1600s to Rhode Island. They later became prominent in the vanguard of the settlement of Tennessee and KentucKentucky William Blevins, a longhunter from Pittsylvania County, married Agnes Walling/Walden, the sister of Elisha Walling (for whom Walden's Ridge is named), and Blevinses were among the signers of the Watauga Purchase on March 19, 1775. Jonathan Blevins (about 1763 - about 1830), like his twin brother Richard, was a Revolutionary War soldier in the Upper New River Valley. During the shift of the Cherokee population southward in the 1820s and 1830s, the two brothers bought land in Marion County, Tennessee Elections were held in Jonathan's house on the stage road in District 4, Cave Springs, between Sequatchie River, Walden's Ridge and Cumberland Mountain. Jonathan was married to Charlotte Muse, the daughter of Richard Muse, a wealthy land agent who disposed of over 2400 acres of land in Montgomery/Wythe/Grayson County, Virginia before settling in what became Campbell County, Tennessee Most of Jonathan and Lottie Muse's children avoided the Trail of Tears, though a cousin also named Richard Blevins (about 1785 - after 1850) seems to have embraced it, discarding his white wife for two Jones sisters and moving west to Cape Girardieu, Missouri, finally ending up in Texas. Two sisters Lucretia (Creecy) and Mahala Jane (Linny) married two brothers, James and Isaac Cooper, but the two couples were divided in the commotions of the 1830s and 40s, with Lucretia Cooper and her family migrating to Marion County, Arkansas, and Jane Cooper and her family managing to remain in the East, in Deerhead Cove. The children of Jonathan's twin brother, Richard (about 1763-after 1839), who was married to Hannah Osbourne, changed their name to Blevans and pursued a different survival strategy, some moving west to Missouri after spending a few years in Marion County, Tennessee and Jackson County, Alabama Throughout all their moves, the Blevins were careful to support other members of their circle. For example, Richard Blevins served as character witness for Jacob Troxell in Marion County, Tennessee in 1832, before Jacob too moved on to DeKalb County, Alabama, and William Blevins gave an affidavit in 1850 for his widowed sister Jane Cooper in Dade County, Georgia Jonathan (Jont) Blevins (1779-1863) married Catherine (Katie) Troxell, the daughter of George Jacob Troxell and his Cherokee wife Cornblossom (his brother Tarleton married her sister Mary Polly Troxell), and he was the commander of road work near the Little South Fork River in Wayne County, Kentucky
During the Civil War, many of the Blevins men, most of them railroaders like their Cooper cousins, joined the U.S. cavalry of Tennessee. Afterward, they and their Cooper relatives were forced to leave Deerhead Cove and move to New Hope across the state line on the other end of Sand Mountain. The men are usually described as having been fairly tall, lean, of dark complexion, with dark hair and either blue, green or yellow eyes - a physical type similar to North African Jews. Many Blevinses are buried either in Cagle Cemetery in Deerhead Cove or New Hope Cemetery on Sand Mountain.
Blevins DNA proves to be E3b, the second most common Hebrew male lineage after J and a gene type found frequently in Moorish and Berber families (WSWJ).
Brown
Brown may come from Pardo, a common Converso and Marrano name. "The whole business of 'Jewish' names is quite confusing. There was a definite tendency on the part of the immigrant Jews in those days to drop their Spanish and their German Jewish names, as they passed through England, and to appropriate English names. Thus it is that we find them in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with such names as Phillips, Brown, Rice, Hays, Henry, Laney, Simson, Jones, and the like" (Marcus 1973, vol. II, p. 249). "Saul Pardo ('brown') blossomed forth as Saul Brown" (vol. I, p. 35). The Jewish origins of this Cherokee family can be seen in the names they favored for their children (Alexander, Alice, Rebecca, Cassie, David, Eli, Ephraim, Goldie, Hulda, Isom, Julia, Minnie, Nely, Sarah, Silas, Sylvia, Violet, and Zachariah), as well as in their marriage partners' surnames (Barton, Burke, Cooper, Craze, Fields, Frazier, Gilbreath, Guess/Gist, Harris, Hearne, Jean/Jane, Lowrey, Proctor, Ross, Ruth, Sizemore, Vann, White, and Yates).
A notable member of the Brown clan was Capt. John Brown, born about 1756, residence Creek Path in 1817. He was a packhorseman for the Cherokee traders, and later a Chickasaw trader and partner of Jerome Courtonne. His sister married Oconostota, the Beloved Warrior of Great TelliCounty (Brent Cox, Heart of the Eagle, 1999.) Chief Brown died Oct. 24, 1861 in Sallishaw, Indian Territory.
Chief John Ross's (1790-1866) wife was a Brown, and trader Alexander Brown married a daughter of Chief Dragging Canoe, Naky Sarah. There are at least seven Chickamauga Chief Browns, most of them associated with Creek Path. The Browns supplied so many soldiers for the Creek War that their contingent was called "Brown's army." After Horse Shoe Bend, they were granted extensive lands in western Alabama. They operated Brown's Ferry across the Tennessee River near Chattanooga as well as the military road that came in later and were also involved in ironworks.
A large ironworks had been established by Daniel Ross and Company, in Hawkins County, Tennessee, in the heart of the Watauga Country near the present-day community of Rotherwood. John Ross was captured by the Chickamaugans in Francis Mayberry's boat on the Tennessee River in 1785. John McDonald, the British Indian agent, a Scotsman from Inverness, retained him to help start a trading post and he afterward married McDonald's daughter, Mary, whose mother was a halfblood Cherokee, the daughter of the former interpreter. His son John Ross was McDonald's heir. McDonald and Ross moved from Sequatchie Valley to what became Rossville, Georgia at the foot of Lookout Mountain around 1800 (John P. Brown, Old Frontiers).
Bunch
The first Bunch (various spellings) in Melungeon territory was apparently "Trader" John Benge, born about 1735 in Albemarle County, Virginia, died about 1800 probably in Georgia. Benge had both a Cherokee and white family, like many of the Coopers, Gists, Beans, Blevinses, Wallings, Wards, Stuarts, Martins and other Jewish merchants of the time. His son by Wurteh (Gurty, a nickname for Margaret), the daughter of Great Eagle, or Willenewah, of Tasagi Town, was the outlaw Chickamauga chief Bob Benge, who probably was responsible for the entry of the word "binge" into the English language. Also known as Captain Bench, and The Bench, he was born in Toqua Town and died on April 9, 1794 in Stone Gap, Virginia, after being tracked down by a local posse. Wurteh went on to marry Nathaniel Gist, the father of George Guest (Sequoyah, born about 1771 near Fort Loudon). Benges married into the Brown, Lowrey, and Watts families around ChattanooGeorgia
Burke
The Burkes were French Sephardic Jews who settled in Virginia, N.C., Pennsylvania and KentucKentucky John Burke emigrated from Cork, Ireland, to Pennsylvania and his descendants proceeded south to Virginia and N.C. and west to KentucKentucky Their name may come from Burgos, the city in Portugal. The Burke coat of arms shows a French name DeBurque with a knight and a panther with a chain around its neck.A Benjamin Burges is mentioned in trade documents of S.C. in 1751, and a James Burges appears in Hawkins around 1797. James Burke, born in County Limerick, Ireland, about 1705, discovered Burke's Garden located in Tazwell Co, Virginia in 1753, and is frequently mentioned in local histories of that region.John Burke signed a petition from North of Holston against the so-called Fincastle Petition in 1777. Benjamin Burke (1765-1828) married Elizabeth Troxell (1752-1851), the sister of trader/spy George Jacob Troxell (1758-1843, DeKalb County, Alabama), and they are buried in the Smith-Kidd Cemetery, Great Meadow Community, Rock Creek, McCreary County, Kentucky Surnames of favorite marriage partners include:Anderson, Bane, Brown, Blevins, Byatt, Coil (Coyle), Davis, Gregory, Hatfield, Lewellan, Millican, Orr, Smith and Steele.
Meanwhile, another Adair line from Antrim, Ireland arrived in Baltimore in 1760. They made a beeline for the frontier and became leaders in the resulting Watauga Country. John Adair, Jr. was a commander at Blackmore's Fort on the Clinch River in Tennessee. When the Cumberland settlersset off to found Nashville under James Robertson, with William Cooper as their guide, it was he who supplied provisions, from the store later operated by James Cooper. In 1790, he was made justice of the peace in Hawkins County. Old soldiers just fade away:at the age of 83, Adair served again in the military operations that removed the Cherokee on the Trail of Tears. When he died five years later in his home on Beaver Creek in Wayne County, Kentucky, his son John III, married to Sarah Cooper, was in Arkansas, where a large contingent of the Coopers and Adairs had resettled. Correspondence between John Adair and his brother-in-law John Lovelace, the husband of Mary Cooper, shows that these were literate families with more than a homespun education. It also suggests that like James Adair, a trader in stocks and bonds, the Coopers and Adairs were of some financial means.
A photograph of son-in-law Jonathan Burke, who married Nancy Blackfox, daughter of Cherokee chief Black Fox, depicts what might be taken as a model of the Jewish Indian of the period.
Cooper
Cooper, Benjamin (born about 1772 in Granville County, N.C.) first justice of the inferior court, and organizer of a Cherokee school, Gilmer County, Georgia Married Temperance Simon Lemar of Anjou, France (died about 1809 in the Cherokee Nation East), and later a Cherokee woman called Pretty Girl (U-Wo'-du-a-ge-yu'-tsa). The family received reservation in 1817, reaffirmed in 1819, subsequently taken back as were all of these reservations. They then emigrated west, arriving in Indian Territory on May 30, 1834, with seven slaves. Died June 26, 1852, Flint District, Cherokee Nation West.
Cooper, Cornelius Benjamin (1801-1886), Georgia state senator (GEORGIA by John Ward; Papers of Senator Cooper). He and his family came to Texas about 1840 and settled in Rusk County near Henderson, Texas. He was eight or nine years old when his mother, Temperance Lamar, died. The area they lived in was part of the Cherokee Nation in what is now Gilmer County, Georgia. Many of the Cherokees moved to Rusk County, Texas between 1840 and 1865, in order to get away from the fighting going on among the Indians favoring moving to the Indian Territory (Oklahoma) and those who wanted to stay in Georgia, led by Chief John Ross. After the move west, many of the opposing "Treaty Party" were killed by the Ross group. The ones who moved to Rusk County, Texas, were mostly Treaty Party supporters that were facing great danger in Indian Territory (Oklahoma) than in Texas. Most of them returned to Oklahoma after the Civil War. (Based on notes by Paul Sarrett.)
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