J. G. M. RAMSEY, A.M., M.D. CORRESPONDING SECRETARY OF THE EAST TENNESSEE HISTORICAL AND ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY: CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN ETHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY, ETC. CHARLESTON: JOHN RUSSELL, 256 KING-STREET. In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Eastern District of Tennessee. CHARLESTON: DEDICATION. TO THE SURVIVING PIONEERS OF TENNESSEE, WHOSE ENTERPRISE SUBDUED HER DOMAIN, AND WHOSE VALOUR DEFENDED IT, MOST GRATEFULLY; TO THEIR IMMEDIATE SUCCESSORS, WHOSE PATRIOTISM, WISDOM AND VIRTUE, PROVIDED for and bequeathed TO POSTERITY, THE PATRIMONIAL BLESSINGS AND WISE INSTITUTIONS OF LIBERTY, OF LAW, OF LEARNING AND RELIGION, MOST DUTIFULLY; TO THE YOUNG MEN OF TENNESSEE, INHERITING SO MUCH THAT IS ESTIMABLE, MANLY, VIRTUOUS AND PATRIOTIC, AND TO WHOSE GUARDIANSHIP, FILIAL PIETY, ANCESTRAL AND STATE PRIDE, ARE COMMITTED THE PRESERVATION OF HER UNSTAINED ESCUTCHEON, HER ANCIENT FAME, HER HEROIC EXAMPLE, HER SOVEREIGNTY, HER CHARACTER AND HER GLORY HER HIGH DESTINY AND FUTURE IMPROVEMENT MOST CONFIDENTLY; "LET NO MEAN HOPE YOUR SOULS ENSLAVE; BE INDEPENDENT, GENEROUS, BRAVE; YOUR FATHERS SUCH EXAMPLE GAVE, Is this Volume Dedicated, by their fellow-citizen, THE AUTHOR. CHARLESTON, S. C., February 22d, 1853. PREFACE. THE writer is one of the first-born of the sons of the State of Tennessee. If this seniority brings with it none of the rights of primogeniture, it certainly has imposed the duty of filial veneration and regard for the land of his nativity. With this devotion to his State, and to its worthy pioneers, has always been united the deep regret, that their early history has been so little known, and is now almost forgotten. Oppressed by this feeling, and impelled by the desire to revive and preserve the knowledge of past events in Tennessee, he determined, many years since, to collect such incidents of her history as were within his reach. At first, his object was merely to occupy, in these researches, the leisure hours which could be spared from professional engagements; but he soon discovered, that by extending his labours, he might add to his own pleasure, the high gratification of contributing something, however humble, to the historical literature of the day, and thus do a service, at least, to the people of his own State. For the collection of the materials of such a work, he has had some peculiar facilities. His boyhood and his youth were spent with the pioneer and the emigrant. Later in life, he has not been without some share of intercourse, with the public men and principal actors in the early settlement of the country. His opportunity of conferring with many of them, has not been infrequent, and has been sedulously improved. He became, whilst yet a young man, the possessor of the journal and papers of his deceased father, the late Col. F. A. Ramsey— a pioneer of the country, whose life was identified with its interests, at every period of its growth, up to the time of his death, in 1820. He has, since, become the depositary of the papers of Sevier, of Shelby, |