John Allison

“ He began life among people who had views and opinions of their own on all questions of the day and subjects of public interest; yet his judgment was consulted and his views sought on almost all public affairs, notwithstanding his youth. He was recognized from the first as a man who “would fight at the drop of a hat, and drop the hat himself”; but in all the personal difficulties which he had while he resided in Washington county, save one—a duel with Col. Avery, an account of which will be given in another chapter—public opinion was generally largely in his favor. ”

“ You can stand on some of its mountain-tops, and see the heavens darkened by day with the pillar of cloud, and made luminous by night with the pillar of fire, arising from furnace and forge in the valleys below, and hear the hammer of Thor beating the iron ribs of those majestic old mountains into the marvellous machines of modern invention and the utilities of a grand civilization. ”

“ CHAPTER IX. ANDREW JACKSON, DEPUTY SHERIFF AND FIREMAN.
Russell Bean was not distinguished alone because he was the first white child born within the limits of what is today the state of Tennessee: he was said to have been the most perfect specimen of manhood in the whole country, without an equal for strength, activity and physical endurance, and absolutely devoid of fear. He was a genius, also: he was a gunsmith by trade, and it was said that he could make more implements of war and other things of utility, with fewer tools, than any other man ever known in that day and country. ”

“ It may, and it should, be interesting to those who love and revere the memory of Andrew Jackson to know something of the life, habits and characteristics of the people among whom he first settled at Jonesboro, as well as of those with whom he afterwards made his permanent home at Nashville; for whatever can be said to the credit and glory of either the early settlers on the Watauga or those upon the Cumberland can be truthfully said of the others. ”

“ Andrew Jackson was a more courageous man, as well as a much greater man, than many of his most ardent admirers knew of. At the time of his duel with Avery, if the version which I believe to be true is correct, he was afraid of public opinion—that is, he believed that, if he made an explanation, somebody might think that he feared Avery, and so, rather than run the risk of being suspected of cowardice, he was willing to give Avery a chance to kill him. ”

“ It is not probable that a parallel proceeding can be found in judicial history. Judge McCay utterly ignored the unanimous action of the jury who recommended John Vann to the mercy of the court. Can a case be found where a judge, in the United States, ever refused mercy to a criminal who was commended to him for mercy by the jury that found him guilty? ”

“ Think of the iron, coal, marble, lead, copper, zinc and other minerals hidden within its soil—you might have put a Chinese wall around the people of the “state of Franklin,” and still they could have lived in absolute independence of the outside world. There is more iron and coal in this territory than can be found in the same area elsewhere in the United States, and it is today yielding a vast revenue to its inhabitants. ”

“ Whilst separation and independence were imposing theories, so fascinating to the wild and restless spirits who had founded and were building up a vast empire in the western world, advocating their bold measures with absorbing zeal and desperate earnestness, there was a minority, many of whom were staid and sturdy, honest in purpose and courageous in conviction, who regarded the movement as unwarranted, and fraught with immediate peril and ultimate ruin. ”

“ If the men who became the tools of this conspiracy to ruin his usefulness, and to cloud his former fair name and fame, had any sensibilities left, what must have been the depth of their humiliation when, in June, 1833, Andrew Jackson, then President of the United States for a second term, and sixty-six years of age, rode on horseback along Broadway in the city of New York. ”

“ These people were on the very verge of the frontier, standing as a mere handful of pickets out on the confines of civilization, where the war-whoop of the painted savage rang through the forests, and the constant apprehension of the tomahawk and the scalping-knife haunted every abode, and every thicket ambushed a bloodthirsty foe. ”

“ Connected with, growing out of and clustering around some entries and orders in these almost forgotten archives of a bygone century, there are stories and traditions which, if they could be unravelled, touched up and then put together again by a skilful and painstaking historian, would thrill with awe, admiration and wonder many of the present generation, and arouse in them sentiments and sympathies far more ennobling and exalting than those aroused by the ephemeral literature of the day. ”

“ A soldier by nature, he scoffed at the prescribed rules of military movements, and made his own tactics, surpassing even the Corsican prodigy in martial genius and originality, as the trained soldiers of Pakenham, who won the bloody field of Waterloo, testified involuntarily when they fled in defeat and dismay before his undisciplined militia from the gates of New Orleans. ”

“ He was then sixty-six years old, but his horsemanship, acquired in part at the celebrated race in Greasy Cove, prevented on this occasion a serious accident to the President of the United States. It was said by those who witnessed the manner in which he sat upon and controlled the spirited and frightened charger which he rode, that the horse would have dashed any other man headlong from the saddle; but Jackson was as cool and calm as he was skillful, and soon brought the animal under perfect control—as he soon afterwards did Nicholas Biddle and the United States Bank. ”

“ Waightstill Avery was the most prominent man and the leading lawyer in Western North Carolina when Andrew Jackson came to the bar. At that time, and indeed from the time of the organization of the first court west of the Blue Ridge, Avery had the most extensive practice of any lawyer attending the courts east or west of the mountains. He began his professional life west of the Alleghanies with the organization of the first court in Washington county, and was therefore a well-known, as he was a reputable and highly respected, lawyer before Jackson’s appearance there. ”

“ Difficulties that led to a challenge and its acceptance, in the olden times, were rarely ever adjusted before the combatants arrived on the field. The distinguished duellists followed the custom on this occasion; and, with their seconds and others who knew of the affair, went to the ground selected—the hill on the south side of Jonesboro, and not “the hollow” north of town. The distance was measured off, the principals stationed and the word given—and Jackson and Avery both fired in the air, to the great gratification of their friends. ”

“ This was the first territorial division in the United States named in honor of George Washington. The Governor of North Carolina appointed justices of the peace and militia officers for this county, who, in February, 1778, met and took the oath of office, and organized the new county and its courts. Thereupon, the first “free and independent government” formed and put into operation in America was no more, the jurisdiction and authority of the five commissioners having, by their own consent and that of the people, been superseded by the newly appointed authorities. ”

“ Wise legislators were William Blount, David Campbell and Joseph Anderson, who constituted the legislative authority. Their example was followed, after Tennessee was admitted into the Union, by the general assemblies elected by the people, for a very long period, so that, whenever money was appropriated or a county authorized to make any expenditures, the same act required the county authorities to levy a tax, collect it and pay up, instead of piling up debt. ”

“ It had not probably been intimated, at that early day, that a government which the people, in the exercise of their inherent power, could alter, reform or abolish at their pleasure, could nevertheless by its legislature bring into existence an invisible, intangible, incorporeal entity which the people could neither control nor destroy, although they have the power to do both with reference to the creator of such entity ”

“ In this year McGillivray wrote him that two delegates from the district of Cumberland had just visited him with proposals of peace; that they were in extremities on account of the incursions of his (McGillivray’s) warriors, and would submit to whatever conditions he might impose; and, “presuming that it would please me, they added that they would throw themselves in the arms of His Majesty as subjects, and that Kentucky and Cumberland are determined to free themselves from Congress; that they no longer owe obedience to a power which is incapable of protecting them. ”

“ Petitions, with nearly two thousand signers or names to them, coming from all settlements in the state (territory) were presented to the Constitutional Convention in 1796, asking that a provision be embodied in the constitution prohibiting slavery in the state after the year 1864. This was the voice of prophecy coming up out of the Western Wilderness.
True philanthropy liberates its own slaves, and not other people’s without their consent.
The first private corporation chartered by the general assembly of Tennessee was the “Nolichucky River Company,” November 10, 1801. ”

“ It was while Roane was Governor, in 1802, that the memorable contest between John Sevier and Andrew Jackson, for the position of Major General of militia in Tennessee, occurred. It was no empty and meaningless honor to hold this position then in the state—as subsequent events demonstrated. Under the terms of the constitution, the Major General was elected by the field officers of the militia. When the votes which had [Pg 7] been cast were counted, there was found to be a tie between Jackson and Sevier. The Governor, by virtue of his office, was commander-in-chief of the militia. ”

“ In writing of a people more than a century after the period in which they lived—a people who did not have a daily newspaper in their midst to chronicle their deeds and views, and who were in a country between which and other parts of the world there was but little if any communication—it is easy indeed for a facile writer to ascribe to them characters which they did not have, views which they did not entertain, and accomplishments with which they were not entitled to be credited, without taking much risk of being contradicted. ”

“ A few hundred dollars would copy all you need from the State Paper Office on all North Carolina topics. The Regulators are on many accounts important. They form the connecting link between the resistance to the Stamp Act and the movement of 1775, and they also played a glorious part in taking possession of the Mississippi Valley, toward which they were irresistibly carried by their love of independence. It is a mistake if any [Pg 18] have supposed that the Regulators were cowed down by their defeat at Alamance. Like the mammoth, they shook the bolt from their brow and crossed the mountains. ”

“ They said, on the first day of the first term of the court, the court must be respected; to the cruel son, you shall not ill-treat your father, though he be a criminal; to the vagrant without a “pass or recommendation,” you must give security for your behavior or leave the community; to the man who had abandoned his wife, you must return to your family; to the strong and influential, you must render unto the widow her own, or we will force you to do so by fines that will make you glad to obey; to the tax-dodger, you shall pay your proportion of the taxes ”

“ It is the Opinion of the Court that the defendant be imprisoned during the present war with Great Britain, and the Sheriff take the whole of his estate into custody which must be valued by a jury at the next Court and that the one half of the said estate be kept by the said Sheriff for the use of the State and the other half remitted to the family of defendant. ”

“ After the battle of King’s Mountain, the Americans from Virginia and from Washington and Sullivan counties, North Carolina, started home with the prisoners, arms, etc., captured in the battle. On the way, about October 12 to 14, a court martial was held at a point called Bickerstaff’s Old Field, in Rutherford county, North Carolina, and some thirty or more of the prisoners were sentenced to be hanged—some for desertion from the American army, others for horse-stealing, and still others for crimes and outrages perpetrated on the people who were supporting the “common cause of liberty.” ”

“ In the perspective of this group of terrible scenes, heartaches, desolation of homes and disruption of families that the “common cause of liberty” might not perish, stands out a tragedy which, while it is of itself a melancholy picture of misfortune, suffering, despair and absolute want, is yet luminous with courageous manhood and the transcendent glory and conquering heroism of a pure and noble womanhood. ”

“ James Robertson and Robert Hays were the members from Davidson, and one of them was the author of the bill providing for the new district. It is a matter of history that, in answer to the Speaker’s call for the name of the new district, James Robertson arose and suggested “Mero.” He evidently gave the name as it is pronounced, without spelling it for the benefit of the clerk, and the latter evidently recorded it phonetically; and thus the name of the new district went upon the official record as “Mero,” which is the correct pronunciation, instead of “Miro,” which is the correct orthography. ”

“ I was much interested in the appearance of a number of intelligent-looking men who sat together, engaged in earnest conversation. There were the man who founded the first educational institution in the Mississippi valley (48) ; the first minister who preached regularly to a Tennessee congregation (49) ; the bishop whose journal forms a valuable contribution to the history of early times in this state (50) ; the president of the first non-sectarian college chartered in the United States (51) ; the classmate of Daniel Webster who founded the first academy for females in Tennessee (52) ”

“ Jackson had killed the whole of the British army on the battle-field, except a few who were driven into the Mississippi river and drowned; that he had captured all of their arms and ships, and had taken his own army on board the vessels, and was then on the high seas on his way to take possession of England. At this point, which was the conclusion of the speech, an old man of sixty, standing near the speaker, threw his hat into the air, and jumping excitedly up and down, shouted: “Whoop-pee! hurrah for Andy Jackson, hell and thunder! ”

“ The Spaniards, constantly haunted by fear of their restless neighbors in Kentucky and the Cumberland country, spared no means by which they might conciliate the Indians. The chief military officer of the Spanish, writing to the home government, in 1786, concerning Alexander McGillivray, said: “So long as we shall hold this chief on our side, we will have a barrier between the Floridas and Georgia. The Indians are convinced of the ambition of the Americans; past injuries still dwell in their minds, with the fear that these greedy neighbors may one day seize upon their lands. ”

“ This last full and final repealing act deserves to be further noted, and to be remembered with reverence—so to speak—for the reason that it is the first act passed in Tennessee in which the term “in the year of our Lord” is used. What an intellectual treat it must have been to hear the man (not the member of the general assembly) who prepared this last repealing act, explaining its provisions to the members of the general assembly, and pointing out to them the great benefits that were to accrue to the “merchants, physicians and inn-keepers” of the country by its passage ”

“ Samuel Doak, D.D. Though he left a deep and indelible impress on the civilization and the literature of the Southwest, he sleeps today, amid the scenes of his successful earthly labors, with only a simple and fast crumbling memorial to mark the hallowed sepulchre of his silent dust. ”