Picture of Cabin / Hotel Early 1900'S

Vann's Valley and Head of Coosa: Nexus of Conflict on the Early American Frontier

Vann's Valley and Head of Coosa: Nexus of Conflict on the Early American Frontier

By W. Jeffrey Bishop

For decades the area now known as Vann’s Valley, Georgia was a porous frontier and a nexus of violent conflict. Within the memory of a single generation, the 11-mile valley passed from the Creek Indians to the Cherokees, and then to the mostly white people of the state of Georgia. At times title to border regions like Vann's Valley was settled by oral agreement, a ball game, or a promise, but just as often the land was cleansed by fire and gunshot. During the first half-century of the early American Republic, from the 1780s right up until the Cherokee Removal in 1838, this border territory was in a violent state of flux. Its waves of Creek, Cherokee, and white residents lived at times in close proximity, keenly feeling the pressures of war and migration amid intermittent eruptions of ethnic, cultural, and economic conflict.

Early Conflict: The King Site
This area of what is now southwest Floyd County, Georgia -- from the head of the Coosa River west to what is now the Alabama state line, and south of the Coosa in the large valley of one of its tributaries, Cedar Creek -- was marked by conflict from prehistoric times. A major archaeological site, the “King Site,” is located in Foster Bend on the Coosa, right in the heart of Vann’s Valley. The five-acre late Mississippian-era site was defended by a large palisade and trench. “The King site is enclosed by a ditch and palisade defensive perimeter on three of its four sides,” with the fourth side facing the Coosa River, said Dr. David J. Halley, who led excavations at the site in the 1970s and 1980s.(1) A chronicler of Hernando De Soto’s terroristic expedition through the area in 1540 described such defensive palisades as constructed “of thick logs, set solidly close together in the ground, and many long poles as thick as an arm placed crosswise. The height of the enclosure was that of a good lance, and it was plastered within and without and had loopholes.”(2) Spanish soldiers left behind plenty of evidence of their violent incursion into this territory, including a number of iron artifacts and even a complete sword – a “straight two-edged blade (with) a swept hilt,” found by grave looters at the King Site in 1982.(3) But it wasn’t the swords that had the most devastating impact on the native population – instead it was European disease, against which the natives had no immunity. The palisades were of no use against such invaders, and an estimated 95 percent of the native population was wiped out.(4)

John Sevier: The First Raid
Over two centuries later, in the fall of 1782, following a long period of depopulation and abandonment in the ravaged area, Col. John Sevier of the Watauga militia made his way from what is now eastern Tennessee to the head of the Coosa River in a raid against British-allied Cherokees. “We … crossed a small range of mountains to the Coosa river, where we found and destroyed several towns, with all their stock, corn & provisions of every kind,” said James Sevier, a son of the colonel and a member of the expedition. “The Indians eluded our march and kept out of our way in the general, although a few men, women and children were surprised and taken.”(5)
Near a village on the Coosa, a white man, allegedly a British agent, was killed, after he was suspected of living with an Indian woman and inciting “warriors of her town to maintain their hostile attitude” toward the Americans.(6) Sevier and the militia “came upon the cabin of Patrick Clements, an Irishman, a British refugee who was living with Nancy Coody; both were captured, and Clements soon after broke and attempted to make his escape.” One of the militia men shot and killed him.(7)
From there Sevier and his men took their campaign along the Coosa River to the west, along the northern edge of Vann’s Valley, to Spring Frog Town. James Sevier again provides the details:

…(W)hen at a distance from the town, a canoe of Indians was observed crossing the river; a party of men made chase but the Indians got over, abandoned their canoe, and dashed into a canebrake and were seen no more. An aged squaw had hid herself under the river bank; (Robert Bean and others of his party) discovered her, but did not disturb her. One Ralston, an Irishman, came upon and shot her and took her scalp. The Beans and others tormented Ralston unmercifully, calling out at the top of their voices, “Who scalped granny?” Several voices in different directions would reply, “Ralston.” Ralston found no peace the rest of the campaign, but kept at a distance of a hundred yards from the army.(8)

From Spring Frog Town, Sevier doubled back to the head of the Coosa River, heading north to the large population centers of Coosawattee and Ustanauli, “burning and destroying other towns as he went.” Having reached the southern boundary of the Cherokees, Sevier crossed the Etowah River at its mouth.(9) This is the precise spot where the Cherokees would make their last, desperate stand against Sevier just over a decade later, in what would prove to be their final organized act of military resistance against the white Americans.

The Battle of Hightower
In the fall of 1793, John Sevier, by then a general, with about 800 volunteers, again penetrated deep into Cherokee territory – this time on a campaign of retribution against the tribe for the Chickamauga / Creek raid on Cavitt’s Station, near Knoxville, Tennessee. “I marched in pursuit of the large body of Indians,” Sevier reported.(10) These were the last remnants of the Cherokee resistance fighters who famously had been led to the region nearly two decades before by Dragging Canoe. When the old men of Chota agreed to a treaty with the whites in 1775, just prior to the outbreak of the American Revolution, Dragging Canoe protested that whole Indian nations “had melted away like balls of snow in the sun.” Dragging Canoe said that the Cherokees “had hoped that the white men would not be willing to travel beyond the mountains. Now that hope is gone. They have passed the mountains, and have settled upon Cherokee land.”(11) Dragging Canoe announced that he and his young followers would relocate to the Lookout Mountain area, settling on Creek borderlands, to facilitate raids on white settlements on the Cumberland River and elsewhere along the frontier. The white squatters wished to have their encroachments “sanctioned by treaty,” Dragging Canoe said:

When that is gained, the same encroaching spirit will lead them upon other land of the Cherokees. New cessions will be asked. Finally the whole country, which the Cherokees and their fathers have so long occupied, will be demanded, and the remnant of Ani-Yunwiya, ‘The Real People,’ once so great and formidable, will be compelled to seek refuge in some distant wilderness. There they will be permitted to stay only a short while, until they again behold the advancing banners of the same greedy host. Not being able to point out any further retreat for the miserable Cherokees, the extinction of the whole race will be proclaimed. Should we not therefore run all risks, and incur all consequences, rather than submit to further loss of our country? Such treaties may be all right for men who are too old to hunt or fight. As for me, I have my young warriors about me. We will have our lands. A-waninski, I have spoken.(12)

In the fall of 1793, after years of guerilla war against the white settlers, Dragging Canoe was long dead, but his followers persisted under the leadership of John Watts, Doublehead and others, many years after the American Revolution had drawn to a close. Sevier and his militiamen were determined to cut out the heart of the resistance, so they marched for the capital town of Ustanauli (just northeast of today’s Calhoun, Georgia) on Oct. 14, and when the Cherokee and Creek warriors “made for a town at the mouth” of the Etowah River, near the modern-day town of Rome, Sevier pursued them, departing Ustanauli on the 16th. “We, after refreshing the troops, marched for that place, taking the path that leads to that town, along which the Creeks had marched, in five large trails,” Sevier said in his report to Gov. William Blount.(13)
On the afternoon of Oct. 17, 1793 Sevier and his militia arrived at what would become the site of the “Battle of Hightower,” the final, bloody military engagement of the Cherokees against the whites. An early Tennessee historian, J. G. M. Ramsey, who had a chance to interview several participants in the battle, said that the target of the expedition was “the Indian town, Etowah,” located “near the confluence” of the Oostanaula and Etowah rivers, “immediately below” the head of the Coosa. The Etowah River “had to be crossed before the town could be attacked,” said Ramsey. “Firing was heard in the direction of the town, and apprehending a general attack, Sevier judiciously ordered a halt, and sent forward a detachment from the main body against the town.”(14) What happened next Ramsey characterizes as a fortunate “mistake,” but Sevier implies that it was an intentional battle strategy in his official report. Ramsey said that the Cherokees and Creeks, “having previously obtained information of Sevier’s approach, had made excavations in the bank of the river nearest the town, each of them large enough for one man to lie with his gun poised, and with a leisurely aim to shoot our mean as they came in sight.” Ramsey said that the Indians were thus “safely entrenched.”(15) Sevier reported that he ordered Col. Alexander Kelly to take his regiment and cross the Etowah River, but since the “Creeks, and a number of Cherokees, had intrenched themselves to obstruct the passage,” Col. Kelly and his men went “down the river half a mile below the ford and began to cross at a private place, where there was no ford.”(16) What might be construed as a strategic lure to get the Indians away from their entrenched positions Ramsey explains was a simple mistake, when the guides led Kelly’s men “to a ferry half a mile below the fording place, and immediately opposite the town” and soon found themselves forced to swim:(17) 

A few of the foremost plunged into the stream and were soon in swimming water, and pushing their way to the opposite bank. The main body, however, discovering the mistake, wheeled to the left and rode rapidly up the river to the ford…(18)

Sevier reported that the “Indians, discovering this movement, immediately left their intrenchments and ran down the river to oppose their passage, expecting, as I suppose, the whole intended crossing at the lower place.”(19)
“(P)erceiving the movement of horsemen down the river, and suspecting some other project was devised against their town, they quitted, precipitously, their places of ambush, crossed the river, and hurried down to the other side to defend it,” said Ramsey.(20) Meanwhile, Sevier said his mounted infantry “strained their horses back to the upper ford,”(21) now defenseless, where Ramsey said “they crossed with the design of riding down to the town, and attacking it without delay.”(22) Sevier’s troops now had the advantage:

A fortunate mistake of the pilots, thus drew this formidable party out of its entrenchments, exposed it in the open field, and left to the invaders a safe passage through that bank of the river so recently lined with men. But for this mistake, the horsemen could not have escaped a most deadly fire, and, in all probability, a summary defeat. But the method of fighting was now entirely changed.(23)

The Cherokee warrior Walkingstick gave a somewhat different account of this episode in testimony given many years later, on Dec. 21, 1829. A group of Cherokees met the whites on the Etowah River about one mile above the mouth of the Oostanaula River, Walkingstick said. A “party of the Cherokees met the General and fought him, and he then turned backward again and recrossed” the Etowah. Walkingstick was among a group of 100 reinforcements who “were too late” arriving.(24)
Sevier’s men made quick work of the scattered Creek and Cherokee forces. “Very few had got to the south bank before the Indians, who had discovered their mistake, returned and received them furiously at the rising of the bank. An engagement instantly took place and became very warm, and notwithstanding the enemy were at least four to one in numbers, besides the advantage of situation, Capt. Evans with his heroic company put them in a short time utterly to flight.”(25)
Sevier’s men, finding their targets now “hemmed in between the assailants and the river,” Ramsey said, dismounted their horses at the Etowah ford and positioned themselves behind trees along the bank. The whites then “poured in a deadly fire upon the enemy”:(26) 

They resisted bravely, under the lead of the King Fisher, one of their most distinguished Braves. He made a daring sally within a few yards of where one of the party, Hugh L. White, was standing, and the action was becoming sharp and spirited, when White and a few comrades near him, leveling their rifles, this formidable champion fell, and his warriors immediately fled. Three brave men lost their lives in this engagement. Pruett and Weir died on the spot – Wallace, the next day.(27)

The Indians “left several dead on the ground,” Sevier said, but carried others away “both on foot and on horse”:(28)

Bark and trails of blood from the wounded were to be seen in every quarter. The encampment fell into our hands, with a number of their guns, many of which were of the Spanish sort, with budgets, blankets and match coats, together with some horses. We lost three men in this engagement, which is all that have fell during the time of our route, although this last attack was the fourth the enemy had made upon us, but in the others repulsed without loss.(29)

“After the last engagement we crossed the main Coosa,” Sevier said,(30) and they burned the town of Etowah and camped nearby, where they suffered a small nighttime attack, but suffered only one injury and no deaths, according to Ramsey.(31) Then Sevier’s militia traveled west, along the northern edge of what would one day be known as Vann’s Valley and Beaver Dam, “down the main river near the Turnip Mountain, destroying in our way several Creek and Cherokee towns, which they had settled together on each side of the river, and from which they have all fled with apparent precipitation, leaving almost everything behind them. Neither did they after the last engagement attempt to annoy or interrupt us on our march, in any manner whatever. I have got reason to believe their ardor and spirit was well checked.” Sevier said that the Cherokees under John Watts had been thoroughly “flogged” at the Battle of Hightower – but they still had not been humiliated quite enough. “We took and destroyed nearly 300 beeves, many of which were of the best and largest kind,” Sevier said. “Of course their losing so much provision must distress them very much.”(32)
While Sevier reported that “Many women and children might have been taken, but from motives of humanity I did not encourage it to be done, and several taken were suffered to make their escape,”(33) a separate account reported that a Cherokee captive and her child were brutally murdered for merely standing too close to a wounded militia officer. When the officer grumbled, “Take her out of my sight,” a member of the militia killed her, then grabbed the child by the legs and dashed out its brains.(34)
“Your murders and savage Barbarities have caused me to come into your Country Expecting you would fight like men, but you are like the Bairs and Wolves,” Sevier contemptuously wrote in his diary on Oct. 19, 1793, as his company camped “4 miles below the forks of Coosa & Hightower,” on the northern edge of Vann’s Valley:(35) 

The face of a white man makes you run fast into the woods and hide, u see what we have done and it is nothing to what we shall do in a short time. I pity your women & children for I am sure they must suffer and live like dogs but you are the Cause of it. You will make War, & then is afraid to fight, — our people whiped yours mightily two nights ago Crossing the river and made your people run very fast….To the Cherokees and their warriors if they Have Any.(36)

Creeks and Cherokees
Sevier noted that Cherokees and Creeks were living in close proximity, on either side of the Coosa River, during his incursion in the fall of 1793, but the Creeks were pushed steadily southward at the turn of the 19th century as more and more Cherokees flooded into the area due to white settlement in their traditional homelands to the immediate northeast. Accounts differ as to what constituted the boundary between the two tribes. Prior to the American Revolution, the “Creeks owned all the land up to the head of Coosa River, and all the waters of the Coosa,” which would have placed the border at what is now Rome, Georgia, just above what is now Cave Spring, according to D.B. Mitchell in testimony provided in 1829.(37) “I have always understood among the Cherokees that they owned the country on both sides of the Coosa River as low as the Ten Islands,” testified Thomas Petit of Two Runs village.(38) Rain Crow gave his testimony to General John Coffee in 1829:

After the close of the Revolutionary War his father, for fear of the whites, fled from Seniker across the Hightower River. At that time he was a small boy and did not travel much but only heard of Creeks south of the Hightower River. When he was grown he found a Cherokee village at Hickory Log on the north side of the river but knew of none on the south side until a meeting of the Creek and Cherokee warriors for going to war against the whites in Tennessee that he attended. Before the Cherokees left, the Creeks agreed that should the whites drive the Cherokees from their towns, they might go and settle on the south side of the Hightower, where they would be out of reach. The Creeks never gave them the land, only allowed them to live there on these conditions.(39)

By 1799, U.S. Indian Agent Benjamin Hawkins noted that Creeks living in “Au-che-nau-ul-gau; from Au-che-nau, cedar; and ul-gau, all; a cedar grove,” were “the farthest north of all the Creeks.” This was likely at or near what is now known as Cedartown, Georgia, just south of Vann’s Valley, in Polk County.(40) In the decades leading up to the turn of the 19th century, battles over the contested border lands were fought between the tribes near what is now Ball Ground, Georgia (possibly a corruption of “battleground,” the site of the battle of Taliwa) and also supposedly at Blood Mountain and Slaughter Gap – bloody episodes which were said to have lent these areas their names. There are also reports of informal agreements between the two tribes that allowed the Cherokees to occupy what had formerly been recognized as Creek territory, and some even told of a ball game that supposedly settled the matter of ownership. “General William McIntosh, some short time previous to the treaty of 1825, held at Indian Springs, informed me that there was a strip of country about thirty miles in width then in possession of the Cherokee Nation,” Hugh W. Ector testified in 1829. “He stated it had been in dispute some years and was compromised by a ball play in favor of said Cherokee Nation of Indians.”(41) 

Tecumseh
The Creeks and Cherokees remained at relative peace with one another until Tecumseh visited the tribes at Tuckabatchee in October of 1811, seeking to unify the Native American people against the whites just as the nation was poised to go to war with Great Britain. His sentiments seemed to echo those voiced by Dragging Canoe decades before. “Accursed be the race that has seized on our country and made women of our warriors,” Tecumseh said:

Our fathers, from their tombs, reproach us as slaves and cowards. I hear them now in the wailing winds. Muscogee was once a mighty people. The Georgians trembled at your war-whoop, and the maidens of my tribe, on the distant lakes, sung the prowess of your warriors and sighed for their embraces. Now your very blood is white; your tomahawks have no edge; your bows and arrows were buried with your fathers …
They seize your land; they corrupt your women; they trample on the ashes of your dead! Back, whence they came, upon a trail of blood, they must be driven. Back! back, ay, into the great water whose accursed waves brought them to our shores! Burn their dwellings! Destroy their stock! Slay their wives and children! The Red Man owns the country, and the Pale-faces must never enjoy it. War now! War forever! War upon the living! War upon the dead! Dig their very corpses from the grave. Our country must give no rest to a white man's bones.(42)

Although a number of young Creeks were sympathetic to these pleas, the Cherokees had long since tired of fighting losing battles against the whites; their leaders had high hopes that their new strategy of acculturation would demonstrate that they were now a thoroughly “civilized” nation, worthy of maintaining the land still within its borders. The Cherokee leadership began to stress the importance of adopting a written constitution, of establishing an elected government and courts of law, of abolishing the old traditions of “blood law” and clan revenge and establishing a mounted police force, and of encouraging missionaries to settle in the nation to establish schools so that Cherokee children could learn to read and write English.

'The Houses Shook and Everything In Them Moved'
But sympathizers of Tecumseh became more vocal and emboldened following a series of earthquakes that rocked Cherokee territory in December, 1811 and early 1812. The quakes bewildered and terrified many Indians, the Moravian missionaries at Spring Place (near modern-day Chatsworth, Georgia) reported, and were they were interpreted by some as dreadful portents. On Dec. 16, 1811, missionary Anna Gambold wrote in her journal, “Early in the third hour … two shocks from an earthquake were felt. The houses shook and everything in them moved. The chickens fell to the ground from their resting places and caused a frightful crying. At eight o’clock another smaller shock was felt.”(43) In a field on the main road from Georgia, near the Cherokee town of Taloney, “thirteen sinkholes were caused by the earthquake. The largest of these was twenty feet deep, one hundred twenty feet in circumference, and is supposed to be full of greenish water.”(44) A friend of the missionaries traveling through the countryside “could not describe in what consternation she found the poor people everywhere,” said Gambold. “Some of them attributed the event to conjurors and some of them to a great snake who must have crawled under their house, and some to them to the weakness of of the earth which, because of its age, would soon fall in.”(45) In February, 1812 a respected chief known as Chulio or “Shoe Boots” visited the Moravians and “expressed his concern in about the unusual earthquakes here in this country and said with a very meaningful expression, ‘Many Indians believe that white people are responsible for this because they already possess so much of the Indian land and want even more. God is angry about this and wants to scare them through earthquakes to put and end to this.”(46) Another Cherokee, Big Bear, told the missionaries:

I cannot tell you now if God will soon destroy the earth or not. God is, however, not satisfied that the Indians have sold so much land to the white people. Tugalo, which the white people now have, is the first place that God created. He put the first fire in a hill there, because all fire comes from God. Now the white people have built a house on that hill. They should leave this place. Grass should grow on this place and then there will be peace.(47) 

After another earthquake in March, a Cherokee claimed to have suffered a revelation at the hands of God, “that a great darkness would arise and was supposed to last three days. During this all the white people and also those Indians who had clothing or household items in the style of the white people would be carried away along with their livestock.” Cherokees were urged to “put aside everything that was similar to the white people and what they had learned from them,” or suffer death.(48)
A Cherokee named Koychezetel told the missionaries that everyone in the nation was abuzz regarding a talk that had occurred at the Cherokee capital of Ustanauli:

A man and two women came there; they relayed that when they were traveling, they came upon an unoccupied house near a mountain called Rocky Mountain. They went inside to spend the night there. When it had gotten dark, they heard a noise in the air and thought a storm was coming up.
Then as they went out of the house to see about this, they saw a whole host of Indians arrive on the mountain from the sky. They rode on small black horses and their leader beat a drum and came very close to them. They were very afraid and wanted to go back into the house, but the leader called to them, ‘Do not be afraid; we are your brothers and are sent from God to speak with you. God is dissatisfied that you so indiscriminately lead the white people onto my land. You yourselves see that your game has gone. You plant the white people’s corn. Go and buy it back from them and plant Indian corn and pound it according to your ancestors’ ways. Make the people go away. The mother of the nation has left you, because all her bones are being broken through the milling. She will return, however, if you get the white people out of the country and return to your former way of life. You yourselves can see that the white people are completely different from us. We are made from red earth, but they are made from white sand. You may always be good neighbors with them but see to it that you get your old ‘beloved Towns’ back from them.(49)

The Red Stick War
In spite of all this apocalyptic fervor, the Cherokee leadership ultimately sided with the United States and served under General Andrew Jackson in 1814 against their rebellious “Red Stick” Creek neighbors. Lying unprotected on the Creek / Cherokee border, on the south side of the Coosa River, Vann’s Valley was an inviting and vulnerable target for the Red Sticks. By that time a Cherokee named Avery Vann -- brother of the infamous James Vann of Spring Place, GA – had settled in the area, which had become generally known as “Beaver Dam” or “Beaver Pond.” A Jan. 24, 1822 entry in the Brainerd missionary journal located “Beaver Dam” on “the south side of the Coosa river, opposite to Turnip town,”(50) a Cherokee town on the northern bank of the Coosa, at the southern base of Turnip Mountain, near today’s Plant Hammond. Rev. Daniel Butrick noted in February, 1823 that “Beaver-dam,” was located 10 or 12 miles from Turnip Mountain, south of the Coosa river.” He also said that “Cedar Creek town,” a town that lay “near a settlement of Creek Indians,” likely at or near today’s Cedartown, was “12 miles south of Beaver dam.”(51) This would place Beaver Dam in the heart of Vann’s Valley, probably very near today’s town of Cave Spring, or between there and the former county seat of Livingston. (As more Cherokees – and especially prosperous Cherokees such as Avery Vann -- began to adopt more of a plantation lifestyle, the nature of what constituted a Cherokee “town” changed. During the eighteenth century Cherokee towns tended to be traditional and compact, centered on a town council house, but by the early nineteenth century the “towns” tended to be spread out for miles along the river bottoms and associated tributaries.) Vann, at the time of the Creek War / Red Stick Rebellion, was living at the northern end of the Beaver Dam area, operating a ferry on the Coosa River. In 1826 Richard A. Blount, who was surveying the Georgia / Alabama state line, said that Vann, who he described as an “old man,” lived on the Coosa “in the late war, and took an active part against the hostile Creeks, and while he was down about the Horse Shoe, some of them came up and burnt his houses.”(52) Records from the Cherokee Agency report that on March, 1814, the Old Broom sent a “very urgent express” through Santooly of Brooms Town to the Cherokees living near Avery Vann’s place, which was located by the agency as “sixteen miles above Fort Armstrong.” The Agency was informed that Vann’s place had been “burnt By the hostile Creeks” and that his family had only barely escaped the raid “a day or two before this happened.” Old Broom said that Cherokee warriors needed to be “stationed at Avery Vann’s” and wanted to know if they would be considered “as a part of Genl Jacksons army.”(53) 

Vann’s wife, Margaret McSwain Vann, gives a considerably more detailed account in an 1842 claim to the federal government for the loss of the property:

The claimant … states (on oath) that at the time of the Creek War she resided with her family on the South side of the Coosa river in the Cherokee Nation East; where she was exposed to the inroads of the lawless Creeks owning to the contiguity of her abode to that tribe. That her husband was at the time of the loss of the above property in the service of the U.S. in the company commanded by Capt. David McNair, all under command of Genl. Andrew Jackson. That will in this defenceless condition a friend by the name of Broom sent her word that she was in great danger of an attack by the Creeks, and advised her to remove her little family across to the north side of the Coosa river, which advice she took to save the lives of her family; -- and about the next day after leaving her residents, the Creeks set fire to & consumed all that is charged in this account except the Negro Boy. The next day … after the burning of her property by the Creeks, the Boy was at play with her own children, where she had constructed a camp to shelter in, and at night on inquiry the Boy could not be found, and there was no way to account for his absence, but by charging some outlaw with forcing him off. Suspicion rested … upon some bad white men… in the neighborhood to Genl. White’s detachment of East Tennessee Militia from the fact that fresh horse tracks were to be found about the place where the boy was at play, which were pursued a short distance in the direction of Tennessee … And now as it must be obvious to every candid mind that this loss was brought about by the absence of her husband & protector in the ranks of the citizens of the U.S. in defence of their rights, against the enemy of the U.S., she thinks it nothing but justice that she should be remunerated for her loss.(54)

The Indian Removal Act
Although Vann, like most able-bodied Cherokee men, chose to serve with the white soldiers under General Jackson, that would not save his home and property. In fact, it would be Jackson -- riding his victories all the way to the U.S. presidency -- who ultimately would push for removal of the Southeastern Indians, including his former Cherokee allies, west of the Mississippi River. Vann’s loyalty to the United States, even to the point of losing his home to conflagration, wouldn’t spare him or his family from removal. “The consequences of a speedy removal will be important to the United States, to individual States, and to the Indians themselves,” Jackson announced to the U.S. Congress. He characterized the Cherokee Nation and their fellow Indian nations, in spite of all aspirations to become thoroughly acculturated, as being “now occupied by a few savage hunters.”(55) In fact, the Cherokees had long since ceded the vast majority of their once vast hunting grounds to the United States, and had been living a plantation and subsistence farming lifestyle virtually indistinguishable from that practiced by their white neighbors. But no matter. Removal of the Indians from the Southern states would “enable those States to advance rapidly in population, wealth, and power,” Jackson said. “What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic, studded with cities, towns, and prosperous farms embellished with all the improvements which art can devise or industry execute…?” Jackson concluded:

And is it supposed that the wandering savage has a stronger attachment to his home than the settled, civilized Christian? Is it more afflicting to him to leave the graves of his fathers than it is to our brothers and children? Rightly considered, the policy of the General Government toward the red man is not only liberal, but generous. He is unwilling to submit to the laws of the States and mingle with their population. To save him from this alternative, or perhaps utter annihilation, the General Government kindly offers him a new home… (56)

Seeing the writing clearly on the wall, Vann enrolled for emigration to the West in 1829, abandoning all his improvements in Beaver Pond. Just 11 days after Jackson’s announcement, the state of Georgia extended its legal jurisdiction over the Cherokee Nation, abolishing Cherokee government, courts, and police powers in its own territory. Since Cherokees could not testify against whites in Georgia courts, this action practically invited whites to invade Cherokee territory and take what they wanted. This is exactly what happened, and the people living in Vann’s Valley again found themselves on the front lines of conflict.

First Blood Shed in Vann's Valley 
Just two months after Georgia abolished Cherokee laws and courts, the Cherokee Phoenix and Indians' Advocate announced in a headline: “FIRST BLOOD SHED BY THE GEORGIANS!!”(57) Editor Elias Boudinot said that Principal Chief John Ross – living now at the head of the Coosa River just a few miles from where the Cherokees had fought their “last stand” military battle at Hightower a generation earlier -- had sent an express message to U.S. Indian Agent Hugh Montgomery that “a Cherokee has, at last, been killed by the intruders, and three more taken bound into Georgia!” Boudinot went on to describe the few details he’d managed to procure regarding the events leading up to the death of their fellow citizen, a man named “Chuwoyee,” at the hands of the whites:

A company of Cherokees, among whom were some of our most respectable citizens, constrained by the repeated aggressions and insults of a number of intruders, who had settled themselves far in (Cherokee) country, & likewise by the frequent losses sustained by many of our citizens in cattle and horses from their own countrymen, who are leagued in wickedness with our civilized brothers, started the other day, under the authority of the Principal Chief to correct, at least part of the evil. They were out two days, in which time they arrested four Cherokee horse-thieves. These received exemplary punishment. They found also 17 families of intruders, living, we believe, in Cherokee houses. These they ordered out and after safely taking out their beddings, chairs, &c. the houses were set on fire. In no instance was the least violence used on the part of the Cherokees.(58)

Chief Ross wrote from his home at Head of Coosa three days after the story ran in the Phoenix, explaining the reasons why he and the General Council dispatched a Cherokee Light Horse bridgade to the Beaver Dam area:

It is generally known that there are divers intruders on Cherokee land, on the frontiers of the adjoining States, some of them being men of the most infamous character, and that the General Council at its last session made it my duty to remove such of them as may be found amidst our citizens in possession of the improvements recently abandoned by the Cherokees, who have emigrated to the Arkansas; and having been strongly urged by our good citizens to enforce said law, with the view of securing tranquility & the safety of their property, I complied with the request, without intending to disregard or interfere in the least degree with the instructions of the Secretary of War to the Agent. Therefore on the 4th instant, Major Ridge and other citizens were authorized & instructed to extend towards them all possible lenity and humanity. The men were prohibited from using ardent spirits whilst on duty. The intruders living on the public road leading to Alabama and at Saunders' old place were turned out of doors with all their effects. The company were fully persuaded that if the houses were not destroyed the intruders would not go away; they therefore determined on the expediency of setting fire to them. There were eighteen families of intruders thus removed, and having executed this duty with the utmost lenity towards them, and not having injured any of their property, the Cherokees felt no uneasiness, or alarm from any quarter, and returned home in small detached parties.(59)

A “Certificate of Abraham Birdwell, Alabama, Jackson County, February 9, 1830,” gives a number of particulars about the event from the perspective of the whites who were expelled.(60) His sympathies obviously lay with those who were driven out, whom he describes as helpless and pitiful in the face of an overwhelming force of savage Indians:

I Abrahan (sic) Birdwell, of said State and county do hereby certify, having been into the State of Georgia, and on my return home through the Cherokee nation, and on and within the territory claimed by Georgia as Creek land; and on Thursday, the 4th present instant, had my attention attracted by the burning of houses, and by a company of Cherokees, under the command of Major Ridge, a Cherokee Chief; an inquiry of Ridge, thro' Mr. David Vann, another leading character of the nation, I was informed that Major Ridge was authorized by John Ross, principal Chief of the Cherokee nation, to the burning and otherwise destroying the houses, &c. occupied by the intruders, saying that they were a parcel of scoundrels and rogues, and that the Government would not injure them for thus treating them. These acts were committed on Cedar Creek and Beaver Dam settlement. The property thus wantonly destroyed, was, as I was informed, valued by the assessors, and paid for by the Government of the United States. After leaving Vann's on the 5th, I saw about four miles on the route home, a woman on a cart, who I was informed had had a child only four days before. Coming on three miles further, I saw another, who had a midwife with her, and in a critical condition. The Cherokees were all armed with guns, pistols, and Ridge himself was clothed in all the garb of Indian warfare, viz; His headdress was a buffalo's forehead & horns, &c., there were sixty Indians; the Indians exalted highly, particularly David Vann; the Indians around the fire, with expressions of Indian joy, yelling, shouting; &c. &c. I met some men on express to the settlements for aid.(61)

Some of the whites who were ousted by Ridge and his Light Horse brigade later defended their intrusion, arguing that they were told that President Jackson himself had sent out a letter “stating that any white person or persons was at liberty to settle any where in the Cherokee Nation on any place emigrated,” and that they would “not be interrupted” from establishing residence, since the Cherokee improvements were now “the property of the United States.” In fact, some “Commissioners employed by General Government” had urged the white settlers not to content themselves with simply taking over vacant Cherokee properties, but to “build at the Springs of Indians that had not emigrated that it would cause them to enrol themselves for the Arkansas.”(62)
After the improvements had been burned and the white families were successfully expelled, a handful of Ridge’s party “tarried on the way,” at the home of Samuel Rowe, Boudinot reported. These Cherokees, “we are sorry to say, had become intoxicated,” he said, in spite of the council’s specific prohibition against drinking.(63) “Unfortunately, four of them became intoxicated and remained at Samuel Rowe's house where there was whiskey,” said Chief Ross.(64) “In this situation, they were found by a company of (white) intruders, twenty five in number,” Boudinot said.(65) One white witness and participant who published an account in The Athenian said that "The object of the party was to take the Indians and bring them to justice." The Cherokees they found at the Rowe house “we made prisoners, without much resistance on their part. The Chief of the party (Chewaya) was beaten to death…”(66)
Chief Ross said that on the night of Feb. 5 “a party of intruders, upwards of twenty men, armed with guns, came” and arrested The Waggon, Daniel Mills, Rattling Gourd, and Chuwoyee.(67) James G. Williams, a sub-agent to the Cherokees, in a separate article in the Cherokee Phoenix, listed the same men.(68) The Waggon, according to Ross, “was found in strings by the intruders, the Indians having tied him to prevent him from doing injury.” The white party “seized upon and tied” the rest, Williams said. Mills “was beaten with a gun” and trampled by the whites, Ross said. Chuwoyee, “was unable to walk (being very drunk),” Ross said.” (N)ot understanding the cause of this confinement, and almost unable to stand from the effects of whiskey,” Williams said, Chuwoyee “refused to go, altho he was tied…” Ross said that Chowoyee, still bound, was “put upon a horse, but not being able to sit on, and falling off once or twice, he was most barbarously beaten with guns &c. in the head, face, breast and arms…” Williams said that “one of the whites struck him with his gun on the back part of the head, & three or four others commenced on him with Clubs &c. &c.” Williams went on:

After this barbarous treatment and finding that he was unable to walk, they threw him across a horse before one of their company and Marched off about a mile where they encamped for the night. After reaching the camp ground the man who had charge of him threw him from the horse upon the ground; and he was suffered to lie there exposed to the inclemency of a cold wet sleeting night without the least vestige of anything to protect him from the severity of the weather, but the few clothes he had on when taken prisoner. Early on the next morning he expired.(69)

Chowoyee’s “corpse was left on the ground without any person to take care of it,” Ross said.(70) “The corpse was shockingly mangled,” he said. The three remaining Cherokee prisoners “were sent into Carroll County, Georgia, under a guard.” Mills and The Waggon, Williams said, “effected their escape, though The Waggon in getting off received a severe wound in the breast with a butcher knife from the hands of Old Richard Philpot.” The Rattling Gourd was unable to escape and the party of whites “succeeded in putting (him) in Jail,” Williams reported.(71)
Chief Ross said that the “lawless white intruders” had made threats to kill both himself and Major Ridge and burn their dwellings. “I despatched an express to the Agent with all possible speed, demanding the arrest and punishment of the murderers, and the restoration of the prisoners, and also requesting the immediate interposition of his authority in preserving peace and harmony on the frontier.,” Ross said.
On Feb. 7 Ross sent a wagon to pick of the body of Chuwoyee, “and on the 8th he was decently buried at his own house by the side of the graves of his father and mother.” In 1830, visiting New Englander Herman Gold would note the “the tomb of the Cherokee, who was so barberously murdered by the Georgians.”
The Cherokees living along the borders were concerned that this may have just been the first in a wave of violent acts they might have to suffer at the hands of indignant, grasping whites. No sooner had Chuwoyee been buried than those fears seemed to have been confirmed:

Without reflection, after the burial, a platoon of small arms was fired, and heard a number of miles off, which alarmed the people, and led them to suspect that the intruders had attacked us; this caused messengers forthwith to run from Turnip Mountain in various directions. In the course of that night and the following day, a number of men came in to ascertain the fact… (72)

A “party of armed mounted white men,” about 25 in number, some of whom had been involved in the murder of Chowoyee – men characterized by Ross as being “of debased character,” and led by the Carroll County sheriff, warrants in hand, riding “in full speed coming up the lane, swearing and yelling in the most savage manner” -- had attacked some Cherokee residents of Vann’s Valley, including Charles Vann (son of Avery Vann), Jacob West, his son Ezekiel West, Charles Fields, and “one or two other Cherokees who happened at the same time to be there,” Ross said. Vann and the Wests decided they should leave, but as they turned “Mr. West was fired upon.” West “dismounted his horse and returned the fire; fortunately, there was no execution done,” said Ross.(73)
“If it is thus that the laws of Georgia are to be extended and executed over the Cherokees, it is very obvious that justice and humanity are not to be respected,” Ross concluded.

The Treaty of New Echota
Ross’ worst fears were realized when the fraudulent Treaty of New Echota was signed by agents of the U.S. government and a few renegade Cherokees, under the auspices of Major Ridge and his son, in 1835, depriving the Cherokee of their lands and forcing them to relocate in the West within two years. Nevertheless, Chief Ross attempted to seek justice through the proper tribunal by gathering signatures from nearly every Cherokee citizen on a petition he planned to personally present to the U.S. Senate, demonstrating that the vast majority of the citizens of the Cherokee Nation were vehemently against removal. However, when Ross traveled to Washington to present the petition, he was not received. The message was clear: the removal would go forward, and the “treaty,” such as it was, would be enforced by the U.S. government. 

A Leader Ousted From His Home
While Ross was away in Washington behalf of his people, the same year the treaty was signed, a white family from Georgia moved into his home and ignominiously wrenched it away it from Ross’ wife and children. John Howard Payne, a songwriter who paid an extensive visit to the Cherokee Nation prior to removal, ultimately leading to his arrest by the Georgia guard, learned of the details from Ross:(74)

The story contains the story at this moment of the whole nation. Last winter he was delegated with others to Washington, in order to attempt a treaty upon available terms — such terms as his people would accept. He could not obtain such. It was evening when he had arrived, on his returning way, within twenty miles of the dwelling he had left, then a beautiful abode at the head of Coosa upon a rising ground, overlooking a luxuriant plain below, and rivers running through it, and in the distance a noble mountain. A friend desired him to remain all night. No, he was approaching home after a long absence; he was impatient to see his family. He hurried on. In the dead of night he aroused the house; strange voices answered him.

When Ross “rode up to the gate,” he “saw a servant he believed to be his own,” so he dismounted his horse and “ordered his horse taken,” according to his own account.(75) When he entered his house, “to his utter astonishment (he) found himself a stranger in his own home, his family having been some days before driven out to seek a new house.” “His family had just been turned from the spot where his children were cradled, and it was occupied by a Georgian,” said Payne:

The land was drawn in the Georgia lottery, and though not claimable until the Indians should be removed by treaty, was seized in his absence to petition Congress for his country — seized under the delusion of that wayward and selfish policy which has led Georgia to defy the General Government and all its solemn pledges to protect the Indians and vindicate its honor, in not swerving from its treaties.(76)

Ross spent his last night there as a “guest” in his own home, The next morning he “arose early” and surveyed his property one last time:

(Ross) saw some straggling herds of his cattle and sheep browsing about the place – his crop of corn undisposed of. In casting a look up into the widespread branches of a majestic oak, standing within the enclosure of the garden, and which overshadows the spot where lies the remains of his dear babe and most beloved and affectionate father, he there saw, perched upon its boughs, that flock of beautiful pea-fowls, once the matron’s care and delight, but now left to destruction and never more to be seen.
He ordered his horse, paid his bill, and departed in search of his family. After traveling amid heavy rains he had the happiness of overtaking them on the road, bound for some place of refuge within the limits of Tennessee.(77)

“It was this hard conduct which had driven the principal chief to one of the humblest dwellings in his nation,” said Payne. “But he made no complaint, even after I had grown familiar with him. I learned this wrong from other lips.”(78)
Thus was Chief Ross removed from his home at the Head of Coosa – “his houses, farm, public ferries, and other properties … wrested from him” -- before the Cherokee Removal had even officially begun.(79)

Camp Scott and the Second Creek War
By 1835 “a considerable settlement had sprung up ... in Vann’s Valley,” an early white historian of the area, George McGruder Battey, reported:(80) “The country was wild, sparsely settled, full of bad Indians and adventurous whites, a few soldiers of isolated posts, and here and there a rough Indian trail that sufficed for a road.”(81) White settlers flooded into the area from the nearby Alabama border, and also from Carroll County to the south. The border region served as the first county seat of Floyd County. “Livingston, a hamlet located on the south side of the Coosa River at Foster’s Bend, about 14 miles below Rome, was chosen by legislative act of Dec. 21, 1833 as the county seat, and a log cabin courthouse was erected at which one or more sessions of court, presided over by Judge Jno. W. Hooper, were held, and in which quite a number of Indians appeared as prosecutors and defendants...,” said Battey.(82)
When tensions with the Creek Indians escalated again in the Second Creek War of 1836, the militia post of Camp Scott was established on the Coosa, ostensibly to protect the white settlers from possible Creek “depredations” – but also as a staging ground for whites to inflict some depredations of their own, most notably at nearby Terrapin Creek:

Orders were issued to Brig. Gen. James Hemphill to raise a battalion of militia and place them at Lesley’s Ferry, on the Coosa River, for the purpose not only of keeping the Cherokees in check, but also of preventing the Creeks from swarming into Georgia, which orders were executed, and the battalion organized under the command of Gen. James Hemphill and Maj. Chas. H. Nelson.
(83)

William Smith, one of the first white residents of Cave Spring in Vann’s Valley, told Battey that once while he was away from home “the Creeks appeared, and his wife was badly frightened”:

The visitors looked so dark and villainous, and they crept about like snakes. When night came, Mrs. Smith gathered her baby Martha … in her arms, and taking a negro nurse, stole out of the house into the underbrush, where, wrapped in shawls and an Indian blanket, they spent the night. Mrs. Smith had feared the Creeks might break into her house during the night; they could be seen moving stealthily and keeping a close watch, but they attempted no outrage.(84)

The militia troops at Camp Scott were involved in a number of small skirmishes with the Creeks on the Alabama side of the line in what would prove to be the last instances of anything resembling border war in Vann’s Valley. By the time Montgomery Folsom wrote a newspaper article about “pioneer days” in the Rome Tribune in 1892, the decades of inter-ethnic violence in Vann’s Valley had receded into distant memory:

I drove with Mr. Wesley O. Connor out to see Mr. Wright Ellis, one of the last of the old settlers of the Cave Spring region, and Mr. Ellis told many interesting stories of the early days. Mr. Ellis came to Cave Spring with his father as a little boy. Near his house and the end of Vann’s Valley stood an old fort which protected the settlement...(85)

A Frontier No More
For years Vann’s Valley had served as a natural buffer zone, lying as it did at the convergence of the major waterways of what would later become Northwest Georgia, at the entranceway to the Appalachian mountains, and at the crossroads of Creek and Cherokee cultures. With the emergence of the state of Alabama in 1819, Vann’s Valley straddled another new border. By the time of the forced Cherokee Removal in 1838, new towns like Cave Spring had sprouted up from the ashes of burned-out, abandoned Cherokee homes, but Vann’s Valley would never again be considered a frontier.

ENDNOTES

(1) David J. Hally, King (Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2008), 163.
(2) Lawrence A. Clayton, Vernon James Knight, and Edward C. Moore, editors, The DeSoto Chronicles, Volume I(Tuscaloosa: 1993), 94.
(3) David J. Hally, King (Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2008), 222.
(4) Russell Thornton, The Cherokees: A Population History (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990), 12-14.
(5) Letter of James Sevier to Lyman Draper, August 19, 1839, James Sevier Letter, MS. 1565. University of Knoxville, Special Collections Library.
(6) J. G. M. Ramsey, Annals of Tennessee (Johnson City: The Overmountain Press, 1967), 272.
(7) Wisconsin Historical Society, Draper Papers, MS 32S.
(8) Ibid.
(9) Ibid.
(10) Walter Lowrie, Secretary of State, editor, American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States, 1799-1815 (Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1832), 622.
(11) John P. Brown, Old Frontiers (Kingsport: Southern Publishers, Inc., 1938), 9-10.
(12) Ibid.
(13) Walter Lowrie, Secretary of State, editor, American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States, 1799-1815 (Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1832), 622.
(14) J. G. M. Ramsey, Annals of Tennessee (Johnson City: The Overmountain Press, 1967), 585-586.
(15) Ibid.
(16) Walter Lowrie, Secretary of State, editor, American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States, 1799-1815 (Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1832), 622.
(17) J. G. M. Ramsey, Annals of Tennessee (Johnson City: The Overmountain Press, 1967), 585-586.
(18) Ibid.
(19) Walter Lowrie, Secretary of State, editor, American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States, 1799-1815 (Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1832), 622.
(20) J. G. M. Ramsey, Annals of Tennessee (Johnson City: The Overmountain Press, 1967), 585-586.
(21) Walter Lowrie, Secretary of State, editor, American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States, 1799-1815 (Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1832), 622.
(22) J. G. M. Ramsey, Annals of Tennessee (Johnson City: The Overmountain Press, 1967), 585-586.
(23) Ibid.
(24) Cherokee Phoenix and Indians' Advocate, June 12, 1830, 4.
(25) Walter Lowrie, Secretary of State, editor, American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States, 1799-1815 (Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1832), 622.
(26) J. G. M. Ramsey, Annals of Tennessee (Johnson City: The Overmountain Press, 1967), 585-586.
(27) Ibid.
(28) Walter Lowrie, Secretary of State, editor, American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States, 1799-1815 (Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1832), 622.
(29) Ibid.
(30) Ibid.
(31) J. G. M. Ramsey, Annals of Tennessee (Johnson City: The Overmountain Press, 1967), 585-586.
(32) Walter Lowrie, Secretary of State, editor, American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States, 1799-1815 (Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1832), 622-623.
(33) Ibid.
(34) Wisconsin Historical Society, Draper Papers, MS 30S.
(35) http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/America/United_States/Tennessee/_Texts/THM/5/3/Sevier_Journal/1793*.html
(36) Ibid.
(37) Cherokee Phoenix and Indians' Advocate, May 15, 1830, 1.
(38) Cherokee Phoenix and Indians’ Advocate, May 22, 1830, 1.
(39) Charles O. Walker, Cherokee Footprints, Volume 1 (Canton: Charles O. Walker, 1988), 71.
(40) H. Thomas Foster, The Collected Works of Benjamin Hawkins: 1796-1810 (Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2003), 47S.
(41) Cherokee Phoenix and Indians’ Advocate, May 15, 1830, 1.
(42) Glenn Tucker, Tecumseh: Vision of Glory (New York: Cosimo, Inc., 2005), 208-209.
(43) Rowena McClinton, editor, The Moravian Springplace Mission to the Cherokees, Volume I (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007), 460.
(44) Ibid, 470.
(45) Ibid, 461.
(46) Ibid, 474.
(47) Ibid.
(48) Ibid, 478-479.
(49) Ibid, 411.
(50) Joyce B. Phillips and Paul Gary Phillips, editors, The Brainerd Journal (Lincoln: The University of Nebraska Press, 1998), 291.
(51) American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Report of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Fourteenth Annual Meeting, Sept. 17-18, 1823 (Boston: Crocker & Brewster, 1823), 74-75.
(52) Alabama Department of Archives and History, Papers of Richard A Blount, Georgia-Alabama Boundary Commission – 1826, Boundary Survey Journal (Section for July 26 to August 7).
(53) Cherokee Agency in Tennessee: Correspondence and Miscellaneous Records. National Archives Microcopy M-208, Rolls 1-7, 13.
(54) Claim of Margaret Vann, Claim No. 208, 1842 Cherokee Claims, Saline District, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville, Tennessee.
(55) President Jackson's Message to Congress "On Indian Removal,” December 6, 1830, Records of the United States Senate, 1789‐1990, Record Group 46, 1789‐1990, National Archives and Records Administration.
(56) Ibid
(57) Cherokee Phoenix and Indians’ Advocate, Feb. 10, 1830, 2.
(58) Ibid.
(59) Cherokee Phoenix and Indians' Advocate, Feb. 17. 1830, 2.
(60) Cherokee Phoenix and Indians’ Advocate, May 8, 1830, 2.
(61) Ibid.
(62) Cherokee Phoenix and Indians’ Advocate, Apr. 7, 1830, 2.
(63) Cherokee Phoenix and Indians’ Advocate, Feb. 10, 1830, 2.
(64) Cherokee Phoenix and Indians' Advocate, Feb. 17. 1830, 2.
(65) Cherokee Phoenix and Indians’ Advocate, Feb. 10, 1830, 2.
(66) Cherokee Phoenix and Indians’ Advocate, Mar. 31, 1830, 3.
(67) Cherokee Phoenix and Indians' Advocate, Feb. 17. 1830, 2.
(68) Cherokee Phoenix and Indians’ Advocate, Apr. 14, 1830, 3.
(69) Ibid.
(70) Cherokee Phoenix and Indians' Advocate, Feb. 17. 1830, 2.
(71) Cherokee Phoenix and Indians’ Advocate, Apr. 14, 1830, 3.
(72) Cherokee Phoenix and Indians' Advocate, Feb. 17. 1830, 2.
(73) Ibid.
(74) George McGruder Battey, Jr., A History of Rome and Floyd County (Atlanta: Cherokee Publishing Company, 1994), 81.
(75) Ibid, 222.
(76) Ibid, 81.
(77) Ibid, 222.
(78) Ibid, 81.
(79) Ibid, 222.
(80) Ibid, 36.
(81) Ibid, 212-213.
(82) Ibid, 35-36.
(83) George M. White, Historical Collections of Georgia (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 2004), 151.
(84) George McGruder Battey, Jr., A History of Rome and Floyd County (Atlanta: Cherokee Publishing Company, 1994), 212.
(85) Montgomery M. Folsom, Rome Tribune, Nov. 20, 1892.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Report of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Fourteenth Annual Meeting, Sept. 17-18, 1823 (Boston: Crocker & Brewster, 1823), 74-75.
George McGruder Battey, Jr., A History of Rome and Floyd County (Atlanta: Cherokee Publishing Company, 1994).
John P. Brown, Old Frontiers (Kingsport: Southern Publishers, Inc., 1938).
Lawrence A. Clayton, Vernon James Knight, and Edward C. Moore, editors, The DeSoto Chronicles, Volume I(Tuscaloosa: 1993).
David J. Hally, King (Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2008).
Walter Lowrie, Secretary of State, editor, American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States, 1799-1815 (Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1832), 622.
Rowena McClinton, editor, The Moravian Springplace Mission to the Cherokees, Volume I (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007), 460.
Joyce B. Phillips and Paul Gary Phillips, editors, The Brainerd Journal (Lincoln: The University of Nebraska Press, 1998).
J. G. M. Ramsey, Annals of Tennessee (Johnson City: The Overmountain Press, 1967).
Russell Thornton, The Cherokees: A Population History (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990).
Glenn Tucker, Tecumseh: Vision of Glory (New York: Cosimo, Inc., 2005).
Charles O. Walker, Cherokee Footprints, Volume 1 (Canton: Charles O. Walker, 1988).
George M. White, Historical Collections of Georgia (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 2004).

Newspapers
The Cherokee Phoenix and Indians’ Advocate
The Rome Tribune

Documents
Alabama Department of Archives and History
Papers of Richard A Blount, Georgia-Alabama Boundary Commission – 1826, Boundary Survey Journal (Section for July 26 to August 7).

National Archives and Records Administration
Cherokee Agency in Tennessee: Correspondence and Misc. Records. NARA M-208, Rolls 1-7, 13.
Records of the United States Senate, 1789‐1990, Record Group 46, 1789‐1990. President Jackson's Message to Congress "On Indian Removal,” December 6, 1830.

Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville, Tennessee
1842 Cherokee Claims, Saline District, Claim of Margaret Vann, Claim No. 208.

University of Knoxville, Special Collections Library
Letter of James Sevier to Lyman Draper, August 19, 1839, James Sevier Letter, MS. 1565.

Wisconsin Historical Society
Draper Papers.
MS 32S.
MS 30S.

Online Sources
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/America/United_States/Tennessee/_Texts/THM/5/3/Sevier_Journal/1793*.html

Posted 27th May by W. Jeff Bishop

Labels: Dragging Canoe Borders and Treaties Vann's Valley Coosa River American Revolution DeSoto Georgia Guard Conservative or Traditionalist Movements John Ross Earthquakes John Sevier Beaver Dam

  

Humphrey Posey: Baptist Missionary to the Cherokees

This Article is provided by Jeff Bishop President Of GATOTA

Three old table-top graves sit on a hill on the west side of Posey Road near Newnan, Georgia, about a half-mile north of the Hwy. 34 intersection. What was once a lonely hilltop in the middle of the woods is now surrounded on all sides by subdivision developments. One of the headstones at the tiny family cemetery honors the memory of the Rev. Humphrey Posey, “missionary to the Cherokee Indians in 1817, from the Baptist Board of Foreign Missions, (who) through life evinced a warm, religious friendship for the red man.”
Posey was born Jan. 12, 1780, in Henry County, Virginia. He was remembered fondly by Newnan resident Robert Fleming when he wrote of Posey in 1852, in his Sketch of the Life of Humphrey Posey, First Baptist Missionary to the Cherokee Indians, and Founder of Valley Town School, North Carolina.
“In his person, Elder Posey was over the ordinary size of men,” said Fleming, “with fair complexion, and clear blue eyes, he might be considered handsome. But he was more than this; he was dignified and commanding in his personal appearance, — always easy and affable in his intercourse with others, — never phlegmatic nor morose.”
Fleming said that Posey “was not what is usually called an educated man, having never attended school more than to enable him to read, write, and perform the simple rules of arithmetic.” Posey “never, at school, studied English grammar,” said Fleming, although he always showed a love of music.
When Posey was about five years old, Fleming said, “his father removed to Burke County, North Carolina, where young Posey spent his childhood and youth. He was blessed with parents who felt it to be their duty to bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
“His mother taught him, when but a child, having no spelling book, to spell and read in the Psalter,” said Fleming, “and by the time he was seven years old, he had read through the New Testament several times, without the opportunity of going to school more than twenty days.”
Fleming presents Posey’s own personal account, found among his papers, of his youth and his religious conversion:

My parents taught me very early the danger of sin, and I had serious thoughts about a future state when very young. Sometimes I was afraid to go to sleep, on account of the dread I had of the judgment's coming and finding me unprepared; and I was often terrified with dreams, so that I never could be said to enjoy fully 'the pleasures of sin.' Still, I put off seeking the salvation of my soul until I was about eighteen years old. I often promised to reform, but I as often broke my vows. Now the subject was brought home to my conscience with so much power, that I began to retire into secret places to pray — became very much dejected, but in a short time my distress left me, and I became quite calm. This continued several years, during which time I never could allow myself to go into open sin, (and I will here state that I was preserved, somehow, so that I never swore a profane oath in my life, to my knowledge,) but still my mind was carnal. At about seventeen years of age, I began teaching 'little old-field schools,' and also vocal music, in Greenville District, South Carolina. In the Spring of 1799, I went into Union District to follow the same occupation. On the 28th day of January, 1800, I was united in marriage with Lettice Jolly, then a pious member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. I taught school, that year, in the same community, and in 1801 removed into Greenville District. All this while my mind was occasionally deeply affected. Some time about the end of this year, after I had gone to bed, I fell into a doze, and I was addressed so plainly, that I rose hastily up in my bed, believing some human being had spoken to me in these words: 'Without you repent carefully you shall die, but if you repent there is yet mercy for you.' I studied the expression, and believed it was from the Lord, and that it was the last call I should be favored with, and I determined immediately to set about the work. I commenced trying to pray, but could not regulate my mind, nor feel any tenderness — not a tear could I shed. I began now to feel the corruption of my nature, and the deceitfulness of my heart. I feared greatly that I had sinned away my day of grace, and that now there was no mercy for me. I could see how Christ could save others, but mine was a peculiar case, I could not do any thing at all in the right way. I could not mourn for sin right, nor pray right; and every effort I made seemed to plunge me deeper into the mire. This state of feeling continued nearly a month, and I went to a Baptist meeting, on the Lord's-day, when, to my surprise, a large congregation was in attendance, and singing; which had not been the case there for a long time previous. It struck me there would be a revival, and I went in under very solemn impressions. There were two sermons preached, with no apparent effect; but when the preaching was closed, a Presbyterian gentleman, by request, got up and described a camp-meeting which he had attended just previous to this, and which was, probably, the first in the State. The description was given in such a manner that it affected the whole congregation, and my hard heart was softened, so that I shed tears freely. A lively exhortation ensued, and an invitation to seekers being given, I was probably the first to go forward to give the preacher my hand to be prayed for. I was glad that I could weep, and I felt that I would rather stay right there than to go home; but still I could not think that my sins were forgiven. But I could now pray with some fervor, and therefore hoped there was yet mercy for me. I went home, and my sadness increased. In the morning I took up the hymn-book, and commenced singing the hymn beginning —


How happy are they
Who their Saviour obey,' &c. 



I thought they were the happiest people in the world; but here was I, a sinner, who had no part in it. I laid down the book and retired for secret prayer, which, I think, I engaged in about four times that night; but found no relief. This struggle continued about four days and nights, during which time sins that had been long committed came fresh to my recollection. I felt that I was in the worst condition of any sinner, mainly on account of the badness of my heart. I thought I was not fit to be on this earth, and acknowledged from my heart that if God should send me to hell it would be just, and I could not see how he could be just and save me. My anguish was past expression. About the fourth night, I went almost in despair, and kneeled down by a pile of rocks in my field, and having found so many evils in my heart, and not willing to remain in ignorance of my real character, I begged the Lord to show me the worst of my case, and if there was mercy in store for such a hell-deserving wretch, for the dear Redeemer's sake, to let it be bestowed. In this agony, light broke into my soul, with an impression like this, ‘Thy sins are forgiven thee.' My soul was filled with joy, and it appeared to me astonishing that I had not sooner discovered the way of salvation through Jesus Christ. My mind was now drawn out for the salvation of sinners.
I thought I could tell them so plainly the way, that they would certainly believe and be saved. But notwithstanding I could see the way so plainly for others, I thought I was not a Christian, because I had not been sufficiently convicted. I would retire into the woods, and beg the Lord not to let me be deceived. I wished my burden back again, that I might watch more closely, and if the Lord would remove it, I would know more about it. I also thought if I was truly converted, there would be more of a revolution in my whole man. And while I would be thus engaged, my mind would become sensibly attracted with the beauties and excellencies of the Saviour, and I could experience a joy unspeakable; but presently I would get into the same old distress, and conclude that I could not be a Christian. This lasted about four days before I could fully claim the promise. And even then I continued to doubt, frequently, my acceptance with God, seeing so much imperfection in every thing I did. But on the 10th day of June, 1802, 1 ventured to tell to the church what the Lord had done, as I hoped, for my soul, and I was received. On the next day I was baptized; and coming up out of the water, I had a strong desire to exhort the people, but the enemy of my soul suggested, 'You have gone too far already; for in a short time you will turn out as bad as ever' — and I yielded, and said nothing. But it was to me one of the most happy days of my life. I felt that I was honored inexpressibly to be permitted to follow my Saviour. A sense of my own unworthiness was my only grief.
I now had a severe struggle, for I found myself troubled with vain thoughts, and concluded, that if I was a Christian I certainly could get clear of them. I prayed and strove for some time against them, and still found these enemies haunting me, until it was impressed as strongly upon my mind as if it had been a human voice: “In yourself you are a poor helpless creature, and all your strength and sufficiency are in Christ." This gave me considerable relief. My mind was deeply impressed with the lost state of sinners, which impression extended to heathen nations, with such vehemence, that I frequently shed tears on the subject. A sense of my unworthiness kept me back until my mind became so earnestly drawn out, that one Lord's-day night at a camp-meeting at the church where my membership was, I exhorted and prayed for the first time publicly. From this period I went on, occasionally exhorting, and sometimes saying a few things on some passage of Scripture. But I labored almost constantly under awful doubts, as to my gracious state.
When I had appointments to preach, I would frequently wish they had not been made, such was my sense of my unworthiness. I would then think of exhorting sinners, as I felt unfit to address Christians; but as I would proceed in my exhortations, I would become so filled with the love of the Saviour, that I would get all on fire, as it were, and would be telling the Christians how happy they would be in heaven. One day I was deeply distressed with the state of my heart, and was reading a book in which the author was treating on experimental religion. He said, 'None but a true believer mourns over a hard heart.' I knew I was mourning over my hard heart. Tears flowed freely, and my doubts were gone for a time; but they returned. I was strongly tempted to disbelieve the reality of religion, and even the existence of God; and this temptation was so strong, that I was afraid to breathe without prayer. My constant prayer was, 'Lord have mercy on me, and deliver me from this temptation.'
This continued some time. I was teaching a school, and one afternoon an awful thunder-storm arose, which frightened the children very greatly during its continuance. These words of the poet occurred to my mind —


'The God that rules on high,
And thunders when he please;
That rides upon the stormy sky
And manages the seas; —

This awful God is mine,

My father and my love,
He will send down his heavenly powers,

To carry me above.' 

Here my doubts were removed, and an impression was left on my mind which has been beneficial ever since; and those awful temptations have never been permitted to return. Here, too, I may adopt the language of the hymn— 'Blessed be the name of the Lord,' —


‘Many days have passed since then,
Many changes I have seen;
Yet have been upheld till now —
Who could hold me up but thou ?' 

I obtained license to preach in Union District, South Carolina, in 1803, and in 1804 removed to Buncombe county, North Carolina, on account of bad health. On the third day of August, I preached my first sermon there. I then went preaching about
through 'the hill country,' inviting sinners to come to the Saviour; — telling them the way of salvation through the Redeemer.
In 1805, I commenced preaching, in evenings, in a destitute settlement, near where I was teaching a school on Cane Creek. Brother James Whitaker and myself drew up Articles of Faith, as we could not find any in the country; and we collected all the members intending to be in the constitution, and examined them on the Articles. All being agreed, a presbytery was invited to attend. The presbytery was pleased with our Articles of Faith, and so the church was organized. Two of the members were, at the same time, ordained to the deacon's office, and I was ordained to the work of the ministry. At the next meeting, I baptized four professed believers, and the work of the Lord continued for a length of time. Some were received for baptism at almost every meeting.

When it came to mission work, Baptists were late to the field, “slow to launch a missionary effort among the Indians,” said William G. McLoughlin in his book, Cherokees and Missionaries.
“In part the delay was due to strong antimission sentiment among rigid predestinarians, (who) believed that God would save the Indians in his own good time and that money for missions was wasted,” McLaughlin said.
But the tide of opinion soon changed, and Dr. William Staughton, corresponding secretary for the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society, wrote to Posey from Philadelphia on Oct. 16, 1817, “At a meeting of the Baptist Board of Foreign Missions, on Monday last, your favor of August the 26th was submitted and considered. The Board, anxious to see ‘the light of life’ spreading among the Cherokees, and on the western frontiers generally, and pleased to find your heart set upon the good work, enter with pleasure into your feelings and views. They wish you to accept immediately an appointment, as their missionary for twelve months.”
Posey accepted the appointment, requesting in a Nov. 24 letter that “that the Board will bear me up in their prayers, and beseech the blessed Jesus to ask for the poor benighted Cherokees, as a part of his immediate inheritance.”
After receiving this appointment, Posey “commenced, on the 1st of December, 1817, a tour of preaching among the Indians, and the white people on the frontier,” said Fleming. “In 1818 and 1819, he formed a very extensive acquaintance with the tribe.”
Posey soon established day schools at the Cherokee towns of Cowee, Tillanoocy, and Eastatory. but “the confusion in the nation over the effort to force a removal to Arkansas soon forced Posey to suspend operations,” said McLaughlin.
After a trip to Arkansas to scout a place for his mission, it became apparent that most of the Cherokees would not be removing there, after all. This is when Posey managed to negotiate with the Cherokees to establish a mission at the Valley Towns in North Carolina .
Baptist Elder Alfred Webb reported that Posey left Haywood, NC “to take charge of a mission in the Cherokee nation, where he originated and attended the management of a very nourishing school, and preached over the nation by means of an interpreter (Edward Tucker), for the space of about five years. Eternity will unfold the good which this faithful servant of the Most High God effected in the moral condition of these rude people.”
Moravian missionaries, who had been in the Cherokee Nation since 1801, reported that Posey visited them on June 25, 1818.
“Mr. Humphrey Posey, a Baptist preacher, a very dear man who seems to mean very well, visited us with one of his relatives. He said that since his conversion the salvation of the Cherokees, in whose neighborhood his home is, has been very close to his heart and that he is in charge of a school for young Cherokees on the border, where he also preaches from time to time. He was on the way to Oostanaula to the Council to talk about his plan with the chiefs gathered there.”
“At a grand council of the chiefs,” Fleming said, “Posey obtained their hearty consent, and promise of cooperation to establish a school amongst them at Valley Town.”
Missionaries at the Brainerd Mission near modern-day Chattanooga , Tennessee recorded in their journal on April 27, 1820 that by that time Posey and his family had “commenced their operations on the bank of the Highwassee creek ... the valley called Peach Tree.”
Fleming reported that the following year, in 1821, Posey “visited Philadelphia, to consult with the Board, and to procure supplies for the Valley Town school."
He goes on:

He preached in nearly all the churches in the city, and obtained the promise of the Board to furnish a mission family to unite with him in the labors of the school. ... The promised assistance arrived in 1821, consisting of Rev. Thomas Roberts and his wife, Rev. Evan Jones and his wife, Isaac Cleaver, a blacksmith, and John Farrier, a farmer. These, with their families, together with Miss Jones, Miss Cleaver, and Miss Lewis, sailed from Philadelphia, in 1821, laden with clothing for their schools, and other things necessary for a large missionary establishment. Elder Roberts and Mr. Farrier discontinued their labors in 1824, and Mr. Cleaver continued until the close of the next year. Elder Evan Jones continued until the Indians removed to the Territory, assigned to them by the government, beyond the Mississippi.

The mission consisted of 80 acres, three houses, a farm, and a school. Rev. Jeremiah Evarts, also a missionary to the Cherokees, reported on the Valley Towns mission in 1822:

In going & returning I conversed with Mr. Posey, in reference to the Baptist Mission, in the Valley Towns, of which he is the Superintendent ... The school now consists of 60 children ... The establishment consists of a preacher, schoolmaster, blacksmith, two farmers & a hired man. This spring 80 acres of corn have been planted; last year 800 bushels were raised.
“The plan of the station is this: The pupils eat & lodge by themselves, forming own family & eating at own table; the family being under the care of the teacher, with the aid of two or three young women ... Mr. Posey’s family consisted of himself, his wife & six children: of course his allowance was $240, annually. Each family had cows from the common stock; and when the pork was killed, it was divided among the different families.

Posey had to deal with the lingering resentment and even hatred from the white people, who were advancing aggressively westward at the time.
“The White people are constantly opposing every effort to instruct the poor, benighted Indians,” reported one missionary at the Valley Towns mission. “The great objection urged by most people in these parts is the enmity of the old wars in which some of their friends have been killed by them.”
But Posey didn’t let such things detract from the work of the mission.
Deacon James Whitaker wrote in a letter, "I was at Valley Town in 1821, six or eight weeks, and during that time, I had full opportunity to know every thing in and about the establishment; and, I can say, a more attentive and faithful man could not be found, and the Cherokees universally esteem (Rev. Posey) as a good man. At the mention of his name, those who still remain in the country, will brighten up with a smile on their countenance." 
The Valley Town school was reported in I. M. Allen's Register as being in good condition, "And to this day the Cherokees have more confidence in Humphrey Posey than they have in any other man living." Belle Abbott wrote that, "at the name of Humphrey Posey it is said a Cherokee would weep for the love of him long after they had gone away."
Religious conversions had always posed a problem for the missionaries, since the Cherokee parents who placed their children in the mission schools were much more interested in their children receiving an education and learning to read and write the English language than they were in Christianity. Nevertheless, the missionaries continued to press, and some were converted. The History of the American Missions to the Heathen reported that, in 1823, “two or three of the Indians gave evidence of piety. John (Timson) was the first Indian who was converted. He acted as interpreter, and he and his wife, who also became pious, proved valuable helpers.”
Other Cherokees who became actively involved both in this mission and at a second Baptist mission established at Tinsawattee, Georgia included Jesse Bushyhead, Kaneeka (John Wickliffe), Oganaya, and James Wafford. 
Thomas Roberts, superintendent of the mission, vividly describes a baptism ceremony at the Valley Towns Mission:

On a pleasant Sabbath morning hundreds of the Indians were wending their way in the beautiful Hiawassa river to see the first fruits of the nation baptized in the likeness of Jesus’ death and resurrection. We saw no visible dove descending as when Christ arose from the baptismal stream, but we saw and heard and felt the presence of the Holy Spirit. We saw the big tears chasing one another down the furrowed cheeks of old Indian warriors who never, since their manhood wept before. We heard the prayers of young converts, who, emboldened by the Spirit of God, cried alound for a blessing to descend upon their benighted nation.

Roberts also describes the daily schedule of the Valley Towns mission school in 1823:

In the morning, at sunrise, the horn is blown for worship, when all the children, with as many of the mission family as can conveniently assemble at the school house. A portion of the word of God is read, and a hymn is sung, in which the Greatest part of the Indian children join. One of the brethren addresses the thron(g), and the meeting is dismissed.
Every child that can read commits to memory 6 verses every morning, which are recited at the opening of the school; and all that is thus committed through the week, is said over again at Sunday school, and various questions asked from the chapter...
The conduct of the scholars is mild and respectful ... Many of them write well, and have made considerable advance in figures.
The evening worship is conducted in the following manner. A chapter is read from the Old Testament, and explained to the understanding of the children...

The following list of rules was approved by the mission in 1824:

1. The school shall consist of not more than fifty boarding scholars, for the present.
2. No pupil, having parents or guardians, shall be admitted, without an engagement on the part of such parents or guardians to comply with these rules.
3. These rules shall be read and explained to every parent or guardian, applying for the admission of a pupil, and also to every orphan or adult who shall apply on his own behalf.
4. All parents and guardians shall furnish their children with shoes, and one blanket, at least; and those who are able, shall furnish their children with clothes during their continuance at school. Inquiry to be made of the party, and the result to be noted down in the school register.
5. After this time, no child who speaks English shall be admitted, under ten years of age; nor any one who cannot speak English, under six.
6. Every pupil shall continue at school till he has attained, at least, a plain English education, according to the laws of the Cherokee nation : provided, however, that no pupil, admitted at ten years of age, and speaking the English language, be continued at school more than four years.
7. Should any child, after one quarter's continuance at school, manifest an incapacity to learn, the parents shall keep such a child at home one year, at least, when he may again be admitted on trial for one month.
8. Any pupil who shall attend any ball, play, or dance, or be guilty of getting drunk, shall be expelled from the school; and shall forfeit all clothes received from the mission, except a mere covering. And in case any one, being guilty of a breach of this rule, shall conceal or take away any clothes or other property, belonging to the mission, the proper officers of the nation shall be directed to pursue him, or them, for the recovery of the same.
9. Any pupil convicted of stealing, shall be excluded from the school, and forfeit his clothes.
10. There shall be two weeks vacation in every quarter, for the children to visit their parents; and no scholars shall be allowed to be absent at any other time. And in case any pupil shall continue from school two weeks after the expiration of the vacation, without sufficient cause, of which timely notice shall be given, his place shall be filled up by the next applicant ; and the pupil so offending shall return the clothes received from the mission.
11. No scholar shall be allowed to keep a horse, dog, gun, or dirk, at the establishment.
12. All clothing shall be given for tickets.
13. Every person, belonging to the mission family, shall use their utmost endeavors to enforce the observance and execution of these laws, in all cases, without partiality or respect of persons.

“The effect of these rules was soon visible,” Joseph Tracy and his co-authors stated in The History of the American Missions to the Heathen. “Parents no longer imagined that they were conferring a favor in allowing their children to be taught, and a new impulse was given to the minds of the children. Mr. Roberts and Mr. Farrier withdrew, toward the close of this year. Mr. Roberts, by his own desire, was for some time employed to raise funds for the support of the mission.”
In 1825, Jones was ordained pastor at the mission, and the church at the station was received into the Hiwassee Association in Tennessee. But by this time, with all the departures, he had very little assistance.
In fact, even Posey’s stint as a missionary in North Carolina had come to an abrupt end, in 1824 – McLaughlin and others note that Posey’s attention to financial details of the mission left much to be desired, and he was accused of “waste of money and means.” Posey continued to preach, however, moving to Northwest Georgia and establishing several churches there, including some which flourish to this day. 
“In the providence of God, he was permitted to enjoy the society of the wife of his youth forty-two years,” said Fleming. Lettice Jolly Posey “died at their residence in Walker County, June 22d, 1842. By her he had ten children; eight daughters and two sons, all of whom have given evidence of conversion to God. He was often heard to speak of this as a matter of consolation to him in his declining years.”
Lettice Jolly is buried in what is now Catoosa County, Georgia. Her grave is beside the road on West Nickajack Road, enclosed by a chain link fence. According to a poster on Genealogy.com, the closest street address to the gravesite is 133 W. Nickajack Rd, Ringgold, GA 30736.
“I have learned that this grave is part of a small graveyard near the original site of the Woods Station Baptist Church,” said the poster, Bill Mitchell. “The Woods Station Baptist Church (now Woodstation Baptist Church) was founded by Reverend Posey around the time of the Cherokee Removal, near the crossroads of the Nickajack Trail ... and the Alabama Road ... It is believed to have been the first Baptist church established in old Walker County. The congregation has long since moved away from Woodstation, to the Catlett community in Walker County, leaving its old cemetery unmarked and unattended.”
On the July 28, 1844, Posey married the wealthy Mrs. Jane Stokes, widow of Deacon William M. Stokes, of Newnan, Georgia. Posey may have met the Stokes family through his mission work in North Carolina, since one Indian girl took on the name “Anna Stokes” – the same name as Jane Stokes Posey’s stepdaughter.

Posey “disposed of nearly all his property in Walker county, among his children, and came to Newnan to reside permanently,” said Fleming. “Several churches in the vicinity called him to preach to them as a pastoral supply, and he devoted his time to their service faithfully, and with much success, up to the close of his life.” 
The last sermon he ever delivered was on the second Lord's day in December, at Ebenezer Church, seven miles east of Newnan. Rev. Humphrey Posey died in Newnan on the 28th day of December, 1846.

This Article is provided by Jeff Bishop President Of GATOTA