Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1858-1860, 1858-11-13
For the PdkriOt.
Antiquity of our sulphurESpring as
Salt Manufactory.

Antiquity of our SuIph urISpring
Salt Mandatory.
To the President and Members Of the Historical
Society Of Tennessee:
GENTLEMEN: Believing that it is the duty
of every citizen to do what may be in mis-
power to promote the interests and objects of
your honorable association; and as it seems
to be your object to obtain information of by
gone times, have thought it proper to give
you a short account of the old tombs about
our Sulphurs Spring. which will carry us back
in Imagination centuries before we had any
historical information or reliable tradition
in regard to the ancient inhabitants of this
country and of their works that have been
erected possibly more than thousand years
before the settlement of Nashville.
AS to the inhabitants who lived in those
remote times, we can say but little of their
character, manners, or customs. and can but
believe that they were simple and primi-
tive people, living on the plainest diet, as
their teeth, still remaining, are all sound,
though their other bones will crumble to dust
by handling.
But to their works, which have resisted
the hand of time for centuries, wish to call
your attention. Gentlemen, we will take
walk to the Sulphur Spring! At the point
where we begin to descend towards the
Spring, found (some years ago. piece of
an earthen vessel nearly two feet long, and
if the entire original vessel correspondent in
curvature with the part of the circle found,
it would have measured twenty feet across
the top. The vessel was moulded in large
basket, and made in the form of a large
bottle. 1t was then burnt or sun-dred until
it was fit for the uses it was in tended to sub
serve. The impression of the basket it was
moulded in, is left. on the outside of the
ware.
We will now go and take a drink of
Sulphur Water, and then proceed to the left
where the road was cut through the hill.
There may be seen furnaces of stone, which
upon them for thousand years previous to
their late exposure. We will now proceed
along the hill towards the bath house until
we come to the spot where old oak stood
few years since; here are found more fur
naces. L promised to carry you back, in
retrospect, thousand years, and now for
the proof-Mr. James Tilford, who lived here
about twenty-five years ago, stated that
three had been salt made there one thousand
years ago, and that he could prove it by
living witness. A wager of a suit of clothes
was made, and which was decided afterwards
in Mr.. Tilford's favor; he having produced
his lining aoitness, upon the spot in the
character of an Odktree, measuring five
feet in diameter, and its annular or an
uual rings or circles counting one thou
sand and fifty. corresponding to like
number of years. This kind of proof has
so often been used in our courts of law to
establish a fact, and always sustained, that
there are few. who will doubt its truth, at the
present time.
If that oak tree was one thousand and
fifty years old, it was proven by Mr.. Tilford
that it grew long after the furnaces were
erected. 1t may be that it was hundreds of
years before the acorn fell which produced
the oak, that salt was made on that very spot |
l may say with confidence that have car
ried you back, retrops ctively, more than a
thousand years before our day and genera
ton.
In digging the foundation for the bath |
house, there was thrown out. at the depth |
of or 10 feet, large quantities of pure ashes, |
with burnt rock in abundance.
Go to the right of the bath house. and you |
may dig out ashes and burnt rock. with n |
stick, and here l may venture an opinion. |
that the whole ridge is made up of ashes, |
burnt rock, furnaces, and fragments of the |
broken pots, in which they made their salt, |
and at some remote period, perhaps thousands |
of years ago, this place was gently in
clined plane, from the present Brewery on |
Jefferson Street. to the Spring, and has taken |
the form of the hill, by the continued ac-
Of the above mentioned materials, |
from the earliest dawn of the human race.
Go down to the old mound near the River |
at the mouth of Lick Branch. where Charlie
vile, our first settler in 17I4. lived and |
traded with the Indians; and De Mont-Breun-
Spencer, Holiday. and Robert,
son, made their encampment in later years.
and you will see hundreds of stone collins con-
tanning the Wondering remains of people
whose history is lost in oblivion.
But may we not hope that by the iuvesti-
cations and researches of your society and
others. some light may be thrown on the
history of these long lost nations. With my
best wishes for the future prosperity and
of your Society.
remain yours, very Respectfully.
JACOB V. ID. SToUr.
The above communication was read before
The Society at their October meeting. and
excited a good deal of interest and COM
mont |