Arkansas true Democrat., 1859-10-12
From the Fort Smith Times. Invention of the Cherokee Alphabet.

In our last we promised that we would give history of the invention of the Chero- kee alphabet. George Guess, the inventor, was half-breed Cherokee, but could not speak the English language, and of course was an meducated man, without even the knowledge of letters, or characters of any language whatever. He was, in every rc- spect the same as full-blood Indian. It appears that the first idea he ever had about writing, was when he was a young man, engaged in war, and if we recolect right. when at St. Clair's defeat, he, and some of his Cherokee companions were together, one of them picked up piece of paper, with writing on 1t, and looked at it awhile, remarked that 1t was very strange, that the white people could put down talk on piece of paper, and send it to another person at distance, and that person could under stand the talk on the paper. To this Guess replied, that It was pot very hard to do the like, and took up fiat stone, and with a smaller stone made few marks, and then pretended to read 1t 10 the others. After this, the matter passed off from his thoughts for many years; but the subject presented itself again to his mind, after observing the advantages the white people derived from books. He, therefore, without consulting any of his friends, put him up log cabin, some distance from the cabins in which his family lived, and set about studying out an alphabet of the Cherokee language. His house was then in Wills Valley, in the then limits of Alabama, but at that time occupied as the old Cherokee Nation. We have seen the spot many times, and have been upon 1t; the cabin was gone, and the place grown up with bushes In this re- treat, Guess secluded himself from his fami ly and friends, and neglected his cornfeld, and all of his matters, and so much was he occupied in the invention, and so engrossed was his mind upon the subject, that he was supposed to be bewitched, by his Cherokee neighbors; and what made it appear more like something was the matter with him. was the fact, that no one knew what he was doing, and, they supposed, that he was engaged with evil spirits, or witches. In all of his studies he had no books, but an old spelling book of Noah Webster's, and he did not know a letter or word in 1t. For two years he continued his studies, and tried in every manner to fall upon some plan to represent sounds. He attempted by the whistling of birds, but that did not aid him much. All this time he did not flag or appear to be discouraged fields grew up in grass and weeds, and his family had to subsist without his aid. No one visited him in his studies, except little daughter, and all were wondering what he was doing. His wife became tired of his conduct, and upbraided him, but he continu- ed his course, and after he had satisfied himself that he had succeed, he learned his little daughter the characters, so she could read. The characters consisted of 86 in number, when first invented, but one of them has since been dropped, and now there are only 50, all of them syllables except one, which is hissing sound, and may be roperlv called S. If we had an alphabet. we would give 1t to our readers, but not having any Cherokee type, we will only continue the narrative of its invention and promulgation among the Cherokee Indians.
 Guess, as we before stated, had no book except Webster's spelling book, out of which he took several letters to represent sounds, or syllables in his alphabet, as for instance the A, is called go, and the letter J, is called gu, etc. Several others of the English alphabet is used and the greater part he invented himself, and are unlike anything we ever saw before.
 After he had finished his alphabet, he tried to get some of his people to learn it, but they would have nothing to do with it.