The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1899-05-13
! The Digest Club Papers.
EARLY TENNESSEE
HISTORY.
A Paper Read Before the " Digest
Club" of McMinnville, Tenn,
by Mr.. M. L. Fletcher.


Living as we do to-day enjoying the
blessings of the nineteenth century civ
ilization, surrounded by all it's security,
luxury and ease, amidst churches and
schools, and land overlooking with
the fruits of the husbandman and busy
with the hum of labor and trade, it is
hard to appreciate the circumstances
under which our forefathers laid the
foundation of all these blessings.
However, the men and women who
laid the foundation of this great state
and planted the germ of civilization
west of the Alleghanes, wrought their
fortunes and the destinies of their
country amid circumstances so adverse
that none but those whose frames were
made of iron and whose souls were
honest desire for the betterment of
their posterity could have stood
through those early years of untold
misery and hardships.
Little was known of the territory
now embraced within the limits of
Tennessee for nearly $50 years after the
discovery of America. Ferdinand De
Soto, whose wonderful march for hun
dreds Of miles through the forests of
North America in search of gold, and
whose body was buried in the deeps of
the Father of Waters which he dis
covered, was perhaps the first white
man to set foot upon Tennessee soil,
and it is thought that he first crossed
the great stream about where Memphis
now stands.
The territory now included in Ten
nessee, little later than this, was
claimed by the Mohawk Indians, or Con-
federation of Six Nations, whose con-
quering arms had reached from the
Great Lakes across the Ohio and south
to the northern part of Georgia, east to
the Alleghanies, and west to the Mis-
sissippi.
The Shawnees occupied the country
around the Cumberland river and in
the middle portion of Tennessee. They
were afterwards expelled by the Chero-
KEGS, and for many years the larger
part OF Tennessee was reserved as a
hunting ground by the surrounding
tribes. The eastern part was occupied
by the warlike Cherokees.
The Chickamaugas. who were branch
of the CherokSes and the most treacher-
GUS and hloodthirsty of all the North
American tribes, occupied the country
and mountains adjacent to where the
city of Chattanooga now stands. The
\ Creeks lived lower down upon the
banks of the Tennessee river. The
Chickasaws occupied the western part
of the state around the Chickasaw
bluffs, and were valuable and lasting
friends to the whites.
The first work done by the hands
of civilization within the bounds of
the present state of Tennessee was in
1852, by LaSalle, who, from the French
settlements along the ST. Lawrence,
penetrated beyond the Great Lakes and
descending the Mississippi to the gulf,
he planted there the arms of France.
and in honor of his monarch, Louis
XVI, gave it the name of Louisiana.
A little later than this, ITO, a French
trader, whose name is unknown, estab-
lished trading post among the Shaw
nees about where now stands the city
of Nashville. Living with this French.
man was boy named Charles Charlie
vile, or Carleville, who succeeded to
the business. When the first American
hunters came here in 1;7D they found
Timothy De Mont, Dreun, or Demon