The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1902-03-14
EZEKIEL POLK.

has recently contributed to the
Nashville American and Memphis
Commercial Appeal an interesting
article on the life and character of
Ezekiel Polk, progenitor of the
Polk family in West Tennessee.
Believing that it will prove of espe-
cial interest to the readers Of the
BULLETIN, with her permission, we
reproduce the article in full.
BOLIVAR, Tenn, March S.-An
article ariaking of the nature of
biographical sketch of the life and
character of Ezekiel Polk, the pa
triarch of the Polk family in West
Tennessee, as we'll as s'the man with
two tombstones," was solicited some
weeks ago. After careful research,
inquiry and study, the following
facts have been woven together:
While Tennessee, especially the
western portion, was still the chap
ply hunting ground" of the red man,
treaty which opened it for settle
ment for the whites was signed on
OCTOBER 10, 1918, by Isaac Shelby
and Andrew Jackson for Mr.. Mon
roe, then President of the United
States, and the chiefs and red men
for the Chickasaw Indians. Scotch
Irish settlers from North and South
n or
attracted by s'the territory beyond
the mountains" and borne on by the
resistless tide of progress and adj
venture, located in Middle Tennes-
see, amid her beautiful valleys, rich
with alluvial deposits of ages past.
First among the families from the
East to seek fame and fortune in
the West was that of Ezekiel Polk,
the subject of this sketch, who was
born in Pennsylvania, in 1747. His
parents moved to Mecklenburg coun-
ty, North Carolina, about 1850,
where "his youthful days were spent
in pleasure, as he terselY states in
his epitaph, though judging from
what has been learned of his later
career, and knowing him to be a
man of bold and daring nature, as
well as warlike, it is reasonable to
suppose that he identified himself
with all the political struggles of
the times. This warlike trait has
been inherited, not only by his i'm
mediate posterity, as was evinced in
the civil strife.
W hen wars alarums were sounded
in 1861, r. P. Nicely, his grandson,
was the first one in Hardeman coun-
ty to drill a company of men, and
at the outbreak to lead his follow
ers, "The Pillow Guards" an In
fantry troop, to service. He was
followed shortly by j. J. Nicely,
another grandson, who, as Captain,
took out the "Hardeman Aveng
ers," the first and only cavalrymen
to leave the county These were III
turn quickly followed by "Polk's
Battery" artillerists, headed by
Captain, afterwards Col. Nj. L.
Polk, who lost limb at Shiloh.
The last company to leave was the
ssHatchie Hunters" the second in
fantry troop, under Captain K. IL.
Wood, a great-grandson of Ezekiel
Polk, by marriage. These leaders
and their followers were in active
service during the war.
Descendants of later generation
were also easily moved by martial
strains, as was illustrated in the af-
fair with Spain, when great-great-
great-grandson, a member of the 1st
Tennessee Regiment, went out in
defense of the Stars and Stripes.
Certainly we know, if history is
correct, that on the 10th of May,
I775, a notable assembly of the citi-
zens of Mecklenburg county, NC,
that county SO fraught with patri-
otto memories--met in convention in
the little town of Charlotte, for the
purpose of drafting Declaration of
Independence. Conspicuous in that
group were Ezekiel Polk and his
brother, Thomas, both of whom
nearly half century later were
among the first settlers of Hardeman
county.
This declaration, of which Ezekiel
Polk is said to have been one of the
three craftsmen, was the first instru-
ment advocating absolute independ-
ence ever enunciated by an Ameri-
can people, and was adopted on the
day following, just one year prior
to the time when Thomas Jefferson
wrote his immortal document,
which Gladstone said, "was the
greatest work ever struck off at
given time by the brain and purpose
of man."
Ezekiel Polk was Captain of the
South Carolina Rangers in the Rev
war, under commission
from Gov. Rutledge, and was after
wards Colonel. At the close of the
war he became Sheriff of Mecklen-
burg county.
During the struggle for independ
ence he resigned his commission and
E'took protection" under Lord Corn
wallis, when that General captured
Charlotte. From this circumstance
arose the charge of toryism.
Nearly three-quarters of century
later as the stage was passing Boil
var, one of the occupants pointed |
put the home of Col. Polk to a fell