The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-06-04
TUNSTALL
 OF TENSAW
BY WILL T. STEPHAN.
Tom Tate runstall of Tensaw.

| -
 and positive, his memory still strong.
 one of Alabama's most picturesque sons
 is spending the evening of his life in | rest and quiet in the city of Mobile. | A descendant of that line af beautiful | Indian women known as Sehoy, mem-
 Der of the family of the States most distinguished Indian. he cherishes a | pride in his Indian blood and has done | his full share towards preserving the memory of the deeds and the charac-
 ter of the men and women of his In- | dian ancestry
 1 His own life has been of interest | and adventure. and of his own exper- | fence as he has moving tales of ad- ventures by flood and field to tell" | Nearly sixty years ago. an ardent and | eloquent young fellow fresh from col lege, he delivered moving appeal to the legislature for the rights of those Alabamians of Indian blood to vote in the States election. He was consul to Cadiz Spain. and from that office he was removed by Abraham Lincoln at the outbreak of the war. And In an unsuccessful attempt to render need ed aid and assistance to Raphael Semmes and the Confederate vessel he commanded he was arrested by the Federal consul at Tangiers and sent to Boston in irons Even when re- leased from this Imprisonment he was later arrested in Washington as spy while he was making an effort to aid the stricken Confederacy and impris- he released until he gave his promise | to the Federal government that ne would retire to Europe and remain there until the war was over, parole that he faithfully kept.
 Again in the term of President Cleve- | land he was a consul to Central Amer | ica. a post that was given him because of his familiarity with the Spanish language and with Spanish customs. As an American consul, as | brilliant conversationalist, and as l a fine companion he was en- tertained at Gibraltar in 1857, and on that famous island or rock he was initiated in the mysteries of Masonry. He has known every prominent Ala | bamian from William Yancey. Clem- ent c. Clay, John Anthony Winston and other intellectual giants of the great days before the war down to the present times He has been an elo- quent speaker, a facile writer and has written verses of no mean order. He was born with especial pride the designation of Tom Tate Tunstall of Tensaw, an appea1lation which recalls | his plantation home of three-Quarters of a century as well as the little cen- ter of wealth and education in the Northern part of Baldwin County where abode for years and years the Tates and the Tunstalls and other cor rollary branches of the Indian aristo- cracy, mixed with the no less aristo- cratic blood of England and Virginia. There has been no more chance of mis- taking the individuality of Tunstall of Tensaw than of going astray upon the personality of the famous Marylander who signed his name to the Declara- ton of Independence as Charles Car
 roll, of Carrollton.
 A man of gifts and a man of posi-
 tive views, freely expressed in this picturesque South Alabamian, varied
 career, spent in many lands, com
 munion and an intercourse with var fed and different peoples, mental hor-
 izon widened and bToadened has only
 heightened his love for the splendid ante -bellum life of the old South and
 crystallized in his memory the things
 which so endeared 1t in the minds of those who were fortunate enough to
 enjoy it at it's best. The families who lived about Tensaw were families oI
 wealth and of culture, proud of the blood of the sehoys and of Weatherford evan as the RandoIps and the liar | IF
 blood of their Indian kinsmen.
 The Indian Aristocrncy.
 | In the very house in which Tunstall | of Tensaw was born William Weather ford lived and in it's yard he is today
 sleeping his last sleep by the side of
 his mother, Sehoy McGillivray. Tor
 whom the war leader of the Creeks en-
 tertalned a deep and changeless af-
 lection. It was his last wish that he 1 hxy hn
 mother and today the two sleep side by
 side.
 | His bravery in battle and his
 diplomacy in council were not
 more characteristic of William Weath-
 erford than his love for his mother. II | is recorded of the great Indian leader
 whose father was a white man tha'
 when he was twitted for hesitatlne
 upon entering into the war agains'
 the whites, hesitancy tna'
 was due to his conviction that the
 result of such a war could be only mis-
 forum efor the Creeks. he hotly replied
 to the Indian chiefs who had taunteo
 him:
 My name is Red Eagle. If any among you believe l wear whlte
 feather let him step forward and at
 tempt to pluck it out. If the wal
 comes I shall be found fighting side oS
 side with those who speak the tongue
 of my mother and not those who speaN
 the tongue of my father"
 The Indian Chiftain was half broth
 CT of the grandfather of Tunstall oi
 Tensaw. Sehoy McGillivray. the beautiful daughter of Alexander Mo | GiIlIvray, who has been styled the Ala
 bama Talleyrand was twice married
 Her first husband was Colonel Tate oi the British army who was the father | of David Tate, the grandfather Of MT Tunstall. Her second husband was Charles Weatherford, father of William l Weatherford.
 For his half brother David Tate weatherford always entertained the highest affection and esteem. When he had successfully led his Indians Il against Fort Mims and they had broker away from his control and were mas
 sacreing the whites it was to the plan
 tation of this half brother near Tensaw
 that Weatherford turned his horse IT
 his rage and sorrow.
 After his surrender Weatherford, who had before the war been wealthy IT
 slaves, negroes and plantations, retired to his favorite plantation near Tensaw
 where so many of hls relatives lived He was still possessed of what was IT
 those days a comfortable fortune anc lived in style second to that of nc
 plantation owner of South Alabama II
 was a wealthy settlement, this planta' tion community about Tensaw. Abou there lived the aristocracy of the In dians. the descendants of the chiefs anc
 beautiful women of the famous WinC
 family whose blood mingled with th'
 hest of the white settlers who came tf tbe State in the pioneer days.
 Tat Ttnn al