The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1931-12-04


- PEAK Of a great Indian and the
average American usually thinks
| of one of those chiefs who won
fame by their warlike deeds and
the unsuccessful wars which they
| waged against the conquering white
~ marking Philip Of the Wam-
panoags, Pontiac of the Ottawas,
- Tecumseh Of the Shawnees, Black
Hawk of the Sacs and Foxes, Osce-
ola Of the Seminoes Chief Joseph of the Nez
Perces and Red Cloud and Sitting Bull of the
Sioux. Brave as these men were and deserving
of honor though they may be, for being patriots
who fought in defense of what they considered
right there Is another-a man of peace instead
of war-who seems destined to be remembered
longer than any Of the others. He was Sequoyah
of the Cherokees.
For it was Sequoyah who invented an alphabet
and taught his people to write talk on paper
so that talk stayed and remembered itself" and
who won for himself the title of "the Cadmus
of the Cherokees" His statue stands in Stat
uary hall in the Capitol at Washington, the gift
of the state of Oklahoma the symbol of one
Of its two greatest men. Out the Pacific
coast there is an even greater memorial to Sc
quoyah. There great trees tower to the heavens
some of them more than 800 feet high. They
are the oldest living things in the world, their
ages being estimated at from 1000 to 1000
years. The picture above indicates the size of
these giants. The shown there is in Yo-
semitic National park and it has girth meas
urement of "a feet. In the Mariposa grove south
of the Yosemite there are more than hundred
of these trees over 40 feet in circumference and
one is over 90 feet at the ground and GA feet at
a distance II feet higher up. And these trees
perpetuate the memory of Sequoyah, for the two
species "Sequoia sempervirens" the red wood Of
the timber trade and "Sequoia gigantia," the
big mammoth tree, were given their scientific
names in honor of the Cherokee Indian.
Now a new honor is proposed for Sequoyah
and his name is to be perpetuated in the shadow
of the high Smoky mountains where his people
lived If a recent proposal to the board of
geographic names of Washington by the inter-
state nomenclature commission of North Caro-
lima and Tennessee is accepted. the peak just
southwest of Old Black, standing more than
5000 feet above sea level will be known as
Mount Sequoyah. This mountain is toward the
upper end Of the proposed Great Smoky National
park.
For a long time there has been considerable
mystery about the early history Of Sequoyah, the
maker of the Cherokee alphabet But recently
discovered manuscript in the collections Of the
Newberry library in Chicago written by John
Howard Paine, the author of Home Sweet
Home" has done much to clear up the mystery.
This valuable record was dictated to Paine by
Major Lowry, cousin Of SeQuoyah, in the
presence of many Cherokee chiefs and relatives
in the cabin of the principal chief at council
of the nation at Echota in October, 1885. The
Paine manuscript proves that Sequoyah was not
a full-bood Indian but half breed He was
the son of white man, Nathaniel Gist. who had
been trader among the Cherokees and later
was lieutenant colonel of the Indian allies who
fought with Washington in the French and In
dian war. His mother was fullblood Chero-
kee woman of the Paint clan who related
TO some Of the most prominent chiefs of her
nation.
No one knows exactly where or when Sequoyah
was born. 1t was probably about ITO and the
place generally accepted by historians was near
Fort Louden, which the first fort built by
the English coonists west of the Aneghanes.
This was within five miles of Chota, the chief
town of the Cherokees and the home of the IA
nous Cherokee chief, Oconostota. 1t was about
80 miles from the present city Of Knoxville,
Tenn, in Louden county
At the outbreak Of the Revolution, Colonel
Gist seems to have deserted his Indian wife
and son and returned to his own people in Vir-