Samuel Dale Samuel Dale ( 1772 – ) was an American soldier and pioneer . Dale was born in Rockbridge County , Virginia to Scotch - Irish parents from Pennsylvania . As a boy , both he and his parents moved many times with westward border expansion , most notably in 1775 and 1783 . With the death of his parents in December 1792 , he was responsible for the welfare of eight younger children . From 1793 – 96 he served as a United States Government scout . He abandoned work as a trader between Savannah , Georgia and the border settlements and as a mill owner - operator to guide immigrants into Mississippi , over Native American lands . Dale was present in 1811 when Tecumseh enlisted local Alabama Native Americans to fight against Americans , during his campaign to establish a pan - Indian confederacy . He was involved in many of these confrontations , particularly in 1814 , when he served as a courier bringing documents to Andrew Jackson in New Orleans , from Georgia in just eight days . " General Dale , as a scout , a pilot to the emigrants who blazed the first path through the Creek nation , from Georgia to Tombigby , with arms in there hands , and subsequently , as a spy among the Spaniards , at Pensacola , and as a partisan officer , during the most sanguinary epochs of the late war ( 1813 First Creek War - Red Stick War ) , present at every butchery , remarkable for " hair - breadth ' scapes , " for caution and coolness in desperate emergencies , for exhibitions of gigantic personal strength and great moral courage , his story is studded over with spirit - stirring incidents , unsurpassed by any thing in legend or history . His celebrated ' canoe fight , ' where , in the Alabama river , he , with Smith and Austill , fought nine warriors , with clubbed rifles , killed them all , and rowed to shore , would be thought fabulous , if it had not been witnessed by many soldiers , standing upon the banks , who could render them no assistance . Some years before , he was attacked by two warriors , who shouted their war - whoop , as he was kneeling down to drink , and rushed upon him with their tomahawks . He knifed them both , and , though bleeding from five wounds , he retraced their trail nine miles , crept stealthily to their camp , brained three sleeping warriors and cut the thongs of a female prisoner , who lay by their side . While in this act , however , a fourth sprang upon him , from behind a log . Taken at such a disadvantage , and exhausted by the loss of blood , he sank under the serpent - grasp of the savage , who , with a yell of triumph , drew his knife , and , in a few moments , would have closed the contest . At that instant , however , the woman drove a tomahawk deep into the head of the Indian , and thus preserved the life of her deliverer " . " From " History of Alabama , and incidentally of Georgia and Mississippi , from the earliest period , Volume II " by Albert James Pickett , 1851 Dale was elected to the first Alabama General Assembly in 1817 , serving until 1829 . As a legislator and distinguished veteran brigadier general , he and four other men received the visiting Marquis de Lafayette of France into Alabama . A decade later , he was accidentally injured and was not able to carry out the illegal ( against a ruling of the U . S . Supreme Court ) forced relocation of the local Choctaw - speaking Indians the complete distance from Alabama and Mississippi to their assigned territories in Oklahoma . General Dale was the first elected member of the Mississippi House of Representatives to come from Lauderdale County , Mississippi . He next visited Washington , D . C . , to request compensation for the supplies that were bought for his troops . He was disappointed when he received no recognition from the Federal Government . General Dale died in Lauderdale County , Mississippi , in 1841 , and Dale County , Alabama , has received his name .