James Robertson now went to Chota as Indian agent for North Carolina. So fast was population growing, owing to the opening of a wagon road into Burke County, North Carolina, that Washington County was divided. John Sevier became Colonel of Washington and Isaac Shelby Colonel of the newly erected Sullivan County.
Jonesborough, the oldest town in Tennessee, was laid out as the county seat of Washington; and in the same year (1778) Sevier moved to the bank of the Nolichucky River, so-called after the Indian name of this dashing sparkling stream, meaning rapid or precipitous. Thus the nickname given John Sevier by his devotees had a dual application. He was well called Nolichucky Jack.
When Virginia annulled Richard Henderson's immense purchase but allowed him a large tract on the Cumberland, she by no means discouraged that intrepid pioneer. Henderson's tenure of Kentucky had been brief, but not unprofitable in experience. He had learned that colonies must be treated with less commercial pressure and with more regard to individual liberty, if they were to be held loyal either to a King beyond the water or to an uncrowned leader nearer at hand. He had been making his plans for colonization of that portion of the Transylvania purchase which lay within the bounds of North Carolina along the Cumberland and choosing his men to lay the foundations of his projected settlement in what was then a wholly uninhabited country; and he had decided on generous terms, such as ten dollars a thousand acres for land, the certificate of purchase to entitle the holder to further proceedings in the land office without extra fees.
To head an enterprise of such danger and hardship Henderson required a man of more than mere courage; a man of resource, of stability, of proven powers, one whom other men would follow and obey with confidence. So it was that James Robertson was chosen to lead the first white settlers into middle Tennessee. He set out in February, 1779, accompanied by his brother, Mark Robertson, several other white men, and a negro, to select a site for settlement and to plant corn. Meanwhile another small party led by Gaspar Mansker had arrived. As the boundary line between Virginia and North Carolina had not been run to this point, Robertson believed that the site he had chosen lay within Virginia and was in the disposal of General Clark. To protect the settlers, therefore, he journeyed into the Illinois country to purchase cabin rights from Clark, but there he was evidently convinced that the site on the Cumberland would be found to lie within North Carolina. He returned to Watauga to lead a party of settlers into the new territory, towards which they set out in October. After crossing the mountain chain through Cumberland Gap, the party followed Boone's road--the Warriors' Path--for some distance and then made their own trail southwestward through the wilderness to the bluffs on the Cumberland, where they built cabins to house them against one of the coldest winters ever experienced in that county. So were laid the first foundations of the present city of Nashville, at first named Nashborough by Robertson.* On the way, Robertson had fallen in with a party of men and families bound for Kentucky and had persuaded them to accompany his little band to the Cumberland. Robertson's own wife and children, as well as the families of his party, had been left to follow in the second expedition, which was to be made by water under the command of Captain John Donelson.
* In honor of General Francis Nash, of North Carolina, who was mortally wounded at Germantown, 1777.
The little fleet of boats containing the settlers, their families, and all their household goods, was to start from Fort Patrick Henry, near Long Island in the Holston River, to float down into the Tennessee and along the 652 miles of that widely wandering stream to the Ohio, and then to proceed up the Ohio to the mouth of the Cumberland and up the Cumberland until Robertson's station should appear--a journey, as it turned out, of some nine hundred miles through unknown country and on waters at any rate for the greater part never before navigated by white men.
"Journal of a voyage, intended by God's permission, in the good boat Adventure" is the title of the log book in which Captain Donelson entered the events of the four months' journey. Only a few pages endured to be put into print: but those few tell a tale of hazard and courage that seems complete. Could a lengthier narrative, even if enriched with literary art and fancy, bring before us more vividly than do the simple entries of Donelson's log the spirit of the men and the women who won the West? If so little personal detail is recorded of the pioneer men of that day that we must deduce what they were from what they did, what do we know of their unfailing comrades, the pioneer women? Only that they were there and that they shared in every test of courage and endurance, save the march of troops and the hunt. Donelson's "Journal" therefore has a special value, because in its terse account of Mrs. Jennings and Mrs. Peyton it depicts unforgettably the quality of pioneer womanhood.*
* This Journal is printed in Ramsey's "Annals of Tennessee."
"December 22nd, 1779. Took our departure from the fort and fell down the river to the mouth of Reedy Creek where we were stopped by the fall of water and most excessive hard frost."
Perhaps part of the "Journal" was lost, or perhaps the "excessive hard frost" of that severe winter, when it is said even droves of wild game perished, prevented the boats, from going on, for the next entry is dated the 27th of February. On this date the Adventure and two other boats grounded and lay on the shoals all that afternoon and the succeeding night "in much distress."
