FOOTNOTES:
[189] The first fort known to have been erected on the site of Memphis (Fourth Chickasaw Bluff) was that built by Bienville, governor of Louisiana, during his campaigns against the Chickasaws (1735-40) and called by him Fort Assumption. After the expedition of 1740, however, this was abandoned, the place not being fortified until the Spanish commandant Gayoso, in defiance of the authority of the United States, crossed (1794) to the Chickasaw territory and built Fort San Fernando. Two years later, after Pinckney’s treaty was signed, the Spaniards reluctantly surrendered this outpost, whereupon the American Fort Pike was built (1796).
Judge Benjamin Foy, of the Arkansas town of Foy’s Point, was a pioneer of German descent, whose settlement is said to have been the most healthful, moral, and intelligent community between the Ohio and Natchez—due to the influence of its first settler, and his magisterial powers. Volney, the French traveller, spent the winter of 1805 with Foy in his Arkansas home.—Ed.
[190] The Chickasaws maintained their right to the territory between the Mississippi and the Tennessee until 1818, when commissioners for the Federal Government bought the tract for $300,000. The town of Memphis was laid out in the same year.—Ed.
[191] This was the fort called Esperanza, where the village of Hopefield, Arkansas, now stands.—Ed.
[192] Fort Pickering (at first called Fort Adams) was erected by Captain Guion on the orders of Wilkinson. Meriwether Lewis was for a brief time (1797) in command of this post.—Ed.
[193] This was Lieutenant Zachary Taylor, later the twelfth president of the United States. His military commission dated from May 8, 1808, so that his manner was doubtless due to his youth and the unaccustomed novelty of his position.—Ed.