This renowned leader was born at the Hickory Ground, in the Creek nation; his father, Charles Weatherford, was a Georgian; his mother, the beautiful Schoya, was half-sister of the famous Creek chieftain, General McGilivray. William Weatherford had not the education of his grandfather, but nature had endowed him with a noble person, a brilliant intellect, and commanding eloquence. He was, in every respect, the peer of Tecumseh.
And now that we have mentioned the name of General Dale, we can not forbear giving, in his own words, an account of one of his characteristic adventures. His life was full of such. He calls it his canoe fight:
"After this rencounter, I put thirty of my men on the east bank, where the path ran directly by the river side. With twenty men I kept the western bank, and thus we proceeded to Randon's Landing. A dozen fires were burning, and numerous scaffolds for drying meat denoted a large body of Indians; but none were visible. About half past ten, A. M., we discovered a large canoe coming down stream. It contained eleven warriors. Observing that they were about to land at a cane-brake just above us, I called to my men to follow, and dashed for the brake with all my might. Only seven of my men kept up with me. As the Indians were in the act of landing, we fired. Two leaped into the water. Jim Smith shot one as he rose, and I shot the other. In the meantime, they had backed into deep water, and three Indians were swimming on the off side of the canoe, which was thirty odd feet long, four feet deep, and three feet beam, made of an immense cypress-tree, especially for the transportation of corn. One of the warriors shouted to Weatherford (who was in the vicinity, as it afterward appeared, but invisible to us): 'Yos-ta-hah! yos-ta-hah!' ('They are spoiling us.') This fellow was in the water, his hands on the gunwale of the pirogue, and as often as he rose to shout, we fired, but didn't make out to hit him. He suddenly showed himself breast-high, whooping in derision, and said: 'Why don't you shoot?' I drew my sight just between his hands, and as he rose again I lodged a bullet in his brains. Their canoe then floated down with the current. I ordered my men on the east bank to fetch the boats. Six of them jumped into a canoe, and paddled to the Indians, when one of them cried out: 'Live Injins! Back water, boys, back water!' and the frightened fellows paddled back faster than they came. I next ordered Cæsar, a free negro, to bring a boat. Seeing him hesitate, I swore I would shoot him as soon as I got across. He crossed a hundred yards below the Indians, and Jim Smith, Jerry Anstill, and myself, got in. I made Cæsar paddle within forty paces, when all three of us leveled our guns, and all three missed fire! As the two boats approached, one of the red-skins hurled a scalping-knife at me. It pierced the boat through and through, just grazing my thigh as it passed. The next minute the canoes came in contact. I leaped up, placing one of my feet in each boat. At the same instant, the foremost warrior leveled his rifle at my breast. It flashed in the pan. As quick as lightning, he clubbed it, and aimed at me a furious blow, which I partially parried, and, before he could repeat it, I shivered his skull with my gun. In the meantime an Indian had struck down Jerry, and was about to dispatch him, when I broke my rifle over his head. It parted in two pieces. The barrel Jerry seized, and renewed the fight. The stock I hurled at one of the savages. Being then disarmed, Cæsar handed me his musket and bayonet. Finding myself unable to keep the two canoes in juxtaposition, I resolved to bring matters to an issue, and leaped into the Indian boat. My pirogue, with Jerry, Jim and Cæsar, floated off. Jim fired, slightly wounding the savage nearest me. I now stood in the center of their canoe, two dead at my feet, a wounded savage in the stern, who had been snapping his piece at me, during the fight, and four powerful warriors in front. The first one directed a furious blow at me with a rifle; it glanced upon the barrel of my musket, and I staved the bayonet through his body. As he fell, the next one repeated the attack. A shot from Jerry Anstill pierced his heart. Striding over them, the next sprang at me with his tomahawk. I killed him with my bayonet, and his corpse lay between me and the last of the party. I knew him well—Tas-cha-chee, a noted wrestler, and the most famous ball-player of his clan. He paused a moment, in expectation of my attack, but, finding me motionless, he stepped backward to the bow of the canoe, shook himself, gave the war-whoop of his tribe, and cried out: 'Samtholocco, Iana dahmaska, ia-lanesthe, lipso, lipso, lanestha!' ('Big Sam, I am a man! I am coming! come on!') As he said this, with a terrific yell, he bounded over the dead body of his comrade, and directed a blow at my head with his rifle which dislocated my shoulder. I dashed the bayonet into him. It glanced around his ribs, and hitching into his backbone, I pressed him down. As I pulled the weapon out, he put his hands upon the sides of the boat, and endeavored to rise, crying out: 'Tas-cha-chee is a man. He is not afraid to die..' I drove my bayonet through his heart. I then turned to the wounded villain in the stern, who snapped his rifle at me, as I advanced, as he had been snapping it during the whole conflict. He gave the war-whoop, and in tones of hatred and defiance, exclaimed: 'I am a warrior—I am not afraid to die!' As he uttered these words, I pinned him down with my weapon, and he followed his eleven comrades to the land of spirits. During this conflict, which was over in ten minutes, my brave companions, Smith and Anstill, had been straggling with the current of the Alabama, endeavoring to reach me. Their guns had become useless, and their only paddle was broken. Two braver fellows never lived. Anstill's first shot saved my life. By this time my men came running down the bank, shouting that Weatherford was coming. With our three canoes we crossed them all over, and reached the fort in safety."
This fight occurred November 13, 1813, at Randon's Landing, Monroe County, ten miles below Weatherford's Bluff.
If any one thinks this a Munchausen account, given by Dale, of his rencounter, he can satisfy himself of its exact truth, by reference to the records, all the circumstances of this memorable fight having been verified before the Alabama Legislature.
One of the leading spirits in those stirring days was Mrs. Catherine Sevier, wife of one of the most distinguished pioneers. Her maiden name was Sherrill, and her family, as well as that of her future husband, emigrated from North Carolina and Virginia to what is now East Tennessee, settling first upon Watauga river. Mr. Sherrill's residence was finally upon the Nola Chucka. He was a tiller of the soil, a hard-working man, and "well-to-do in the world;" but he was also skilled in the use of the rifle, so that it was said, "Sherrill can make as much out of the ground and out of the woods as any other man. He has a hand and eye to his work—a hand, an eye, and an ear, for the Indian and the game."
Buffalo, deer, and wild turkeys came around the cabins of those first settlers. A providence was in this which some of them recognized with thankfulness.
Jacob Brown, with his family and friends, arrived from North Carolina about the same time with the Sherrills, and these two families became connected by intermarriage with the Seviers, and ever remained faithful to each other through all the hostile and civil commotions of subsequent years. The Seviers were among the very earliest emigrants from Virginia, aiding in the erection of the first fort on the Watauga.
With few exceptions, these emigrants had in view the acquisition of rich lands for cultivation and inheritance. Some, indeed, were there, or came, who were absconding debtors, or refugees from justice, and from this class were the Tories of North Carolina mostly enlisted.
The spirit of the hunter and pioneer cannot well content itself in a permanent location, especially when the crack of a neighbor's rifle, or the blast of his hunting-horn can be heard by his quick ear; therefore did these advanced guards frequently change their homes when others crowded them, at miles distance. It must be remembered that their advance into the wilderness could only be made by degrees, step by step, through years of tedious waiting and toilsome preparation. And thus, though they had a lease of the land for eight years from the Cherokees, a foothold in the soil, stations of defense, and evidently had taken a bond of fate, assuring them in the prospect of rich inheritances for their children, they could not all abide while the great West and greater Future invited onward. Richer lands, larger herds of buffaloes, more deer, and withal so many Indians were in the distance, upon the Cumberland and Kentucky rivers. The emigrants advanced, and they took no steps backward. In a few years they were found organizing "provisional governments" in Kentucky, and at the Bluffs, the site of the beautiful capital of Tennessee. These Watauga and Nola Chucka pioneers were leading spirits throughout.