Several years previous, Jolly’s brother, Tahkinsteeska, had moved to Arkansas and was the principal chief of the Cherokees in the West. In 1818, John Jolly decided to join his brother. Although agents of the United States had been persuading the Cherokee to move to the new lands west of the Mississippi, it was necessary that when they chose to do so they must obtain a permit to make the change, as indicated in the following official paper:
“John Jolly, the bearer, having under his superintendence 16 boats laden with Cherokee families and their property are on their way to the Arkansas River to enter lands designated for them by the Treaty in July last, in exchange for lands here relinquished by them to the United States, which Treaty was constitutionally ratified the 25th of December, 1817. The said Cherokee Nation being at peace and friendship with the United States, are entitled to the confidence and friendly offices of the citizens, and therefore recommended to all such with whom they may meet on their passage to the place of their destination. They are hereby particularly recommended for aid (should their circumstances need it) to the officers commanding military posts, or stations on their line of movement.
“Given under my hand and seal of the Cherokee Agency the 26th day of January, 1818, and in the 43rd year of American Liberty and Independence.”
(SEAL)
RETURN J. MEIGS.
Sam Houston, however, did not go with his foster-father on this long journey. He remained in Tennessee and studied law. A few years later, Houston was elected governor of Tennessee. Not long thereafter he married a Miss Allen of Nashville, Tennessee, and in three months he left her and resigned as governor. Houston then sought his old friend and foster-father on the Arkansas River and married Chief Jolly’s niece, a Cherokee by the name of Tiana Rogers. Houston’s next move took him to Texas where he became commander-in-chief of the Texan army. After defeating Santa Ana in April, 1836, thereby winning the independence of Texas, Houston became the first president of the republic of Texas. It was due to his negotiations that Texas was annexed by the United States in 1845. The flooding of the Hiwassee Island by the waters of the Chickamauga Dam put an end to its history as a place where human beings might reside.
If we could have stood on the bank of the river here almost 200 years ago, we would have been amazed at the sight of the curious kinds of watercraft floating by. Perhaps, the most primitive type would have been the bullboat, which was made by stretching a wet buffalo hide with hair on the inside over a framework of willow strips, in the shape of a tub or a canoe, about seven feet in diameter. The bowl-shaped type would carry about 700 pounds. It was propelled with a paddle made of wood, or with the shoulder blade of a buffalo fastened to a stick for a handle.
Every now and then would have passed us a big flat boat resembling in shape a big box floating on the water, carrying as its cargo human families with their possessions. This rather frail boat was known as an ark, because it suggested the Biblical boat made by Noah. The ark served the early American settler so well that one writer at least has aptly asserted that “it was out of the womb of an ark that our nation was born.”
Steamboat being warped through “The Suck”