In the author's own words, "These three men, John Sevier, James Robertson and Isaac Shelby, * * * were like Washington and Lincoln, 'providential men.' They marched neither to the sound of drum nor bugle, and no flaming bulletins proclaimed their exploits in the ears of a listening continent; their slender forces trod silently the western solitudes, and their greatest battles were insignificant skirmishes never reported beyond the mountains; but their deeds were pregnant with consequences that will be felt along the coming centuries."
They were, and they held themselves to be, "providential men." Whether reading the Bible by the light of the great pine fires, or burning the cabins [pg 274] of the Cherokees, or driving the marauding Chickamaugas into their lair at "Nick-a-Jack" cave, or beating the British at King's Mountain, these men felt themselves called of God to maintain for the people a free government.
There was the same reckless administration of punishment that still characterizes these Mountain people. A tory appeared in the road one day near the home of Colonel William Campbell, of the "Backwater settlement." The Colonel at once gives him chase; after a brief absence he returns to his home, and his wife eagerly asks "What did you do with him?"
"Oh, we hung him, Betty, that's all."
These early settlers did not immediately plant churches and school-houses, as the settlers of New England did. Still they were not altogether illiterate. A public document still in existence has the signature of 112 out of 114 of their number who signed the paper, two only making their X.
In 1779, the first Court House was built at Jonesboro. At about the same date, the author informs us, "The school mistress was to be found at nearly every cross-road in the older settlements. She occupied a small log-house, generally about sixteen feet square, and often without floor or windows." The author might have added that she, or one like her, occupies the same school-house to-day.
In 1779, the first "church-house" was erected, and Rev. Tidence Lane became the "first settled minister beyond the Alleghenies."
To those of our readers who have recently followed the missionary work of the A.M.A. in this Mountain region, these books will be of great interest.
CHAS. J. RYDER.