Chapter 8

JAMES ROBERTSON

Another pioneer who lived in Boone's day was James Robertson. Like Boone, he came from North Carolina, and he led the way for the settling of Tennessee very much as Boone did for Kentucky. The story of those days shows that he was one of the most forceful and successful of the early English pioneers who led out settlements west of the Alleghanies.

Born in 1742, Robertson was ten years younger than Washington. But this boy's early life was very different from young George Washington's, for little James was born in a backwoods cabin, and his father and mother were too poor to send him to school. So he grew up to manhood without being able to read and write.

But he wanted to study, and was persevering and brave enough to learn the letters of the alphabet and how to spell and to write after he had grown to manhood. We can be sure, therefore, that James was the right sort of boy, and that he would have mastered books if he had been given the chance, just as he mastered the wilderness in later life. But it is as a backwoodsman that we first come to know Robertson and learn why he was trusted and followed so willingly.

Although not tall, he was vigorous and robust, having fair complexion, dark hair, and honest blue eyes that met one's glance squarely. His frank, serious face, his quiet manner, and his coolness and daring in the midst of danger gave him a mastery over others such as it is given but few men to have.

Like Boone, he was noted as a successful hunter; but hunting and exploring were not with him the chief motives for going into the wilderness. He was first of all a pioneer settler who was seeking rich farming lands with near-by springs, where he could make a good home for his family and give his children advantages which he himself had never enjoyed.

Led by this motive, he left his home in North Carolina to seek his fortune among the forest-clad mountains, whose summits he could see far-away to the west. With no companion but his horse and no protection but his rifle, he slowly and patiently made his way through the trackless woods, crossing mountain range after mountain range, until he came to the region where the rivers flowing westward had their beginning.

Much to his surprise, he found here on the Watauga River some settlers from Virginia, who gave him a kindly welcome. He stayed long enough to plant a crop of corn and see it grow up and ripen.

Then, late in the autumn, having decided that this was a good place for his family, he started back home. His faithful horse was his only companion. Some corn in his leather wallet was all the food he carried. He trusted his rifle for the rest.

All went well for a time, but in the depth of the pathless forest he missed his way, and the mountains became so steep and rough that his horse could not get across. Imagine his sorrow when, to save his own life, he had to part from his dumb friend and start on alone.

Other misfortunes befell him. The little store of corn that he had brought with him gave out, and his powder became so wet that it was useless for shooting game. So almost his only food for fourteen days was such nuts and berries as he could gather in his desperate search.

He was near death by starvation when he chanced to meet two hunters. They gave him food and asked him to join them. Then, allowing him to take turns in riding their horses, they helped him to reach home in safety.

You might think that this bitter experience would have made Robertson unwilling to risk another journey back through the wilderness. But, as we have said, he was not easily thwarted, and the thought of what lay beyond the mountains made him hold the cost light.

He gave such glowing accounts of the wonderful country he had seen that by spring sixteen families were ready to go with him to make their home there.

HOW THE BACKWOODSMEN LIVED

Let us in imagination join this group of travellers as it starts out to cross the mountains. Each family has its pack-horse--perhaps a few families have two--carrying household goods. These are not so bulky as ours to-day, for pioneer life is simple, and the people have at most only what they need. There are, of course, some rolls of bedding and clothing, a few cooking utensils, a few packages of salt and seed corn, and a flask or two of medicine. The pack-horse carries also the mother and perhaps a very small child or two. The boys who are old enough to shoulder rifles march in front with their father, ready to shoot game for food or to stand guard against Indians. Some of the older children drive the cows which the settlers are taking along with them.

After reaching the place selected for their settlement, the younger children are set to clearing away the brush and piling it up in heaps ready for burning. The father and the elder sons, who are big enough to wield an axe, lose no time in cutting down trees and making a clearing for the log cabin. All work with a will, and soon the cabin is ready.

The furniture, like the cabin itself, is rude and simple. A bedstead is set up in a corner, a washstand is placed near by, and a few three-legged stools are put here and there; and of course there is a table to eat at. Places are quickly found for the water bucket, used to bring water from the stream, the gourd dipper with which to fill it, and other small utensils; while pegs driven into the wall in convenient places hold clothes, rifles, skins, and the like.

If our pioneers are well-to-do, there may be tucked away in some pack a wool blanket, but usually the chief covering on the bed is the dried skin of some animal: deer, bear, or perhaps buffalo.

There is plenty of food, though of course it is plain and simple, consisting mostly of game. Instead of the pork and beef which are largely eaten in the east, we shall find these settlers making their meal of bear's meat or venison.

For flour corn-meal is used. Each family has a mill for grinding the kernels into meal, while for beating it into hominy they use a crude mortar, made perhaps by burning a hole in the top of a block of wood.

Bread-making is a simpler matter with them than with us, for a dough of corn-meal is mixed on a wooden trencher and then either baked in the ashes and called ash-cake or before the fire on a board and called johnny-cake. Corn-meal is also made into mush, or hasty pudding; and when the settler has cows, mush-and-milk is a common dish, especially for supper.

For butter the settlers use the fat of bear's meat or the gravy of the goose. Instead of coffee, they make a drink of parched rye and beans, and for tea they boil sassafras root.

Every backwoodsman must be able to use the rifle to good effect, for he has to provide his own meat and protect himself and his family from attack. He must be skilful also in hiding, in moving noiselessly through the forests, and in imitating the notes and calls of different beasts and birds. Sharp eyes and ears must tell him where to look for his game, and his aim must be swift and sure.

But most important of all, he must be able to endure hardship and exposure. Sometimes he lives for months in the woods with no food but meat and no shelter but a lean-to of brush or even the trunk of a hollow tree into which he may crawl.

Deer and bear are the most plentiful game; but now and then there is an exciting combat with wolves, panthers, or cougars, while prowling Indians keep him ever on his guard. The pioneer must be strong, alert, and brave.

Each family depends upon itself for most of the necessaries of life. Each member has his own work. The father is the protector and provider; the mother is the housekeeper, the cook, the weaver, and the tailor. Father and sons work out-of-doors with axe, hoe, and sickle; while indoors the hum of the spinning-wheel or the clatter of the loom shows that mother and daughters are busily doing their part.

There are some articles, however, like salt and iron, which the settlers cannot always get in the backwoods. These they must obtain by barter. So each family collects all the furs it can, and once a year, after the harvest is gathered, loads them on pack-horses, which are driven across the mountains to some large trading town on the seacoast. There the skins are traded for the needed iron or salt.

Often many neighbors plan to go together on such a journey. Sometimes they drive before them their steers and hogs to find a market in the east.

A bushel of salt costs in these early days a good cow and calf. Now, that is a great deal to pay; and furthermore, as each small and poorly fed pack-animal can carry but two bushels, salt is a highly prized article. Since it is so expensive and hard to get, it has to be used sparingly by the mountaineers. Therefore the housewife, instead of salting or pickling her meat, preserves or "jerks" it by drying it in the sun or smoking it over the fire.

The Tennessee settler, like Boone's followers in Kentucky, dresses very much like the Indians, for that is the easiest and most fitting way in which to clothe himself for the forest life he leads. And very fine do many stalwart figures appear in the fur cap and moccasins, the loose trousers, or simply leggings of buckskin, and the fringed hunting-shirt reaching nearly to the knees. It is held in by a broad belt having a tomahawk in one side and a knife in the other.

While this free outdoor life develops strong and vigorous bodies, there is not much schooling in these backwoods settlements. Most boys and girls learn very little except reading and writing and very simple ciphering, or arithmetic. If there are any schoolhouses at all, they are log huts, dimly lighted and furnished very scantily and rudely.

The schoolmaster, as a rule, does not know much of books, and is quite untrained as a teacher. His discipline, though severe, is very poor. And he is paid in a way that may seem strange to you. He receives very little in cash, and for the rest of his wages he "boards around" with the families of the children he teaches, making his stay longer or shorter according to the number of children in school.

In many ways, as you see, the life of the pioneer child, while it was active and full of interest, was very different from yours. He learned, like his elders, to imitate bird calls, to set traps, to shoot a rifle, and at twelve the little lad became a foot soldier. He knew from just which loophole he was to shoot if the Indians attacked the fort, and he took pride in becoming a good marksman. He was carefully trained, too, to follow an Indian trail and to conceal his own when on the war-path--for such knowledge would be very useful to him as a hunter and fighter in the forests.

ROBERTSON A BRAVE LEADER

Such was the life of these early woodsmen and their families, and to this life Robertson and those who went out with him soon became accustomed. On their arrival at the Watauga River the newcomers mingled readily with the Virginians already on the ground.

Robertson soon became one of the leading men. His cabin of logs stood on an island in the river, and is said to have been the largest in the settlement. It had a log veranda in front, several rooms, a loft, and best of all, a huge fireplace made of sticks and stones laid in clay, in which a pile of blazing logs roared on cold days, making it a centre of good cheer as well as of heat. To us it would have been a most inviting spot for a summer holiday.

Robertson was very prosperous and successful at Watauga; but in 1799, after ten years of leadership at this settlement, a restless craving for change and adventure stole over him, and he went forth once more into the wilderness to seek a new home still deeper in the forest.

The place he chose was the beautiful country lying along the great bend of the Cumberland River, where Nashville now stands. Many bold settlers were ready and even eager to join Robertson in the new venture, for he was a born leader.

A small party went ahead early in the spring to plant corn, so that the settlers might have food when they arrived in the autumn. Robertson and eight other men, who made up the party, left the Watauga by the Wilderness Road through Cumberland Gap, crossing the Cumberland River. Then, following the trail of wild animals in a southwesterly direction, they came to a suitable place.

Here they put up cabins and planted corn, and then, leaving three men to keep the buffaloes from eating the corn when it came up, the other six returned to Watauga.

In the autumn two parties started out for the new settlement. One of these, made up mostly of women and children, went by water in flatboats, dugouts, and canoes, a route supposed to be easier though much the longer of the two. Whether it was easier, we shall see. The other party, including Robertson himself, went by land, hoping thus to reach the place of settlement in time to make ready for those coming by water.

Robertson and his men arrived about Christmas. Then began a tedious four months of waiting for the others. It was springtime again, April 24, when they at last arrived. Their roundabout route had taken them down the Tennessee River, then up the Ohio, and lastly up the Cumberland. The Indians in ambush on the river banks had attacked them many times during their long and toilsome journey, and the boats were so slow and clumsy that it was impossible for them to escape the flights of arrows.

But when they arrived, past troubles were soon forgotten, and with good heart, now that all were together, the settlers took up the work of making homes.

However, difficulties with the Indians were not over. The first company of settlers that arrived had been left quite unmolested. But now, as spring opened, bands of Indian hunters and warriors began to make life wretched for them all. There is no doubt that the red men did not like to have the settlers kill the game, or scare it off by clearing up the land; but the principal motive for the attacks was the desire for scalps and plunder, just as it was in assailing other Indian tribes.

The Indians became a constant terror. They killed the settlers while working in the clearings, hunting game, or getting salt at the licks. They loved to lure on the unwary by imitating the gobbling of a turkey or the call of some wild beast, and then pounce upon their human prey.

As the corn crop, so carefully planned, had been destroyed by heavy freshets in the autumn, the settlers had to scour the woods for food, living on nuts and game. By the time winter had set in, they had used up so much of their powder and bullets that Robertson resolved to go to Kentucky for more.

ROBERTSON SAVES THE SETTLEMENT

He went safely, though quite alone, and returned on the evening of January 15 (1780) with a good supply of ammunition. You may be sure he had a hearty welcome in the fort, where all were gathered. There was much to talk about, and they sat up till late into the night. All went to bed, tired and sleepy, without any fear. For at that season of the year the red men seldom molested them; and no sentinels were left on guard.

Soon all were in deep slumber except Robertson, whose sense of lurking danger would not let him sleep. He kept feeling that enemies might be near. And he was right. For just outside the fort, prowling in the thick underbrush and hidden by the great trees, there lay in ambush a band of painted warriors, hungry for plunder, eager for scalps.

They creep forward to their attack. They are very cautious, for a bright moon lights up the blockhouses and the palisaded fort.

Suddenly a moving shadow falls upon the moonlit clearing outside the fort. An Indian is stealthily crossing from the dark woods to the wall. There he crouches close, to be out of sight of the inmates of the fort. Another crouching figure, and another. One by one every feathered warrior crosses and keeps close to the palisade.

The next move is to slide cautiously the strong bar and undo the chain which fastens the gate. It is done skilfully enough, but the chain clanks or the hinges creak. The wakeful Robertson springs quickly to his feet. His keen eyes catch sight of the swift, dark figures, moving stealthily into the fort.

"Indians!" he shouts, and off goes his rifle. Instantly every settler has snatched the gun lying at his side. In a second the shots ring out; and the Indians flee through the gate to disappear into the leafy woods. But they have lost one man, whom Robertson has shot, and have killed or wounded three or four of the settlers. Robertson, by keen watchfulness, has saved the fort from capture and his comrades from probable torture or death.

This was only one of many occasions in which Robertson's leadership saved the day. After the Revolution ended (1783) the Indians were not so unfriendly, for the English were no longer paying them for scalps. People, therefore, became less timid about crossing the mountains, and a large number migrated from Virginia and North Carolina to the Tennessee settlement and made their homes at Nashville. As numbers grew larger, dangers became less.

By this time Robertson had become well known through the successful planting of his two settlements, and for the wisdom and bravery with which he managed them. As a reward for his valuable services, Washington later on (1790) made him a general in the army. In 1814 he died.

He is the kind of man we like to think of as a pioneer in the making of our history. Sturdy and self-reliant, strong and fearless, he cheerfully faced the unending struggle with the hard conditions of those early days. Though his life was narrow, it cut deep in its loyalty to friends and country.

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

1. What can you tell of Robertson's boyhood?

2. Imagine yourself as one of a group of travellers on the way to Kentucky or Tennessee, and tell all you can about the journey.

3. Tell all you can about the food, clothing, shelter, and other conditions of life in these backwoods settlements.

4. What sort of training did the pioneer boy receive in school and at home?

5. Why did Robertson plant a settlement at the place where Nashville now stands?

6. How did he save this settlement from the Indians? What do you admire about him?

7. Are you making frequent use of the map?