| Show ou the outposts 1780 the way through the woods was deep L snow and encumbered as they were with cattle the party under egbertson Eo bertson made but slow progress it being christmas day 1779 before they arrived at their destination they were not molested by the in from cold on the journey for the winter was the most severe which had been known in a century the ice in the cumberland was thick enough to sustain the passage of animals and was not many days before the settlers bad crossed over and begun on the bluffs which lined the southern bank the building of the fort and the few log houses which formed the nucleus of the future capital of Tenness see it was in the very heart of the wilderness surrounded by nearly twenty thousand creeks cherokees choctaws all of whom were in alliance with great britain which at that moment had overrun and all but subjugated the southern colonies the stations erected the settlers awaited in anxious suspense for the coming of their wives and children the three months allowed for the voyage had expired but no tidings had come from them nor had the sound of their approach broke the stillness of the river solitudes the anxiety about them soon became intense thus it was for a full month and until the end of april then one morning at sunrise a solitary four echoed along tho cumberland and in a few hours the little I 1 fleet of forty flat boats canoes and pirogues pi rogues camo to anchor under the walls of the fort amid such rejoicing as never before was known in the wilderness der ness it had been a voyage without a parallel in modern history A thousand miles chev had come through a country infested with hostile indians in trail boats down rapid and perilous rivers never before navigated by white men their way had been through foaming whirlpools and over dangerous shoals thirty miles in extent and they had endured the bit cold and for many long days and been subjected to the constant and deadly fire of fifteen hundred Chicka mangas the most ferocious tribe of on the amen 1 can continent thirty one of the company had been left by the savages and ono had been taken prisoner thus amid ice and snow and the intense cold of 1780 still noted as the coldest winter in american latitudes was planted the first civilized settlement in the mississippi valley edmund kirke in harpers magazine for february |
