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Jane Gellespie Brown ~ Tennessee
Jane Gillespie was born in Pennsylvania
about the year 1740. Her father was one of the pioneers of North
Carolina. Her early life was spent in the county of Guilford,
and two of her brothers, Colonel and Major Gillespie, were noted
Revolutionary officers. About the year 1761, Miss Gillespie
became the wife of James Brown, a native of Ireland, whose
family had settled in Guilford. At the breaking out of the
Revolutionary War, her husband gave his services to his country,
leaving his wife with a small family of children. During the
retreat of General Greene, in 1781, on the Dan and Deep Rivers,
Brown acted as pilot and guide for Colonels Lee and Washington,
and through his knowledge of the country, contributed not a
little to the successful retreat of the American army, by which
they were enabled to elude and break the spirit of the army of
Cornwallis.
For his services, he received from the
state of North Carolina land warrants which entitled him to
locate large quantities of land in the wilderness of the
mountains. His neighbors made him sheriff of the county, and he
was rapidly rising in the esteem of his people. Notwithstanding
the fact that his future seemed opening up to brighter and
higher things, he realized that he could do more for his family
by tearing himself away from these prospects, and he set out on
his journey to explore the valley of the Cumberland, taking with
him his two eldest sons, William and John, and a few friends. He
secured land on the Cumberland River below Nashville. In the
winter of 1787, he had returned to Guilford to bring his family
into this country. At that time there were two routes to the
Cumberland Valley, one down the Tennessee River, and one, the
land route, a long and tedious one through the Cumberland Gap
across the head waters of the Cumberland, Greene, and Barren
Rivers. The one down the river was much better when accompanied
by women and children, and permitted the transportation of
goods, but along the banks of the Tennessee there were many
villages of the Cherokee and Chickasaw Indians, with marauding
parties of Creeks and Shawnees. Having built a boat in the style
of a common flat boat very much like the model of Noah's Ark
except that it was open at the top, he entered upon this fearful
voyage about the 1st of May, 1788, having on board a large
amount of goods, suitable for traffic among the Indians, and his
little family and friends. The party consisted of Brown, two
sons, three hired men, a Negro man (seven men in all), Mrs.
Brown, three small sons, four small daughters, an aged woman,
and two or three Negro women, the property of Brown. Brown had
mounted a small cannon on the prow of this boat, and I dare say
this was the first man-of-war that ever floated down the
Tennessee River.
They encountered no trouble until they
reached the present site of Chattanooga. Here a party of Indians
appeared in canoes, led by a white man by the name of John
Vaughn. After pretending to be friendly, and thus gaining
admission to his boat through the assurance of this man Vaughn
that their intentions were of a thoroughly friendly character,
they soon began to throw over his goods into the canoes, break
open his chest of treasure, and when Brown attempted to prevent
this, he was struck down by an Indian, his head almost severed
from his body. They were all taken ashore as captives, Vaughn
insisting that these marauders would be punished when the chief
arrived. Mrs. Brown, her son George, ten years old, and three
small daughters were taken possession of by a party of Creek
braves, while the Cherokees were deliberating on the fate of the
other prisoners.
In one short hour, this poor woman was
deprived of husband, sons, friends, and liberty, and began her
sad journey on foot along the rugged, flinty trails that led to
the Creek towns on the Tallapoosa River. At this time there
lived a man named Thomas Turnbridge, a French trader married to
a woman who had been taken prisoner near Mobile and raised by
the Indians. She had married an Indian brave and had a son
twenty-two years old. This son desired to present to his mother
some bright-eyed boy as a slave, for according to the savage
code of the times, each captive became a slave to his captor.
This woman's son was one of the marauding party who had seized
Brown's boat, and from the first knew the fate of the party.
He tried to induce little Joseph Brown
to go with him, but the boy would not; but when the boat landed,
he took Joseph to his stepfather Turnbridge, who in good English
told the boy he lived near and asked him to spend the night with
him. This the poor little frightened fellow consented to do, and
while on his way out, he heard the rifles of these savage beasts
who were murdering his brothers and friends. Later they came to
the Turnbridge house, demanding that the boy be relinquished,
and when about to surrender him to the fate of his brothers, the
old woman, the wife of Turnbridge, begged for his life, and he
was saved only later to be scalped. All of his head was shaved
and a bunch of feathers tied to the only remaining lock of hair,
his ears pierced with rings, his clothes taken off, and he was
supposed to be made one of their tribe. His sisters were brought
back by a party of Cherokees, and here they were adopted into
different families in this same town with Joseph. From them he
learned the fate of his mother, his brother George, and sister
Elizabeth.
War was now going on between the Indians
and the people of Cumberland and east Tennessee. Two thousand
warriors, principally Cherokees, were laying waste everything
before them in east Tennessee. They had stormed Fort Gillespie,
torturing men, women and children, and carrying off Mrs. Glass,
the sister of Captain Gillespie. In the spring of 1789, an
exchange of prisoners was agreed upon, and a talk held with
General Sevier, in which it was stipulated that the Cherokees
should surrender all white persons within their borders. When
this occurred, young Brown was out on a trading trip, and did
not return until all the prisoners had gone up to Running Water.
On his return, he was sent also to Running Water, but his little
sister would not leave her Indian mother, who had treated her
kindly, but Brown finally took her forcibly with him. His eldest
sister was claimed by a trader, who said he had bought her with
his money. Joseph being unable to redeem her, was obliged to
leave her behind. At the conference with the Indians, Brown
refused to be exchanged unless his sister was brought in by the
Indians, the old chief sent for the girl, and she was brought to
Running Water, where on the 1st of May, 1789, young Brown and
his sisters were once more restored to liberty. Having nothing
and being entirely alone, these three young people were sent to
relatives in South Carolina until their mother should be
released from captivity from the Creeks.
Mrs. Brown's experiences were full of
horror and agony, a prisoner with a knowledge of her three
children captives among the savages, not knowing what their fate
was to be. She was driven forward on foot many days and nights
over these terrible roads and through this wild country,
arriving at the town of her captors to find herself their slave
doomed to work for a savage mistress, and, to add to her
distress, her little son and daughter were taken to different
towns and she was left alone. At this time Alexander
McGillivray, a half-breed Creek of Scotch descent, was chief of
the Muscogee Indians, and assumed the title of
commander-in-chief of the upper and lower Creeks and the
Seminoles, being also the recognized military leader and civil
governor of all the Indians of Florida, Alabama and lower
Georgia. He combined the shrewdness of the savage with the
learning of the civilized man.
Mrs. Brown fortunately was taken to a
town in which lived the sister of McGillivray, who was the wife
of a French trader by the name of Durant. She pitied Mrs. Brown,
and told her her brother, the chief of the Creeks, did not
approve of his people making slaves of white women, and advised
Mrs. Brown to go to him. She offered her a horse and saddle, but
told her that she must take them herself. Mrs. Brown being
ignorant of the country, an aged Indian was chosen to act as her
guide. At an appointed hour, Mrs. Brown mounted her friend's
horse, and started in pursuit of her Indian guide, whose
demeanor was that of entire ignorance of her existence. As Mrs.
Durant had told Mrs. Brown, her brother showed the kindest
interest in her story and offered her every protection under his
roof. In a few days her savage master appeared and demanded her
return. Colonel McGillivray informed him she was in his house
and he would protect her. He threatened to kill Mrs. Brown, but
McGillivray persuaded him that a dead woman could do no work,
and finally offered a rifle, powder and lead, some beads and
paint for his wife, which overcame his spirit of revenge, and
Mrs. Brown became the ransomed captive of McGillivray.
This is a noted instance of the chivalry
of the savage chieftain. Here Mrs. Brown taught the Indian women
needlework, and they became very fond of her. On a trip to one
of the upper Creek towns, McGillivray found Mrs. Brown's
daughter, aged eleven years, and purchased her from her master,
restoring her to her mother. He also tried to gain possession of
her son George, but the Indian who had possession of him had
grown very fond of him, and would not surrender him.
In November, 1789, Colonel McGillivray
arranged for a peace conference at Rock Landing, Georgia, and
took Mrs. Brown and her daughter with him and there delivered
her to her son William, who had come hoping to hear news of her.
After spending some time in South Carolina, she returned to
Guilford, at the end of two years only, she had had all these
privations and experiences. In 1788, her benefactor, the Creek
chieftain, passed through Guilford and paid her a visit. Her
brothers offered to pay him any sum for the ransom of Mrs. Brown
and the children, but he refused it, and promised to use every
effort to restore her son to her.
In 1792, a formidable body of Indians,
Creeks, Seminoles, and Shawnees invaded the Cumberland Valley,
attacking Buchanan Station. Joseph went to the assistance of
Buchanan, but the Indians had retreated. What was his
astonishment on approaching the scene of action to find his
Indian brother lying cold in death. Later on Joseph Brown led a
successful campaign against the Indians. His knowledge of the
country during his captivity, and the fact that this Indian
chieftain had been killed previously, made him well fitted for
the position of leader. As they had spared his life, so he
spared the lives of the Indian prisoners; and soon after this
generous act on his part, his brother, young George Brown, was
liberated by the Creeks.
In 1812, during the Creek War, a large
number of Cherokee Indians offered their services to General
Jackson. General Jackson asked Joseph Brown to take command of
these Indians, but this he never did. He served as an aid of
General Robards in the army, and was a most valuable interpreter
and guide. When General Jackson became President, Colonel Brown
obtained an allowance from Congress for a part of the property
lost by his father in 1788.
Mrs. Brown lived to be ninety years of
age, having spent one of the most eventful lives, and exhibited
the greatest heroism amidst the trials of the women of even that
day. Her son George became a noted citizen of Mississippi, and
her captive daughter Jane, the wife of Mr. Collinsworth, became
well known in Texas where they resided. No history can do
adequate justice to the sufferings and heroism of Mrs. Brown and
these early pioneers of the Holston and Cumberland Valleys.
Women of
America
Source: The Part Taken by Women in
American History, By Mrs. John A. Logan, Published by The Perry-Nalle
Publishing Company, Wilmington, Delaware, 1912.
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