community, for a brewing company has purchased the spring. blasted out the rock for a new outlet near the old, and pumps the water to a large factory for the manufacture of carbonated waters and other refreshing drinks.

But the tanning of leather was not George Wilson's vocation. It simply served to utilize in an industrial way his surplus capital and surplus spring water and, at the same time, to give him something to do during his declining years after he had retired from the active duties of his life work. His life work was that of an editor and publisher.

On the death of George Roustone, the pioneer printer of the State, in 1804, George Wilson succeeded him as the editor and publisher of the Knoxville Gazette,' said to have been the first newspaper published west of the Allegheny Mountains. He enlarged the paper from three to five columns and changed the name to Wilson's Knoxville Gazette. He moved his office to Nashville in 18183 and established The Nashville Gazette, the first issue of which was published May 26, 1819. In June, 1827, Allen A. Hall and John Fitzgerald purchased the property and changed the name of the paper to The Republican and State Gazette.*

A contemporary speaking of Wilson's work as an editor says: "In politics he was a Democrat of the Jeffersonian School and maintained his position with much ability; and, if he did not stand among the first political writers, he expressed himself with much fluency, often with energy, and his language was remarkably free from that low abuse of his political opponent to which so many of his contemporaries were addicted."

George Wilson was an ardent supporter of Andrew Jackson and enjoyed his friendship, too. One of his descendants has preserved an original note from General Jackson, which reads as follows: "Gen'l. Jackson's compliments to Col. George Wilson, and requests the pleasure of his company to dinner on Monday the 13 inst. A Jackson, Hermitage, 10th of May, 1832."

I do not know why he was called "Colonel."

When Lyman C. Draper was collecting material for his book, "King's Mountain and Its Heroes," he came to Nash"Goodspeed's History of Tennessee, p. 630.

Possibly went from Knoxville to St. Louis. A Davidson County land record is as follows: "Sept. 3rd, 1811, George Wilson of St. Louis, Louisiana Territory, gives power of attorney to Peter Bass to sell 5,000 acres of land in Western District, Tenn." (Deed Book "I," p. 217.)

'Crew's History of Nashville, p. 343.

ville, in 1844, and visited George Wilson. In this book he quotes, in a number of places, from "Manuscript Notes made from conversation with Colonel George Wilson of Nashville, who derived his information chiefly from his father-in-law (Brother-in-law), Alexander Greer, who was one of Sevier's men at the Battle of King's Mountain and took part in the expeditions to Brown's Creek and Musgrove's Mill."

George Wilson was a Mason. He was one of the committee that, in 1813, framed the original constitution of the Grand Lodge of the State, and he was the first Deputy Grand Master under the Grand Mastership of Thomas Claiborne, the first Grand Master. He served as Deputy Grand Master in 1813, 1814, and again in 1822 and 1823. He was Senior Warden in 1819, 1820, and 1821. His appointment as Deputy Grand Master in 1822 was by Andrew Jackson, who was Grand Master that year. In 1840 he was elected Grand Master. His portrait as M. W. Grand Master in the State Grand Lodge building, Nashville, Tennessee. It shows a fine, handsome face, with regular features, of a man apparently about forty years of age. He was, however, sixty-two years of age in 1840. I do not know who was the painter of the portrait. But it is an interesting incident in this connection that in 1827 George Wilson conveyed by deed one hundred acres of land in Davidson County, reserving the timber to John W. Jarvis, of county, Virginia, in consideration of one portrait picture, valued at $ etc., delivered by said Jarvis. Whose por

trait was this?

George Wilson was born in the District of Columbia, on the Virginia side of the Potomac. While yet a young man he removed to Knoxville, Tennessee. He married December 31, 1799, Margery Johnson Greer, of Watauga. She died in 1812. One of the children of this marriage, George Alexander Wilson, became "a distinguished officer in the Florida War and afterwards was a Whig member of the Legislature." He married his second wife, Matilda George Greer, December 6, 1813. She was a niece of his first wife, and daughter of Andrew Greer, Jr., of Wilson County, Tennessee. She died in Nashville August 31, 1822. One of the daughters, Matilda George, married John King Edmundson. She died in Nash

"Draper's "King's Mountain," p. 230.

"Davidson County, Deed Book, "R," p. 585.

'John Wesley Jarvis was born in England in 1780; came to Philadelphia, Pa., in 1785. His portraits were executed chiefly in New York and Southern cities. They include Com. Isaac Hull, Com. Thomas McDonough, Gov. DeWitt Clinton, John Randolph, Bishop Benjamin Moore and Fitz-Greene Halleck. (Appleton's Cyc. Biog.)

ville in 1837. Another daughter, Sarah Greer, married John Williamson Butler. She died in Pittsburgh in 1896. These two daughters erected a monument to their father in the Old Nashville Cemetery, on which is the inscription "To the memory of Colonel George Wilson. Born September 28, 1778. Died November 8, 1848." J. T. MCGILL.

SOUTHWEST, 1730-1807.

(Copyright, 1918, Albert V. Goodpasture.)

CHAPTER X.

TRAGEDY OF THE BROWN FAMILY.

The capture of James Brown's boat at Nickajack; the massacre of the men on board; and the captivity of his wife and little children. 1788-1789.

After the Chickamaugas removed to their new towns, they continued to menace the frontiers, particularly those of the Cumberland and Kentucky; they captured boats going down the Tennessee River; they even terrorized the settlements east of the Cumberland Mountains; in fact, most of the Indian depredations committed were laid at the door of the Chickamaugas. Their treacherous seizure of James Brown's boat, May 9, 1788, the barberous massacre of the eight men on board, the separation of his wife and her five little children, and their long captivity among the Chickamaugas and Creeks, will be the subject of this chapter.

James Brown, of Guilford County, North Carolina, was somewhat past the meridian of life at the beginning of the year 1788. His wife, Jane Gillespie, had bourne him sixteen children, nine of whom were still living. He was in moderate circumstances, and had held honorable offices in his county. Having been a revolutionary soldier in the continental line of North Carolina, he received for his services a certificate, payable in the western lands of that state. When the land office was opened at Hillsboro, in 1783, he resolved to make adequate provision for his numerous children, by locating his military warrant in the rich settlement on the Cumberland River, about which glowing accounts had come back to the east. Taking with him two of his older sons, William and Daniel G., he explored the Cumberland valley, and entered a large body of land beyond the settlements, on Duck River, near the present town of Columbia. He secured a tract at the mouth of White's Creek, on the Cumberland River, a few miles below Nashville, for his present settlement, and leaving William and Daniel to build a cabin and open a small field for cultivation, he returned to North Carolina for his family.

Choosing the river as the least dangerous and most agreeable route, especially for the women and children, in the winter of 1787, he built a boat, near the Long Island of Holston, from which point Colonel Donelson had launched his famous flotilla; and to make it secure against any possible attack from the

Indians, he protected it with an armor of oak plank, two inches thick, perforated at suitable intervals with port holes, and mounted a small cannon upon its stern. About the first

of May, 1788, having taken on board a quantity of goods such as would be useful in his new home on the Cumberland, and also some suitable for traffic among the Indians, he loosed his boat from its mooring and launched it on its long and dan gerous voyage. His party consisted of himself, his wife, his sons, James and John, who were grown; Joseph, a lad of fifteen, and George, who was only nine; his three daughters, Jane, aged ten; Elizabeth, seven, and Polly, four. Besides these members of his immediate family, there were also five young men, J. Bays, John Flood, John Gentry, William Gentry and John Griffin, and a negro woman.

They passed Chickamauga Creek about daybreak on Friday, May 9, 1788, and reached Tuskegee, a small town on the north bank of the river, just below Chattanooga, a little after sunrise. Here Coteatoy, a chief of Tuskegee, and three other warriors, came abroad. They were treated kindly and appeared entirely friendly, but as soon as they left the boat, they started runners to Running Water and Nickajack, for the purpose of intercepting it before it passed those towns.

John Vann, a half-breed who spoke English, with four canoes, carrying about forty warriors, paddled out midstream and met Brown's boat just above the town of Nickajack. They were apparently unarmed, and were flying a white flag, but in reality they had their guns and tomahawks covered with blankets in the bottoms of their canoes. When they approached, Brown said too many were coming at one time, wheeled his boat to bring his cannon into action, and had a match ready to touch it off. Vann pleaded for friendship in the name of the late treaty of Hopewell, alleging that he only wanted to find out where they were going, and to trade with them if they had anything to trade, and Brown, who was loath to precipitate open hostilities, which would endanger the little colony to which he was bound, listened to his friendly talk and suffered his canoes to approach.

By this strategem Vann succeeded in getting his party aboard Brown's boat. Immediately seven or eight other canoes, hitherto concealed among the rank cane in the submerged bottoms of the swollen river, bore down upon him. Vann's party appeared friendly until the other canoes came up, when they began taking goods from the boat and transferring them to their canoes. Brown asked Vann for protection, but was told that he must await the return of the Breath, the head man of Nickajack, who was from home, but would return that night,