Volume IV Part 7 (1/2)

Meeting of the Territorial Legislature.

In 1794, there being five thousand free male inhabitants, as provided by law, Tennessee became ent.i.tled to a Territorial legislature, and the Governor summoned the a.s.sembly to the meet at Knoxville on August 17th.

So great was the danger from the Indians that a military company had to accompany the c.u.mberland legislators to and from the seat of government.

For the same reason the judges on their circuits had to go accompanied by a military guard.

Among the first acts of this Territorial Legislature was that to establish higher inst.i.tutions of learning; John Sevier was made a trustee in both Blount and Greeneville Colleges. A lottery was established for the purpose of building the c.u.mberland road to Nashville, and another one to build a jail and stocks in Nashville. A pension act was pa.s.sed for disabled soldiers and for widows and orphans, who were to be given an adequate allowance at the discretion of the county court. A poll tax of twenty-five cents on all taxable white polls was laid, and on every taxable negro poll fifty cents. Land was taxed at the rate of twenty-five cents a hundred acres, town lots one dollar; while a stud horse was taxed four dollars. Thus, taxes were laid exclusively upon free males, upon slaves, lands, town lots, and stud horses, a rather queer combination. [Footnote: Laws of Tennessee, Knoxville, 1803. First Session of Territorial Legislature, 1794.]

Many Industries Established.

Various industries were started, as the people began to demand not only the necessaries of life but the comforts, and even occasionally the luxuries. There were plenty of blacksmith shops; and a goldsmith and jeweller set up his establishment. In his advertis.e.m.e.nt he shows that he was prepared to do some work which would be alien to his modern representative, for he notifies the citizens that he makes ”rifle guns in the neatest and most approved fas.h.i.+on.” [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazelle_, Oct. 20, 1792.]

Ferries and Taverns.

Ferries were established at the important crossings, and taverns in the county-seats and small towns. One of the Knoxville taverns advertises its rates, which were one s.h.i.+lling for breakfast, one s.h.i.+lling for supper, and one and sixpence for dinner; board and lodging for a week costing two dollars, and board only for the same s.p.a.ce and of time nine s.h.i.+llings. Ferriage was three pence for a man and horse and two s.h.i.+llings for a wagon and team.

Trade.

Various stores were established in the towns, the merchants obtaining most of their goods in the great trade centres of Philadelphia and Baltimore, and thence hauling them by wagon to the frontier. Most of the trade was carried on by barter. There was very little coin in the country and but few bank-notes. Often the advertis.e.m.e.nt specified the kind of goods that would be taken and the different values at which they would be received. Thus, the salt works at Was.h.i.+ngton, Virginia, in advertising their salt, stated that they would sell it per bushel for seven s.h.i.+llings and sixpence if paid in cash or prime furs; at ten s.h.i.+llings if paid in bear or deer skins, beeswax, hemp, bacon, b.u.t.ter, or beef cattle; and at twelve s.h.i.+llings if in other trade and country produce, as was usual. [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, June 1, 1793.]

Currency.

The prime furs were mink, c.o.o.n, muskrat, wildcat, and beaver. Besides this the stores advertised that they would take for their articles cash, beeswax, and country produce or tallow, hogs' lard in white walnut kegs, b.u.t.ter, pork, new feathers, good horses, and also corn, rye, oats, flax, and ”old Congress money,” the old Congress money being that issued by the Continental Congress, which had depreciated wonderfully in value.

They also took certificates of indebtedness either from the State or the nation because of services performed against the Indians, and certificates of land claimed under various rights. The value of some of these commodities was evidently mainly speculative. The storekeepers often felt that where they had to accept such dubious subst.i.tutes for cash they desired to give no credit, and some of the advertis.e.m.e.nts run: ”Cheap, ready money store, where no credit whatever will be given,” and then proceed to describe what ready money was,--cash, furs, bacon, etc.

The stores sold salt, iron-mongery, pewterware, corduroys, rum, brandy, whiskey, wine, ribbons, linen, calamancos, and in fact generally what would be found at that day in any store in the smaller towns of the older States. The best eight by ten crown-gla.s.s ”was regularly imported,” and also ”beautiful a.s.sortments of fas.h.i.+onable coat and vest b.u.t.tons,” as well as ”brown and loaf sugar, coffee, chocolate, tea, and spices.” In the towns the families had ceased to kill their own meat, and beef markets were established where fresh meat could be had twice a week.

Stock on the Range.

Houses and lots were advertised for sale, and one result of the method of allowing the branded stock to range at large in the woods was that the Range, there were numerous advertis.e.m.e.nts for strayed horses, and even cattle, with descriptions of the brands and ear marks. The people were already beginning to pay attention to the breeding of their horses, and fine stallions with pedigrees were advertised, though some of the advertis.e.m.e.nts show a certain indifference to purity of strain; one stallion being quoted as of ”mixed fox-hunting and dray” breed. Rather curiously the Chickasaw horses were continually mentioned as of special merit, together with those of imported stock. Attention was paid both to pacers and trotters.

The lottery was still a recognized method of raising money for every purpose, including the advancement of education and religion. One of the advertis.e.m.e.nts gives as one of the prizes a negro, valued at one hundred and thirty pounds, a horse at ten pounds, and five hundred acres of fine land without improvements at twelve hundred pounds.

Government Escort for Immigrants.

Journeying to the long-settled districts of the East, persons went as they wished, in their own wagons or on their own horses; but to go from East Tennessee either to Kentucky, or to the c.u.mberland district, or to New Orleans, was a serious matter because of the Indians. The Territorial authorities provided annually an escort for immigrants from the Holston country to the c.u.mberland, a distance of one hundred and ten miles through the wilderness, and the departure of this annual escort was advertised for weeks in advance.

Sometimes the escort was thus provided by the authorities. More often adventurers simply banded together; or else some enterprising man advertised that on a given date he should start and would provide protection for those who chose to accompany him. Thus, in the _Knoxville Gazette_ for February 6, 1795, a boat captain gives public notice to all persons who wish to sail from the Holston country to New Orleans, that on March 1st, if the waters answer, his two boats will start, the _Mary_ of twenty-five tons, and the _Little Polly_ of fifteen tons. Those who had contracted for freight and pa.s.sage are desired to attend previous to that period.

Lawlessness.

There was of course a good deal of lawlessness and a strong tendency to settle a.s.sault and battery cases in particular out of court. The officers of justice at times had to subdue criminals by open force.

Andrew Jackson, who was District Attorney for the Western District, early acquired fame by the energy and success with which he put down any criminal who resisted the law. The worst offenders fled to the Mississippi Territory, there to live among Spaniards, Creoles, Indians, and lawless Americans. Lawyers drove a thriving business; but they had their own difficulties, to judge by one advertis.e.m.e.nt, which appears in the issue of the _Gazette_ for March 23, 1793, where six of them give notice that thereafter they will give no legal advice unless it is legally paid for.

Endless Land Speculations.

All the settlers, or at least all the settlers who had any ambition to rise in the world, were absorbed in land speculations: Blount, Robertson, and the other leaders as much so as anybody. They were continually in correspondence with one another about the purchase of land warrants, and about laying them out in the best localities. Of course there was much jealousy and rivalry in the effort to get the best sites. Robertson, being farthest on the frontier, where there was most wild land, had peculiar advantages. Very soon after he settled in the c.u.mberland district at the close of the Revolutionary War, Blount had entered into an agreement with him for a joint land speculation. Blount was to purchase land claims from both officers and soldiers amounting in all to fifty thousand acres and enter them for the Western Territory, while Robertson was to survey and locate the claims, receiving one fourth of the whole for his reward. [Footnote: Blount MSS., Agreement between William Blount and James Robertson, Oct. 30, 1783.] Their connection continued during Blount's term as Governor, and Blount's letters to Robertson contain much advice as to how the warrants shall be laid out. Wherever possible they were of course laid outside the Indian boundaries; but, like every one else, Blount and Robertson knew that eventually the Indian lands would come into the possession of the United States, and in view of the utter confusion of the t.i.tles, and especially in view of the way the Indians as well as the whites continually broke the treaties and rendered it necessary to make new ones, both Blount and Robertson were willing to place claims on the Indian lands and trust to luck to make the claims good if ever a cession was made. The lands thus located were not lands upon which any Indian village stood. Generally they were tracts of wilderness through which the Indians occasionally hunted, but as to which there was a question whether they had yet been formally ceded to the government. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Blount to Robertson, April 29, 1792.]

Land Tax and Land Sales.

Blount also corresponded with many other men on the question of these land speculations, and it is amusing to read the expressions of horror of his correspondents when they read that Tennessee had imposed a land tax. [Footnote: Blount MSS., Thomas Hart to Blount, Lexington, Ky., March 29, 1795.] By his activity he became a very large landed proprietor, and when Tennessee was made a State he was taxed on 73,252 acres in all. The tax was not excessive, being but $179.72. [Footnote: _Do_., Return of taxable property of Blount, Nashville, Sept. 9, 1796.]

It was of course entirely proper for Blount to get possession of the land in this way. The theory of government on the frontier was that each man should be paid a small salary, and be allowed to exercise his private business just so long as it did not interfere with his public duties. Blount's land speculations were similar to those in which almost every other prominent American, in public or private life, was engaged.

Neither Congress nor the States had as yet seen the wisdom of allowing the laud to be sold only in small parcels to actual occupants, and the favorite kind of speculation was the organization of land companies. Of course there were other kinds of business in which prominent men took part. Sevier was interested not only in land, but in various mercantile ventures of a more or less speculative kind; he acted as an intermediary with the big importers, who were willing to furnish some of the stores with six months' credit if they could be guaranteed a settlement at the end of that time. [Footnote: _Do_., David Allison to Blount, Oct. 16, 1791.]