JOHN DONELSON’S LAST FIVE YEARS

January 27, 2012, by Richard Paddock

The activities of Col John Donelson in KY after 1780 when he arrived at the French Lick, future site of Nashville, have confused me for a long time. His death in 1786 has been a matter of curiosity as well, since some historians have explained his demise differently. His business travel, as well as how his family developed a relationship to the Robards family has also intrigued my curiosity. As I have been writing up my family history, I have put together some information to help me better understand this period in his life. I have formed some conclusions as well. Others might likely disagree and offer additional clarifications. In this essay, I share my view on the last five years of Col Donelson's life.

This narrative begins with some background regarding the circumstances for his entry into KY and the environment he left in Nashville to help explain why Col Donelson chose to relocate his family. I'll discuss the settlements in KY where he lived. Some of the politics and shenanigans which affected his speculation activities in the mid 1780s will be addressed. I'll end with some treatment of his daughter Rachel’s marriage and finally provide my take on his death. I should make a clarification here. Anyone reading this would be well served to look at a map of "early" Lincoln CO, “Present-day” Lincoln, Mercer, Boyle and Warren Counties in KY. For some time I was confused about the terms, "Crab Orchard" and "Cane Run". On today's maps there is a Crab Orchard town and Cane Run is a creek with a few branches. I use the two names to reflect their appropriateness in the 1780s. Back then, both were communities or neighborhoods as we might refer to them today; groups of interacting people, living in close proximity, often sharing common values and needs. So, when I refer to Cane Run or to Crab Orchard, I refer to an area of land and not to a specific water course or town name. From this point, I will use Nashville to refer to

what at times was called French Lick, Cumberland settlements, Nashboro, etc. In discussing the settlements in KY, some were called forts and some stations. I use the term "Station" here for brevity.

I don't intend to write much about the political intrigue which resulted from the many treaties, state land claims and cessions nor the rise and fall of the state of Franklin. Anyone interested them has access to volumes about those subjects in print and on the internet. I will only touch on these subjects as I see them affecting to some degree the lives of the Donelsons.

Col Donelson was a wealthy surveyor, businessman, member of the House of Burgesses and land speculator from Pittsylvania CO, VA. He was an Indian agent and pioneer leader who A lieutenant colonel of militia and Indian agent, he had traveled widely on the frontier, serving as a treaty negotiator and surveyor. Admired for his resourcefulness and stability, he had been appointed to survey the line between VA and NC in 1771. My line goes back to him through his daughter Catherine. She was my GGGGGrandmother.

After VA had declared Judge Richard Henderson's Transylvania Company's KY land claims illegal in 1778, He turned to the rest of his land purchase in TN. By the time Henderson contracted with Col Donelson and James Robertson to settle his TN lands, Col Donelson had already made his mind up to move west in order to protect his land holdings. He had met with Robertson in talks with Henderson at different times, probably as early as the Transylvania beginnings, when Henderson formed the company in 1775, with the completion of an Indian treaty. Prior to that, he had hired Daniel Boone to blaze a trail (Wilderness Road) into KY from VA. Without Henderson's promises of land, status and wealth, offering both large inducements for their services, Robertson would hardly have relinquished leadership of the Watauga settlements and Col Donelson, although he was having financial problems with his iron works in VA, might likely have refused

to abandon speculation in the extensive lands originally purchased by Henderson.

Some settlers who stuck it out at Nashville would resent Col Donelson's abandonment of them, leaving them to fight on, later to return his family to the area when Indian troubles had subsided. As it is, today he has been overshadowed by James Robertson, who stuck it out at Nashville and lived on to be a key mover and shaker in Nashville and TN history. Col Donelson is principally remembered as the leader of his famous water voyage from Fort Patrick Henry (Kingsport, TN) to what would become Nashville and as the Father of Rachel Donelson who married future president Andrew Jackson.

By the late 1770s, white encroachment led to confrontations between Cherokees and the eastern Watauga settlements, and after 1780, between the Chickasaws and the new group of settlers led by Robertson and Col Donelson in the Nashville area. Long hunters, men who had hunted and explored the western lands, were coming and going in the country and telling about the richness of the land and the bountiful resources. Boone, Harrod and Logan had established settlements in KY; the land was filling up. The Indians viewed these settlers as a threat. Their response to land take-over was to attack the settlements. If millions of tribal acres were grabbed and surveyed from Nashville, then would go after the source of the problem. They did so -- and with such violence that many settlers considered permanently leaving the region.

At Clover Bottom on Stone's River, about seven miles from Nashville, Col Donelson's family camped in dugouts along the river with his large family, cleared several acres and planted com and cotton. Two months later, rising water forced the Donelsons to abandon Clover Bottom and take refuge in Casper Mansker's station ten miles away where they remained until at the end of the summer. At the same time, Indian raids were threatening the inhabitants at Clover Bottom. The attacks

had begun in April when a group of Chickasaw massacred Jonathan Jennings and one of James Robertson's sons, killed pigs and cows and drove off some horses. Thereafter, the Indians murdered on farms, by stockades, at licks and in the forests, wherever they could lure their victims. By summer's end, the receding river permitted the Clover Bottom folks return to their crops. Indians attacked a party led by Col Donelson's Son, John Donelson, Jr., to harvest corn. Two of his slaves were killed.

In the winter of 1780-81, the settlers at Mansker's decided to break up. Among several who went to KY were Col Donelson's immediate and extended families. The move to KY ended a journey that had begun a year earlier when Col Donelson sold his plantation and iron foundry in backcountry VA, carried his family into upper East TN, led the voyage down the Tennessee and up the Cumberland Rivers, set up a camp near Nashville. I think he also saw trouble ahead besides the Indians; the difficulty of obtaining clear titles to his lands. He may have felt "Ahead of the curve", in that Col Donelson was on scene before a land office was opened and no legal structure had been set up to govern land disputes. Thus he sought greener pastures in KY as well as safety for his family. Col Donelson had many financial interests in Kentucky, all centering about land and another reason for the selection of the destination was the proximity of the Lincoln County Court at nearby Harrodsburg and later in Danville.

While Col Donelson was getting his flotilla at Fort Patrick Henry ready, James Robertson led his group overland to Nashville. He followed the Wilderness Road (The trail blazed by Daniel Boone and traveled by the pioneers who came through the Cumberland Gap to settle the then new lands of KY and TN) and then headed southwest from Crab Orchard via the Cumberland Trace to the Cumberland River. The Cumberland Trace was an important artery in the settlement of Western KY and Middle TN for several years. Use of this route by many who settled the area began in the 1770s but it was most heavily used

after Nashville was established in 1780. This route was believed to be safer for travel than the more direct route across Northern TN, even if it was longer. Col Donelson would travel the Cumberland Trace route to meet his death in 1786.

Late eighteenth century frontier roads were referred to as "traces." They were little more than beaten paths or trails formed by the repeated passage of travelers. They were originally only wide enough to be traveled on foot or on horseback (no wheeled wagons or carts were known to have gone over the Wilderness Road until 1792). The first wagon on the Cumberland Trace was reported to have reached Pittman's Station in 1793. The Cumberland Trace began off the Wilderness Road from various branches near Benjamin Logan’s Fort (Stanford), Harrodsburg, Danville and Crab Orchard in Lincoln CO. The Trace went Southwest, past the present cities of Greensburg (The trace actually crossed the Green River near Pittman's Station, a few miles West of Greensburg.) and Glasgow, crossed the Barren River near McFadin's Station, at present day Bowling Green in Warren CO and continued on to the Cumberland settlements (Nashville). Until 1785-1787, much of the immigration into central TN passed over this road and a branch, the Cumberland Trace, from near Crab Orchard, the trail taken by Robertson in 1779 to the present site of Nashville. Over this route mail was taken to the Cumberland settlements as late as 1788 and probably later.

Col Donelson took his extended family and as many as 30 slaves from Nashville, up the Cumberland Trace to Davis Station, Crab Orchard, Cane Run/Bowman's Station or Harrodsburg, depending on which historian has written about KY history. Davis Station (Also called Davies Station) was about five miles West of Crab Orchard and is where Col Donelson first lived. Davis Station was one of several which had been established along the stretch of the Wilderness Road from Crab Orchard to the Harrodsburg vicinity. Crab Orchard lay at one of the junctions of the Cumberland Trace with the Wilderness Road, placing

the Donelsons on the main travel route between VA and Harrodsburg and between Nashville and central KY. He was most likely living there by April 1781, as his Son, Capt John Donelson who would have most likely traveled with his Father, and a son-in-law, Thomas Hutchings, were appointed deputy surveyors for Lincoln CO, KY.

Thomas Hutchings (Thomas Hutchings had married Col Donelson’s daughter Catherine) had left the Donelson Flotilla at present-day Paducah, KY to travel to Kaskaskia in IL country. Finding life there not suited to raising a family, Hutchings moved his family within a year to apparently a more civilized Harrodsburg area. I haven't determined for certain when the Donelsons relocated permanently from the Crab Orchard area to Cane Run but I suspect it was by 1782 and that they only stayed at Davis Station long enough to secure accommodations at Cane Run. By 1783 Thomas Hutchings had most likely relocated his family to TN and settled in future Hawkins CO, TN. Cane Run is a small creek which passes to the North of the present day small town of Burgin. Prior to 1783, most immigrants who desired to settle in the Nashville area came first into KY via the Wilderness Road, through the Cumberland Gap, and proceeded as far as Crab Orchard. From there they turned southward and followed the Cumberland Trace which led to Nashville. Many would interact with Col Donelson and his family members in land deals.

When settlers and speculators moved into KY County, part of VA at the time, to survey land in the 1770s, surveyors’ were rewarded in an economy based upon land speculation. To legally own land, VA law required that a tract be surveyed and improved by building some sort of structure on it. There were thousands of such land tracts scattered throughout KY. Many were easily purchased from Revolutionary War veterans, anxious sellers who had earned land bounties from VA and NC. VA had established KY as a county in 1776, with its own separate county court, justices of the peace, sheriff, constables and militia. In 1780, KY CO was divided into three counties of Lincoln, Jefferson and

Fayette. KY didn't become a state until 1792. At least three of Col Donelson's sons, John, Stockley, and William, and his sons-in-law, Thomas Hutchings and Robert Hays, were also official surveyors. For the Donelson clan, these family relationships enhanced social, political and business networking. Family members helped each other as land speculators, businessmen, lawyers, military men, treaty negotiators, Indian agents, and justices of the peace.

Meanwhile, back at Nashville, settlers gradually deserted stations and cabins until all but the one at Nashville and one other were abandoned. Many followed Col Donelson's move to KY. Mansker’s was not immune to attack by the Indians. Five people lost their lives there. The loss of settlers worried Robertson but despite the death of his son, the spasmodic Indian attacks the panic of the settlers and his partner Col Donelson leaving, conditions strengthened his resolve to remain in Nashville and see that settlement pull through its crisis and enjoy prosperity. Thus leadership at Nashville passed to Robertson, who would for several years defend settlers against Indian attacks, preserve law and order and keep settlers motivated to stay.

During the Revolutionary War years, the idea of moving into new land appealed to many colonists. There were a few key factors that played a large part in the decision of these people, many scarcely into their twenties, to leave their familiar surroundings and go out into a wilderness teeming with danger and accompanied by extreme hardship. Times were hard and there were many troublesome problems in the colonies. The desire for one’s own land seized these colonists as they became aware of the land to the west inhabited only by Indians. For men who served in the Revolutionary War, the land was there for the taking (if the land companies didn’t get there first), since both VA and NC set aside land for payment to veterans, the amount depending upon rank and length of service. Many settlers were plagued with legal issues over their land titles. In addition, living under English law, the rule of primogeniture prevailed, which prescribed that only the

eldest son could inherit family land, and this was a serious problem for the sons of large families who faced the choice of striking out on their own with few financial resources or living under support of a brother and working land that could never be theirs nor their children’s. Given the difficult conditions of life back in VA and NC, and weighing the lure of free land and personal freedom in new country, many people decided to strike out on their own, even before they knew who would win the war. The Donelsons readily took advantage of veterans’ willingness to sell their land warrants, acquiring and reselling old lots of land and gaining more wealth.

Most Revolutionary war vets were young, illiterate and poor. They could hold on to war certificates; typically, one could only secure a warrant after a potential tract had had its boundaries located and marked and this cost money. Without the money to get to the military districts in KY or TN, or for paying for the surveys, most veterans found that their certificates were meaningless. Faced with a need for real money in the post-war economy, many vets sold their claims to speculators for bargain prices. Those who kept them were often swindled. Col Donelson bought out some of these folks, as well as obtaining his own land grants. By the time he died in 1786, his sons would inherit tracts in KY and TN. He and members of his extended family capitalized on the land deals and a few eventually became part of Nashville’s political and economic elite.

Taking advantage of lenient laws and unstable colonial and later federal governments, speculators established frontier stations, fortified settlements, as focal points from which to survey and get ownership of often contested lands. The stations in turn, increasingly concerned local Indian tribes, who feared the loss of their hunting grounds. A "station" was generally a single family’s log home that was at least one and one-half stories high and had "gun ports" constructed in the walls. It had heavy, thick wooden doors and shutters that could be barred from the

inside for protection. Neighbors living in less sturdy cabins would often gather at a station for protection when hostile Indians were in the area.

The physical layout of each station varied according to need. They were often not as well constructed as permanent cabins because the pioneers didn't plan on living there for more than a year or so. A station was usually different from a fort. Stations were smaller and were meant to be private residences. Each station was run by an individual who normally owned the land and housed his family. Other families, often relatives, sometimes lived in additional cabins nearby.

Beginning about 1775, many stations had been established in the Harrodsburg/Crab Orchard area. With the beginning of the Revolutionary War, the British ceased just observing immigration to the West and began urging Indian tribes to attack settlements. Besides encouragement, the British supplied arms and paid bounties for rebel scalps without regard to sex or age. The result was a vicious private war between the tribes and KY settlements separate from the conflict back in the colonies. War parties roamed through KY attacking settlers.

Some stations were stockaded for defense against the Indians and other families and individuals would go there for safety. Some of the more well known were located along the Wilderness Road that was in use by the KY immigrants. At one point, Boonsboro, Harrodsburg and St. Asaph's were the only settlements left in KY. The settlers either moved near them or returned east. By the time the Indian threats subsided years after Donelson's death, there was no need for the stations and most were deserted. Within an approximate 20 mile radius around Harrodsburg, there were probably 30 or so stations. The ones most likely linked to Col Donelson in one way or another are listed here:

Crab Orchard, in Lincoln County, was 12 miles from Lancaster, and 10 miles from Stanford, on the Wilderness Road. Davis or Davies’ Station, was about five miles west of Whitley's Station in Crab Orchard. There is

a Davis cemetery approximately 5.5 miles from Stanford on Highway 150 East. This is most likely where Davis Station stood and where The Donelsons first lived until they moved up to Bowman's Station in the Cane Run area.

Crow's Station, near present-day Danville; settled by John Crow in 1782. Crow's Station was originally a single dwelling built by John Crow himself on his land. This station is mentioned twice in connection with two important events in the life of that area. The first was the inauguration of a school in 1780, the Transylvania Seminary, which the VA Legislature endowed. Originally in a log cabin, the first school session was held in 1783. It is possible that Rachel Donelson might have attended there. The school moved to Lexington in 1789 and is today a university. The other event had to do with the change made in the location of the District Court held in Harrodsburg in 1783. The Attorney General at that time, Walker Daniel, designated a site near Crow's Station for holding territorial Court. He procured a log cabin large enough to accommodate the Court in one end and two juries in the other. He also contracted for the building a jail. The next year, Daniel laid off the town of Danville and sold lots but his operations were cut short when he was killed by Indians. Had Crow's Station/Danville existed prior to Col Donelson's arrival in KY, He might well have chosen to settle there to be close to the Territorial court.

Harrod's Station was settled by Col. James Harrod in 1774, about 6 miles southeast of present day Harrodsburg in the Cane Run area, on the road to present-day Danville. Harrod later constructed a fort during the winter of 1775-6, where Harrodsburg is today. Rachel Donelson married Lewis Robards in Harrodsburg in 1785.

In 1779, William Whitley located his home and station on Cedar Creek, about two miles Southwest of Crab Orchard. He planted 10 acres of corn but soon moved to Logan's Station several miles away at St. Asaph's Creek, (A stockade was under construction) now Stanford, KY.

Finding this unsuitable for protection against attack by Indians, he temporarily relocated his family to the protection of Fort Harrod, as did Benjamin Logan and his family and others. The wealthy Whitley built a large brick house for his family near Crab Orchard, KY. The estate was named Sportsman's Hill. It was the first brick house built in Kentucky and still stands, preserved as the "William Whitley House" State Historic Site.

Bowman's Station was named for Colonel John Bowman who was the first county lieutenant and military governor of Kentucky. He established his station in Cane Run, a few miles west of Burgin, and about six miles west of Harrodsburg in 1779. Elijah E. Foley recalled in an interview in 1855, "We started from Frederick CO, VA and settled at Bowman's Station about the middle of December, 1779; my mother was the first white woman that was there for some time and our coming was the first settling of station. There was nothing but a camp there till sometime in March 1779 because it was too cold to work. By Spring There were 20 farms. Col. John Donelson came, and settled at the edge of the Station, and remained there for four years. The Indians had broken them up at Nashville. Lewis Robards, who had settled between Harrodsburg and Danville at Cane Run, married Colonel Donelson's daughter.”

During the "Hard Winter" of 1779-80, seven families lived in adjacent cabins. These settlers endured the same severe winter conditions as the Donelson party in the famous water voyage. By spring 20 more families had settled. The Station had two rows of cabins 150 feet apart, crossed by another row in the form of an H, each half on the opposite side of a hollow through which a stream flowed into Cane Run Creek. The station was not stockaded. Col Bowman died in 1784 at age 50, and later his son, John Jr. built a house which still stands near the site of the original station. Col Donelson would eventually locate his family near there and live in the vicinity until 1785, when he would make the decision to return his family to Nashville. He was in East TN on business

when his family left KY without his daughter Rachel, who had married Lewis Robards. She would later meet Andrew Jackson at her father's home after separating from her husband.

Cane Run was a neighborhood or community encompassing several cabins and farms. Present day Burgin is just South of head of the Cane Run branch of the Dix (Originally it was called Dick's River). Settlers called the area where they lived Cane Run. East of Burgin and a short distance from the Bowman House is Herrington Lake. The lake is bordered by Boyle, Mercer and Garrard counties and other nearby towns are Danville, Harrodsburg, and Lancaster. The lake was formed in 1925 by the construction of a hydroelectric dam on the Dix River approximately 2 miles upstream from the confluence of the Dix and Kentucky Rivers. Burgin began as a town when the railroad came through many years after the Cane Run/Bowman's Station settlement.

In 1775, Col Benjamin Logan settled about a mile west of the present town of Stanford, where he built a station that he called St. Asaph's. Later known as Logan's Station, there were supposedly three blockhouses and seven cabins. Many Indian raids occurred there. This was a convenient stopping place for people who came up the Wilderness Road. Colonel Logan led a party through the Cumberland Gap at the same time as Daniel Boone but diverged from Boone's road to Boonsboro and went up the more important branch of the Wilderness Road to Crab Orchard.

In February 1781, Col Logan offered ten acres of land and several public buildings near Buffalo Springs for use as a county seat. Although the first county courthouse and jail were built at Buffalo Springs, it was decided that a new site at Stanford was more convenient. County facilities were relocated there in 1783. The court order authorizing the move was signed by Isaac Shelby, a friend of Col Donelson, who was later KY’s first governor. Today’s Main Street in Stanford is a remnant of the Wilderness Road. Logan’s station, which was located near the

existing Stanford downtown district, was the final jewel of the “triple crown” of forts in KY. Harrod's, Logan's, and Boone's stations were the important early stations in the area. This area grew despite the era of bloodshed which began almost simultaneously with the opening of the Revolutionary War. Some sources say the Cumberland Trace began at Logan’s Station. Others say the road began at Harrodsburg. Still others say it began at Danville. I believe there were branches of the trace which ran from each station.

Col Donelson, his wife and 11 children, including their youngest daughter and tenth child, Rachel, who was thirteen when the Donelsons arrived in KY, soon assumed their place with the backcountry elite. With their extensive political, financial and land speculation connections, the family first settled in Crab Orchard at Davis' Station. Crab Orchard lay at the junction of the Wilderness Road and the Cumberland Trace, placing the Donelsons on the main route for travelers between VA and Harrodsburg and between the Nashville settlements and KY. Through most of the 1780s, settlers still lived “forted up” together as protection from Indian attacks, and the settlers at Crab Orchard would encounter most of the new people moving into the region from the East. One of the reasons for the move to KY was to put his family in a more secure environment but the Donelson family was still subject to Indian troubles there.

Two examples of the dangers are these from 1782 after the Donelsons arrived:

1. Samuel Davies had moved to KY 1779. He was a lieutenant in Captain John Boyle's Company, Kentucky Militia. He lived at Whitley's Station then moved to some land nearby, where he built a cabin and cleared timber. While working in a field, he was surprised and attacked by an Indian. Attempting to reach the house, he found it full of Indians, and being unarmed, he concealed himself nearby. Unable to render aid to this family, he ran five miles to Davis Station, to get help from

brother James. Mrs. Davies and seven children in the house were taken prisoner. Upon arrival of the rescue party, they were gone, but the howling of the Davies' dog led them in the right direction. Upon the rescuers' approach, one of the Indians scalped the oldest son of Samuel Davies, then about eleven years old. Mrs. Davies saved herself and a nursing baby by jumping into a sink hole. The Indians fled.

2. One night in spring 1782, the Indians made a raid on a station at Crab Orchard and stole horses. The next day all the men in and about the fort went in pursuit, leaving only a slave with a lame hand at a resident's cabin and another man sick in another cabin close by. The children had been going to and from a spring all morning and had noticed nothing suspicious, except their dog would walk slowly and look towards the spring and growl. Towards dinner time, one of the kids, seventeen year old girl, had gone with her little brother, John, to a knoll not far from the house to gather greens, and a slave was in the yard playing with another child. Suddenly, the teen-ager saw an Indian sneaking along a path leading other warriors, and she gave the alarm. The slave ran to the cabin to shut the door, but the lead Indian rushed in and the two fought. The mother had secured the door. She grabbed a broad axe and hacked at the Indian, killing him. Meanwhile, the teen-ager ran with her little brother to the house of the sick neighbor, who though ill, seized his rifle and shot one of the Indians. The rest of the Indians retreated.

At the end of 1781 Col Donelson learned of Cornwallis' surrender. For a time, there was a lull in the Indian attacks. By 1782, an influx of veterans, both officers and men, seeking bounty lands reserved for them came into the area. The Revolutionary War ended in 1783 with the Treaty of Paris, but the fighting between among Indians and settlers would continue until 1795. Although the British asked their Indian allies to stop the attacks on the Americans, there was a great deal of hypocrisy in this request. The British continued to perform the old French role of resolving intertribal disputes while at the same time

encouraging an alliance to keep the Americans out of the KY country. The British provided aid and arms to the tribes from forts on American territory which they continued to occupy in violation of the peace treaty. In the 1780s, the new federal government had little power to enforce its edicts as evident in the Regulator movement and the State of Franklin. Nevertheless, as the Revolution drew to a close, the VA government sought to make peace with Indians. Ironically, in 1782, one of the two commissioners charged with this task for the Cumberland area was Col Donelson. They met in Nashville in 1783 to treat with the Indians. By December, 1783 Donelson’s co-commissioner, Joseph Martin, was defending Col Donelson in letters to the Governor of VA against the charge of neglecting his duty in relation to the Indian treaty, particularly the high expenses related to cost of hiring guides and an interpreter. Col Donelson had been brought before the VA governor for betraying the state’s interest in order to pursue his own agenda. Although no charges were ultimately leveled against Col Donelson, when new treaties with the Chickasaw and Cherokee nations were negotiated, he was not among the new treaty commissioners. The negotiations of 1783 failed to produce a viable treaty between the government and the Indians.

Since he was not involved in the next round of treaties concluded in the Holston in 1784 and 1785, he instead remained active in his business and land-speculative ventures in Kentucky and the Cumberland region until his death. He would soon gain another commission appointment by GA. The marriages of his heirs “tied together land speculators, planters, and merchants” as well as politicians including his most famous (Future) son-in-law, Andrew Jackson. Thus the Donelson family and others clamored to buy and survey former Indian lands. These years saw him away from home almost continuously.

In 1784, another extended family came up the Wilderness Road on their way to land they owned in Cane Run; the Robards of Goochland County, Virginia. George Robards and his youngest brother, Lewis, brought their recently widowed Mother, her large family and several slaves to settled on land they had purchased. The Robards lived first in Harrodsburg and then moved to their log cabins south of present day Burgin on Cane Run. The farm was known as the Widow Robards' place and today is the farm of the Isons on Buster Pike. The Donelsons had relocated from Crab Orchard to Cane Run. There are no records of their home but they were neighbors of the Robards and were living near Bowman's Station.

A 1914 newspaper article mentioned the home on the former Robards farm, called Glenworth, a Greek revival residence constructed in 1848. It is located 1700 feet east of Buster Pike in Mercer County. Burgin is approximately one and one-half miles northeast and Harrodsburg is five miles northwest. The article mentioned that within a few hundred yards of the house could be seen the ruins of the old stone house built by the Widow Robards. "Little is left of the pile of remains that the matted bluegrass blown by the wind droops over the stones and almost hides them from view." Today the widow’s first log cabin and the large stone house, in which she later lived, have disappeared. In this house, Rachel Donelson lived as the wife of Lewis Robards. In 1910, Mr. James H. Robards wrote a history of the Robards family in which he said: "Sojourning in the oldest town in the State and where the old Robards homestead had stood within easy distance of the town, though now only a pile of stones and huge square chimney remain to mark a spot where dwelt the widow Robards......". Mrs. Robards died at home in 1805. Her will is recorded in Mercer County records. To her heirs, she left many slaves, household furniture, cattle, and a fine line of horses and the “Plantation.”

Several years after Mrs. Robards emigrated with her family from VA she found that the log house which had been built for them, and served

their necessities when they first reached KY, had grown too small for them. Some Robards family researchers have opined that it was in the log house that Rachel lived after her marriage to Capt. Lewis Robards. She built the first stone house erected in central KY.

One Robards family tradition holds that Col Donelson’s wife lived for a time with her children in one of the Robards’s log houses, throwing Rachel and Lewis together but I think this just an old wives tale. I don't think this is correct. Well secured financially, Mrs. Donelson would have been living in her own well equipped home until the family's move back to Nashville.

Details as to how Rachel and Lewis actually met are uncertain. I think they might have grown close because they were on neighboring farms, attended the same social gatherings and likely attended the same church. Rev. David Rice had organized a Presbyterian Church in Cane Run in 1784. In March 1784, He baptized three children. For several years the men always carried their guns with them to church services. The first Presbyterian Conference in Kentucky was held there on 12 July, 1785. One attendee, Rev. Adam Rankin, apparently stirred up quite a controversy concerning the use of the Psalms in worship. It seems that he believed God spoke to him in dreams and this caused a rift among churchgoers over Psalmody. Psalmody was a way of singing the biblical Psalms. Rankin spent much of his life arguing against Psalmody. This is interesting as it infers, that despite common land disputes, worrisome Indians, and subsisting through harsh winters, the active churchgoers found time to argue and spar over how the psalms were to be verbalized. In 1792, Rankin would be suspended from the Presbyterian Church for his views. The church might also have been a factor in the Donelson's decision to move to Cane Run, as they would have had a church close by to attend.

The year 1785 would prove to be climactic for Col Donelson with daughter Rachel's marriage, his trip to Muscle Shoals, efforts to secure

thousands of acres of land for himself, and his family's return to Nashville while he was away.

Prior to her marriage, Rachel apparently had many suitors and she enjoyed having a good time attending dances and such. In any case, their courtship accelerated because the family had decided to move back to Nashville and wanted the marriage to take place prior to the move and before Col Donelson would leave that same month for Nashville. A marriage to the 27 year-old Robards, who had wealth and a large, influential kin network in KY and VA to match that of the Donelsons, would certainly have been advantageous to both families. Col Donelson gave his permission for Rachel to marry in February, and on March 1, 1785, the two were married at Harrodsburg. They lived with the Robards’s widowed mother, along with several other Robards siblings and their young children, boarders, and several slaves. Rachel’s own family moved back to Nashville that summer after Col Donelson went to Muscle Shoals.

The couple lived there about three years, until the late summer or early fall of 1788. Lewis was apparently was insanely jealous, sending her away several times to stay in other homes, then begging her to come back. She carried on some sort of affair with a man named Peyton Short. In 1787, Peyton Short became a boarder at the Robards’s place. Short was a graduate of William and Mary, heir to a plantation fortune, and his brother, William, was secretary to Thomas Jefferson, then ambassador to France. Captain Robards fretted over the flirtation of his wife with Short and took Rachel to task about it. The uneasiness between the couple continued to grow and it upset Lewis’s mother. In the third year of her marriage, Rachel “was compelled ... by her husband" to leave Kentucky and live with her Mother in Nashville. A letter was written by Lewis to Mrs. Donelson, asking her to take her daughter into her home in Nashville. Rachel's brother, Sam Donelson, went after her in late summer 1788 and took her down the Cumberland Trace to TN.

Again following Col Donelson’s travels, apparently by muddled, perhaps unethical means, he, William Blount, John Sevier, Joseph Martin and other associates acquired a land claim in Muscle Shoals in 1783 and maneuvered GA to set up a county, called Houston, in the Muscle Shoals area on February 20, 1784. The next day, the legislature appointed commissioners to govern it. The "Bent” or bend was the district within along the Tennessee River, where it swings down into AL, then Northwest. After his daughter's marriage, Col Donelson headed for Muscle Shoals with his appointments as GA commissioner and also as surveyor. The Blount group accurately predicted that the course of settlement would be in the TN Valley and into the Great Bend, but were over-optimistic as they looked ahead to the day when settlement might occur, much as had occurred in middle TN in lands purchased by Judge Henderson. Attempts at settlement were made but these were hampered by Indian troubles. It was apparent that no permanent settlement could be made until the Chickamauga and their Creek allies, farther South, could be subdued. Sevier had hoped to send the troops of Franklin against the Indians, in combination with troops from Georgia. But the expedition, though formally planned, never came off. In the ensuing complex disputes over treaties, cessions and new authority of the federal government, Col Donelson, for his part, would lose his claim to vast acreage.

Years later in 1817/1818, attempts were still in progress to resolve land disputes. In a petition "for himself in right of his wife, and as agent for the heirs and representatives of John Donelson, deceased", filed with the GA legislature in 1817, Andrew Jackson used the following depositions to substantiate his claim:

A Mr. J. M. Lewis of Maury county, TN, made a deposition that he joined some GA commissioners in Jonesborough, TN in 1785, while they were on their way down the Tennessee river, to open a land office at Muscle Shoals. Days later, Lewis related that he met with Col Donelson, (One of the commissioners) at Thomas Hutching's home in

Hawkins CO. Afterwards, Lewis accompanied Col Donelson and other commissioners on the trip to the Muscle Shoals area and witnessed talks with Indians. Lewis was present at the land office opening. Lewis said he got a deputation from Col Donelson as surveyor for some land. The commissioners then (between December 20 and 25, 1785) adjourned to meet later at the mouth of Elk River.

In a deposition made in December, 1815, John Peyton, stated that sometime in March, 1785, he accompanied Colonel Donelson, David Henry, and others, to the mouth of Elk River for the purpose of meeting some other commissioners. When they arrived, the other commissioners weren't there; they waited about a week but Col Donelson thought it unsafe to remain because of the Indian threat. He wrote a note to the other commissioners and left with Peyton for Nashville while four men stayed to wait on the others. Later, Col Donelson was informed that the other commissioners never showed. Peyton understood that Col Donelson went from Nashville to the Holston country for the purpose of meeting the other commissioners, and while returning home in 1786, was killed by Indians.

David Henry deposed in 1817 that in spring, 1785, Col Donelson hired Henry to go with him to Muscle Shoals/Elk River. They departed Nashville in March to meet the GA commissioners. When they arrived, they found no one there, and after waiting some time, thought it was not safe to stay longer, and he, Col Donelson and others departed from the Elk river and made their way back to Nashville. Henry believed that Col Donelson later went to the Holston country. On his way home, Col Donelson was killed by Indians in 1786.

That spring of 1786, he left the Big Bend for home. Some historians have written that he first went to Pittsylvania CO VA to settle some matters, and then proceeded back to Nashville via KY. The Cumberland Trace was a dangerous trail because there were no stations where settlers in the early days of the 1780s could gather to counter-attack

Indian raids. Arriving at Crab Orchard, he probably stayed with friends at Davis or Whitley station. This is probably where he learned that his family had made a successful trip down the Cumberland Trace, again taking up their residence temporarily at Mansker's station. After a few days rest and probably settling some land business, he started south to join them. On the morning of his departure two men, John Telly and a man named Leach, asked permission to accompany him on the journey, saying that they, too, were bound for Nashville. Several days later the two men appeared alone at Mansker's Station and reported Col Donelson's death to his family. They related that they had traveled with Col Donelson. Arriving at a spring near the trace, they stopped to rest. Col Donelson rode on, telling them that he was anxious to reach home. He had not gone far when they heard several shots. Their impression at the time was that his sons had met him on the way and were firing a salute. After resting for a while, they resumed their journey and overtook him, severely wounded and in great agony, but still riding along the road. They figured he had been shot by Indians. He was wounded in the abdomen and one knee. He had Leach push in his protruding intestines, ate some bread and buffalo tongue, and died within an hour of eating. He was buried near the spring. They had camped together at sundown on the north bank of the Barren River, and during the night Col Donelson died. The next morning they buried his body near the river, taking his horse, saddle and saddle-bags. As they crossed the river, the saddle-bags fell into the water and were washed away. At the time of Col Donelson's death on the trail, it was still dangerous to travel on the Wilderness Road and the Cumberland Trace. Those who journeyed either way usually joined together in groups or hired armed escorts if they had the means. A well armed group was much less likely to be attacked by Indians or thieves. An 1802 Warren CO law suit mentions Benjamin French, a guide hired to escort a woman from Nashville to KY. He demanded his pay from her while escorting her up

the trace through the Barrens; they disagreed on the amount and she defended the suit alleging that he coerced her to sign a 20 pound note as her escort, or else he would cut her horses loose and leave her stranded. We don't know whether Col Donelson traveled up the Wilderness Road alone or with others but when he struck out on the Cumberland Trace he intended to travel alone until Telly and Leach joined him.

The sons took one of the young men with them and returned to the Barren River in search of their father's remains and for evidence to confirm the story of his death. They found the body and surroundings very much as the two men had described. The saddle-bags had contained many valuable papers, and it was believed a large amount of money also. Some distance downstream from where the crossing was alleged to have taken place the saddle-bags and some of the papers were found, but the money was missing. The men were arrested for murder but with little evidence of their guilt, they were subsequently released.

I haven't found a source to indicate exactly where Col Donelson was shot or where he is buried. I think his death occurred near where Drake's Creek meets the Barren River in Bowling Green and he was buried in that vicinity. In Bowling Green there is a "Big Spring” downtown. The spring once ran through Spring Alley, located behind the Main Street Businesses. Ironically, there was a station nearby. McFadin's (Mcfadden Mcfaddin) Station was located between the Barren River trace crossing and the mouth of Drake Creek. Begun a year prior to Col Donelson's death, I've often wondered why people there wouldn’t have heard the gunshots. The two men never mentioned McFadin's Station or if they did, that part of the story is lost. Perhaps the shooting occurred too far away to be heard by the residents there or they might have been away at the time. There is a Historical marker in Bowling Green which reads, "First

settlement in Warren County, 1/4 mi. east, was on north side of Barren River near mouth of Drakes Creek. Andrew McFadden, Rev. War soldier from N.C., surveyed area and established station, 1785. It was a popular stopover on Cumberland Trace."

In 1790, Mansker's Fort took in two new boarding guests: John Overton and Andrew Jackson, who moved from their private quarters on the widow Donelson's place. Both Overton and Jackson had become involved, although in different ways, in the family anxiety that had attended the estrangement and divorce of Rachel Donelson from her husband Lewis Robards. Jackson remained at Mansker's until his marriage to Rachel at Natchez in 1791 but that's a whole 'nother story... The cause of Col Donelson’s death remains a mystery. Col Donelson led the famous expedition on flatboats to and co-founded Nashville in 1779 with James Robertson. He no doubt would have become much more well known in the history books had he not abandoned Nashville for KY and subsequently been killed in 1786.

SOURCES

NETWORKS IN NEGOTIATION: THE ROLE OF FAMILY AND KINSHIP IN INTERCULTURAL DIPLOMACY ON THE TRANS-APPALACHIAN FRONTIER, 1680-1840 Dissertation by Natalie Inman. Graduate School of Vanderbilt December, 2010 Nashville, Tennessee Park City Daily News Bowling Green, Kentucky FROM NEWSPAPER CLIPPING monday april 14, 1997, page 1A http://www.thetracyfamilyhistory.net/Cn_55_Anderson_Co.htm The Tracy Family History Anderson County, Tennessee http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~kyfayett/elijah_foley.htm THE HISTORY OF ELIJAH FOLEY AND HIS FAMILY THE HISTORY OF ELIJAH FOLEY AND HIS FAMILY, AFTER WHOM "FOLEY'S LANDING" SUBDIVISION IS NAMED A Fayette County Kentucky Story © 2003 by Nancy Foley Johnson Contributed to the KY GenWeb Project The Life and Times of Andrew Jackson The Jeffersonian Publishing Co. THOMAS E. WATSON 1912 http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/North_America/United_States_of_America/Kentucky/Bowling_Green-786476/Things_To_Do-Bowling_Green-TG-C-1.html#tip=1798045#ixzz1dBgEXn4y

The Civil and Political History of Tennessee, John Haywood. Ayer Co Pub (January 1971) p. 97.

Wilderness Road: a description of the routes of travel by which the pioneers and early settlers first came

to Kentucky 1886 (Google eBook) Thomas Speed pp. 63-65

O’Malley and John Walter Wayland’s The Bowmans: A Pioneering Family in Virginia, Kentucky and the Northwest Territory, Staunton, VA, 1943.

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~carpenter/manuscript.html

http://boards.ancestry.com/localities.northam.usa.states.indiana.counties.posey/1129.1325.1330/mb.ashx

History of middle Tennessee: or, Life and times of Gen. James Robertson. by A. W. PUTNAM, Printed By A. A. Stitt, Southern Methodist Publishing House, Nashville, Tenn. 1859,

Colonel Sandi Gorin Gorin Genealogical Publishing: http://members.delphi.com/gorin1/index.html 205 Clements,Glasgow, KY 42141 (270) 651-9114 or E-fax (707)222-1210 Logan's Fort article. issue for April 2006, The Historical News P.O. Box 1068, Hiram, GA 30141 Tennessee, a Short History Robert Ewing Corlew University of Tennessee Press Knoxville, TN 1969 http://frank.mtsu.edu/~lnelson/Toplovich04.htm Marriage, Mayhem, & Presidential Politocs: The Robards-Jackson Backcountry Scandal By Ann Toplovich Tennessee Historical Society A Being So Gentle The Frontier Love Story of Rachel and Andrew Jackson By Patricia Brady Palgrave McMillan 175 5th Avenue, NY, NY10010 2011 Filson Club Publications Number Two. The Wilderness Road By Thomas Speed Copyrighted by John P. Morton & Co. 1886 http://genforum.genealogy.com/cgi-bin/pageload.cgi?lewis::robards::122.html

"Pittsylvania Packet" Nos 24 & 25. Summer 1997 Pittsylvania Historical Society, Chatham, Virginia Originally pub lished in the Chatham Star-Tribune in July, 1995.

History of Kentucky Collins historical sketches of Kentucky Authors Lewis Collins, Richard H. Collins Revised Edition

Publisher Genealogical Publishing Com, 1998 ISBN 0806345640, 9780806345642 Length 683 pages 1770-1790 census of the Cumberland settlements: Davidson, Sumner, and Tennessee Counties (in what is now Tennessee) (Google eBook) Richard Carlton Fulcher, Genealogical Publishing Com, 1987 - History - 253 pages http://jtenlen.drizzlehosting.com/mcafee/church/church2.html

REGISTER Kentucky State Historical Society VOL 29 January, 1931 No. 86 THE HISTORY OF THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE FIRST SETTLEMENT ON SALT RIVER AND ESTABLISHMENT OF THE NEW PROVIDENCE CHURCH. By ROBERT B. McAFEE http://people.virginia.edu/~mgf2j/germans.html Birth of American Frontier Culture Germans Mitchell G. Farish 2310 Center Avenue Charlottesville, VA 22903 Phone: (434) 293-5819 E-mail: mgf2j@virginia.edu The Family of John Donelson NETWORKS IN NEGOTIATION: THE ROLE OF FAMILY AND KINSHIP IN INTERCULTURAL DIPLOMACY ON THE TRANS-APPALACHIAN FRONTIER, 1680-1840 By Natalie Inman Approved Dissertation December, 2010 Nashville, Tennessee HISTORY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE; OR, LIFE AND TIMES OF GEN. JAMES ROERTSON. BY A.W. PUTNAM Nashville, Tenn.: Printed for the author. STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY A.A. STITT, SOUTHERN METHODIST PUBLISHING HOUSE, NASHVILLE, TENN. 1859 http://jtenlen.drizzlehosting.com/mcafee/life/life1.html The Life and Times of Robert B. McAfee and His Family and Connections. Written by Himself. Commenced April 23rd, 1845. http://www.bcga2.org/Articles/JohnCaldwell/default.aspx Boyle County Genealogical Association John Caldwell, the immigrating ancestor of the Caldwell family in Boyle County

Submitted by Carolyn B. Crabtree http://www.raisemyebenezer.com/history/rankin.htm Ebenezer Presbyterian Church Reverend Adam Rankin Served 1793-1803 http://www.wnpt.org/productions/rachel/rachel_mardiv/robard3.html History and Genealogy of the Robards Family Land Speculation, Popular Democracy and Political Transformation on the Tennessee Frontier, 1780-1800 By Kristofer Ray, doctoral candidate in history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and recipient of the Wills Research Fellowship for 2001, awarded by the Tennessee Historical Society. The Appalachian Frontier. America's First Surge Westward by John Anthony Caruso University of Tennessee Press 2003 Originally published 1959. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Chapter 13 Settlements on the Cumberland http://www.kentuckyexplorer.com/nonmembers/08-05story.html kyex1@mac.com The Kentucky Explorer P.O. Box 227 Jackson, KY 41339 Andrew Jackson Secured a Wife From Kentucky Backwoods By Woodford V. Dick - 1914 http://www.jchistory.com/pages/early_history.htm HISTORY OF JACKSON COUNTY, ALABAMA by John Robert Kennamer, Decatur, Al 1935: Condensed by Josephine Lindsay Bass on July 26, 1996. Congressional edition By United States. Congress LETTER FROM THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY, TRANSMITTING A STATEMENT OF THE NAMES OF THE CLERKS IN THE TREASURY DEPARTMENT AND THE COMPENSATION ALLOWED TO EACH, FOR SERVICES RENDERED DURING THE YEAR 1817. February 2, 1818 Washington: Printed by E. De Kraft 1818 The "reports", "documents", and the Journals of Congress were issued in a "collected edition" known as the Serial Set or Congressional Edition. The United States Congressional Serial Set, commonly referred to as the Serial Set, began publication with the 15th Congress, 1st Session (1817). The Serial Set

contains the House and Senate Documents and the House and Senate Reports. The reports are usually from congressional committees dealing with proposed legislation and issues under investigation.