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Black

Black is a Scottish name associated with clans Lamont, Macgregor and Maclean. About 1790, Mary Ann Black married William Davis, a Revolutionary War soldier born in Virginia in 1753 who died and was buried in Maynard’s Cove on Sand Mountain in 1848. She was a daughter of Black Fox, at that time a lieutenant in Dragging Canoe’s Chickamauga army fighting the Tennesseans.

Black Fox signed the Holston Treaty, July 2, 1791 (but not the stipulation of February 7, 1792) and delivered the funeral oration for his brother-in-law Dragging Canoe. He was originally chief of the lower town of Ustanali and became principal chief of the Cherokee after the death of Little Turkey in 1802.  He signed the October 20, 1803 agreement for opening a road through the Cherokee Nation as "Principal Chief," as well as the Oct. 27, 1805, Jan. 7, 1806, and Sept. 11, 1807 treaties. On March 3, 1807, the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives enacted a statute at large giving "the Cherokee chief, called Black Fox" a life annuity of $100. He sided with Chief Doublehead during the rebellion of 1806-1810 and was deposed for it, with Pathkiller taking his place. On April 18, 1810, he and others signed an act of the Cherokee Nation abolishing clan revenge. After this he was reinstated as principal chief. He last received his $100 stipend by proxy on July 11, 1810; the agent Return J. Meigs referred to him as "Black Fox Cherokee King." The chief had his nation cede 7,000 square miles of land to the government, giving a ceremonial wampum belt to Col. Meigs as a token of his faith in transferring Muscle Shoals, with its iron ore deposits. Younger chiefs forged his name to certain treaties and acts. He died in 1811 and was buried in an ancient tomb on the boundary between Cherokee and Creek lands in Blount Co., Ala. His name was carried on by the Black Fox who signed the treaty of 1828 and emigrated west. Some descendants remained in the East around his former chief’s residence at Creek Path on Sand Mountain. A sister married John Looney of the family that established the Looney Tavern, near where Black Fox was eventually entombed. There are rumors that a Black Fox changed his name to Henry White and moved from Alabama to Ohio. Black Fox's hunting camp was on the Stones River near Murphreesboro, Tenn. and is mentioned on a map of 1783.

Blackfox in English designates the medium-sized fur-bearing animal known as the fisher, a type of very elusive martin that lives in caves and feeds primarily on bats. The red or gray fox is called chula in Cherokee. Famously, the word enola has no meaning in the Cherokee language, and historians have been hard put to explain it, the reason, I think, being that it is Hebrew, usually a woman’s name, as in the “Enola Gay,” the flying fortress that delivered the first atom bomb, named after the mother of one of the pilots. It may have been the name of Black Fox’s mother, who married a Black. In the same way, another Chickamauga mixed blood chief, Thomas Glass, who signed the treaty of Tellico next to Chief Black Fox, was known as The Glass, or “Tunnquetihee” (Dagwadihi “Cawtaba-killer”). His was Nickajack Town opposite the end of Sand Mountain near Chattanooga. Glass is also a Scottish clan, originating in France. It is remembered for the religious sect known as the Glassites, who taught that every meeting of worshipers constituted a church in itself. Chief Glass appears to have begun life in white South Carolina and served in the home guard:  Glass, Thomas (S. C.). 2d Lieutenant South Carolina Rangers,—; in service 1779 and  1780. A William Glass then bought land in Watauga near John Sevier and James and Charles Robertson; see Wash. Co. Deeds, Vol. 5, pp. 220, 223. A granddaughter, Sarah, married William L. Cooper, the son of Isaac and Mahala Jane Cooper, in Marion County, Tenn. about 1830 and they moved to Wilkes County, N.C.

On Chief Black Fox's tomb the following description was written in An Account of Some Creek, Cherokee and Earlier Inhabitants of Blount County (George Powell, "A Description and History of Blount County," Transactions of the Alabama Historical Society at the Annual Meeting in the City of Tuscaloosa, July 9 and 10, 1855, pp. 60-64):

     At the time Blount was settling, we must recollect that the Cherokee Indians were the lords of all that portion of country lying between Wills Creek [in the valley between Sand Mountain and Lookout Mountain] and the Chattahoochee river.... Some years after [1820], the northeast boundary of Blount was extended to Cherokee and Creek Indians, then residing in Brown's and Gunter'sValleys....

     Most of the first settlers of Blount as well as those of the adjoining counties, believed that lead mines existed in Blount and Jefferson counties, and that the Indians knew their location and obtained lead from them. Perhaps, this general belief originated from the following circumstance, which occurred in 1810:

     An old Cherokee Chief, named Black Fox, died in the north of our county, and was buried in an old mound; and in digging his grave, the Indians found some pieces of lead ore. This trivial discovery was magnified and circulated in Madison Count, and many intelligent persons in the county believed a lead mine really existed, at, or near the grave of the old Chief. This opinion became so strong, that Alexander Gilbreath, who then resided in Huntsville, was induced to visit the grave of Black Fox. His search there, proving unsuccessful.... Mr. George Fields, at that time fifty or sixty years old, informed him that the Indians knew of no lead mines nearer than those of Missouri and Illinois, and gave it as his opinion, that the lead found in the grave of Black Fox, had been brought from one of those States. John Gunter, (another old inhabitant of the valley, who had been brought up among the Chickasaws, and spent all his life with the Indians,) gave the same opinion, as to the pieces of lead which had been found in different parts of the county, viz: that they had been brought by the Indians from the northern mines. These two   persons informed Mr. Gilbreath, that as far back as Indian memory extended, it was the custom of the Creeks to cross the Tennessee river near Deposit, (Baird’s Bluff) and make long hunting expeditions, annually to the north, bringing with them, on their return, lead ore. - That the settling of Tennessee by the whites was a great obstacle in their way to the mines - particularly to those of Rock river. - That the Indians had then, in order to reach the mines, to bear lower down the Tennessee river, and that as the whites of Tennessee continued to extend their settlements westward, the difficulties in the way of the Creeks to the mines, were continually increasing. To this account, it may be added, that a company of Creeks, on a returning expedition of the above kind, murdered two or three white families, which led to the Indian war of 1812, at the close of which, they were finally barred from the mines by treaty.

     Although it cannot be doubted, that the Indians brought lead ore into Blount from distant mines, yet this fact does not account for the pieces which have been found in the mounds....The mounds above spoken of, are heaps of earth in the form of pyramids. They are supposed to mark the burial places of the Chiefs. Some of them are very old, having upon their tops, growing trees of very large size. These mounds are to be found in thirteen different places in our county. Two or three of them are generally grouped together, or within a half mile of each other. In Murphree'sValley, there is one group consisting of three mounds,  from four to seven in height. In the trough of the Locust Fork, there are five distinct groups. - In Blountsville Valley, (and near Blountsville) there is one; and in Brown's Valley one. North-west of the Mulberry Fork, there are four groups. These mounds are invariably in the valleys, on, or near the best bodies of land. This fact proves pretty clearly that the Indian settlements were in the valleys. Some knowledge of agriculture, may have led them to settle there, or it may have been the greater abundance of game and water found in such places. About these mounds, great quantities of flint spikes are found, which some persons believe were used as arrow-heads, but they seem unfit for such a purpose. The efficiency of the arrow, depends in a great degree upon its velocity; and arrows of sufficient strength to give great velocity to these spikes, would be so heavy, that all the power of the archer would fail to give them the force requisite to enter the vitals of a large animal. If we consider them as knives, there would be many uses for them: - such as skinning animals, severing the carcass, scaling fish, and cutting or sawing vegetable substances. Some of these spikes are six inches long, and weigh nearly a pound.

     These placed on poles would be similar to the Mexican lance, and would be very useful against dangerous animals....Besides the mounds mentioned above, we find in different places in our county, heaps of stones, which are supposed to be graves of Indians. In many other places, numerous pieces of broken pottery are found; and near the junction of the Little Warrior and Locust Fork, we have the remains of an old fortification, (enclosing about half an acre) three sides of which are yet plainly to be seen….

    It has been stated on a previous page, that the settlement of Blount might be considered as complete with the close of the year 1818. The settlement at that date, however,did not include the portion, since known as Brown's Valley. It is difficult to determine accurately, when that portion of our county was first settled by the whites. The Cherokee Indians, held a kind of possession of it until 1838, or '39. Besides the Cherokees, there was a colony of two hundred refugee Creeks settled there, and governed by John Shannon, a half-blood Creek. The Indians called him John Ogee. This colony of Creeks was brought there for protection, soon after the Creek war commenced, by Col. Richard Brown, (a Cherokee Chief who resided in the valley,) and remained there until the removal of the Cherokees, with whom they emigrated.

     In 1818, Col. Brown went to Washington City for the avowed purpose of selling to the whites, or ceding by treaty, all that portion of country. He advised the Indians to hold themselves in readiness to leave the country on his return. They accordingly assembled at Gunter's Landing, for the purpose of emigrating; but the death of Col. Brown shortly afterwards, (who died at Rogersville, in Hawkins County, Tennessee,) prevented, for many years, the ratification of the treaty, and consequently the removal of the Indians. As soon, however, as it was known that the Indians had collected together with a view to emigrating, the restless whites thronged into the country which they had abandoned, and obtained such hold, that they could never be entirely driven out. Brown's Valley at this time, showed a motley population of Cherokees, Creeks, and whites. The United States troops cut down the growing crops of the whites, and burned their houses; but with all this severity, they were unable to clear the valley of their presence. This portion of territory gave great trouble to the citizens of old Blount, as it prevented the  ordinary execution of the laws in many instances...It continued to annoy the people of our county until the year 1832, when the Legislature extended the laws of the State over it.

Blevins

The Blevinses were an old Welsh family who emigrated in the 1600s to Rhode Island and were later prominent in the vanguard of the settlement of Tennessee and Kentucky. William Blevins, a long hunter in Pittsylvania County, married Agnes Walling/Walden, the sister of Elisha Walling (for whom Walden’s Ridge is named), and Blevinses were among the signers of the Watauga Purchase on March 19, 1775. Jonathan Blevins (about 1763 – about 1830), like his twin brother Richard, was a Revolutionary War soldier in the Upper New River Valley. During the shift of the Cherokee population southward in the 1820s and 1830s, the two brothers bought land in Marion Co., Tenn. Elections were held in Jonathan’s house on the stage road in District 4, Cave Springs, between Sequatchie River, Walden's Ridge and Cumberland Mountain. Jonathan was married to Charlotte Muse, the daughter of Richard Muse, a wealthy land agent who disposed of over 2400 acres of land in Montgomery/Wythe/Grayson Co., Va. before settling in what became Campbell Co., Tenn. Most of Jonathan and Lottie Muse’s children avoided the Trail of Tears, though a cousin also named Richard Blevins (about 1785 – after 1850) seems to have embraced it, discarding his white wife for two Jones sisters and moving west to Cape Girardieu, Mo., finally ending up in Texas. Two sisters Lucretia (Creecy) and Mahala Jane (Linny) married two brothers, James and Isaac Cooper, but the two couples were divided in the commotions of the 1830s and 40s, with Lucretia Cooper and her family migrating to Marion Co., Ark., and Jane Cooper and her family managing to remain in the East, in Deerhead Cove. The children of Jonathan’s twin brother, Richard (about 1763-after 1839), who was married to Hannah Osbourne, changed their name to Blevans and pursued a different survival strategy, some moving west to Missouri after spending a few years in Marion Co., Tenn. and Jackson Co., Ala. Throughout all their moves, the Blevins were careful to support other members of their circle. For example, Richard Blevins served as character witness for Jacob Troxell in Marion Co., Tenn. in 1832, before Jacob too moved on to DeKalb Co., Ala., and William Blevins gave an affidavit in 1850 for his widowed sister Jane Cooper in Dade Co., Ga. Jonathan (Jont) Blevins (1779-1863) married Catherine (Katie) Troxell, the daughter of George Jacob Troxell and his Cherokee wife Cornblossom (his brother Tarleton married her sister Mary Polly Troxell), and he was the commander of road work near the Little South Fork River in Wayne Co., Ky.

During the Civil War, many of the Blevins men, most of them railroaders like their Cooper cousins, joined the U.S. cavalry of Tennessee. Afterward, they and their Cooper relatives were forced to leave Deerhead Cove and move to New Hope across the state line on the other end of Sand Mountain. The men are usually described as having been fairly tall, lean, of dark complexion, with dark hair and either blue, green or yellow eyes – a physical type similar to Moroccan Jews. Many Blevinses are buried either in Cagle Cemetery in Deerhead Cove or New Hope Cemetery on Sand Mountain.

Blevins DNA proved to be E3b, the second most common Hebrew male lineage after J and a gene type found frequently in Moorish and Berber families (WSWJ).

Brown

Brown may originally have been Pardo, a common Converso and Marrano name. “The whole business of ‘Jewish’ names is quite confusing. There was a definite tendency on the part of the immigrant Jews in those days to drop their Spanish and their German Jewish names, as they passed through England, and to appropriate English names. Thus it is that we find them in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with such names as Phillips, Brown, Rice, Hays, Henry, Laney, Simson, Jones, and the like” (Marcus 1973, vol. II, p. 249). “Saul Pardo (‘brown’) blossomed forth as Saul Brown” (vol. I, p. 35). The Jewish origins of this Cherokee family can be seen in the names they favored for their children (Alexander, Alice, Rebecca, Cassie, David, Eli, Ephraim, Goldie, Hulda, Isom, Julia, Minnie, Nely, Sarah, Silas, Sylvia, Violet, and Zachariah), as well as in their marriage partners’ surnames (Barton, Burke, Cooper, Craze, Fields, Frazier, Gilbreath, Guess/Gist, Harris, Hearne, Jean/Jane, Lowrey, Proctor, Ross, Ruth, Sizemore, Vann, White, and Yates).

A notable member of the Brown clan was Capt. John Brown, born about 1756, residence Creek Path in 1817. He was a packhorseman for the Cherokee traders, and later a Chickasaw trader and partner of Jerome Courtonne. His sister married Oconostota, the Beloved Warrior of Great Tellico. (Brent Cox, Heart of the Eagle, 1999.) Chief Brown died Oct. 24, 1861 in Sallishaw, Indian Territory.

Chief John Ross’s (1790-1866) wife was a Brown, and trader Alexander Brown married a daughter of Chief Dragging Canoe, Naky Sarah. There are at least seven Chickamauga Chief Browns, most of them associated with Creek Path. The Browns supplied so many soldiers for the Creek War that their contingent was called “Brown’s army.” After Horse Shoe Bend, they were granted extensive lands in western Alabama. They operated Brown’s Ferry across the Tennessee River near Chattanooga as well as the military road that came in later and were also involved in ironworks.

A large ironworks had been established by Daniel Ross and Company, in Hawkins Co., Tenn., in the heart of the Watauga Country near the present-day community of Rotherwood. John Ross was captured by the Chickamaugans in Francis Mayberry's boat on the Tennessee River in 1785. John McDonald, the British Indian agent, a Scotsman from Inverness, retained him to help start a trading post and he afterward married McDonald's daughter, Mary, whose mother was a halfblood Cherokee, the daughter of the former interpreter. His son John Ross was McDonald's heir. McDonald and Ross moved from Sequatchie Valley to what became Rossville, Ga. at the foot of Lookout Mountain around 1800 (John P. Brown, Old Frontiers).

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