Governor William Hall
Written by Jay Guy Cisco
From Historic Sumner County,
Tennessee
1909
In the June number of the Southwester Monthly, published in Nashville in 1856, now very scarce, and accessible to but few readers, was published "Hall's Narrative," from which I take the following:
"I was born in Surry County, North Carolina, in the year 1775, and my father sold his possessions in North Carolina in 1779, and started for Kentucky. He came on to New River, in Virginia, and purchased a tract of land and remained there to 1785. He did this in consequence of the times being so perilous and troublesome that he could not then get through the wilderness with his family. He sold his plantation there in the fall of 1785 and moved to Sumner County, which was made a county that year, arriving here on the 20th of November, 1785. He settled near Bledsoe's Lick on the spot where I am at present residing. Leaving his family at Bledsoe's' Fort, he came out during that winter, put up buildings and moved his family to the place. In the spring of 1786 the Indians came and stole all his horses, twelve or fifteen in number. He then moved his family back to the fort, and continued there until the next fall. He then returned and lived here until the summer of 1787, the Indian War having broken out during the summer of that year. My brother James was killed on the 3d of June, in 1787, at this place, being the first white person killed in this section after the war broke out. The circumstances are these:
James and myself went to a field at Mr. Gibson's about a quarter a mile from my father's house, we having put our horses up there, and the Indians fifteen in number, had ambuscaded the road, ten lying behind some logs on the road, and five, about fifty yards further up in a treetop, at the gap in the pasture fence. The ten Indians behind the log let us pas them - I suppose because we were boys, probably intending to quietly tomahawk us. Btu after we passed the ten rose up with their tomahawks in their right hands and their guns in their left. I was noticing them, and my brother was close behind me. As I turned to speak to him about some corn with which to catch the horses, as we were near the fence, I saw the whole ten hemming us in. The case looked so hopeless that I never dreamed of resistance, and had concluded at once to surrender. But the next thing I saw two of them struck my brother as he turned around, each striking their tomahawks into his brain one on each side of the forehead. Instantly seeing the case was hopeless, I sought to dodge the ten, when up rose the other five from the treetop, and as I fled past them, I was so near to them that some of them raised their tomahawks to strike me down. Dashing into the thick canebrake, close by which the road ran, two of them rushed after me. Being thirteen years of age, and, of course, slimmer than they were, and withal very active, I soon found that, unencumbered with gun or anything else, I could make my way through the thick cane faster than they could. The first misstep that befell me, a grapevine caught me by the neck, threw me over backwards, and took off my hat; but, recovering myself, I still fled onward, gaining on them at every jump. I feared, at last, that they would cut me off at the point of a ridge which I had to cross to get to my father's house, since the thick cane terminated a little distance below, and I should there be compelled to leave it. Watching one fellow, who was running along the hillside were the cane was the thickest, as Heaven ordered it, a large tree had fallen right in his path, crushing the cane about in all directions, and forming an insurmountable obstacle, thus compelling him to go around one end or the other. Fortunately, he took down towards me to get around the top, and by the time he had got to the end of it, I had already passed it, and consequently had them the whole tree behind me. They, however, ran me to within 100 yards of the house. They killed and scalped my poor brother and then fled. As I got to the house a half dozen young men and as many young women were coming on a visit to my father's. The young men were all armed, and they at once jumped off their horses and ran back with me to where my brother was lying, and brought him in. The word immediately given out, the fort being only about a mile distant, and five men under Major James Lynn instantly went in pursuit of the Indians. The latter had taken buffalo trace from Bledsoe's Lick to Dickson's Lick through the canebrake, and the Major, being an old Indian fighter, told his men that they would not pursue directly after them for fear of an ambush, but as they, the whites, were the fewest, they would take another trace, which led on to Goose Creek ahead, and where the trace crossed they could there find out whether the gang had passed. Pursuing this plan, they came upon the Indians right in the creek, and, firing upon them, they fled, two of them being wounded, leaving their baggage behind them. The whites brought back my poor brother's scalp, which had been tied to a pack, and likewise one of the tomahawks with which he had been killed, the blood still upon it.
My father was not at home when my brother was killed, having been summoned to Nashville to attend a council General Robertson was holding with Little Owl and others of the Cherokee chiefs.
After my father returned from Nashville, three families of us residing out from the fort held a council as to whether we should spend the summer at the farms or go to the fort at Bledsoe's Lick. Our two neighbors were Messrs. Gibson and Harrison, and the former having no white family, it was agreed that the three should combine and hire each two young men to guard the farms through the season. From the 3d of June, accordingly, the day after my brother was killed, to the 2d day of August, we had no alarm, but on that day the spies came in and advised my father to pack up at once and move to the station; that the Indians were at least thirty in number. We accordingly loaded up a sled and started for the fort. We started with the first load in the morning, my sister being alone on horseback, going to the fort to arrange things at the cabins as fast as they should arrive, and we had two men along also, my brother and a Mr. Hickerson, to guard us. When about half a mile from my father's house, and crossing Defeated Creek, the horses became alarmed, the two I was driving turning so suddenly around as to nearly run over me. I said to the young men that I was sure the horses smelt the Indians, but my brother insisted upon going onward, which we did, making four trips during the day. When we came late in the evening to make the last trip and take the family to the fort, five men went along to guard the family thither. We packed up when the sun was about two hours high, whites, negroes, and all, I still driving the horses, my little brother behind me on one of them. We had arranged it that we should go ahead as we had been doing all day, the two young men in advance of me and the sled. The Indians, forty or fifty in number, had arranged an ambuscade on both sides of the road for about 100 yard, and as we went on, my brother s and Hickerson in advance, a little dog belonging to my brother showed violent alarm on approaching the top of a large ash tree that had fallen in the road. My brother was just in advance, and as he stopped a moment I stopped the horses to see what was the cause of the alarm evinced by the dog. My brother took a step forward towards the tree top, when immediately I saw a gun poked out from amoungest the leaves, which, being fired at once, my brother was shot right through the body with a couple of bullets. He instantly turned and dashed back into the woods and feel dead about 100 years off, while the Indians, finding themselves discovered rose al together, yelling like demons, and charged upon our party. Hickerson took his stand unwisely right in the road instead of treeing, and his gun missing fire, he next attempted to use my gun, which he had in his hand, but in the act of firing it he was shot with six or seven bullets, and running a distance, he also fell and expired. At this I jumped off the horse, and taking my little brother John, and my sister Prudence, I ran back and placed them behind the men, who, advancing, kept the Indians a few moments at bay. My mother was mounted upon a large, powerful horse, and he, scared quite ungovernable, dashed right along the entire line of the Indians, whilst she holding he mane was carried about a mile distant to the fort.
My father and Mr. Morgan, my brother-in-law, kept the Indians in check until the white and negroes scattered into the woods, and Morgan was then wounded by the Indians, who, flanking around, shot him very dangerously through the body. He however, succeeded in escaping, my father keeping the savages back for some little time longer, but finally, after firing his heavy rifle, which I could mark distinctly from the report made, so different from that by the Indians' guns, he turned and ran about forty yards, when he feel, pierced by thirteen bullets. The Indians scalped him and hastily fled, not stopping to take anything but his rifle and shot pouch, and in their hot haste they did not even pick up the things scattered by the overturning of the sled, the horses having dashed it against a tree as they broke clear of it at the first alarm. Meanwhile, I had directed my little brother and sister to run back to the house, I awaiting behind a tree upon the hill above the result of the fight, and when I heard my father fire and the Indians raise the yell, thereupon I started for the fort. My little brother and sister ran back to the house, but the alarmed dogs barking at them they ran back to the scene of the battle. Here they found Mr. Rogan's hat, which the little boy picked up, and coming to the sled, my little sister picked up also a small pail of butter, and the two thoughtlessly walked on towards the fort, along the road, meeting the men directly who were coming from thence. The children were placed in charge of a negro man, who took them safely back.
After by father was killed my mother concluded to move to Greenfield Fort, her two sons-in-laws living there, and so I moved her there soon after, where we remained until the December following."
It was amid such scenes that William Hall grew to manhood. He assisted in repelling many attacks of the Indians, and more than one feel before his unerring rifle. He served as Sheriff of Sumner County, was a Brigadier-General in the Creek War, and was in the war of 1812; served as Major-General of militia, was elected to the State Senate in 1821, re-elected in 1823 and again in 1825 and again in 1827, when Governor Houston resigned, he became Governor, serving to the end of the term, October 1, the same year. In 1831 he was elected to Congress as a Democrat. He died at his home, Green Garden, on the 7th of October 1856.
Mrs. Hall, before her marriage, was Miss Thankful Doak, a native of North Carolina. Their son, William, afterwards Governor, married Miss. Mary B. Alexander: they had children - Richards A., William H., Thankful J., Martha, Mary, Alexander, and John A., all of whom left Sumner County except Richard and William. Richard left no children. William married Catherine Barry, who left one son. His second wife was Miss. S. W. McDaniel, grandniece of General James Winchester. By this marriage he had one son. Judge William H. Hall, now cashier of the First National Bank of Gallatin, and three daughters.
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