1781: Battle of the Chesapeake

The Battle of the Chesapeake, also called the Battle of the Virginia Capes, went through hours of maneuvering before the two-hour artillery engagement. A shift in afternoon wind favored the French. Sundown ended the battle.

For several days following, the two forces held a stand-off at sea. Then the British limped away north to New York for reinforcements. They returned in October, but too late. Cornwallis surrendered to the American and French forces on October 17.

1798: The Great Road, the Frontier Trail, and the Wilderness Road

The path that the Davis party took probably ran inland from the coast (along route 64?) until at Staunton they met the Great Road, set off southwest, went thru Roanoke and Salem, took the Frontier Trail that passes through Christiansburg, on to Bristol where they took the Wilderness Road west along the bottom border of Virginia, into Tennessee, cutting up thru the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky.

Check out these websites for more info on the wilderness paths, including maps:
~ Wilderness Road
~ Cumberland Gap

The Wilderness Road went on from the Cumberland Gap to the northwest (through Laurel County; see 1829 in this saga) but our group broke off west-southwest, paralleling the Powell River Valley to the south until they came to the Davis Creek area in Tennessee. Or at least that's my best guess from the maps.

1798: Young Davy Crockett in Christiansburg, Virginia

At the time the Davis party passed through Christiansburg, 13-year-old Davy Crockett (his family still at Morristown, Tennessee, on the stage coach route, 80 miles southeast of Davis Creek) has just apprenticed (1798-1802) with a Christiansburg hatter, John Snider. Could they have crossed paths? At this time, hats were being shipped to Tennessee, so they'd have been work hats, not fancy ones for society.

1813: slavery in Tennessee

Settlers lobbying for statehood in 1796 tried to make Tennessee a free state, but got overridden. Central and western Tennessee soon ran to plantations which could only turn a profit by using slave labor. Slavery became even more widespread after the patent for the cotton gin was validated in 1807, and in the 1820s cotton plantations were most numerous in the lands between the Tennessee and Mississippi Rivers.

Davis Creek is in Claiborne County of mountainous eastern Tennessee, which in the early years ran mostly to subsistence farms, not a good area for growing cotton. The Briscoes and the Davises probably led a hard-scrabble life. They could not have afforded any slaves.

There is no indication of their leanings for or against slavery except that by 1833 most members of these families moved to Illinois, a free state. The opinions of Rachel Briscoe are my own projection onto a young woman of the past. I hope she shared some of my sensibilities.

At the beginning of the Civil War, the population of east Tennessee voted against seceding.

1813: Tecumseh and tribes

The Emerson Kent website has a lot of material on Tecumseh as well as maps of tribal territories.

The Chesapeake Bay Program website has info about the tribes that lived around the Bay throughout the ages.

1844: jurors in the trial

One source says, "None of the jurors were connected with anti-Mormon violence." Silas and Jesse Griffitts are mentioned as jurors in "Carthage Conspiracy: The Trial of the Accused Assassins of Joseph Smith," By Dallin H Oaks, Marvin S Hill. Chapter 7: "A Jury of "Intelligence, Probity and Worth."

Another source says, "Silas Griffitts, one of the jurors appointed, was a charter member of Providence Church, of which Elder Owen was pastor..." "Writings of Elder Thomas H. Owen; Records of the Circuit Court of Hancock County; Trial of the Persons Indicted in the Hancock Circuit Court for the Murder of Joseph Smith, on the 27th day of June 1844: Warsaw Signal, 1845.

Details about Thomas belonging to the Carthage Greys come from the photocopy of a news clipping honoring him at a birthday party in August 1886.

Hancock County recruit

The 118th Illinois Infantry in the Union Army included several regiments from Hancock County. Unfortunately, the records are not easily searchable, and the spelling of names wasn't standardized or consistent.

A John Griffiths recruit lived in Walker, Hancock County, in the Carthage area where most of the Griffitts family had settled. He recruited in March, 1865, and mustered out the following October.

Silas' nephew John Griffitts got married in 1863, but didn't have any children until 1866, so he might have been away from home. At war?

Minnechaduza Creek

My one memory of Valentine and Minnechaduza Creek:

I was 19 in June of 1975 when my family set out on a road trip from Washington state to Nebraska. My grandmother Nida had a big family reunion in Valentine, her home town.

Our car had no air conditioning, and the summer was hot and humid. By the time we got to Valentine city park, site of the reunion, I was limp with heat exhaustion. I was amazed at the Nebraska children, running and playing and paying no attention to the blazing hot sun. I'd grown up in the cool, misty rain forest of the Pacific Northwest and now was simply wilting.

Watermelons for the upcoming picnic had been penned in the relatively cool water of Minnechaduza Creek. One got loose and was floating away. I'm not a strong swimmer, but the creek was slow and not very wide. I plunged in and rescued the melon... and my clothing, soggy with creek water, relieved the unbearable heat. I dipped in again later in the day in spite of horrified warnings about leeches (never saw any).

I must mention... besides slow and narrow, the creek was quite shallow, too. I could have simply waded to rescue the melon!