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Terrible times of the Indian attacks




A quilt block created by the Barren Plains Home Demonstration Club. SUBMITTED

A quilt block created by the Barren Plains Home Demonstration Club. SUBMITTED

Kilgore Station, near today’s Cross Plains, became a focus destination for many settlers continuing to flow into the area.

Mauldin’s (also spelled Maulding’s) Station was the second settlement established in what is now Robertson County. It was built in 1780, four miles east of Kilgore Station.

In 1782, Mauldin’s Station was also forced to be abandoned due to savage attacks. The settlers moved to Kilgore Station and then to the Bluffs.

After that time, the settlers did not return to the original Mauldin’s Station. It was rebuilt elsewhere.

Of course, the “Indian trouble” was not confined to one area.

Samuel Crockett had arrived here in 1788. Born in Pennsylvania, he built a blockhouse, a station, to defend the settlers in the Carr’s Creek area, an area west of today’s Springfield.

Like those trying to survive at the other two stations, many had to flee to safer places when the Indian attacks became too vicious. The men, however, usually stayed to defend the crops and the livestock.

Unfortunately, a daughter of Thomas Norris was killed in that area by Indians. Rev. Patrick Martin was wounded, according to local historians Jean M. Durrett and Catherine P. Holman.

Stories are told of savage attacks in the Port Royal area, also.” “Robertson County Tennessee,” co-authored by Yolanda Reid and Rick Gregory, describes an attack by 50 Creek Indians. Most of the people killed were members of the families of brothers Col. Isaac Titsworth and John Titsworth.

The story of the massacre near Battle Creek has been told in this column more than once. It was the “first massacre of any size among the Cumberland settlements.”

There is more than tragedy, however, in the retelling.

The Battle Creek Community is located near Coopertown. In those early days, that area became home for many who had traveled with the party of James Robertson.

Both Moses Winters and his son Caleb came overland with Robertson.

Caleb’s Creek, over which Highway 49 West passes, reminds travelers of the time when Caleb Winters lived in a cave and stayed alive by the game that he killed.

The Gower family had come with Robertson in 1779. Some of the family had also traveled with John Donelson in 1780.

Ralph Winters wrote that the Gower family “possibly made the greatest sacrifice of any of the earliest settlers of Tennessee.” Winters told that three Gower men were killed by Indians their first year in Tennessee.

It was a group that traveled with Donelson that became part of the Battle Creek Massacre. When they reached the Red River, the Renfros, the Turpins, and the Johns families decided to leave the main party and settle there.

It was this group, attacked in 1780, that fled for the Bluffs. They stopped overnight near a small stream about two miles north of sycamore Creek.

Probably not known to them, the trail was known as Indian Cut. It was frequented by Indians. And it was there that the Indians attacked and killed twelve or thirteen settlers.

So – what else besides tragedy is there for Battle Creek Community? The story continues next week.

In the Eagle’s Eye is sponsored by the Robertson County Historical Society. Call 615-382-7173 for more information.

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