Their families being properly housed, the settlers began to think of a school for the instruction of their children.  Books were scarce among them, especially such as were suited to the instruction of the young.  Paper, ink, slates, and pencils, also, were not easily procured.  Even years later important letters and despatches were often written with ink made of gunpowder and on a blank leaf torn from a family Bible.  But books and writing-implements were now imported from Virginia, and, a teacher being selected from among the better educated of the settlers, a school was opened, and the young ideas were taught to shoot in the right direction.

The people now numbered, all told, about two hundred souls, not more than forty of whom were able to bear arms.  On the east a mountain barrier shut them off from all civilized aid and succor, and on every other side they were exposed to savage tribes, at least a hundred thousand strong, of whom not less than fifteen thousand were warriors.  Three thousand of these, and those nearest the settlement, were Cherokees, a fierce, warlike race, by instinct and tradition the foe of the white man.  How this handful of pioneers came to venture upon such dangerous ground, or, being there, escaped total extermination, may well excite our wonder.  They understood their exposed situation, but they went peacefully about their daily pursuits, tilling the soil, planting and harvesting, and “gathering into barns,” or, more correctly, into ricks,—­for as yet there were no barns among them,—­unmolested by the Indians, and in harmony with one another, for two full years of genuine prosperity.  They send accounts of their prosperity to the friends they have left beyond the mountains, and new immigrants come to the settlement, some of them men of means, who aid materially in its development.  However, they are an abnormal community.  Two colonies claim jurisdiction over them, but the claim is never enforced, and never extends beyond a discussion in State papers; so they are without law or anything to assert its majesty.  There is no power to enforce a right or punish a wrong, and not a solitary lawyer in the settlement.  Every man is a law unto himself, but, strange to say, not a single crime is committed among them.

The new-comers spread, in search of choice locations, west as far as the Chimney-Top Mountain, and south to the fertile valley of the Nolachucky.  The more remote settlers were therefore in a very exposed position, —­almost alone, and beyond them a wide wilderness,—­but they had no fear from the Indians.  The few who came to the settlements were friendly, and, after smoking and eating with the settler, they would go away, grasping his hand and assuring him that the red man was his brother.  Those were halcyon days; but Satan entered into Paradise, and one of his legitimate children,—­a Scotchman named Cameron,—­in the early spring of 1772, invaded this Eden on the Watauga.

He was the British agent residing among the Cherokees; and he came with several of the chieftains to warn the settlers that they had encroached upon the Indian lands, and must move off, or be removed by the British soldiery.  However, he whispered into the ear of Sevier and Robertson that for a reasonable consideration paid to him—­the representative of the British government—­the settlers would be permitted to remain undisturbed in their possessions.