The origin of these Indian tribes and their past history are lost in oblivion.  Centuries have come and gone, during which joys and griefs, of which we now can know nothing, visited their humble lodges.  Providence seems to have raised up a peculiar class of men, among the descendants of the emigrants from the Old World, who, weary of the restraints of civilization, were ever ready to plunge into the wildest depths of the wilderness, and to rear their lonely huts in the midst of all its perils, privations, and hardships.

This solitary family of the Crocketts followed down the northwestern banks of the Hawkins River for many a weary mile, until they came to a spot which struck their fancy as a suitable place to build their Cabin.  In subsequent years a small village called Rogersville was gradually reared upon this spot, and the territory immediately around was organized into what is now known as Hawkins County.  But then, for leagues in every direction, the solemn forest stood in all its grandeur.  Here Mr. Crockett, alone and unaided save by his wife and children, constructed a little shanty, which could have been but little more than a hunter’s camp.  He could not lift solid logs to build a substantial house.  The hard-trodden ground was the only floor of the single room which he enclosed.  It was roofed with bark of trees piled heavily on, which afforded quite effectual protection from the rain.  A hole cut through the slender logs was the only window.  A fire was built in one corner, and the smoke eddied through a hole left in the roof.  The skins of bears, buffaloes, and wolves provided couches, all sufficient for weary ones, who needed no artificial opiate to promote sleep.  Such, in general, were the primitive homes of many of those bold emigrants who abandoned the comforts of civilized life for the solitudes of the wilderness.

They did not want for most of what are called the necessaries of life.  The river and the forest furnished a great variety of fish and game.  Their hut, humble as it was, effectually protected them from the deluging tempest and the inclement cold.  The climate was genial in a very high degree, and the soil, in its wonderful fertility, abundantly supplied them with corn and other simple vegetables.  But the silence and solitude which reigned are represented, by those who experienced them, as at times something dreadful.

One principal motive which led these people to cross the mountains, was the prospect of an ultimate fortune in the rise of land.  Every man who built a cabin and raised a crop of grain, however small, was entitled to four hundred acres of land, and a preemption right to one thousand more adjoining, to be secured by a land-office warrant.

In this lonely home, Mr. Crockett, with his wife and children, dwelt for some months, perhaps years—­we know not how long.  One night, the awful yell of the savage was heard, and a band of human demons came rushing upon the defenceless family.  Imagination cannot paint the tragedy which ensued.  Though this lost world, ever since the fall of Adam, has been filled to repletion with these scenes of woe, it causes one’s blood to curdle in his veins as he contemplates this one deed of cruelty and blood.