​The People, the Place, the Promise: Land and People

by John Beavers, Messenger Intern

Sewanee, a Shawnee word meaning “southern” was used by the Native Americans west of the Smokies to describe the Cumberland Plateau and the Cumberland River Valley (Elizabeth N. Chitty, Sewanee Now and Then column for the Messenger, Aug. 23, 1985). In the “Sewanee Sampler” Arthur Ben and Elizabeth N. Chitty write that there were no known permanent settlements by Native Americans on the Mountain. “There were trails used by Native Americans from Altamont through Monteagle and down Battle Creek to Jasper... Down in the valley at Lost Cove Cave, and across the mountain at Russell Cave, it is known there was continuous occupation by the Native Americans for at least 8,000 years‚ but not on top of the Mountain.”
Patricia Short Makris, a researcher and former resident of Sewanee, mentions in her book “The Other Side of Sewanee,” a few stories of Native Americans on the Mountain up until 1900. Many Cherokee were relocated during the Trail of Tears in the 1830s, however, several early local families have Native American ancestry. These families were also part of the early settlement of the Cumberland Plateau.
The influx of white settlers to the Cumberland Plateau region first began after President George Washington signed legislation to make Tennessee a state in 1796. A parcel of land was granted to each Revolutionary War veteran or their families, including a large plot to the father of W.B. Shephard, a future land donor to the University of the South. In addition, after the founding of Franklin County in 1807, the county began selling land grants to individuals. It is notable that the majority of early settlers in the Sewanee area lived around the Plateau, not on it, as the area was still considered Native American territory until 1825, when the state permitted the sale of ‘mountain’ territory. From 1824 to 1860, parcels of land were purchased by several individuals whose descendants may still live on or near the land of their ancestors. The names recorded include William Anderson, William Barnes (1824), James and Jesse Barnes, John T. Bowers (1826) and Abraham Bowers, John Castleberry, Henry Garner, John Gilliam (1821), Allen Gipson (1814) and D.L Gipson, J.B. Hawkins, Joe and Charley Miller, James O’Dear, Lanson Rowe, George Smith, as well as the Bean, Henley, Hill, Long families, and more.
The Cumberland Plateau features a core set of ecological features that helped foster what would eventually pop up as the settlements grew. These include white oak, American chestnut, pignut, sandy and shagbark hickories for construction and lumber; sandstone cliffs ripe for quarrying; perennial springs such as the present day Tremlett Spring for small crops and settlements; and perhaps most importantly for Sewanee’s development, coal deposits scattered across the Plateau.
According to Makris, a land grant purchased by Wallis Estill, Thomas S. Logan and Madison Porter in 1834, mentions the coal beds in Lost Cove. In addition, she notes roads used to retrieve coal as early as the 1830s, possibly connecting to the 1826 survey road that went up the mountain and through its coves.
As it would be for the University founders, local climate was important for early settlers. The book “History of the University of the South, at Sewanee, Tennessee” by George Rainsford Fairbanks, noted an interesting report of the sanitary condition of Sewanee. “... the climate marked by neither extreme heat nor cold, as shown by the following data: Winter minimum temperature, 5; summer maximum, 87; average summer temperature, 74.” According to <weatherbase.com>, Sewanee has a Köppen Climate Classification subtype of ‘Cfa’ or a humid subtropical climate. ‘Cfa’ climates have mild winters, wet summers, and, as we all know in Sewanee, a disposition for pea soup fog formations.
The next stage in Sewanee’s development came with a wealthy New York investment group led by Samuel F. Tracy. Buying the grant from Wallis Estill, Thomas S. Logan and Madison Porter for their lands in Lost Cove and obtaining a coal mining charter from the state in 1852, he began the Sewanee Mining Company. What came after, however, is for another time.



PHOTO: Tremlett (Polk) Spring during the 1890s. Source: University of the South Archives.

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