A History of the Daniel Boone National Forest 1770 - 1970

US-27 through the Stearns Ranger District of the Daniel Boone National Forest follows along a ridge or plateau which runs in the north-south direction generally parallel with, and to the east of, the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River. This highway follows an ancient Indian passway which connected the Cumberland River, at the site of the present-day town of Burnside, Kentucky, with the Sequatchie Valley, which is northwest of the present-day city of Chattanooga, Tennessee. In times of early settlement, this path was known as the Great Tellico Trail.

At the present-day community of Marshes Siding, located on US-27 about two miles north of Whitley City, Kentucky, Ky-700 leads to the west about five miles to a point on the head of Lake Cumberland known as Alum Ford. Ky-700 also follows an old Indian trail which crossed the Cumberland River at Alum Ford and lead into east central Tennessee. On the north side of Ky-700 about three and one-half miles west of its junction with US-27 and at the entrance to the Yahoo Recreation Area of the Daniel Boone National Forest, is located a single lonely grave, surrounded by a simple pole fence and marked by a standard U.S. Army Quartermaster headstone which bears, instead of the more usual cross, a Star of David and the inscription:

JACOB
TROXEL
PENNSYLVANIA
VT 6 CO
PHILADELPHIA
CO MILITIA
REVOLUTIONARY
WAR
JANUARY 18, 1758
OCTOBER 10 1810

Overlooked by many visitors to the area, this grave and headstone by the side of the Old Alum Ford Trail are the reminders of a story of adventure, military duty, exploration and frontier love as thrilling and as exciting as any modern-day novel, movie, or television program.

The story, pieced together from military records of General George Washington's army, from folk tales of Indian tribes, from court and land records in county courthouses, and from stories handed down in white families of the area, is reproduced here from the records and writings of a present-day descendent of Jacob Troxel and Princess Cornblossom, Thomas H. Troxel, the Scott County surveyor in Oneida, Tennessee. He has researched the details over many years and procured records of his ancestor's service in the Continental Army sufficient to satisfy the Army Quartermaster to the point of issuing the official grave marker which today marks the last resting place of Jacob Troxel beside the Old Alum Ford Trail.

The story begins with young Jacob Troxel, born of Swiss parentage in 1758, in the city of Philadelphia. As a lad of 15 years of age, he was living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at the outbreak of the American Revolution. Enlisting with other young patriots in the sixth company of the Philadelphia Militia he served four years with the Continental Army, including the terrible winter of 1777-1778 with General George Washington's army at Valley Forge.

As the main effort of the Revolutionary War appeared to be moving south and the British employment of Indian allies increased, Jacob Troxel was selected by Washington's staff as one of several young men to move by a round-about route into the backcountry, posing as an Indian trader, for the purpose of preventing the Indian tribes from joining with the British against the Continental Army.

The Troxels of Philadelphia trace their ancestors back to the Hebrews of Asia Minor. Peter Troxel was born in Switzerland in 1691. Peter, his wife and two small sons came to America on the ship Samuel and disembarked in Philadelphia in 1733.

Young Jacob Troxel, known as Big Jake because of his height of over six feet and easy friendly manner, was assigned to work with the Indians of the Upper Cumberland River. Travelling down the Ohio River he took a long round-about route to reach his destination. Travelling overland from the Ohio he reached the old French trading post at Vincennes which was the center of the western Indian trade. While there he made friends with a young Cherokee brave named Tuchahoe, the son of an important chief of the tribe of Cherokee (Tsa-Waagan Tribe) living along the Upper Cumberland River in the general area of today's McCreary, Pulaski and Wayne counties. At the invitation of the young brave, Jacob Troxel agreed to return with him to his home village and to trade for skins and furs that the tribe might produce.

After a trip of about 200 miles Trader Troxel and young Tuckahoe arrived at the home village where Troxel was received by the chief, known as Chief Doublehead by the white hunters, with great respect and ceremony due a distinguished visitor.

Chief Doublehead was the last powerful chief of his tribe. He had been born in the vicinity of the present-day location of Somerset, Kentucky. When as a young brave, he inherited, by succession, the leadership of his tribe, he was given the name of Chu-gula-tague, but soon became known by the English name of Chief Doublehead. He had been twice married, the second wife being the daughter of Christian Priber, a white, self-appointed prime minister to the Cherokees during the period 1735-1753. The young brave Tuckahoe was the chiefs son by his first wife. By his second wife he had a daughter, Princess Cornblossom who, at the time of the arrival of Jacob Troxel in the summer of 1779, was about twelve years of age. She had been born in 1768 in the ancient Indian village of Tsalachi near the site of the present city of Burnside, Kentucky. Even at this early age her beauty was widely known and she was the pin up girl and the favorite of the young warriors of the tribe. The arrival of Big Jake appeared to be of great interest to her.

The prominence of Chief Doublehead is attested to by the fact that he was one of the signers of his tribe at the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals in 1775, and of the Treaty of Holston on July 2, 1792. At the time of the Great Council of the Cherokee, which preceded the signing of the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals, Princess Cornblossom, then about eight years old, accompanied her family on the long trip to what is now Carter County, Tennessee. It is said that Chief Doublehead received for his tribal share of the trade goods from the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals 20 rifles, a quantity of hunting knives, tomahawks, gun powder, lead, a fine red blanket for himself and a very fine bright shawl and a string of beads for Princess Cornblossom.

Following the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals, which required all Cherokee to leave the country north of the Cumberland River, Chief Doublehead and his wife, accompanied by Princess Cornblossom and her brother Tuckahoe, moved to a large, open-front cave on Middle Creek in what is Wayne County today. The cave in which they lived is today known as Hind's Cave. It was here that Big Jake, then about 21 years of age, first came to live with the tribe of Chief Doublehead and enjoyed their full confidence.

Although still mindful of his mission, Big Jake entered into the life of the tribe with great zest, hunting and trapping with the young braves. Because of his great size, strength, good nature and skill as a woodsman he was well liked, particularly by Princess Cornblossom. He was soon adopted by the tribe of Chief Doublehead and enjoyed their full confidence.

During the winter of 1779-1780, a small band of whites, possibly from the Holston settlements, moved into the area and were waylaying the Indian hunters and killing them for their packs of furs. Big Jake, with Chief Doublehead and Princess Cornblossom, discovered their camp on the Little South Fork in Wayne County and attacked it. One of the white men killed in the attack was Bill Dyke, a Tory from Watauga, in the service of Major Patrick Ferguson, British Commander of the 71st regiment of British infantry who was operating in the Carolinas. Dyke was apparently on a mission of trying to influence the tribes of the area to support the British and Tory army in South Carolina. Thanks to the position of Big Jake in the tribe, Chief Doublehead and most of his warriors refused to support Colonel Ferguson's British and Tory force, then gathering for an advance on the Holston settlers. There is evidence, however, that some of Chief Doublehead's warriors did fight on the American side in the Battle of King's Mountain, which resulted in a defeat of the British by American frontiersmen, in which Major Ferguson was killed, and which was a contributing factor to the surrender of the British army of General Cornwallis to General Washington at Yorktown, Virginia on October 19, 1781.

Shortly after this Princess Cornblossom and Big Jake were married in an elaborate ceremony attended by some of the most powerful chiefs of the Cherokee nation. Their marriage was soon blessed with a son named Little Jake, who grew up to earn a reputation for himself in later years along the Cumberland River.

Shortly after the close of the Revolutionary War, the family of John Mounce moved to a homestead located at the mouth of the Rock Creek on the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River. Mounce had two beautiful daughters. Tuckahoe, son of Chief Doublehead, fell in love with one of them, Margaret Mounce by name. The young couple decided that it would be romantic if the girl were to be stolen by Tuckahoe in an elopement. All went well initially. After the eloping party had been gone for several hours, the sister of the bride notified her father that Tuckahoe had stolen Margaret. The angry father, accompanied by a neighbor named Jones, pursued the elopers for many miles overtaking them near the present town of Monticello, the county seat of Wayne County, Kentucky. Knowing the reaction of her father the girl threw her arms around her lover to protect him from harm, thus preventing her father from shooting Tuckahoe. However, Jones drew a bead on Chief Doublehead and killed him instantly. Thus in the year of 1807 ended the life of the last great Indian chief to rule over the Indians of the Cumberland Plateau. Chief Doublehead was buried where he fell. His grave may still be found at Doublehead Gap on the Little South Fork near the town of Monticello.

Soon after the tragic death of Chief Doublehead, John Mounce gave his consent to the marriage of his daughter Margaret to the handsome Tuckahoe, now in line to become the chief of his tribe. Young Tuckahoe and Margaret Mounce were married and established a home on Che-ry Fork, now Helenwood, Tennessee, on US-27 south of Somerset, Kentucky.

The most prized possession of Chief Doublehead's tribe was a secret silver mine located somewhere adjacent to the Cumberland River in the general area of today's McCreary, Pulaski, and Wayne counties, Kentucky. Silver from this mine was taken by the tribe by raft or canoe down the Cumberland River to the French trading post established by the trader Timothy de Monbruen in the new town of Fort Nashborough (the site of the present-day city of Nashville, Tennessee) where it was traded for rifles, powder, knives, lead, hatchets, blankets, and many other trade items.

The location of this silver mine was a tribe secret which had never been given to a white man. A white trader, Han Blackberne, learned of this mine and was determined to find it. He offered to sell young Tuckahoe a fine rifle decorated with silver, together with a fancy powder horn and a fringed bullet pouch for a small amount of silver from the mine. Tuckahoe eagerly agreed. As he went to the secret mine for the silver, he was followed by Blackberne and a hired laborer by the name of Monday. As Tuckahoe was digging the silver to pay for his new rifle, the two white men appeared. While remonstrating with Blackberne for following him, he laid down a pick which he had been using. Monday, a simple-minded individual, grabbed the pick and struck Tuckahoe on the head killing him instantly. Monday then threw Tuckahoe's body down a deep crevice between two large rocks and covered it with leaves, dead branches and loose rock. He and Blackberne then started digging for silver.

In the meantime Princess Cornblossom learned of the deal of Tuckahoe with Blackberne and, suspecting that the trader planned to follow him to the mine, also started for the mine as rapidly as her little legs would carry her in an attempt to stop her brother before he reached the mine site. On approaching the mine she saw the tracks of Blackberne and Monday which confirmed her suspicions. Creeping forward cautiously she arrived at the mine where she observed the trader Blackberne resting under a tree and his hired hand Monday digging the silver. While her brother was not in sight, her worst fears were confirmed by the sight of his new rifle leaning against a tree and large pools of blood scattered about the mine where Tuckahoe had been killed. Realizing what had happened, Princess Cornblossom dashed forward, grabbed the rifle, horn and pouch and sped down the trail so swiftly that Blackberne and Monday were unable to catch her. Fortunately a violent thunderstorm approached on the south and west on the headwaters of Poncho Creek and along the Little South Fork, which made further tracking impossible. The Princess, having reached the top of the mountain, quickly built a shelter at the site of a fallen tree, picked wild grapes and chestnuts for her evening meal, and weathered the storm through the night in comfort, but with a heavy heart at the death of her brother Tuckahoe.

Resolved to avenge his death, as well as to guard the secret of the tribe's mine, she planned to kill both Blackberne and Monday before they could reveal the location of the mine to any other white man.

At the break of dawn she knew that some of her tribe would be searching for her. Sounding the tribal distress call she was answered immediately by two braves less than two miles distant. Knowing that Blackberne and Monday would probably head for their trading station near the Fonde settlement (near what is now Williamsburg, in Whitley County, Kentucky) and that Poncho Creek was a raging torrent as a result of the thunderstorm it appeared Blackberne and Monday would be most likely to cross the creek at Turtleneck Ford. This ford (now called Cracker's Neck) is located about three miles west of the present town of Stearns, Kentucky.

Princess Cornblossom concealed herself on the steep hillside overlooking the ford, posted the two braves in concealment near the creek, and awaited the appearance of Blackberne and Monday. After a long wait she saw a glint of a shiny buckle and a fancy coat and another from the handle of a hunting knife and knew that the white men were approaching. Carefully renewing the priming in the pan of Tuckahoe's fine flintlock rifle, she rested the heavy barrel in the fork of a dogwood tree and waited. Arriving at Poncho Creek and finding it in flood Blackberne dismounted to inspect the ford before trying to cross. Sighting down the long sleek barrel, glistening with bear oil, Princess Cornblossom took careful aim and pressed the trigger. As the shot sounded Blackbern fell to earth dead of a bullet through his heart. The two braves quickly tomahawked Monday, disemboweled both bodies, filled them with rocks and threw them in the raging Poncho Creek. At last the death of the brave Tuckahoe was revenged and the secret of the tribe's silver mine was again safe.

With the death of Chief Doublehead in 1807 and the murder of his son Tuckahoe soon after that, the leadership of the tribe fell to Princess Cornblossom. Her son, Little Jake, born less than a year after her marriage to Big Jake, was now a young brave by tribal standards and helped his mother in the handling of the affairs of the tribe, whose numbers had dwindled to less than a hundred members. New settlements by the whites had crowded them from their previous homes and hunting grounds until they were now living in an area known as Dry Valley which today is known as Big Sinking in Wayne County, Kentucky.

Prior to his untimely death, Chief Doublehead had been in the process of negotiating for an opportunity for the youth of his tribe to obtain an education in the white man's school. In 1803, a school for Indians had been established at Sequatchie Valley in Tennessee by the Reverend Gideon Blackburn, a Presbyterian minister from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Princess Cornblossom now continued the negotiations started by her father to secure educational training for the young people of her tribe at the Blackburn Indian School. Young Jake had now become a hard-riding, fast-shooting, one-man army executing the orders of his mother, now the ruler of the tribe.

In the fall of 1810, an arrangement with the Indian school having been agreed upon, word went out to all members that the tribe of Princess Cornblossom was to leave the Cumberland River area and move to the Sequatchie Valley in Tennessee. They were directed to assemble at a large rock house just to the west of the Old Tellico Trail. This location is now known as the Yahoo Falls Recreation Area in the Sterns District of the Daniel Boone National Forest.

In the late fall of 1810, when the moon was round and full, all that remained of Chief Doublehead's tribe of the Cherokee gathered at the big rock house below the cliffs where Yahoo Creek plunges some eighty feet from the great Cumberland Plateau to the bottom of the gorge which carries it to the Cumberland River, waiting for Princess Cornblossom to lead them south over the old Tellico Trail to Tennessee. Some of the squaws had already shouldered their packs of furs or sleeping mats for the children and were about to start when shots rang out from the darkness in front of the rock house. Bunched under the rock house and stunned by the unexpected attack, escape was impossible. The braves were the first to fall followed quickly by the mothers and children until not a single Indian was left standing and the floor of the rock house was covered with the dead and dying and ran red with their blood.

After the firing ceased and the little band of white men who had committed this foul murder were about to leave, the situation was suddenly reversed. Day was just breaking as Princess Cornblossom and her nortorious son, Little Jake arrived on the scene ready to lead their people to the safety that awaited them in Tennessee. Taking in the situation at a glance and occupying a commanding position among the rocks which blocked the white men's escape route, they opened fire. The white party had been reduced to three, but only one of these three survived the firing squad of Princess Cornblossom and her son. Before the execution the Princess pronounced the death sentence in scathing terms such as "You paleface-treaty with Indians — if Indian no steal horse paleface no kill Indian. You palefaces kill our braves. You kill our squaws and our babies. Their blood made red the land you steal."

Princess Cornblossom, grief stricken by the massacre of her people, died in a few days and was buried by the large flat rock beside the old Tellico Trail that had been travelled by her people for so many years. This flat rock is now within the town of Stearns, Kentucky and the site is marked by an appropriate marker and information sign placed there by the Kentucky Historical Society, which reads:

PRINCESS CORNBLOSSOM

Burial site of daughter of Chief Doublehead. Legend is that as a young girl she accompanied her father at signing of Treaty of Sycamore Shoals, 1775, transferring Cherokee's land between Ohio and Cumberland Rivers to Transylvania Society. As-Quaw Tribe settled in region south of river. Protecting tribe's secret mine, she killed a renegade. Married Big Jake, trader.

Two days later Big Jake, the trader who came to the Cumberland on a mission for General Washington and the Continental Army and who liked the life of the tribe of Chief Doublehead and Princess Cornblossom so well that he spent the rest of his life with them, died of a broken heart and was buried beside the old trail to Alum Ford. This grave, marked by a U.S. Army official headstone provided by a grateful government nearly 200 years after he completed his military service, may be seen by the visiting tourists at the entrance to the Yahoo Falls Recreation Area of the Daniel Boone National Forest.

For the next few years Little Jake Troxel, the half-breed, terrorized the settlers along the Cumberland River. He finally surrendered to the sheriff of Wayne County at Monticello, Kentucky in return for a promise of amnesty. Surrendering his scalping knife with nine notches filed on the handle, he settled down on his 180-acre homestead on the Little South Fork River that today is a rice farm. Little Jake died in 1880, and is buried in the old part of the graveyard at Parmleysville, Kentucky.

Following the double massacre at Yahoo Falls, local investigations developed the information that the individual primarily responsible for the tragedy was an old Indian hater and brave fighter by the name of Hiram Gregory. He had learned of the proposed assembly of the Indians at Yahoo Falls' Big Rock House and, enlisting the aid of a number of his young neighbors, set up the ambush which ended in one of the major tragedies of the early settlement of the area. It is said that Little Jake Troxel once stated that although he and his famous mother arrived on the scene a bit late they did arrive in time to kill the last of the white men, including Homer (Big Tooth) Gregory.

The above information was assembled by Thomas H. Troxel, a direct descendent of the Cherokee and of Christian Priber. He was the great chief of the Cumberland River band of American Indians whose Council House is in Whitley City, Kentucky. He has stated that while researching this information many years ago he had lunch with Uncle Manuel Anderson, father of George Anderson, a surveyor, with offices in Whitley County courthouse. Mr. Anderson stated that he could remember when Indian bones were so thick in the Big Rock House at Yahoo Falls that it was difficult to walk there.

The tribe of Chief Doublehead practiced the type of game habitat management, not unlike that practiced today, in that they divided their hunting ground into blocks or compartments, based on drainage, giving each compartment a name. For example, the portion of the tribal hunting grounds that lay within today's Daniel Boone National Forest were delineated and named as follows:

The Great Hickory Forest, the drainage of Poncho Creek (Pauch Creek), and The Great Tellico Wilderness, the drainage of Marsh Creek.

It is not unlikely that the tribe distributed their hunting between these areas, adjusting their hunting pressure according to the abundance of game in each.

At the time Big Jake came to the tribe of Chief Doublehead a number of Indian trails were in common use in that portion of what is now the Daniel Boone National Forest. Some of these were later used by the early settlers.

The route of the Great Tellico Trail is now occupied by US-27. This was a common pathway used by all tribes in travel between the Great Cumberland Plateau and the Tellico country of Tennessee. At the time of Big Jake's arrival it was used extensively by squaws carrying corn from Sequatchie Valley back to their home villages along the Cumberland River. According to stories handed down in the old frontier families of the area a group of white men camped in the area and made a practice of attacking squaws carrying corn along this trail. The young white man by the name of Prabtry, who was a squaw man, hunted down these white men and killed all of them with his long rifle.

The Baker-Watters Bridle Way started at Yamacraw and terminated at the Indian Gap (now Jane Hale Gap) near Williamsburg. Originally it was developed and used by the Indians of the Cheeknee River area travelling to and from their hunting grounds along what is today Jellico Creek. This trail is recorded as the Baker-Watters Bridle Way as early as 1804 as a public passway for settlers travelling to what is today Wayne County. This trail was used by the early settlers in the Great Tellico Forest. Among the first families to claim homesteads in that section were the Harmons, the Neals, and the Gilreaths. The Harmons are reported as having their grant under a concession from Chief Doublehead. Other families that were among the first to settle along Jellico Creek were the Stevens, Lovetts and the Creekmores. The Old Jellico Baptist Church, established in 1806, was built beside the Baker-Watters Bridle Way.

Another shorter trail, much used by the Indians, the name of which has been lost in the pages of history, started at the headwaters of Standing Fern Creek (Bear Creek) and terminated at the Katy Fields above the natural bridges near Barthell. This trail was made famous by the Battle of the Ridgeway Trail. Little is known of this battle other than it started when a party of five white horsemen killed one of Doublehead's braves. The running battle between these whites and the Indians terminated the following day with all five of the palefaces dead.

It is apparent that the Sterns and Somerset Ranger Districts of the Daniel Boone National Forest have a rich background of history from which to draw in developing the historical resource of that part of the national forest.

In the southern part of the Daniel Boone National Forest, at a point south of Stearns, Kentucky, where Ky. 92 crosses the Cumberland River, is located a community known as Yamacraw.

Local history reports that this name is applied to that area because of a small tribe of Indians who settled along the banks of the Cumberland River in that vicinity shortly after the signing of the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals on March 14, 1775.

These Indians were apparently a part of the Yamacraw tribe of South Carolina, noted for their skills in agriculture, particularly in the growing of corn, their staple food source. It is reported that one of their squaws, Mary Musgrove, was probably one of the first county agents when she was hired by the Glathorf Colony to train a French botanist to grow corn in the Indian manner at a salary equivalent to four hundred dollars per year in gold. Yields of corn in excess of 300 bushels per acre were not uncommon in the agricultural practices of this tribe.

Such historical information as is now available indicates that this small band of Indians had left the Yamacraw tribe in South Carolina and moved initially to Old Fort Louden, in what is now northwestern Tennessee, some time prior to the French and Indian War. Living in the vicinity of Fort Louden they raised corn and hogs for sale to that garrison. Shortly after signing the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals this small band of Indians moved from the Fort Louden vicinity to the area along the Cumberland River which now bears its name.

It appears that these Indians did much to educate the Cumberland River Indians and the tribes of the Cumberland Plateau in their advanced agricultural methods. Mary Musgrove is reported as teaching these Indians how to build door ovens and how to use them in baking. In confirmation of the corn-growing capability of the Yamacraws, archeological excavations, made prior to the covering of the village site and the fertile cornfields which had supported them by the waters of Lake Cumberland in 1952, revealed the imprint of ears of corn as much as fourteen inches in length.

Little is known of the fate of this band of Indians. Apparently, being of a peaceful nature, they moved to more remote areas when the pressure of other tribes and of the increasing density of white settlement along the Upper Cumberland encroached upon their peaceful existence.