Woodward's Reminiscenses - Part 5



APPENDIX

It is thought best to give, in this Appendix, the letter of the late Col. 
Pickett, to which Gen. Woodward makes frequent allusion in the foregoing 
pages. As a matter of local interest, too, a valuable letter from Mr. 
Klinck, of Tennessee, is inserted; and there are added several letters 
lately received from Gen. Woodward, himself.

J.J.H


Col. Pickett TO GEN. WOODWARD.
MONTGOMERY
February 23, 1858.
Dear Sir: -- About one month since, I placed in the hands of our mutual 
friend, Mr. Hanrick, a copy of the History of this State, with the request 
that he would mail it to you, in consequence of the very long acquaintance 
which has existed between us. I hope that you have received it, as you 
state that you have never read it. If you will peruse it connectedly 
through, as it is a connected work, you will arrive at the conclusion that 
you and I differ very little, or if at all, only on some unimportant 
points. In your letters, recently published in the Montgomery Mail, which 
have interested many of the old settlers here, (and which we hope will not 
be your last,) you took issue with me in regard to some things connected 
with the Creek and Alabama Indians, while you agree with me in others. In 
regard to the manners, customs and traditions of these tribes, you and I 
are as well acquainted as any two men of modern times, and I think if you 
understood what I have published of them, not the slightest difference 
would exist between us. If you had read the work I have sent to you, your 
memory, always most excellent, would have been so refreshed that the 
connected narrative of the work, well supported by every authority which 
patience, time, labor, and the use of money could procure, would have 
brought you to the conclusion that we agree on all the important subjects 
there narrated.
One of my main authorities for what I have written on the Creek Indians, 
and the smaller tribes who lived in their confederacy, was the old agent, 
Benjamin Hawkins, whom you acknowledge to have been the wisest and most 
reliable man you ever knew. I was furnished with his "Sketch of the Creek 
Country" in his own handwriting, which he gave to his contemporary and 
illustrious friend, Andrew Pickens, of Revolutionary memory. In addition 
to this rare and valuable document, I procured from Paris a history of the 
Creek Indians, written and published by Gen. LeClerc Milfort. He had lived 
in the Creek Nation from the period of 1776 to the period of 1796. He 
married the sister of Gert. McGillivray, who was a mixed blood Chief of 
great talent and renown, of whom you have heard, but who died some time 
before the period of your birth. No two authorities could be better than 
these. Hawkins had been appointed Creek Indian Agent in Washington's 
administration, and had grown grey in their service until the times in 
which you made his acquaintance. Milfort had lived in the Creek Nation for 
twenty years; he was a scholar and a fine writer, and had fortified 
himself with the most remote traditions, and with all the knowledge which 
Alexander McGillivray himself had collected in regard to the history of 
his formidable tribe.

In your published letters, you have also alluded to the invasion of 
Alabama by Hernandez DeSoto, and to what you suppose I have written on 
that subject, judging from my letter to Mr. Hobbs, of the late House of 
Representatives. You state that you have never read a complete narrative 
of that expedition. In the account I have given in the History of this 
State, I am sustained in every particular, by the best authorities an 
author ever had, or could desire. I mean by the authority of eye-
witnesses. Among the expedition of DeSoto were FIVE men, learned and 
reliable, each of whom kept a daily journal of the directions which the 
army took, the rivers it crossed, with their names; the towns through 
which it passed, with their names; and of the various tribes through whose 
territory it passed; and of the battles which it fought with them. Three 
of these Spanish cavaliers, on their return to Spain, placed their several 
accounts in the hands of Garcellasso de la Vega, an eminent writer, who 
published a history of the expedition in Spanish. That history is now in 
my library, in the French language. Even the Commissary of DeSoto's 
expedition -- Louis Hernandez de Biedma -- furnished an account, which is 
now in my library. Then I have in my library, the journal of the remaining 
fifth man, a gentleman of Elvas, in Portugal, who seems to have 
accompanied the expedition more as a journalist than as a warrior, and 
whose statements seem to be very accurate and minute.

In your published letters in the Montgomery Mail, you also refer to me in 
connection with the manuscript of the late George Stiggins, and state that 
you understood I borrowed it when I wrote my history; and in one of your 
private letters to Mr. Hanrick, you ask what has become of it, and whether 
Stiggins is yet alive? You remember that when the French colony of 
Louisiana, about Natchez, had been destroyed by the Natchez Indians, and 
in return had been nearly destroyed by the French, that those who remained 
alive fled to the Chickasaw nation for protection, and as a place of 
asylum. Some of that Natchez tribe fled to a portion of the Creek 
Confederacy, in what is now Talladega county. They there erected a town, 
and called it Nauche, and it was there that George Stiggins was born -- 
his father being a Scotchman, and his mother a Natchez Indian. When 
Stiggins attained to manhood, he was living on Little River which 
separates Monroe from Baldwin county, in Alabama. You know that a great 
many of the wealthy half bloods lived there. When the General Government, 
a long time afterwards, made a treaty with the Creek Indians, by which the 
Government agreed to allot them sections and half sections, you remember 
that Mrs. McCombs, Durant, Stiggins, and others, removed to East Alabama, 
to become possessed of their allotments under the treaty. Stiggins was 
then writing his History of the Creek Indians. Some time after you removed 
from Alabama, he died, and left his manuscript in an unfinished state. I 
endeavored to get possession of it, to aid me in the work I have 
published, but the family, attaching great importance to it as a valuable 
relic, I never could use it, and never did use it. I was, however, one day 
at the house of Stiggins' son, and he let me examine it for an hour. I 
found that I had already obtained all the valuable information which 
Stiggins disclosed, through Hawkins' "Sketch of the Creek Country." The 
manuscript of George Stiggins consist, if I recollect correctly, of eighty-
one pages of closely written foolscap paper -- hand-writing good, but 
prepared in such a style as an oldfield school master would use. The facts 
are no doubt valuable, and being written by an Indian -- a native of 
Alabama -- the Historical Society of this State ought to purchase it, and 
publish it as it is written. It is in the possession of some of that 
family now living on Little River.

Truly your friend,
Albert J. Pickett.

P.S. -- If you furnish any more communications to the Montgomery Mail, 
(and I hope you will,) please give all the information you possess in 
reference to that singular tribe, the Uchees, who once lived in the 
territory of the present Russell county. That tribe has puzzled me more 
than any other tribe which has ever lived on Alabama soil. And tell us (if 
you know) why it was that nature gave them the poorest and most discordant 
language which any tribe ever before, or since, has employed. 

A.J.P.



From the Montgomery Mail, February 27, 1858.
GEN. TOM WOODWARD'S INDIAN HISTORY.
Eds. Mail: -- I have been much interested in the letters from General Tom 
Woodward, which have appeared recently in your paper; and I am induced to 
offer you the following items, hoping thereby to elicit something more on 
the same subject:
About one year since, I passed a night at the house of Mr. Stephen 
Richards, in West Florida, who was an interpreter during the Seminole war, 
and had passed much of his life among the Indians. He gives the same 
account, substantially, of the migration of the Indians from west of the 
Mississippi, that Gen. Woodward does. I think he locates the Yemasses -- I 
write from memory -- in the Middle and Eastern portions of Florida, and 
says they were occupying the country when the Creeks came. He describes 
the Yemasses as having dark skins, coarse hair, thick lips, and flat feet, 
and as having inferior implements of war to the Creeks.

A war of extermination was waged by the Creeks against the Yemasses, and 
finally, at Tallahassee, the last of the warriors were killed -- but about 
a thousand of the young Creek warriors took sweet-hearts among the 
Yemassee girls, and saved them from death. According to a law among the 
Creeks, these were required to remain out of the nation a year for 
purification. Before the end of the year, the young warriors concluded to 
make wives of the Yemassee girls and set up as a nation for themselves, 
which they did. The Creeks called these warriors Seminoles -- meaning 
wild, wild man, crazy, mad-man, &c., &c. These Seminoles were afterwards 
joined by the outlaws and runaways from all other nations, and soon became 
a formidable nation, as Uncle Sam knows.

Col. Woodward speaks of the Seminoles as a mixed race, and gives the 
meaning of the name as wild, or runaway, or outlaw. I presume this is the 
race we know as the Seminole.

Those best acquainted with Indian history and customs, &c., of this 
region, are rapidly passing away, and it would be interesting if they 
could meet, compare notes, and give us a correct account.

J.W.K.



From the Montgomery Mail, Nov. 24, 1858
LETTER FROM J.G. KLINCK, OF TENNESSEE.

Eds. Mail: -- Having lately read some sketches of the Creek Indians, in 
the early history of Alabama, from the pen of the well remembered Gen. Tom 
Woodward, I have dared to presume that a few facts in relation to the 
first settlement of your town will not prove uninteresting to some of your 
readers. At the time of the great influx of emigration from the States, in 
the early part of 1817, I left the old South State, with the intention of 
proceeding to Fort Claiborne; but after a tedious journey of twentytwo 
days, I crossed Line Creek and made a halt at the fork of the road leading 
to Fort Jackson, and occupied a tenement belonging to Mr. Evans, who was 
then keeping public house. One hundred yards from this spot, and on the 
Federal road leading to Claiborne, was the firm of Meigs & Mitchell, and 
one mile on this road, East, on Milly's Creek, was James Powers, who did a 
large business in groceries and provisions; further East was Major 
Flanagan, (small trader,) then came Arterberry, and Denton, or Dent, who 
occupied the land and owned the ferry on Line Creek. With myself, the 
above were the only traders nearer than Fort Jackson. While here, and 
immediately after the first land sales in Milledgeville, the same summer, 
Mr. Andrew Dexter, of Massachusetts, and a Mr. Spears, of Oglethorpe 
county, Ga., came to Mr. Evans', both being attacked with bilious fever, 
(Dexter slightly,) -- they were en route to view their purchases at the 
time. Mr. Spears occupied a bed in the same room in which I had my goods, 
and never left it until his death, which was about two weeks after his 
arrival. He was prescribed for by an eminent physician (Dr. Dabuy) from 
Virginia, and had every attention paid him by Mr. Dexter and the family of 
Mr. Evans.
After this occurrence, Dexter proceeded to examine his purchase, and soon 
returned, being much flattered with the prospect of its advantages for a 
town site, and its central position for the Court House, when the county 
became sub-divided. He communicated all his plans to me -- that we were 
jointly to use our influence in drawing all the traders to the place 
intended for the town, which would necessarily draw the trade to that 
point, except from those on the road near Line Creek. I advised him to 
visit J.C. Farley, Carpenter & Harris, Laprade, (traders) and Dr. Morrow, 
a practicing physician, offer each a lot gratuitous, and proceed 
immediately to lay off the town.

My then locality was an unenviable one, so I immediately removed my goods 
to James Vickers', who lived on the bluff above the intended town. Dexter 
soon obtained the services of a Mr. Hall, surveyor, who laid off the town. 
As soon after this as I could have the center pointed out to me, I 
selected my lot, which was a privilege of first choice, and to name the 
place, which I called New Philadelphia -- and the name was never changed 
until 1819. I employed a Mr. Bell to build me a cabin -- and in showing 
him where, we found on the corner a post or black oak in the way of laying 
the ground sill, when I immediately seized the axe and felled it, 
remarking to Bell, "this is the first tree -- future ages will tell the 
tale." The house was built, and a well dug close by, at the junction of 
Market and Pearl streets. Dexter, before I could occupy the house, wishing 
to place it upon a more elevated portion of the quarter section, employed 
Mr. John Blackwell to resurvey it, which he did, and I took my first 
choice again, built another cabin and occupied it. After I built the 
first, and a little before I had occupied the last, J.C. Farley had a 
frame store house put up, which was weather-boarded with clap-boards, but 
never occupied until after I had completed and was doing business in my 
second tenement.

Next came Carpenter & Harris, John Falconer, John Goldthwaite, Eades, Dr. 
Gullett, James Vickers, Squire Loftin, John Hewett, Teague -- the first 
five were merchandizing. During this time the Scott & Bibb Company, as it 
was called, from Milledgeville, in Georgia, had bought largely of lands, 
and among others the fraction that was situated on the bluff between 
Dexter's quarter section and the river, for which they were to pay, as I 
understood, 550 per acre -- if so, it accounts for their having tried to 
build a town below then New Philadelphia, called Alabama, to rival the 
former or possibly impede its growth; but it was no go, as all the traders 
were in New Philadelphia, with the solitary exception of a man by the name 
of Campbell, with a few goods, among a few private families; they being 
his only customers, he soon abdicated, either for want of goods or 
patronage.

The business of locating a site for a Court House came, and commissioners 
were appointed for that purpose. Public opinion had given the Court House 
to New Philadelphia, whose citizens, generally wide awake to their 
interest, by way of inducement, entered into a bond of $20,000, payable to 
the Commissioners for the purpose of building a Court House and Jail, if 
they would locate the buildings in the last mentioned town, on the hill, 
where a public square had been laid off for the purpose. This bond was 
signed by Dexter, J.C. Farley, John Falconer, Harris & Carpenter, and 
myself, taking a mortgage of the lots around the square as an indemnity in 
case the proposition had been acceded to by the Commissioners.

From some cause or other, (I will not say prejudice or interest,) "Yankee 
Town," as it was sometimes called, did not get the Court House, with all 
its offerings, but it was awarded to Alabama Town. Up to the fall of 1819, 
no Court House had been built; a log building resembling an ordinary corn-
crib, was used as a Jail; .Justice's Court was held in Judge Bibb's house, 
and the first Circuit Court was holden in Mrs. Moulton's house, by Judge 
Martin, if the name be correct.

The residents of Alabama Town, as far as I can now recollect, (in the fall 
of 1819,) were Capt. John Goss, (Gause?) and family, William Goss, James 
Goss and family, old lady Goss and her daughter, Eliza, (who that fall 
married Willburn,) Major Peacock and family, Mr. Ashley and family, Mr. 
Jones and family, a Mr. Perry, Judge Bibb, Major Johnson, (Mail
Contractor,) Edmondson, Clerk of the Court, and his mother-in-law, Mrs. 
Moulton -- an entire military and civic population merchant or trader in 
town.

Such as I can now name of the inhabitants in Montgomery, (now called,) are 
Dexter, Loftin, first justice in town; James Vickers, innkeeper; Thomas 
and William Lewis, merchants; Major Wood, planter; Stone, (son of Judge 
Stone, and son-in-law of Esquire Loftin;) Eades, merchant; Drs. Gullett & 
Co.; J.C. Farley, merchant; Carpenter, merchant; John Falconer, merchant, 
and first postmaster; Dr. Morrow; J. Goldthwaite, merchant; John Hewett; 
Widow Hewett and family; Mr. Larkin, innkeeper and farmer; Henry Farley, 
brother of J.C. Farley; A.M. Reynolds and family; Mr. Baker; John Belew, 
carpenter; R. Mosely, and a number of other families of same name, on the 
Hill; Nimrod Benson, Esq.; Esquire Sims, attorney; and a dense 
population -- I cannot recollect names.

It will be well to mention how the town happened to change its name. As 
early as January, 1819, Dexter came to me after I had held a conversation 
with one of my other friends on the subject, and told me a proposition had 
been made by the interested of Alabama Town, (the Scott Company,) to annex 
the Bluff fraction to Dexter's quarter section, which they had forfeited 
and since entered, and were willing to locate the Court House on the line 
of fraction and section, each holding their own territory. Well, believing 
it not a very hard matter to move a Court House which had never been 
built, but a right which that company had to pick it up and set it down 
wherever they pleased, I concluded it might be more to our advantage to 
have one in which they were interested, than one entirely our own. All was 
agreed, and the union took place. Now for the name: What shall be done? It 
will never do to call it "New Philadelphia," nor "Yankee Town;" either 
scent too strong for "Georgy." I have it -- we will call it Montgomery, 
after the county; it was settled upon without a dissenting voice, and to 
the great satisfaction of all concerned -- the name being equally dear to 
every American throughout the land. Thus, by the unity of interests and 
joint fellowship, has this town continued to grow ever since, in wealth 
and population.

I could speak, if I had time, of the many pleasing associations of that 
day and place; but must conclude, by insisting that the palm of its early 
time and prosperity belongs to Andrew Dexter and his then associates.

P.S. -- The foregoing alludes to Dexter's quarter section alone, up to the 
time stated. Walton Lucas and Mr. Allen were both doing business on the 
Bluff fraction, in 1819, close to the river.



WHEELING, WINN PARISH, LA.
December 8, 1858.
J.J. HOOPER, Esq.:
Dear Sir: -- I some time back wrote you a letter, in which I mentioned 
that I was glad to learn that my friend Hanrick was still living, and that 
he had informed me he was the only one living in Montgomery who was at the 
place when he came to it, which I think was in 1817. I also stated that 
Arthur Moore was the first white man who built a house and lived in it, at 
the place the city of Montgomery now occupies. I still assert it; for I 
distinctly recollect stopping with Moore, and killing two deer, in a small 
pond that stood a little North of where Mrs. Reed kept a tavern when I 
left the country. Mr. Hanrick can point out the spot where the pond was.
In that letter, I had no idea of differing from Mr. Klinck as to how New 
Philadelphia (as it was then called) was laid off, or by whom. I wrote you 
long since that Andrew Dexter was looked upon as being the true founder of 
Montgomery. My first visit to the spot where Montgomery now stands, was in 
April, 1814; it was then called Chunnanugga-Chatty, or the High Red Bluff. 
From that time until I left Alabama, I was as familiar with the place as I 
was with very many of its inhabitants. It only seems to be a test of 
memory, or recollection, with those who write about the early settlement 
of Montgomery. Keep out Col. Gilbert S. Russell, of the old 3d regiment of 
U.S. Infantry, and I will risk my own memory against all others, for a 
correct narrative of what I knew in early life, whether it be interesting 
or not to those who are living.

Mr. Klinck mentions many names that are as familiar to me as my own. In 
case this should ever be published, I will give a few particulars which 
will be remembered by those who lived some thirty-five or forty years 
back, and longer, if you choose.

I recollect Col. John Blackwell, whom Mr. Klinck speaks of. I beat him 
running a foot race at Old Alabama Town, on the day that James Johnson and 
Henry D. Stone ran for the office of Colonel. I recollect that a Mr. Clay 
killed Dr. Sidneyham about the same time. The Dr. was a brother-in-law of 
Col. John Blackwell. I recollect Adams and Madison, whom he mentions; they 
were both about as ugly as mortals ever get to be. I knew the Irishman, 
John Conden; and bought his dun pony, which will be remembered as well as 
Conden himself. I also knew all the Evans', Tatums, Fitzpatricks, Gosses, 
and Laprade. I knew him while he was a Commissary in the army, long before 
Montgomery was settled by the whites. Jesse Evans was considered the best 
fist-fighter of his size, in his day. Organ Tatum and Ben Ward had the 
first fist-fight I ever heard of, in Montgomery county. Tatum bit off a 
piece of Ward's nose.

I also knew Bob Moseley. Some one stole a fine hound from me in 
Milledgeville, Ga., which I purchased from a man on Lyrick's Creek, S. C, 
some years before that. I found the dog in the possession of Mosely, in 
Montgomery, and we were very near having a serious difficulty about it. I 
proved by Col. Freeny that the dog was mine.

It was Joe Fitzpatrick who was the competitor of Major Pinkston, and not 
Phil.; nor was Phillips Fitzpatrick the father of Senator Ben, but both he 
and Joe were the older brothers of the Senator; and all were the sons of 
William Fitzpatrick, a good old Washington and Adams Federalist; and both 
Joe and Phil. -- who had much to do, at an early period, in the shaping of 
Alabama politics -- were John Quincy Adams men, in opposition to Wm. H. 
Crawford, the regular Republican nominee for President, to succeed Mr. 
Monroe. But both were Jackson men after that.

I could give you a long string of Jeffersonian Democrats, both in Alabama 
and Georgia, who have descended from old Adams Federalists; but it is of 
no use now, as the National Democracy, South, is fixing to take up Mr. 
Douglas, who has done so much for the South; for under his especial 
management, a few Southerners at least have been permitted to live out a 
short and precarious life in Kansas, with a few slaves. That, and the 
whipping of old Greely and Sumner, are achievements of which the South can 
boast; and if Mr. Douglas is the next President, the South may be able to 
crow over many other such victories.

As to the few sketches I have given you above, about the early settlers of 
Montgomery, if you can find any one who can go further into little 
particulars than I can, I am willing to quit; for I am certain that such 
is not very interesting. My health is improving, and I hope that I shall 
yet see Montgomery once more, before I take my departure for that better 
city which we read of.

I am not fixing for hunting. I have fourteen fine hounds, a good horse and 
gun; and, as for fishing, there is a place near me that even Peter of old 
would not risk his net in, if he knew how plenty they are. But 
notwithstanding all the fine hunting and fishing, as well as the balance 
of the good things, Alabama and Georgia are preferable places to Louisiana 
and Texas, at least for me to live in. My advice to such as have 
advertised their lands for sale from choice, in Alabama and Georgia, is to 
withdraw their advertisements, pay up the printer, and content themselves 
where they are.

Your friend,
T.S. WOODWARD. 



WHEELING, WINN PARISH, LA.
December 13, 1858.
J.J. HOOPER, Esq.:
Dear Sir: -- Your letter of the 27th of November last came to this office 
some days back, and I would have tried to answer it before this, but have 
been too feeble to do so; and I now fear that I shall be unable to do 
justice to your inquiries, or answer them satisfactorily.
As to the correct date of my birth, there have ever been doubts, or 
differences of opinion among those who should have been best able to know 
the precise time I did come into existence. My father died, I think, on 
the 23d of March, 1800. I was then quite young, but recollect him very 
distinctly. Some two years after his death, my mother married a second 
husband. She lived but a few years afterwards, and then she died. I think 
she died in September, 1806. I was then left to work my way into eternity 
the best I could. So, you see I have got thus far through the journey of 
time, and from present appearances, it will not be long before I will have 
completed somewhat of a troublesome travel; or at least I think many, to 
have performed the trip, would have taken much of the route to be pretty 
rough.

But in order to account to you for the cause of there being doubts about 
the true date of my birth, I must here go into a few particulars of what I 
think was the cause. No doubt it will prove very uninteresting to you; but 
in times past it was a matter of great importance to me and others. As 
this may be published, I go into these details for two reasons: The first 
is, it will do justice to the memory of one of the purest and best men 
that ever lived. The second is, that if I was dealt unjustly with when 
young, it will inform one individual,d at least, if no more, who is now 
living, that I was not so ignorant as not to know it.

My father was possessed, for the time and country in which he lived, of 
what was then termed a pretty little property. He made a will, the purport 
of which was about this: That his property should be kept together until 
his son Thomas arrived to the age of twenty-one years -- (that was 
myself) -- and then to be divided among the heirs equally. And in the 
event that I should die before I was twenty-one years old, the property 
should be kept together until the time I would have been twenty-one had I 
lived, and then to be equally divided among the surviving heirs.

At the time of my father's death the heirs were -- my mother, a sister two 
years older than myself; myself, and a brother three years, to a day, 
younger than myself; -- or at least I have been informed so by a Mrs. 
Black, whose authority I presume was better than any other, as she was 
present at the births both of myself and brother. Mrs. Black will be 
remembered as a very intelligent woman, by some in South Carolina, Georgia 
and Alabama. She was the mother of Major James Black, who was once, and 
may be yet, a citizen of Alabama. He resided either in Wilcox or Monroe 
county; and a bluff known as Black's Bluff, took its name from James 
Black. I visited the old lady at her son's in Alabama many years after I 
was grown. She seemed to have a more distinct recollection of my brother's 
age than she had of mine, and said he was born in February, 1797.

Not long after my father died, my brother died also; and my mother soon 
followed -- leaving an only sister and myself. About this time, the 
settlement of Milledgeville, Ga:, commenced. A sister of my mother, who 
was as good as God ever makes people, took my sister and raised her; and I 
was left to "run in the range." But not long after my sister was taken to 
Milledgeville, a brother of my mother had me caught and taken there 
also; -- and if there was ever a better man than he, he lived before my 
time, or in some country which I have not been familiar with. He tried to 
tame me; he sent me to school to one John Posey, who taught in the State 
House, then an unoccupied building. But I had been so neglected, and had 
grown to such a size -- and finding boys greatly under my age and size so 
much further advanced than myself -- it embarrassed me; and every 
opportunity I could get to go into the country, and get with boys whom I 
could look upon as being more upon equality with myself, I would do so. 
The older members of my uncle's family could see, notwithstanding the 
coarse and rough manner in which I had been brought up, that I had sense 
enough to know my true situation, and felt my inferiority.

My uncle, his wife, (whom I yet love as a mother,) and down to the 
youngest child who could talk, treated me with the utmost kindness, and 
tried to make me feel as their equal; but I knew too well what I was, to 
be satisfied. I would play and frolick with his boys, to whom I became 
very much attached -- in fact, I loved them like brothers-and to-day that 
branch of my mother's family feel nearer to me than any relations I have 
on earth -- my niece, Mary Walker, excepted; and she would not feel as 
near to me as she does, but for her present embarrassed situation.

This kind treatment of that family to me was kept up for some eighteen 
months or two years, when one of my uncle's daughters married Robert 
Rutherford. In him I found a true friend, such as orphans seldom meet with.

My uncle was now fixing to send his sons to Athens to school. I think a 
Dr. Brown was then at the head of that institution. Rutherford proposed to 
send me with the other boys, and my uncle readily agreed to the 
proposition. Preparations were making to send me to College -- when 
another uncle, and a brother of the one I lived with, interfered; he said 
it would be money thrown away, &c. I think this last mentioned uncle 
always had more control over the family than he was probably justly 
entitled to; but so it was, and has been. I never saw the inside of a 
College but once, and that was but for a few minutes, as I only went in to 
help another boy carry out his trunk, which he was unable to carry himself.

My uncle who was so opposed to my being sent to school, employed me the 
next year to plow for him. I did him what I thought was a tolerably 
faithful year's work; and at the end of the year, I proposed to have a 
settlement, or asked pay for what labor I had performed. But my uncle was 
by that, as he was by the school money -- he thought it would be "throwing 
it away," and of course he never paid me one cent.

I then began to conclude that if I had to go through the world without any 
money being laid out on me, I had better try my hand with the Indians, as 
it was said they could get through life with less money than the white 
folks. From then until the Creek Indians migrated to Arkansas, I never 
lost an opportunity to make myself acquainted with their character and 
history.

In 1811 my uncle, with whom I had lived in Milledgeville, sent to my 
stepfather -- who then lived in Franklin county, Ga., -- and had four of 
the oldest negroes that belonged to the estate of my father carried to 
Baldwin county. He sold one of the negroes, purchased a tract of land, and 
put the other three negroes to work for the support of my sister and 
myself.

In 1812, the war with Great Britain commenced, and I entered the army as a 
private soldier on the 1st day of July of that year. I will here drop a 
few lines in relation to my old uncle, as well as a tear on this paper for 
him and Robert Rutherford; and the greatest favor that I have to ask of my 
creator is, to permit me to live until the first day of July, 1862, when I 
intend to visit the last resting place of those two men.

My uncle was a blacksmith in his younger days, and at the time I lived 
with him, he was getting to be an old man; and notwithstanding his age and 
very considerable wealth, he would frequently work in the blacksmith's 
shop -- and it often happened that I would blow the bellows and strike for 
him. I remember several times being with him in his shop, when he would 
stop work, wipe the sweat from his face, and look me sternly in the 
countenance, which would cause me to look at him. I could see the water 
rise in his eyes, and as soon as he discovered that I noticed it, he would 
step up to me, pat me on the head, and say, "never mind, my boy, you shall 
be a man some day." I at that time had no idea that the old man had any 
kindlier feelings for me than he had for any other straggling boy -- but I 
was mistaken.

In 1813 my sister married Gen. James C. Watson -- who, for the last 
fourteen years of his life, resided in Columbus, Ga. I at that time knew 
but little about my father's matters, more than that he had died possessed 
of some negroes and land; and Watson knew less than I did. The war was 
going on -- I cared nothing about property -- and if Watson wanted 
anything, or to know anything, of my father's estate, he was too proud to 
ask or make any inquiry about it. But I mentioned to Watson that I thought 
if right could take place, that my sister and myself ought to have 
something more than what our uncle had promised for us, and that I thought 
there was a will somewhere, and requested him to see my uncle on the 
subject; but he declined making any inquiry, and so the matter rested -- 
and we went about dividing what little we had -- that is, my sister and 
myself. Watson would not consent to settle with me, but insisted that I 
should have Robert Rutherford appointed as my guardian -- I then weighing 
near a hundred and seventy pounds. Rutherford consented to act for me, and 
everything went on well; and the division was equally made. Rutherford 
then said to Watson, "take Tom's little matters into your hands, and pay 
what will be right; for he (alluding to me) will do nothing while the war 
lasts but follow the army."

So matters rested until 1815, when I was discharged from on board of that 
iII-fated vessel, Epervier, or El Epervier, (of which I will give you more 
in my next.) On my arrival in Milledgeville, I met with my old uncle; he 
seemed proud to see me, and said to me -- "Tom, you're now a man; I want 
you to take your horse and go to Judge Screene's for a paper. If the paper 
is not in Screene's possession, do you give this to the Clerk at 
Saundersville," -- handing me a letter at the same time.

I went to Judge Screene's, and got the paper. It was my father's will, or 
a copy -- l now do not recollect which -- the purport of which I have 
given you before. I carried the paper to my uncle; he than said to me, 
"take the will, examine it, and get the advice of a lawyer, and do what 
you think best;" but said that he was certain that all the property of 
which my father died possessed, belonged to my sister and myself -- as 
well as a portion of what my mother had, and was to receive from the 
estate of her father. And while I am at this part of my subject, let me 
say, for the information of some who are yet living, that neither myself 
or my sister ever received a particle of what belonged to my mother, 
except the milk we drew from her breast, and the few clothes she may have 
made for us when we were small children. Notwithstanding there was some 
valuable property which I was entitled to, I never asked for or tried to 
recover a cent of it. I know where it is. It is in the possession of a 
branch of my mother's family who are less entitled to it than any of the 
family whose hands it could have fallen into. I could yet recover it, were 
I so disposed; I know where the papers are, and could identify the 
negroes; but I was deprived of the use of it at a time when it might have 
been of some service to me; now I am old and fast becoming a fit subject 
for a wooden jacket and a hole in the ground, I would not fee a lawyer and 
break myself of one night's rest for as much money as Samson could have 
packed at the time he carried off the gate posts at Gaza.

This letter, or the greater portion of it, may be by some thought best let 
alone; but notwithstanding I have always been ready to oblige others, 
there are times when I feel greatly inclined to gratify my own feelings, 
and this is one of them. Should this ever be published, it will reach some 
for whom it is intended. I must confess that I am not one of that kind of 
christians who, when slapped on one cheek, turn the other, unless forced 
to do so.

I will now return to my old uncle and the will. The old man explained to 
me the whole matter -- how he had acted, and from what motive. And he was 
a man who was never known to misrepresent things. I recollect his looks -- 
I recollect his language -- and I recollect my own feelings. His remarks 
to me were about these: "Tom, no doubt you do, and will think you have 
been neglected; and you have to some extent a cause to think so. I and 
your uncle Ben Howard, (alluding to another brother of his,) are the only 
members of our family who ever liked your father, and were the only ones 
who did not oppose his marrying your mother. And it will do you no good 
now to know their objections, and therefore I will let that pass." I then 
said to the old man, that he need not keep it back, for I suspected that I 
already knew their objections to my father, and told him what they were. 
He then asked me how I had learned it. I told him that I had seen my 
father's mother, two of his own brothers, and a half brother, and had 
heard them speak of it; and had also heard one of my father's brothers say 
as late as 1809, while passing through Milledgeville in company with Col. 
Obed Kirkland on their way to Mississippi territory, that if I would 
search when I got old enough, he thought I could find a will of my father; 
and that he believed it was on record in Franklin county, Ga. After 
listening to what I have just written, which I learned from the Woodward 
family, my old uncle Howard observed that I knew much more of my father's 
matters than he had any idea of, and that the objection alluded to on the 
part of the Howard family to my father, was in consequence of his blood. 
He admitted that my father was an intelligent man -- well educated for the 
times in which he was raised, and that the family stood high in South 
Carolina -- particularly in Fairfield District -- and that the whole 
Woodward family, women and men, were whigs in the revolution.

I must confess that this pleased me a little; but the idea of its being 
known or thought by my mother's family that I was of a mixed race, annoyed 
me much. It was a thing that I had learned among the first things I did 
learn of my father's family; and in my raising I avoided ever letting it 
be known to any but my sister, who knew as much about it as I did.

My uncle Howard said to me that my father had left him his Executor, but 
that he lived at too great a distance to attend the matter, and that my 
mother had married a second time, and there were younger children of hers, 
and they were left motherless at an early day; that he had concluded to 
arrange it so that when I became of age, the will should be placed in my 
possession, and let me take my own course. And that he would have been 
willing and was anxious to have educated me at his own expense, had I 
shown any disposition to study or fondness for books; but that I had shown 
such a disinclination to go to school, and a disposition to ramble on the 
frontiers and loiter about the soldiers' and Indian camps, that he 
concluded to let me go, as it would have required measures more harsh than 
he was willing to use to restrict me; and said to me if I had, from the 
neglect of friends and my own imprudence, been deprived of the use or 
knowledge of books I had been to a school where no doubt I had learned 
much of men, and that he hoped in the end would answer me as well as if I 
had been sent to College. That good old man was right, and God has blessed 
him long since.

My uncle said I was then of age -- Gen. Watson took the will and demanded 
the property of my father from my step-father; a record of my age was 
produced, showing that I was born on the 22d of February, 1797, and my 
step-father claimed the right at least to keep the property together until 
February, 1818, Watson said -- for the property and that suit were never 
determined.

In 1817 my step-father died. I was then a Major, commanding a detachment 
of militia in the U.S. service. In February, 1818, I borrowed a few days 
from the service, and went to Franklin county, Ga. The negroes had been 
scattered -- some in Franklin, some in Elbert, some in Pendleton District, 
S.C., and one of them in the neighborhood of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I had 
heard it said that there was one thing which had helped to make Gen. 
Jackson a great man -- and that was the incurring of responsibility. So, 
whenever I found a negro, I laid hold of him, and succeeded in getting all 
but two. The one which was in Tuscaloosa was sent to Milledgeville by the 
man who held him in possession, on my giving him to understand that he or 
I would be put to some trouble, if the negro was not forthcoming, and that 
in a short time. The negro was soon in the possession of Gen. Watson, 
where I had placed the others. There was then one missing -- a man by the 
name of Jim, whom we never got. The last I ever heard of him, Jim was 
given to Felix Grundy, by Swan Hardin, as a fee in a case where he 
[Hardin] was tried as accessory, before and after the murder of the 
Porter's by his [Hardin's] sons; -- that was in Columbia, Maury county, 
Tennessee, many years ago.

The negroes were placed in possession of Gen. Watson, as I before 
remarked; we claimed nothing for a tract of land as valuable as any in the 
country at that time; we asked nothing for the hire of some valuable 
negroes for near twenty years. But still there was a hatred entertained 
towards me by some who never had cause to owe me ill will. Watson was 
getting up in the world a little too fast -- becoming a little too 
popular, though a Federalist and a Clark man; and in fact, I have often 
thought that that party in its purity was as good, if not better than the 
opposition -- though I was not brought up in early life to think so. You 
have no doubt read of Judas, the traitor who betrayed his master, for a 
trifling sum of money. I have often thought that some more favorable 
allowances should have been made for Judas by the christian world, when we 
take into consideration with whom he was raised, and how he was brought up 
in early life. If the whole twelve had been Judas's who traveled with that 
good man -- for a good man he evidently was -- and whose great object was 
to reform the degraded habits of his countrymen, and to relieve them from 
their then embarrassed condition, and place them upon an equality with the 
other more enlightened nations of that day, and in which cause he lost his 
life. I have known some men, and had to do with them, who would have 
betrayed that good man in less time, and for less than half the amount 
that poor, ignorant Jew received.

We were sued, or attempted to be sued -- much harrassed, and run to much 
expense; but we held the property. By the time the matter was ended, I had 
gambled and frolicked off my portion of it; or at least, the amount of it. 
I sold my interest to Watson; he paid me more than it was worth, besides 
doing me many other favors.

Now, sir, why I have written this long letter, which will be found of 
little interest, is, that Watson and myself have been often accused of 
having swindled a half brother and sister of mine out of property which 
was justly theirs; and it has also been said that after he and I had 
swindled those children, that he had swindled me. There is not a word of 
truth in the whole of it; and those who have made these charges against 
either of us, have ignorantly erred or wilfully lied.

Gen. Watson was the person I alluded to in the first part of this letter, 
and whose memory I wished to do justice to. He died in 1843, and was 
possessed of a handsome estate. It has been plundered, and partly by those 
who in his life time had received many favors from him. I know enough of 
those sycophantic, hypocritical scamps who used to crouch and receive 
favors at his hands, that have aided in reducing his only daughter to 
almost poverty; and they console themselves in their villainy by saying 
that he made his property by defrauding orphans. These men and a 
mismanaging husband could ruin the fortune of any child. All I have to say 
to such, is to keep a copy of this on hand, and when it comes to their 
turn to leave for a place which they will most assuredly dread, say to 
their children, should they have any to leave, that honesty is the best 
policy.

In my next, which will be in a day or two, I will give my age, or what I 
think it to be -- a short sketch of my family on both sides -- the wars 
which I have been engaged in -- the fights that I witnessed, (which were 
but light) -- what the S in my name stands for -- my shipping on board the 
Epervier, and my discharge from her -- my settlement in Alabama and 
Arkansas, -- and all that you have requested to know; and I think you will 
find it much more interesting than this will be.

Yours, truly,
T.S. WOODWARD.