Passage

NORTHEAST CUMBERLAND DRAFT TABLE OF CONTENTS 1) A Journey in History  2) Passage to Cumberland Region 3) The Illusive Avery Trace 4) Northeast Cumberland (This Page) 5) Bell Homestead       In 1807 family Bell settled in the upper northwest corner of the Cumberland Region in Robertson County. The map below shows the location of some of key landmarks.  The nearby rivers are highlighted in blue.  The Bell farm was on the south bank of the Red River near present-day Adams.  This seventy-mile long river originates in Simpson County, Kentucky and flows southwest to Port Royal (not shown on map), where it joins with  the Sulfur Fork, continues to the southwest to Clarksville, and empties into the Cumberland River.  The Cumberland River flows north out of Nashville through Clarksville and continues to the Ohio River.     In Robertson County rivers were a critical physical feature.  Indians and settlers lived and hunted along them, they were a source of fresh water and food, they provided the highways from one place to another and the energy for grist mills to grind corn, wheat, and other grains into flour.  For the Scot-Irish inhabitants that populated this area the sparkling streams that fed the river provided crystal clear for the production of whiskey.  It is said that the first thing a settler did after setting up his homestead was setup a still.  According to Goodspeed's History of Tennessee, Small distilleries where found in almost every hollow; and it is asserted that on some streams there was a still-house every hundred yards. One might wonder how much excessive availability of whiskey contributed to the creation of some of the folklore of this region that later became the seeds for inventive writers..  Just a thought.    The primary crops were corn and tobacco.  Most settlers had small plots for growing cotton and flax for clothing and for growing potatoes, squash, turnips, and pumpkins basic subsistence. Food was abundant in this area with buffalo, turkey, geese, ducks, rabbits, and squirrels for meat and with crab-apples, wild cherries, plums, persimmons, nuts, blackberries, greens, wild spices and herbs to supplement their diet.     Because of the limestone geology and abundance of water this region was permeated with caves, especially in the bluffs along the rivers.  Indian mounds, which were burial sites and temples with many dating back to 900AD, made this area sacred to the Indians and stories of spirits of dead ancestors.     Yolanda G. Reid and Rick S. Gregory in their book Robertson County: The Home of the World's Finest, Celebrating 200 Years, Turner Publishing Company (1996) and Goodspeed in his History of Robertson County 1886 offered the following early history.     In 1791 Elias Fort migrated from Edgecombe North Carolina (same location as Bell Family) to Red River region with a large family of four sons and five daughters and their married families.  They settled on the north side of the Red River in the neighborhood where John Bell purchased his farm. This migration pattern was an interesting coincidence.      Within a few years they were joined by Thomas and William Johnson; Thomas and Carl Kilgore; the Phillips family; James Bryan, Carr, Hollard and Jonathan Darden; William and Jeremiah Batts; and Henry, John and James Batts.  A James Bell settled in nearby Wartrace Creek and a George Bell who opened a General Store in nearby Springfield.  Goodspeed listed the residents as John and James Johnson, Thomas and James Gunn, Corbin Hall, Jesse Gardner, Isaac Menees, Jeremiah and Benjamin Batts and John Bell. Thomas and Henry Johnson, John and Benjamin McIntosh, Anderson, Archer, Edward and John B. Cheatham, William and Jonathan Huddleston, Richard Crunk, Martin Duncan, John Edwards, Joseph Hardaway and Jacob McCarty.  Many of these names reappeared over the next fifty years in the professional and political records of the county.  The John Bell's does not.      The first settlement in Robertson County was Kilgore Station three-quarters of a mile from Cross Plains in 1780 following in that same year by Maulding Station four miles to the east.  Sevier Station was at the mouth of the Red River at the Cumberland River.  In 1788 Samuel Crocket, a Revolutionary War soldier, built his station on Carr Creek near Springfield.        Most of them arrived either by flat-boat floating down the Cumberland River for Clarksville and then poling that boat up the Red River to Port Royal.  From here they disbursed on the many creeks feeding the Red River.      The few roads that existed at that time were not recorded.  Any travel not on the river was down buffalo trails.  After searching through hundreds of early nineteenth century maps for road, the best we found is shown below. [http://www.tngenweb.org/maps/tannersm.jpg]     The first settlement in Robertson County was Kilgore Station three-quarters of a mile from Cross Plains in 1780 following in that same year by Maulding Station four miles to the east.  Sevier Station was at the mouth of the Red River at the Cumberland River.  In 1788 Samuel Crocket, a Revolutionary War soldier, built his station on Carr Creek near Springfield.        Beside from the river, Robertson County was settled by wagon trains arriving near Nashville and Fort Mansker on the Cumberland Turnpike and then traveling northwest to Turnerville, Port Royal, and Springfield.      The population of Robertson County grew from 4,228 in 1800, 7,270 in 1810, and 9,938 in 1820 with most being of Scot-Irish or German descent.  The major towns were Springfield, Turnersville, and Cross Plains. NOTES: The links in this web page were created in 2008.  Many of the URLs may no longer be valid.  We are trying to replace them, but some are gone forever.