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Updated: June 25, 2025
The first settlers on the Holston, Watauga and other tributary streams, were so far beyond the influence of the State laws of North Carolina as to induce them in 1772 to form a temporary government for their better protection and security.
"I don't believe it!" she gasped. "You know who to find! You're just getting up this story to be noticed. You're always doing things to attract attention to yourself. You want to go riding around in an automobile and and Mr. Stoddard has probably gone in to Watauga and taken the midnight train for Boston. This looking around in the mountains is folly. Who would want to harm him in the mountains?"
To the west and south there was only the trackless wilderness; and to the north no white settlement nearer than that of the over-mountain folk on the Watauga. I asked if we might hope to reach this. "'Tis a long fifty mile ez the crow flies, over e'enabout the mountainousest patch o' land that ever laid out o' doors," was the hunter's reply.
"They're after game. James Shelby is sick with the fever. Yesterday morning he asked them to perch a turkey for him. Signal them. They know nothing about the Indians!" Cousin risked discovery by standing clear of the bushes and waving his hat. "There comes two more of 'em!" he exclaimed. This couple was some distance behind the Watauga boys, but I recognized them.
Some sixteen families of this stamp, indignant at the injustices and oppressions of British rule, and stirred by Robertson's description of the richness and beauty of the western country, accompanied him to Watauga shortly after the battle.
The Watauga community had been till now living under no organized government.
Nothing was more natural than that they should speak of Gray Stoddard's disappearance, since Watauga, Cottonville, and the mountains above were full of the topic; yet husband and wife sheered from it in a sort of terror.
The fort at Watauga was at once put into a state of efficient defence, smaller forts were erected in the centre of every scattered settlement, and a larger one was built on the frontier, near the confluence of the north and south forks of the Holston River, to protect the more remote settlements. This last was called Fort Patrick Henry, in honor of the patriotic governor of Virginia.
If Rosecrans were at Rome, as General Crittenden's dispatch indicated, he was more than a hundred and seventy miles distant from Knoxville, and nearly three hundred miles from the region about Greeneville and the Watauga River, whose crossing would be the natural frontier of the upper valley, if Burnside should not be able to extend his occupation quite to the Virginia line.
While Robertson had been away, Sevier had not been idle. He had put Watauga into the best possible state of defence. With the surprising energy that was characteristic of him, he had built a fort and gathered every white settler into it or safe within range of its muskets.
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