first spinning
w heel and loom ever made among the mountain Cherokee, or perhaps in the Nation,
long before Watford's time, or "about the time the Cherokee began to drop their
silver ornaments and go to work." In 1785 the commissioners for the Hopewell
treaty reported that some of the Cherokee women had lately learned to spin, and many
were very desirous of instruction in the raising, spinning, and weaving of flax, cotton,
and wool (Hopewell Commissioners' Report, 1785, American State Papers: Indian
\ Efa i is. i . p. 39) . In accordance with their recommendation the next treaty made with
the tribe, in 1791, contained a provision for supplying the Cherokee with farming
tools (Holston treaty, 1791, Indian Treaties, p. 36, 1837), and this civilizing policy
was continued and broadened until, in 1801, their agent reportedthat at the < !hero-
kee agency the wheel, the loom, and the plow were in pretty general use, and fann-
ing, manufacturing, and stock raising were the principal topics of conversation among
men and women ( Hawkins manuscripts, Treaty Commission of 1801 ).
(32) Colonel Return .1. Meigs ( p. 84): Return Jonathan Meigs was born in Mid-
dletown, Connecticut, December 17, 1734, and died at the Cherokee agency in Ten-
nessee, January 28, 1823. He was the first-born son of his parents, who gave him
the somewhat peculiar name of Return Jonathan to commemorate a romantic
incident in their own courtship, when his mother, a young Quakeress, called back
her lover as he was mounting his horse to leave the house forever after what he
had supposed was a final refusal. The name has been handed