had been greatly elevated. He was
told also that her advice and counsel bordered on supreme, and that her interference
was allowed to be decisive even in affairs of life and death. Although he speaks
in the present tense, it is hardly probable that she was then still alive, and he does
not claim to have met her. Her descendants are still found in the Nation. See
Haywood, Natural and Aboriginal Tennessee; Ramsey, Tennessee; Nuttall, Travels,
p. 130, 1821; Campbell letter, 1781, and Springstone deposition, 1781, in Virginia
State Papers i, pp. 435, 436, 447, 1875; Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography.
(15) General James Robertson (p. 48): This distinguished pioneer and founder
of Nashville was born in Brunswick county. Virginia, in 1742, and died at the ( jhick-
asaw agency in west Tennessee in 1814. Like most ofthe men prominent in the
early history of Tennessee, he was of Scotch-Irish ancestry. His father having
removed about 1750 to western North Carolina, the boy grew up without education,
but with a strong love for adventure, which he gratified by making exploring expe-
ditions across the mountains. After his marriage his wife taught him to read ami
write. In 1771 he led a colony to the Watauga river and established the settlement
which became the nucleus of the future state of Tennessee. He took a leading part
in the organization of the Watauga Association, the earliest organized government
within the state, and afterward served in Dunmore's war, taking part in the bloody
battle of Point Pleasant in 1774. He participated in the earlier Revolutionary cam-
paigns against the Cherokee, and in 1777 was appointed agent to reside