Settlements in the Wautauga/Nolichucky area in the 1700s

I am still thinking about the Morrison/Goad/Hensley settlers in the Nolichucky area of what is now Tennessee but was then North Carolina.  I am reading today the First Families of Tennessee: A register of Early Settlers and their Present-Day Descendants.  These are pages that I copied on my visit to the Washington County-Jonesborough Library in Jonesborough, TN this winter.  The book was published by the East Tennessee Historical Society, so I am guessing that it is available on their site.  On page 19 of the book, the statement is made:  "The eighteenth-Century movement of people into Tennessee was fundamentally shaped by geography.  The places from which immigrants came and routes they took were largely dictated by topographical considerations.  In the North American interior, where early overland traffic moved on foot, unbroken ranges of high peaks presented a formidable obstacle.  ....The great valley of Tennessee, on the other hand, formed a natural extension of the Shenandoah Valley and the Valley of Virginia...."  The first area of what is now Tennessee was in four areas:  the North Holston, Watauga, and Nolichucky rivers and in Carter's Valley.  Slightly later settlers settled along the French Broad River.

Ronald explained to me that Patrick and his family were concentrated in Carter's Valley.  James and David were on Beech Creek.  William, Betsy and Jeannette were on Lick Creek in the Nolichucky settlement. John was just south of the Nolichucky settlement.

Oh, but wait a minute, I have more information from Ronald that is a little different from the above:

Wikipedia shows these rivers with today's boundaries:

Actually Patrick never lived on the Nolichucky. His property was all on the Lick Creek basically just south of Chimney Top Mountain. Two hundred acres was at the mouth of Long Fork Creek where it empty into Lick and just above Cedar Creek (not on any map). The three hundred acres was just off Lick Creek on Jarrotts Branch this is where William lived on 100 acres of the 300. This land is close to where Greene, Sullivan and Washington met near Chimney Top. James and David's land was on the north side of the Mountain on Beech Creek and John's land was on Sinking Creek off Nolichucky.

There is a deed of sale in 1791 (copy in Morrison file in file that says documents) in which Patrick is selling land.  He sells 200 of the 300 acres that he owns,  but excludes the 100 acres on which William Morrison lives.  The land is on Jarrott's Branch.

This gives one a sense of where the settlers were.

Several of the other pages that I read today talk about the fact that many of the settlers who went to the Nashville area early traveled via the Wilderness trail into Kentucky and then south into Tennessee from there.  There were other explanations of trails and routes taken.  I filed the pages that I copied into my Morrison cubby.  When you see the map below, you think that this seems "out of the way".  But it seems to have been the best way in the time period that we are looking at.



this map is from:  http://www.tnhistoryforkids.org/history/virtual-tours/virtual-tours/cumberland-gap.2426131

And here is the comment taken from the page on this site:




I want to add something to the end of this....it is half baked....Patrick Henry Morrison of Cabell County says that his family traveled through the Cumberland Gap to get to Salt Rock.  We all know this is geographically not likely!  However, it works that the family did go through the Cumberland Gap if they traveled to the Nashville area before they returned to Pittsylvania County. It works if William and Rachel Witcher Morrison went to the Nashville area before they decided to return home to Pittsylvania County.  What I am reading today says that many of the settlers who moved to the Nashville area traveled on the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap and into Kentucky before traveling south into the Nashville area.  This was a normal route for this migration pattern.

Our Morrison group has been talking about the fact that the group for the most part believes that Patrick lived and died in the area of TN that is now Sullivan County.  His son James also lived and died there.  Both men are thought to have been buried near to each other in the Providence Baptist Church Cemetery.  Ronald had taken notes several years ago when the group met in the Nolichucky River area that said:

Kevin gave us a history of his family that descends from James Morrison through his son James Morrison, Jr. He showed us much of his research and gave Travis a copy of the Morrison family from a book that is located in the Rogersville genealogy center. He was quite enlightening relating that family tradition had been passed down from James Morrison Jr.  family that Patrick Morrison, James Morrison Sr. and James Morrison Jr. are all buried in the older part of Providence cemetery near the old cedar trees (which were now very large and still quite visible to us). Patrick, James Sr. and James Jr.'s  exact burial locations however are unknown since they were only buried with fieldstones.

Ronald also says in this notes:

Providence Baptist Church cemetery located on Highway 70 a few miles from the end of Tarpine Valley Road.