This article was supplied to me by Sandra Riley of Page, AZ, thanks Sandra!

On October 29, 1927, the Mississippi D.A.R. unveiled the first historical marker in Prentis County. The speaker at the event was Frank R. King of Tuscumbia, Alabama, president of the Tennessee Valley Historical Association. The subject of his address was the Natchez Trace:

Mr. Chairman, Daughters of the American Revolution, Ladies and Gentlemen:

It has been a pleasant thought to me for the past few days to think that I would have the privilege of being with you today. I am almost three score and ten tomorrow is my birthday, after that I will not play telling anymore.

I want to be honest with you and tell why I am with you today. This is my first appearance in public, the first invitation I ever had to make an address and fearing that I could not wait so long for another I had best accept as I might not have the second call.

Of the old trails, horse paths and roads that passed through Colbert County, Alabama into Mississippi, there were three that were in the early day of the greatest importance. They came to notice as follows:

The Natchez Trace - 1700
Gain's Trace - 1801
Jackson's Military Road - 1814-1816

The Natchez Indians from whom the town of Natchez takes it's name, if tradition may be believed, came from Mexico where they had lived for centruries; and after the fall of the Montezuma Empire, to which they were allied, they fled from Spanish tryanny. They followed the rising sun from the west and finally reached the Mississippi river which they crossed and settled at a point on the river where the City of Natchez now stands.

At this time they were a numerous people and occupied a territory from Natchez to the Wabash. They were worshippers of the sun.

In 1713 the French settled the Natchez country and formed a military and trading post there which they maintained until 1764 when it fell into the hands of the British. Later it went into the hands of Spain. In 1798 by treaty it came to US. In 1815 it was the capitol of Mississippi. For two and a quarter centuries, the city of Natchez has been, as it shifted from one Nation to another, an important place.

Our Representatives in their treaties with foreign countries, in the early days, neglected to get the matter of Import Duties properly adjusted, and when our boats either at New York or Philadelphia, loaded with our own manufactured goods, came to Mobile or New Orleans, we were compelled to pay excessive import duties. [To]...avoid these duties, we loaded goods on the Ohio at Pittsburgh, Pa., and floated down this stream to the mouth of the Tennessee, and up that stream to Colbert's Ferry, which was at the crossing of the Natchez Trace.

The goods were unloaded at Colbert's Ferry and carried by pack horses to Cotton Gin Port on the Tombigbee, where they were loaded on boat and carried to St. Stephens in Washington County in the Territory of Mississippi.

The Natchez Trace did not cross Tombigbee River at Cotton Gin Port, but both Gain's Trace and Natchez Trace leaving Colbert's Ferry was for quite a distance one and the same.

Prior to 1800, there were no roads except Indian trails leading to that part of Mississippi territory. Our early roads followed these trails as did many of the early railroads. Fom Nashville, Tennessee to Natchez, Mississippi a distance of 550 miles there was not a single white settlement and only occasionally Indian villages.

At the time it was not so much used by travelers going to that country, but was much used by the traders of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama who had carried their boat loads of cotton, and other products from the upper Tennessee waters, over the rapids of Muscle Shoals, down the Tennessee, into the Ohio River, and finally to New Orleans; who returned to their homes by Natchez, over the Trace, which was only a bridal path through the cane and woods. The remoteness from civilazation and the density of both cane and woods made the trail an ideal place to rob and kill the returning boatmen; who were always supposed to have large amounts of money from the sale of their goods.

This trail was made famous for such deeds by a man named Tom Mason, who lived near Cross Plains in Roberson county, Tennessee. He went from there to Natchez where he organized his band which consisted of himself and his two sons and eight other bad men. They terrorized the home coming travelers for years, until the outrages got to be so frequent the Gov. Claiborne of Mississippi territory offered a large reward for his capture, dead or alive. So strong and defiant this band became, that they would sometimes capture officers who were after them. Finally, they were so closely hunted that they moved West.

This trail was infested with another band of robbers headed by two brothers from Kentucky by the name of Harp. They were known as Big and Little Harp, one being a large and and the other a small man. After murdering and robbing travelers they would repair to 'Nick-a-Jack Cave' where thay would remain in hiding until they felt safe to come out and commit other crimes. Nick-a-Jack cave is that point which determines the north east corner of the State of Alabama [Mississippi?], an Indian site of great antiquity.

The Indians were shrewd traders and in disposing of their lands in the early days they always reserved the Ferries. Some of them yielded great fortunes to their owners. It has been said that Colbert's Ferry on the Natchez Trace was worth $20,000 annually.

John A. Murrell who was born in Williamson county, Tennessee about 1810 and has had the worst reputation for murdering and robbing of any man that ever operated on the Trace. I have gone to the trouble of writing many letters to that part of the state of Tennessee in which he lived at different times and my investigation of him has made me chage my mind as to his guilt of many charges that have been laid at his door. All admit that he stole horses and Negro slaves and did an extensive business. He was arrested many times charged with murder but the Courts always acquitted him upon this charge. Mr. Park Marshall of Franklin, Tennessee an eminent lawyer, writes me that Murrell belonged to a good family of people and has many relatives where he was born and that they are universally respectable people and that he had made extensive investigations regard him [Murrell] and that he was convinced that most of the charges were grossly exaggerated. He wrote the story of hes life, a little pamplhlet consisting of sixty pages which had a considerable circulation in both Alabama and Mississippi, but are now very rare. Iknow of but one copy and it is in the hands of a second hand dealer and the price is $10. just sixteen and two thirds cents a page.

Thomas H. Benton, born in N.C. in 1782 a early day settled in Tennessee, on Duck river at Gorden's Ferry and was the Secretary of Captain John Gorden, the keeper of the Ferry. He represented Tennessee in the legislature and server upon Jackson's staff. On the admission of Missouri as a state he was chosen United States Senator in 1820, and served for thirty years. His mother owned a very large plantation on the Natchez Trace at or near Gorden's Ferry. He wrote many books, all relative to the workings of our Government.

Merriweather Lewis, an American soldier, and explorer born in Virginia in 1774 was sent with Mr. Clark to make discoveries in the northwestern part of this country also to discover the source of the Missouri river. His reports resulted in the purchase from France the vast territory then called Louisiana. The news coming by ship to New York and carried from there to Mr. Jefferson in Philadelphia by a carrier pidgeon, the quickest transportation in that day. So pleased with the manner in which Mr. Lewis and Mr. Clark performed this task that Mr. Jefferson rewarded them both. Lewis with the Governorship of Lousiana and Clark as agent to the U.S. for Indian affairs.

Mr. Lewis died on his way to Washington traveling the Natchez Trace in 1809. It is a debatable question to this day whether he was a victim of a robber and murdered or took his own life. He never married and all who love a thrilling story should read the story of Mr. Merriweather Lewis and his sweetheart, Miss Theodocia, the daughter of Aaron Burr. Tennessee named the territory where he died for him, Lewis county and erected a substantial monument to his memory by the trace near the spot where he died.

Lorenzo Dow and Peggy, his wife were frequent travelers of the Trace. Since the days of George Whitfield, it has not fallen the lot of another minister of the gospel to enjoy the great celebrity as that of the late Lorenzo Dow. He and his wife were both exceedingly handsome and it was told by Mr. Dow that his courtship with her consisted of but one word. What would we older men have given fifty years ago to know that magic word.

It was a Colbert's Ferry that Mr. Dow before crossing the river met Mr. John Lee Swaney, the mail carrier in 1804 or about that time. The meandering course of Mr. Dow's travels took him to many strange places that were remote from civilization. He went to England where he was imprisoned for preaching what the called a strange doctrine.

James Allen was well educated and of a family in easy circumstances he came to Nashville, Tennessee, intending to settle there as a lawyer but from some disgust entered the Chickasaw Nation, where he conciliated the favor of General Wm. Colbert, a half breed chief of large fortune. He served in the Creek War with General Jackson in 1814 and was a great friend of the General's.

Mr. Allen's admiration for the General was beneficial to him in more than one way. Miss Susie Colbert, his daughter was a beautiful woman and Mr. Allen was not able to resist her charms and he went to the old general and told him that he wanted to marry his daughter, Susie. The General gave Mr. Allen his consent and in a few days, Susie wrapped in a shawl leaving only a small space that she might see her way, went to the cabin of James Allen just at night fall, knocked at the door and being invited in she took her seat. According to Indian fashion their courtship this ended.

Their daughter, Peggy [Allen] was beautiful and received many proposals from traders returning from New Orleans over the Trace. The US Agent in charge of the Chickasaws, Samuel Mitchell fell deeply in love with her but she did not return it. He appealed to her grandmother and considering it a very good match sent Peggy off to the Agent with a string of well loaded packhorses and ten Negroes for her dowry. Peggy was compellet to make the journey but she persistently refused Mitchell saying that she would never marry a drinking white man or an Indian. After two weeks of importunity, he sent her home. Just then there turned up a very handsome young man, Simon Burney from the Natchez country who lover her very deeply, and her father and herself both feared interference by Mitchell and his friends and she and Burney married at once and left the Nation and went to his home near Natchez.

General Samuel Dale, the hero of the canoe fight on Alabama River, compared his ride from Milgeville, Ga., to New Orleans with that of Paul Revere's. [pointing out his grave in Lauderdale, county, Mississippi], [the canoe fight is described at the end of this speech]

When Ft. Mims had it's massacre in 1813, a runner was sent to St. Stephens to Col. Gains and he read it aloud for the information of those around him in the citizens fort. It at once created a panic and Col. Gains remarked if we would get Gen. Jackson with his Brigade of mountain volunteers the Creek Indians would be soon quieted. There was a young man Mr. Edmonson who was a guest in the Gains home that volunteered to thake the message. Mrs. Gains prepared provisions for him, while this was being done he was provided with letters to friends along the trace who were requested to supply him with a new or fresh horse each day. He leaving the jaded horse until his return. All his friends most of whom along the Trace were Indians or half breeds willingly met the request and young Edmonson made the trip to Nashville in a most wonderful short time and fell before them prostrated from exhaustion. Gen. Jackson and Gen. John Coffee hurried to the scene and we all know the result.

Greenwood LeFlore, Panton and Company, McMinn and Company, a branch of the great firm of Swanson and Miller, of London, had an extensive establishment at Pensicola. The wealthy inhabitants of Natchez district sent their orders once a year, very often ordering their merchandise direct from the London house. Sometimes the order from a single home would be L300 - L500 and in a instance L1000 sterling. This would include a cask of London Particular Madeira, a cask of sherry, a cask of porter, and a barrel of French cognac. These goods were usually sent, on their delivery at Pensicola, in a keel boat to Natchez, by the lake route and up the Amite and Manchac. Occasionally the Natchez planters make the trip to Pensicola with their own boat and a Negro crew.

Louis LeFlore, the father of Greenwood LeFlore, owned one of these boats and in this business laid the foundation of his large fortune. He established an extensive plantation and cattle reanch in Yazoo Valley, in the present county of Holmes, where he died a few years after the last treaty with the Choctaws. He had 100 slaves and as many Indians living about him. He was a small man, a French Canadian. Though over eighty years old he was a great hunter and often spent the whole days in overflowed swamps and prairies. Trading houses were established under the supervision of the governor on the Tombigbee for the Choctaws, and near Fort Pickens for the Chickasaws. The first goods sent to the former were consigned to Louis LeFlore. He carried them in a keel boat from Natchez, down the river to Manchac, thence down to Amite, across the lakes and up the Tombigbee to Ft. Stoddard the point of delivery. Joseph Chambers was the first factor and George S. Gains, his successor.

Greenwood LeFlore was a son of Louis LeFlore and Rebecca Cravat an Indian Princess. It is interesting to know that his father established a trading post and called it LeFlore Bluff which is where the city of Jackson, the capitol of Mississippi now is situated.

[skipping a paragraph - on the copy of the speech I have, this part of speech is not legible]

James Logan Colbert prior to 1716[?] lived in one of the Carolinas, a Scotch youth who responded to the call of the wild and joined some English traders and adventurers who were traveling West and stopped east of the Tennessee River. We would say north from here, The Muscle Shoals. He was adopted by an Indian family and soon developed a fondness for trading and amassed a fortune owning land and Negro slaves. Three times he married Indian girls, the first two full blood Chickasaws and the third a half breed Chickasaw. He was the father of eight children. The name of their first daughter is not recorded, the sons by the second marriage were William, George, Levi, Samuel and Joseph. And the son and daughter by the last were James and Susan.

He became influential with his tribe and was soon a bold leader in their wars; and in 1780 led an expedition against the Americans at Fort Jefferson on the Ohio where he received a bullet wound in the are. The siege lasted five days but the Americans held the Fort. The fort was built by the direction of Thomas Jefferson who at that time was Governor of Virginia. His instructions to get permission for its erection were not carried out hence the trouble.

In the Chickasaw battles along the Mississippi River country he was valiant to such an extent that it has been said by good authority that James Logan Colbert at that time was the most famous Chief of the Chickasaw Nation.

In 1784 or near that time he was killed while on his way from the Nation to Georgia as was supposed by one of his Negro slaves named Caeser who accompanied him returning, reported that his horse threw him causing his death.

George Colbert was born in 1764 in that part of the Chickasaw Nation now known as Lauderdale County, Alabama where he grew to manhood along the banks of Cypress and Blue Water Creeks whose cool swift sparkling waters cover a gravel bottom, the home of the lordly trout which are taken in goodly number to this day by the sportsmen of that locality. These streams pour their waters into that part of the river known as Colbert and Muscle Shoals; where in the fall of the year gather in countless numbers wild ducks and geese who feed on the mossy grass which grows in the shallow water ans which is one of the attractions for them now. Added to this bed of the river is strewn with mussels and periwinkles which were not only relished by the fish and fowls but was a guarantee of food to the Indians in times of scarcity, as is evidenced by large piles of these shells, periwinkles and mussels, from one to four feet deep that can be seen in numerous place along the banks of the river from Colbert Shoals to the old home of Double Head, the Cherokee Chief. That was paradise to the hunter of that day.

All Chickasaws were expert swimmers and regarded as almost amphibious and it must have been a glorious sight to behold this manly boy when his soul was in the chase over the hills and hollows as he rushed, like the swift footed deer he pursued or in his pirogue gliding upstream guided by a narrow muddy streak of water, leading to the feeding buffalo soon so to lie bleeding by his side. Thus passed the early life of the young Colbert who did not dream that soon he would be guiding the destinies of his Nation. At twenty -six be built a comfortable residence on the south side of the Tennessee river where the Natchez Trace crosses leading from Nashville, Tennessee, to Natchez, Mississippi. Signs of the old trace are plainly visible from the Colbert house looking south through a pasture and near the place where the plow share has not yet done its full share of destruction. The trough shaped depression through the hills plainly tell the direction which it took.

The lower ground is marked with water sores which must be infectious as our highways of the present day are afflicted with them. The house is built of the best material and fastened together with wooden pins. The two front rooms, one above the other are twenty four feet by eighteen with a nine foot ceiling. The back room is the same size. The foundation is of stone and the front porch is held up by black walnut well dressed columns about seven or eight inches square with the corners nicely beveled. The stone chimney since the removal of the mantle is the most attraction feature of the place since it is ten feet broad at the base and maintained a width of eight feet for more than twenty feet above the ground. where it tapers to about six, it was plastered with cement which showed that it was of a good quality. As 138 years of rain and exposure has made but little sign. The mantle was sold to a Cincinnati party about thirty or forty years ago for $100.00. And was stored in a government building at Riverton, (Old Chickasaw) which unfortunately was soon burned and the mantle lost.

Mr. W.M. Buckhannon obtained a Kodak picture of the mantle the day it was stored and it can be seen at his home at Riverton, Alabama. Ten years ago a half a dozen of his old cabins used by his Negro slaves were still standing. They were made of hard poplar logs nicely hewed facing about thirty inches, using only four to the side. Only one is left now which is near the house and is occupied. The Main house was loaded on a flat boat at Ross' landing, Tennessee in 1790, where the city of Chattanooga stands and floated over Muscle Shoals down the Colbert's Ferry, demonstrating that they were good craftsmen.

A few miles southwest of the home lived his younger brother, James who shared well the honors of the family. He being the archivist and Historian of the Chickasaw Nation.

Also southwest, lived another brother at Buzzard Roost which is something like a half mile south of Barton Station on the Southern Railroad. This was the non-corruptible Chief Levi Colbert, who deserves more space than can be allowed him in this article. The sons of these brothers were sent to school in Florence, Alabama, to a man named Lorance,and they with some white friends became involved in mischief that Mr. Lorance thought corporal punishment was what they needed and proceeded to administer it beginning with the white boys and no sooner begun that the Indian boys were faintly seen disappearing throught the window and sown the street leading to the river at a gate never seen before by the whites. And when they reached the river no available pirogue was in sight and without hesitation plunged into the river and swam safely to the other shore. He moved to that part of the Nation near what is known as Tupelo, Mississippi, and at his plantation there and the one at his first home, Colbert Ferry, he worked 140 slaves and became the wealthiest of his brothers.

In 1811, the famous orator and chief of the Shawnee tribe, "Tecumseh" with about twenty mounted warriors, came visiting the southern tribes of Indians trying to induce them to join his confederacy which he was forming to join the British troops against Americans and when he made his wishes known to Chief George Colbert, was told that his people were at peace with the Americans and that he wished to remain so and he cetainly did not intend to use his influence in involving them in war.

In 1812, George Colbert and his brother William with 350 Chickasaws joined General Jackson and did great service for him.

On a former occasion in 1793, when the Spaniards at New Orleans sent an Emissary to Ben Foy, a German from Amsterdam to secure the Chiskasaws to their interest. Piomingo and the Colbert's (George and William), in Long Town, took sides for the Americans and Wolf's Friend at Big Town for the Spaniards.

Mr. H.B. Cushman in his history of the Indians refers to George Colbert as an exceedingly handsome man being associated with him in his former days, which well coincide with a paper written by Mr. James Simpson of Florence who was born in 1827, and had a personal recollection of Chief George Colbert. "...I was born in Florence in '27 and but a lad of ten years when the Indians went to Oklahoma and can but dimly recall the man George Colbert was then Chief of the Chickasaw Nation. He was tall, slender and handsome, with straight black hair that he wore long which came well dwon on his shoulders. His features were that of an Indian but his skin was lighter than that of his tribe. He wore the dress of a white man of his day and always appeared neat and clean. He frequntly ate dinner at my father's in Florence. The building now known as the Commercial Hotel was my father's store and he had a reputation among the Indians as being an honest and just man. Colbert often crossed the river in canoes with thirty or fifty of his tribe to purchase goods in Florence. The Indians seemed to enjoy roaming over the store looking at everything. They wore buck skin clothes of their own making. Some of them wore feather head dress. He did not permit them to come to town as he felt responsible for them. He lived in a big house on the South side of the river where he owned much land and where the town of Georgetown was afterwards built.

As an instance of his hospitality, Jerry Austill and his father Edwin Austill, on their way to Louisiana, became water bound at Cotton Gin Port on the Tombigbee river and retraced their steps over the four months. Jerry was only 15 then and did not know the conspicuous part he was to play with Sam Dale and James Smith against eleven stalwart Indian warriors in the memeorable canoe fight, nor did he know of a ride he would make that would eclipse that of Paul Revere, when he vaulted into the saddle and went at great speed throught the trackless swamps to notify the Americans and St. Stephens that they should reinforce the fortifications there. That the Indians were advancing on them. Long will he be remembered in song and story.

When he moved West, as a token of friendship for Mr. Pride, the grandfather of Miss Bessie Pride now living in Arkansas, Chief George Colbert gave him a very handsome silk sash which is about six inches wide and probably ten or twelve feet long.

He went West with his people and died in 1839 and sleeps beneath the shade of the trees in the present contry of his people, the Chickasaws.

F. R. KING

Also please note that there is an error concerning Susie Colbert in the speech. Kerry Armstromg of Fort Worth, Texas wrote in my guest book a correction:

"Too bad that King, [the Natchez Trace Speech], used bad source material and further propagated bad information concerning my "greats" James B. Allen and Susie Colbert. Susie Colbert was the daughter of James Logan Colbert and his third wife, not the daughter of Gen. William Colbert, but the sister of the General. Further, Simon Burney, who married Margaret "Peggy" Colbert, there daughter, was 1/2 Choctaw, and they were married in Adams Co., MS, in 1904." - Kerry Armstrong

Kerry M. Armstrong
3554 Cromart Court North
Fort Worth, TX 76133