Chattanooga Daily Times from Chattanooga, Tennessee • 34

THE CHATTANOOGA SUNDAY TIMES 2 Magazine Section ft N. Marker- to-ihe Georgia D.A.R. Dedicates Monument at Red They Insist, the Indian Nation Had It Council Ground Tennesseans Look On With Tongues in Their Cheeks, Holding What They Claim Is Incontestable Proof True Site Is in This State. by Zella. Armstrong 71, Historian of Hamilton County.

i 'U I ft 1 '5 fcU rr' 7 A i SS'S 4' 'V'Vx 1 4 xA 'S is Av 4b y', 1 1 lit 1 I 4' i 1 i 'vv Kjl 4 vs-, tf: t7 i rt1 '7 I' Vi 4' 1 o'- 4 No.l The great Council spring. No picture can do the spring justice. It As beautiful deep and of a lovely clear rippling blue and green water. Parts of it are m. to be bottomless, but in other parts gorgeously colored stones can be seen and reached.

The spring is about tioenty feet in diameter photo by Walter aim The picture shows Robert Ross, nephew of Chief John Ross, who visited. Chattanooga and the Council spring just before his death. No. 2 An attractive bri residence stands almost on the site of the John Ross log cabin home. It is owned and occupied by Mr.

and Mrs. Trewhitt and Mrs. TrewhitVs parents, Mr. Mrs. W.

B. Sloane. Mr. Sloane has lived on the place since IS72 and recalls the cabin and knows its exact site, the last eastern home of Chief John Ross (p hoi by Charles W. Lusk).

No. 3 Exact location of the John Ross' home in Bradley county, where John Howard Payne, who was the chiefs guest poet, and the Indic chief were arrested. They were taken on this spot in Tenrfessee and taken two miles across the Georgia line. No. 4 Another view of the Council spring shorn, the high enclosing banks.

R. Several hundred people from north Georgia and Tennessee were present for the impressive service. ON SUNDAY afternoon, Nor. XO, members of the D. A.

R. of Georgia gathered- at Red Clay, Oa, a little hamlet less than half a mile south of the Tennessee line, to dedicate a marker to the last eastern councils of the Cherokee Indians, who were removed to the west in 1838. lieved that the council was held on this large level space. Tennesseans offer among other arguments that the council would undoubtedly have been held near a spring and flowing water, and not half a mile from water. It is hard to Imagine several hundred, several thousand (there were 4,004 Indians present) walking half a mile and half a mile back every time they grew thirsty the round trip would have been Just a bit short of a mile.

Chaitaaeogans Present. AMONG the Chattanoogans present were Judge Charles W. Lusk, Mr. and Mrs. John P.

Brown, Miss Joan Brown, James R. Huff and Mr. and Mrs. Burton Jones. It had been announced that historians and healing qualities to recommend it, only lowliness, and size and convenience of camp 'kites.

The' Cherokees loved beauty. Cherokee Newspaper. rTMEE region around the Council sprte -I- contains many interesting Cherokee titet Red Clay, Tenn, became the capital at tb! Cherokee nation when the printing plant au other equipment and supplies at New Echohj where the Cherokee paper, the Phoenix, printed, were destroyed by the Georgia gtari in 1835. Chief John Ross, whose home (now fc Rome, Ga.) on the Coosa river, was drsv, by a Georgia citizen in the Georgia Cherok lottery, took his family, after his house taken from him, to Flint Springs. BmSSr county, to a log cabin.

The cabin was aboC twenty feet square. It was in this home thk fie and John Howard Payne were arrest Nov. 8, 1835, in Tennessee by the guard. The site is two miles from the Geer-gia line. I By the way, there is no red clay at eiti'.

of the Red Clays, Georgia or Tennew the John Ross place is quite a Earth Place and could easily have lx that name. Even the stones leading to Spring and almost framing it a rich, red, a beautiful red, showing the Iron tent. A Tennessee historian advanced 8 theory that Chief Ross home was prob' known as Red Earth Place and the spring, larger than any other within mcaf of miles, when it was selected the mee The marker was placed on Georgia soil at the old Huff house, said to be the birth site of James R. Huff, of Chattanooga, and said by some Georgians to be the actual council house of the Indians. This point was, however, not brought out.

Undoubtedly the house is very old and very Interesting. Hie marker is a handsome piece of Georgia granite, large and imposing in appearance, with a bronze plaque which bears the following inscription: RED CLAY Eleva diy (Red Earth Place) A Former Council Ground of the Cherokee Indians Heaven hath angels watching round The Indians forest mound And they have made it holy ground. John Greenleaf Whittier. The Georgia Society of the D. A.

R. The Georgia Society of the S. A. R. 1935.

Water Part of Beligieos Rites. STUDENTS of the Cherokees know that -water and its use was practically a religious rite with them. Adair, who lived among them for twoscore years, made this comment and said that they always made their settlements and even short camps betide running streams. Adair's book was recently republished by the National Society of Colonial Dames in Tennessee. Judge Samuel Cole Williams edited the edition, with copious explanatory notes.

The great majestic spring. It is at feast twenty feet In diameter, and in (daces said to be bottomless, pours out its' wealth of clear lovely water as calmly as It has for centuries centuries Tong before the last, when there were no men to hold councils, so state lines to say this was Georgia and this was Tennessee, no Daughters of the American Revolution and no sons of that order when deer and buffalo and mountain lions came to its cool, green sides and gazed into lovely depths, where flat stones of all shades of blue and green and-gray seemed to mirror the skies. The Cherokees loved the spring, which has no other distinguished guests present would be asked to speak, but' a brief program without spontaneous addresses was followed. At least one historian was primed, it was said, to give a thorough treatise concerning the location of the council ground. As the service was short many of the Tennesseans took advantage of the early afternoon hours to drive Immediately to the great council spring, half a mile away, in Bradley county; Tennessee, where, Tennessee historians emphatically state, the councils were held after Georgia had driven the Cherokees from the state and It was no longer possible to hold the council at New Echota In Georgia.

As one historian said: "There would have been no object In deserting their beloved New Echota merely to establish another site in Georgia The huge council spring, which has been so called for 100 years and more, is In Bradley county, Tennessee. A level plain rises above and beyond the spring and spreads to another spring almost as large, where Gen. John X. Wool had his headquarters with the soldiers of the United States arxny.v It is be- Mrs. Leola Beeson, state historian of the Georgia Society of the Daughters of the Revolution, was In charge of the ceremony and had planned the placing of the marker.

The address of the occasion was made by Judge M. c. Tarver. A laurel wreath was plaoed on the marker by the Georgia D. A.

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