sessed superior business qualities; he was of generous impulses, was ardent in his friendships, and always trustworthy. He inherited slaves from his father, but was too indulgent to make them a source of much income; most of them were taught to read. He did not realize much from his large landed estate, much of it being sold at low prices. Much of his time was given to the public, in aiding new-comers and others in finding their lands and tracing the lines. He was often summoned to testify as to land titles, and to make resurveys to be used in litigation. Heavy drafts were made on his hospitality by strangers who visited the country in quest of homes. As he kept open house, declining to accept payment for the entertainment of travelers, he not only did not become rich. but died poorer than at the time of his settlement. Notwithstanding he was brave, and of much experience in the forest, he was on one occasion frightened out of his senses. While making a survey in what is now Maury County, he declared he heard Indians, and leaving his camp started in the dark for Nashville. He took a southern direction, and soon reaching Duck River declared it had sprung up during the night, and was not there the previous day. It was with great difficulty that his comrades, who had followed him, convinced him that the stream was in its proper place, and that there were no Indians near the camp.

Henry Rutherford contributed in great degree to the upbuilding and development of the State. He was a broad-minded man, who gave encouragement and pecuniary aid to all public and charitable causes. After a long and useful career, devoted particularly to the settlement of the Western District, he died. May 20, 1847, at the age of eighty-five, and was buried at Elon Church Cemetery.

TO CORRECT SOME HISTORIC ERRORS.

BY THE LATE E. D. HICKS (1872).

I conceive it to be the duty of the Tennessee Historical Society to correct as far as possible errors which have found their way into the different histories of the State, and this paper is not written in a spirit of captious fault-finding, but as nearly as possible to arrive at facts.

I shall quote from Gilbert Imlay's Topographical Description of the Western Territory of North America, first published in London, in 1792. Imlay was evidently a scholar, and his book must have attracted much attention, for in that early day a third edition, with additions, was published in 1797. It contains an autobiography of Daniel Boon, written in 1784. As to Boon, Francis Baily, subsequently President of the Royal Astronomical Society of Great Britain, says, that descending the Ohio River he met Boon on April 9, 1797, and having a copy of Imlay with him, he read to Boon the autobiography, and Boon said it was correct (Baily's Journal). Imlay's book seems to have been unknown to Haywood, Ramsey, or Putnam, although it is evidently the earliest book of any note describing this western country; their quotations from it seem to have been taken at secondhand from Monette and Butler. Without entering into the details of Boon's various adventures, I only make extracts sufficient to fix dates. Boon says:

"On the first of May, 1769, I resigned my domestic happiness for a time Boon evidently intimates by this that he was not in the habit of leaving home), and left my home on the Yadkin in quest of the country of Kentucky, in company with John Finley and others. On the 7th of June following, we found ourselves on Red River, where John Finley had previously been, and from the top of an eminence saw the beautiful level of Kentucky."

The Red River referred to by Boon is undoubtedly the branch of the Kentucky River, but the Clinch was called Red River. See Imlay, pages 118 and 494, where it is referred to as a branch of

the Cuttawa in one place and Cherokee in the other, both of which are original names of the Tennessee, as Ouasioto (the French Ou for W), or Wasioto, was the original name for Cumberland river and mountains.

Boon describes his adventures in Kentucky, where he remained, part of the time alone, until some time after March, 1771, when he returned to his family on Yadkin determined to remove them to Kentucky, which he considered "a second paradise." Boon makes no mention of leaving home, and from the tenor of his narrative remained on the Yadkin, until, as he says, "I sold my farm on the Yadkin, and such goods as we could not carry with us. I left the Yadkin 25th September, 1773, and proceeded on our journey to Kentucky with 5 families more and 40 men that joined us in Powel's Valiey. We had passed over two mountains, Powel's and Walden's, and were approaching Cumberland Mountain, when on 10th October, 1773, we were attacked by Indians who killed 6 and wounded I man. We repulsed the enemy, but were so discouraged that we retreated 40 miles to the settlement on Clinch River." "I remained with my family on Clinch until June 6th, 1774, when I and one Michael Stoner were solicited by Gov. Dunmore, of Virginia, to go to the Falls of the Ohio. This we did, completing the tour of 800 miles, under many difficulties, in 62 days. Soon after I returned home. I was ordered to take command of three garrisons during the war that Gov. Dunmore carried on against the Shawanese Indians, after the conclusion of which and I, being relieved of my post, was solicited by some North Carolina gentlemen, who were about purchasing the lands lying on the south side of Kentucky River from the Cherokee Indians, to attend their treaty at Wataga in March, 1775, to negotiate with them and mention the boundaries of the purchase. This I accepted." This was the Henderson purchase, and this is the first that Boon has to say in regard to Henderson. Within a few months from this time Boon had built the fort at Boonsboro, and removed his family to Kentucky. From these dates given by Boon it is certain that from June 1769, to April, 1771, he was in Kentucky. He then returned to the Yadkin; there is no evidence from his narrative that from this time until 25th September, 1773. that he ever left the Yadkin. A!! the probabilities are that he remained there, having no business on Watauga, his intention being to settle in Kentucky.

Ramsey, followed by Putnam, tells the story of the beech tree in the valley of the Watauga with the inscription of "D. Boon cilled a bar on tree in the year 1760" as sufficient authority to date the arrival of Boon in Tennessee in 1760. Ninety years is a very, very long time for an inscription to remain legible on a beech tree, and when I hear of one of our highland terrapins being found with John Smith neatly engraved on his shell, and dated 1750, I do not believe that the terrapin and 1750 have any thing in common. That the inscription is on the tree is probably true, but that D. Boon put it there is too doubtful to be believed. Haywood and Ramsey bring Boon to Abingdon, Va., in 1761. Haywood and Ramsey put him in Kentucky in 1764 at the Crab Orchard, as Haywood says, in the employ of Henderson & Co., to be informed in the geography, and to use Haywood's quaint word locography of the country. It seems a little strange that Foon should have said nothing in his narrative about all of these trips, and that Henderson had a company formed for more than ten years with Boon in his pay in the then unsettled condition of the country. Both Haywood and Putnam have Boon on Watauga in 1770, when his own narrative says he was in Kentucky Putnam has him in Kentucky 1769 and 1770 examining lands for Henderson & Co. Boon says nothing of all this, but says he "hunted with success." If sent to examine lands, he would not have taken two years to do it, but would have made his examination and gone back to report. Putnam has Boon on Watauga in 1771, not with intention to remain, but "bent on seeing. regions beyond." Boon says in 1771 he returned to the Yadkin, and says nothing about a conference with Robertson which related to the formation of the Watauga compact, with which Putnam credits him. Strange that Haywood, after having Henderson's Co. formed as early as 1764, should state that the failure of Robertson's Co. to make a purchase in 1772 eventuated in the formation of a company by Henderson, who actually made a purchase in 1774 and 1775.

Boon never says a word about Henderson, but at the close of Lord Dunmore's war, in the latter part of 1774 or beginning of 1775, says he was solicited by some North Carolina gentlemen to attend a treaty, negotiate and mention the boundaries of the purchase. I seriously doubt if Boon had ever any connection with Henderson until the treaty of March, 1775, for it is shown

by his narrative that he was on his way to make a settlement in Kentucky when he was attacked October 10th, 1773, nearly two years previous, and retreated, as he says, to the Clinch, as Putnam says to the Watauga and Holston settlements.

Putnam says that Andrew Jackson was appointed Judge of the Superior Court of Law and Equity, the first session of which was to be held in Davidson County, May, 1784, and declined, without ever pausing to think that Jackson was born in 1767, and was then just 17 years old, and a rather rude boy. How or where he got such an idea I cannot conceive. The facts are that the act establishing the court was passed at the session beginning November 19th and ending 29th December, 1785, and the court was to be hel! May, 1786. Haywood says: "They appointed a young man of the age of twenty-four years to be judge of this court, who, upon mature reflection, becoming fearful that his small experience and stock of legal acquirements were inadequate to the performance of these great duties which the office devolved upon him, chose rather to resign than to risk the injustice to suitors, which others of better qualifications might certainly avoid." Judge Haywood is evidently modestly speaking of himself. He was just 24 years old, having been born 16th March, 1762. (I know that it is casually stated in the biography of Haywood, prefixed to the reprint of his Civil History of Tennessee, that he was born in 1753; but an elaborate sketch of his life given in Southwestern Law Journal and Reporter, June. 1844, gives the date as I have, and states that he died 22d December, 1826, in his 64th year.) Had Jackson been the appointee and declined for the reasons given, Haywood would certainly had no reasons for not giving his name, for the action was certainly honorable.

Haywood. Ramsey and Putnam all state that Edwin Hickman, for whom Hickman County was named, was killed in 1785 on Piney River. There is in the collection of this society a sketch giving the details of the expedition which went to bury Hickman, as narrated by Capt. John Davis, who was one of the party. Capt. Davis came to Nashville in 1788, and as he helped bury him, his death could not have been earlier than this date. Capt. Davis states that it occurred in 1791, and pointed out to me the place where it occurred, not on l'iney, but on Defeated Creek of Duck River. The records show that Hickman was appointed one of the magistrates of Davidson County in 1791.