Decatur, Alabama, on the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail: A Site Report

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by Jamie A. Metrailer

Resources on Indian Removal No. 5
Sequoyah Research Center
University of Arkansas at Little Rock
September 22, 2006

Research for this report was funded in part by a Challenge Cost Share Agreement with the Long Distance Trails Office of the National Park Service, Santa Fe, New Mexico. No part of this text may be duplicated or otherwise used except by permission of the author or as provided for by the "Special Provision" section of the agreement.

Background

The area of current day Decatur, initially known as Rhodes Ferry, was “originally a river crossing for settlers west of the Appalachian Mountains” that also attracted settlers “drawn to the community at this time by its fertile river valley soils and relatively easy river access to other cities."¹ Decatur was incorporated as a town in 1826 and “became home to the eastern terminus of the first railroad in the United States west of the Appalachian Mountains.".² The Tuscumbia Railway, which played a role in Indian removal, was completed to Courtland on January 4, 1834 and to Decatur the following December 15.³ Decatur's location at a crossing of the Tennessee River, as a terminus of the Tuscumbia Railway, and on one of the main land routes that took travelers around the Muscle Shoals made it a site heavily trafficked by removal parties of Muscogees (Creeks) and Cherokees.

Decatur and Creek Removal

Although Muscogee (Creek) removal had begun in 1834, it was halted in the summer of 1836 when some Creek towns resisted. Brigadier General Winfield Scott brought several thousand troops to Alabama to end this resistance and enforce Creek removal to Indian Territory. Of the 14,500 Creeks that were gathered for removal, 2500 were considered hostile, captured, and transported to Indian Territory in the final months of 1836 and the summer of 1837.⁴

In September of 1836, Lieut. Edward Deas led a contingent of 2,320 Creeks from Talladega through Gunter’s Landing to Decatur on their way to Tuscumbia in September of 1836. Deas chose this route, he said, to avoid the track of other parties that had crossed the Coosa below Talladega and gone more directly to Tuscumbia.⁵

The second and last group of Creeks at Decatur were those taken from the Cherokee Nation, where they had sought refuge from removal. In May 1837, Deas conducted the group of 545, who had been held in camp under guard near Gunter's Landing. They were made up of refugees captured in the mountains of North Carolina and near Red Clay and Coosawatie. On May 16, they left Gunter's Landing in flatboats, headed for Waterloo, where they would meet the steamboat Blackhawk.⁶ They reached Decatur on May 21.

Deas recorded in his journal that on May 19, the party "landed on account of wind, a few miles above Decatur, which place is 60 miles from Gunter's Landing. The party re-embarked about sun-set, and is still now progressing slowly."⁷ The next day, Deas wrote, “Early this morning the weather became stormy and the boats were obliged to land before day light, and in consequence we have lost more of the Indians by desertion. The boats were separated when they were landed, and immediately after some of the smaller ones reached shore the people took advantage of the Darkness, and rain, to make their escape. Fifty-six Indians escaped to nearby mountains, while fifteen were recovered due to one-dollar awards for their capture. They resumed their journey on May 20 and reached Brown's Ferry twelve miles below Decatur.⁸

Deas had taken the opportunity while he was near Decatur to engage a physician for the remainder of the trip. An entry dated for the May 22 states: “I should have mentioned on the 20th at Decatur I engaged a Dr. Morrow to accompany the Party at $85 per month & expenses in place of the physician who started from Gunter’s Landing…"⁹ Financial records indicate that this physician was J.O. Feemster.¹⁰

Decatur and Cherokee Removal

A large group of Treaty Party Cherokee emigrants arrived at Decatur from Gunter’s Landing in early March of 1837. “This party was the first to go west using the government assistance under the terms of the Treaty of New Echota." It "included Stand Watie, Major Ridge and his wife… [and] was under the charge of Dr. John S. Young and the physician Dr. C. Lillybridge, who kept a diary, plus three assistants and three interpreters, one of whom was Elijah Hicks." Of the 466 in the party, half were children, and five were Creeks.¹¹ The party arrived at Decatur on the steamboat Knoxville, which pulled eleven flatboats. At Decatur they boarded the train in order to avoid the difficult flatboat trip downstream at Muscle Shoals rapids.
Dr. Lillybridge’s diary provides insight into the events of the contingent at Decatur. The party arrived at Decatur around 6:30 PM. on March 5. The March 6th entry notes: “Carrs of the Rail Road in readiness at 8 oclock…about one half of the emigrant under the attendance of Gen. Smith, were started for Tuscumbia, [while] the next train of carrs…were expected to be in readiness at1 Oclock P.M."¹²

The second set of railroad cars did not arrive until the next day; thus these Cherokees were left waiting for transport. During this wait, they sat on cold, open cars. With darkness approaching, the engine had not yet come; they were forced to look for a place to sleep. “The Indians were afraid to lay down for fear of being run over," Liillybridge wrote. "No lights were furnished them, and they were grouping in the dark, in a pitiful manner."¹³ Lillybridge called “upon the Mayor and requested[ed] him to take such measures as he might think advisable to prevent the selling of the spirits to the Indians."¹⁴ He also found an empty warehouse for the remainder of the evening, and in the morning the party boarded the train to await transport to Tuscumbia. After eating a breakfast consisting of provisions that many Cherokees thought were spoiled or short, the remainder of the party departed for Tuscumbia by rail at 9 A.M. on March 10, 1837.¹⁵

Whereas the Treaty party removed voluntarily, the first Cherokee party forced to remove under the Treaty of New Echota (1835) consisted of 249 who passed Decatur aboard the steamboat George Guess about the first of April 1837. The party traveled to Waterloo where they met their disbursing agent Lieutenant Edward Deas, who conducted them west aboard the steamboat Smelter.¹⁶

Federal troops were called out in 1838 to round up and collect Cherokees who remained on treaty lands. Many Cherokees in Georgia and Alabama were rounded up into depots along the Tennessee River for deportation west. A party of 800 of these captured Cherokees, placed under the charge of Lieut. Deas, at Decatur aboard the George Guess and six keelboats on the June 9, 1838.¹⁷ In his journal, Deas states: “The present party of Cherokees consists mostly of Indians that were collected by the Troops and inhabited that portion of the Cherokee embraced within the limits of Georgia."¹⁸ Because the Cherokees had been held under guard on the George Guess before their departure, guards attended them as far as Decatur. The party disembarked at Decatur, where they boarded railroad cars to take them to Tuscumbia to meet the Smelter."¹⁹

The diary of Lieut. Deas reveals that when the boats reached Decatur at 6 o’clock in the morning “it was found that the Rail road cars were not in readiness although they had been notified that the party was approaching."²⁰ After the Cherokees waited the day for transport, “two locomotives…arrived in readiness to transport the party to Tuscumbia."²¹ Deas further states that “about 32 cars were necessary to transport the Party, and no more could be employed for want of power in the locomotive engines. . . the Indians therefore being necessarily crowded.”²² Since the locomotives were limited as to the number of passengers, “Deas thought it unnecessary for the guard to go any farther with the Cherokees so he dismissed them at Decatur on June 10."²³

Lieut. W.H.K. Whiteley was in charge of the next detachment of Cherokees to be forcibly removed under the Treaty of New Echota to go through Decatur. This party of 875 captive Cherokees moved down the Tennessee River on the steamboat George Guess with four flatboats tied to each side.²⁴ Lieut. Whiteley’s journal states that “the detachment…landed at ½ past 1 P.M. two miles above Decatur Alabama and encamped on the opposite bank of the Tennessee River” on June 20, 1838.²⁵ The journal entry for June 21 says that the detachment reached Decatur at 9 A.M and then part of them boarded the train and started for Tuscumbia at 11 A.M., the second train departing with the remainder at 1 P.M. The journal also notes that Cherokee had been deserting the detachment and that an old woman died while in Decatur.²⁶

Whiteley’s contingent was followed and soon joined by another led by Nathaniel Smith, Superintendent of Cherokee removal. Smith’s party had been rebellious, and a number had escaped. They had urged Smith to delay their removal by “a touching petition to halt the movement of the party and either return them to their former encampment or establish them in a new one where they could share in the respite until a more healthful season and join in the movement in the autumn under the permission of General Scott."²⁷ Originally a part of the Drane detachment, they had finally rebelled at Bellefonte, where a large number escaped. After Smith ordered out local militia to help Drane round up those he could, Smith took the remainder of the party by boat toward Waterloo, leaving the remainder with Drane to take overland. They stopped at Decatur. Smith wrote: “At Dicatur…I learned Leut. Whiteley’s party were yet at Tuscumbia. I followed on and overtook him and party at Waterloo."²⁸

After the removal by water of the combined Whiteley and Smith contingent and the Drane detachment had gone overland, the United States government was no longer responsible for the removal of Cherokees. When removal began again in October of 1838, the Cherokees assumed responsibility for their own removal.All of the Cherokee-organized contingents went overland except one. The John Drew contingent of Cherokees--the thirteenth and last contingent organized by the Cherokees themselves--passed Decatur in early January 1839. The party, which included Chief John Ross and his family, departed the Cherokee agency on December 5 and traveled by flatboat down the Hiwassee and Tennessee. This party marked the end of Cherokee removal through or by Decatur.²⁹

Opportunities for Site Interpretation

Decatur is home to the Decatur Historic Preservation Commission and Rhodes Ferry Park, named after an earlier name for the area.³⁰ The Old State Bank building, erected in 1833, is on the National Register of Historic Places.³¹ The McEntire House was constructed by 1836.³² All of these represent potential sites for interpreting the Trail of Tears.

Notes

1. http://www.digitaldecatur.com

2. http://www.dcc.org/community/history.html

3. Alvin Rosenbaum and Nancy, Gonce, "The Muscle Shoals National Heritage Area, Feasibility Study Draft for Line Edit, April 23, 2005," p. 21.

4. http://www.arkansaspreservation.org/presevation-services/trail-of-tears/pdfs/creeks.pdf.

5. Jamie A. Metrailer, Gunter's Landing, Alabama, on the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail. Resources on Indian Removal No. 4 (Little Rock: Sequoyah Research Center, UALR, 2006), 3.

6. Ibid., 4-5.

7. http://anpa.ualr.edu/trail_of_tears/indian_removal_project/eye_witness_accounts/eye-witness4.htm.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.

10. J. O. Feemster Receipt, May 19, 1837, Edward Deas File 1180B, Box 200, National Archives Record Group 217, General Accounting Office, Treasury Department, Second Auditor, Indian Affairs, Settled Accounts and Claims, 1817-1922.

11. http://www.arkansaspreservation.org/presevation-services/trail-of-tears/pdfs/cherokees.pdf.; Grant Foreman, Indian Removal: The Emigration of the Five Civilized Tribes of Indians (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1956), 273-274.

12. Foreman, "Journey of a Party of Cherokee Emigrants," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 18 (September 1931): 236.

13. Foreman, Indian Removal, 275.

14. Foreman, "Journey of a Party of Cherokee Emigrants," 236.

15. Ibid., 237.

16. Metrailer, "Gunter's Landing, Alabama," 7-8.

17. Foreman, Indian Removal, 292.

18. Amanda Paige, et al., North Little Rock Site on the Trail of Tears Historic Trail: Historic Contexts Report (Little Rock: American Native Press Archives, 2004), 46.

19. http://anpa.ualr.edu/trail_of_tears/indian_removal_project/eye_witness_accounts/eye-witness4.htm.

20. Ibid.

21. Ibid.

22. Ibid.

23. Ibid.

24. Foreman, Indian Removal, 294.

25. http//www.mindspring.com/~wayne.gibson/JP3.gif.

26. Ibid.

27. Foreman, Indian Removal, 297.

28. Ibid., 298.

29. http://www.decaturparks.com.

30. http://www.dcc.org/community/history.html.

31. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McEntgire_House.

Bibliography

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Secondary Sources

Arkansas Historic Preservation Program. The Cherokees. http://www.arkansaspreservation.org/preservation-services/trail-of-tears/pdfs/cherokees.pdf

Arkansas Historic Preservation Program. The Creeks. http://www.arkansaspreservation.org/preservation-services/trail-of-tears/pdfs/creeks.pdf

Decatur Chamber of Commerce. Community History. http://www.dcc.org/community/history.html.

Decatur Parks and Recreation Department. Rhodes Ferry Park. http://www.decaturparks.com.

Digital Decatur. The Official Website of Decatur Alabama. http://www.digitaldecatur.com

Foreman, Grant. Indian Removal: The Emigration of the Five Civilized Tribes of Indians. Second Printing of New Edition. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1956.

Paige, Amanda, Fuller Bumpers, and Daniel F. Littlefield, Jr. The North Little Rock Site on theTrail of Tears National Historic Trail : Historical Contexts Report. Revised April 20, 2004. Little Rock: American Native Press Archives, 2004.

Wikipedia. McEntire House. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McEntire_House.

Published Primary Sources

Edward Deas Journal of Occurrences May 1837. http://anpa.ualr.edu/trail_of_tears/indian_removal_project/eye_witness_accounts/eye-witness4.htm

Edward Deas Journal of Occurrences June 1838. http://anpa.ualr.edu/trail_of_tears/indian_removal_project/eye_witness_accounts/eye-witness6.htm

Foreman, Grant. �Journal of a Party of Cherokee Emigrants.� The Mississippi Valley Historical Review. 18(September 1931): 232-245

J. H. K.Whiteley�s Journal, http://www.mindspring.com/~wayne.gibson/JP3.gif, retrieved January 22, 2003.

Unpublished Primary Sources

Edward Deas File 1180B, Box 220, National Archives Record Group 217, General Accounting Office, Treasury Department, Second Auditor, Indian Affairs, Settled Accounts and Claims, 1817-1922.