ld
folks on Saturday, and carried home on Sunday evening what they could
spare. There was no _ennui_ among the women for something to do. If
there had been leisure to read, there were but few books for the
indulgence. Hollow trees supplied cradles for babies."

A majority of the first settlers of East Tennessee were of Scotch-Irish
blood, having sought homes there after the battle of Alamance, and hence
that state became the daughter of North Carolina. The first written
constitution born of a convention of people on this continent, was that
at Watauga, in 1772. A settlement of less than a dozen families was
formed in 1778, near Bledsoe, isolated in the heart of the Chickasaw
nation, with no other protection than a small stockade enclosure and
their own indomitable courage. In the early spring of 1779, a little
colony of gallant adventurers, from the parent line of Watauga, crossed
the Cumberland mountain, and established themselves near the French
Lick, and planted a field of corn where the city of Nashville now
stands. The settlement on the Cumberland was made in 1780, after great
privations and sufferings on the journey. The settlers at the various
stations were so harassed by the Indians, incited thereto by British and
Spanish agents, that all were abandoned except Elatons and the Bluffs
(Nashville). These people were compelled to go in armed squads to the
springs, and plowed while guarded by armed sentinels. The Indians, by a
well planned stratagem, attempted to enter the Bluffs, on April 22d,
1781. The men in the fort were drawn into an ambush by a decoy party.
When they dismounted to give battle, their horses dashed off toward the
fort, and they were pursued by some Indians, which left a gap in their
lines, through which some whites were escaping to the fort; but these
were intercepted by a large body of the enemy from another ambush. The
heroic women in the fort, headed by Mrs. James Robertson, seized the
axes and idle guns, and planted themselves in the gate, determined to
die rather than give up the fort. Just in time she ordered the sentry to
turn loose a pack of dogs which had been selected for their size and
courage to encounter bears and panthers. Frantic to join the fray, they
dashed off, outyelling the savages, who recoiled before the fury of
their onset, thus giving the men time to escape to the fort. So
overjoyed was Mrs. Robertson that she patted every dog as he came into
the fort.

So thoroughly was