Jacob Shook

The Man and His Legacy

By Bob Jones

Copyright 2001, Asheville NC

BIBLIOGRAPHY and FOOTNOTES

Chapter II

Jacob Shook and the American Revolution

By early 1775 news had come to the settlers about the British engagements with Patriots at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts. In May a meeting took place in Charlotte, NC in which those assembled declared their independence from England in the Mecklenburg Declarations. Then in the summer of 1775 the Royal Government was pressed back to Wilmington by aroused Patriots, and the Royal Governor called for all loyal citizens of the King to arm themselves. As pressure increased Royal Governor Martin was forced to flee Wilmington and govern from a ship off the coast. Still he hoped to rally support for the King by calling to arms the Loyalists, or Tories, of North Carolina. The center of Tory activity was in the area settled by the Scotch Highlanders at the Cross Creek settlement near today's Fayetteville, NC. As rumors of this concentration of forces at Cross Creek spread the new Patriot government sitting in Hillsboro called for the formation of a North Carolina Regiment to suppress the Tories.

In late 1775 Griffith Rutherford was appointed by the Patriot Government to recruit ten companies of militia from Rowan County to participate in this action. The call went out up the Yadkin and Catawba Valleys and soon hundreds of men had come to Salisbury to answer the call. 26 year old Jacob and 19 year old Andrew Shook were there among the recruits. After a bit of drilling and marching to and fro about Salisbury, General Rutherford decided his men were as ready as they could be under the circumstances and the rag tag little army marched off toward Fayetteville, 80 miles away "as the crow flies". This was in February 1776. (Jacob stated that it was in March, 1775, however the action he speaks of happened a year later. It's likely that old memories weren't that precise so many years later in 1834 when he applied for a Pension based on his service.)

This campaign resulted in the defeat of the Scottish Tories at Moore's Creek Bridge on February 27, 1776 north of Wilmington. Jacob and Andrew, with Rutherford, didn't make it to Moore's Creek in time for the battle, so they spent the month of March at Cross Creek "mopping up" resistance and ensuring the submission of those of the Scottish rank and file who were captured at Moore's Creek and then returned to Cross Creek on parole. The Shooks were discharged and returned home to Lyle's Creek at the end of March.

Then on July 1st, 1776 the Cherokee, who had maintained an uneasy peace with the settlers at the foot of the Blue Ridge since the end of the first Cherokee War in 1762, came screaming out of the mountains with tomahawks and scalping knives. The "Nation" had been coerced by British Agents to attack the settlers all along the frontier from Virginia to Georgia. On the upper Catawba, just a few dozen miles from the homes of the Shooks on Lyles Creek the Indians struck. General Rutherford wrote the new "Rebel" Government in Hillsboro the following letter concerning that attack on July 14th, 1776 (the spelling is Rutherford's) ...

"Honourable Gentlemen,

I am under the nessety of sending you by express, the Allarming Condition this country is in, the Indins is making great prograce in Distroying and Murdering in the frontiers of this county. 37, I am informed was killed last Wedensday & Thursday on the Cuttaba River. I am also informed that Col. McDowel with 10 men and 126 women and children is Beshaged, in some kind of a fort, with Indins all round them, no help to them before yesterday and they were surrounded Wedensday. I expect the nex account to here that they are all destroyed. ... Pray Gentlemen Consider our distress, send us plenty of Powder & I Hope under God we of Salsbury District is able to stand them, but, if you will allow us to go to the Nation, I expect you will order Hillsbourgh District to join Salisbury. Three of our Capitans is killed and one wounded. This day I set out with what men I can Raise for the relief of the Distrest. Your Humble Servant,

GRIFFITH RUTHERFORD

General Rutherford received the help he requested, the Government at Hillsboro called out all the western Militia, and so Andrew and Jacob Shook, home only four months from the Cross Creek affair now found themselves again in the service, this time marching west up the Catawba toward Davidson's Fort, now Old Fort NC. Here were gathered about 2,300 men. A wild mixture of militia, the North Carolina Regiments and Rangers from all over the state, all eager to once and for all put an end to the Cherokee threat. While the majority of these men were set to the work of acquiring supplies to feed the expedition, 600 men were chosen to go into the mountains and feel out the Indian positions.

This brave band of soldiers, with Jacob and Andrew among them we believe, marched up the rugged path through the Swannanoa Gap in early August 1776 and then down the valley of the Swannanoa River to the French Broad. Crossing that river at the War Ford three miles south of today's city of Asheville, near the Biltmore House, they camped for two weeks waiting for the remainder of their forces and supplies to arrive. The creek they camped on got its name from this time, it is today called Hominy Creek, recalling that the only food the expedition had for those two weeks was hominy, or pickled corn.

With the arrival of supplies and additional troops Rutherford marched on up Hominy Creek in mid August and began to fight small engagements with the Cherokee. He past across the high ground that divides Hominy Creek from the waters of the Pigeon River and crossed that river at "the Forks", moving down river into a flat valley of open fields and huge virgin trees. Early settlers would later call the area "the Gardens". Here Rutherford again waited for a time as he sent scouts deeper into Cherokee country.

The area some of Rutherford's troops waited in on this stop would later become Clyde NC, and we can imagine Jacob and Andrew as they took in its wonders. They probably hunted the nearby hills of the Newfound Range and fished the crystal waters of the Pigeon and determined that when all this was over they would return to this spot. And they did, ten years later, to live and raise families.

Ready to march finally, Rutherford broke camp and began to feel his way steadily forward. Several "scouting parties" would range ahead, guided by friendly Indians. They might surprise a few enfeeble and old inhabitants as they broke from the woods upon a village, but in almost all cases the warning of their coming had preceded them and the inhabitants had taken to the hills. These scouts would summarily kill any inhabitants; no quarter was given for sex or age, as indeed none had been given by the Indian attacks on the Catawba.

It was no wonder that surprise was impossible, the army moved at a snails pace. Nineteen hundred and seventy foot soldiers, Eight hundred "light horse men" acting as scouts and guards, and fourteen hundred pack horses marched forward on the narrow path. Hours were spent clearing brush on the pathway so that a horse could pass. Here on the only track through the forest no thought had been put into their location by those who used it, if a man could step upon the earth it was all that was needed, for on foot was the Cherokee's only mode of transport. The column, thus constrained, stretched along for miles. One foot soldier was employed as driver over every four horses, and one pack master over each ten drivers. The column carried with them all the food and ammunition they would need for forty days.

Having bypassed the war parties he was told were laying in wait for him at Soco Gap, Rutherford had free reign over the towns of the Tuckasegee and Occonaluftee Rivers. The Cherokee women and children disappeared into the wilderness as the Patriot forces approached so the deserted towns were quick to go to the torch, and to smoke and ruin. More than that, the crops in the fields were set ablaze, assuring a difficult survival in the coming winter months. The Cherokee forces opposing Rutherford now attempted to draw him west toward the Nantahala Gorge, and after leaving a sizable contingent on the Cowee Mountains to threaten the Cherokee Middle Kingdom's capital at Naquasse (Franklin NC) he moved after them. A sharp engagement was finally fought in which the Cherokee were driven away, this engagement is almost mythical in its lack of documentation, but it appears to have been fought in the mile high heights around Wayah bald, one of the greatest mountains in the Nantahlaa Range, now on the Appalachian Trail.

 Jacob and Andrew Shook now marched with Rutherford through the Nantahala Gorge and then down the Valley River, burning deserted towns and adjacent fields of maize ready for harvest as they went. Finally they reached the Hiawassee River at today's Murphy, NC, where they stopped. Rutherford was supposed to go on if possible and meet the Tennessee troops on the Hiawassee River in today's Tennessee. His men, mostly Militia had done enough they said, and winter was rapidly approaching in the rugged mountains. Short of food and ammunition, and having received no word from the Tennesseans Rutherford decided that he must turn around. Before he could depart Williamson and his troops arrived at the junction of the Valley and Hiawassee River (Murphy) and the SC General concurred with the decision, so in late September Rutherford began movement back along his own track, toward home, while Williamson turned south and moved through Northern Georgia on his way back to SC.

The weary Patriots marched out of the mountains and back to Davidson's Fort around the first part of October, 1776. On his march home Rutherford ordered that the route be "marked" and blazed so that future travelers could find their way, this trail was forever known afterwards as the Rutherford Trace and would provide a gateway to settlers who would find their way here in less than ten years. Although the SC troops had lost many more, Rutherford had only lost three of his North Carolina men. This was an incredible accomplishment to say the least, considering they had routed the Cherokee. As the frontiersmen returned down the Swannanoa Gap across the crest of the Blue Ridge toward home they believed they had broken the power of the Cherokee forever.

We can easily imagine that when Andrew and Jacob returned to their home on the Lyle's Creek they felt their duty to the Revolution had been served. They had started with the threats from both east and west and had marched to dispose both, placing themselves in harm's way. Now they probably hoped that the world would just leave them alone.

History tells us that the fragile society of the Cherokee Middle Kingdom was indeed broken, never to fully recover. Disease, starvation and frozen death stalked the civilian population of the Cherokee. Reduced to hiding in the most remote corners of the mountains in makeshift hovels and eating off the land the Nation's leadership prayed for peace. The military might of the Cherokee was still extant, however, and refused the pleas of the elders. Broken into small bands the Cherokee still put up many raids and attacks on those unfortunate enough to be caught unprepared. Before 1776 was out Rutherford sent another troop, commanded by Captain Moore who later settled on Hominy Creek, on a winter expedition to the Little Tennessee to Stecoah to destroy an area he hadn't reached in his attack.

By the summer of 1777, faced with horrible destruction leveled against their kingdoms, and the withdrawal of British support due to their misfortunes in other areas, the Cherokee sought peace. Not all agreed, and many young hot heads left their home villages to pursue the war in uncontrolled bands. At Due West SC on May 20, 1777, and again at Long Island of the Holston in today's Tennessee on June 20, 1777 treaties of peace were signed which gave away much of the Cherokee lands. To SC went most of the piedmont region, with assurances that the whites would leave the refugees of the Lower Kingdom alone in their new abodes in Northern Georgia. To Virginia went all Cherokee claims in Kentucky, and to North Carolina all of today's Tennessee west of the Tennessee River, north of the French Broad and east of the Pigeon River. The Middle Kingdom, who's ceded land was the valley of the French Broad and Pigeon Rivers in Western NC, claimed to have not been properly represented at that signing, so this part of the cession later came into dispute.

1777 and 1778 things were a bit quieter, but small patrols were sent into the nation and often companies of Rangers were sent into the wilderness in pursuit of the occasional renegade raiding party. In the summer of 1779 there were renewed raids by both the Militia and the Cherokee into each other's territory.

The war came in earnest to the Catawba in late 1780 with the Battle at Ramsours Mill, followed by the American victory at King's Mountain. Although these events occurred only a few dozen miles from Jacob's home, we don't know the part he may played in these events. All indications are that both he and Andrew stayed home during this period.

The situation on the frontier in the spring of 1781 was the result of a master plan conceived by the British overall commander Cornwallis. He decided that while he drove north attempting to catch Morgan and Greene after his defeat at Cowpens in SC in January, the backcountry, which had been such a thorn in his side in the campaigns of 1780, should have their attention diverted by attacks by his remaining Indian allies. So during the winter British agents were at work again in Cherokee lands inciting the young warriors and passing out guns and ammunition.

The settlers heard rumors of this, but it was obvious that the shortage of manpower due to the many actions of warfare in the local area would prevent any offensive moves into Indian country so a defensive tactic was taken. When the somewhat desperate Indian attacks began in the early months of 1781, in support of the British effort, forts were garrisoned as never before and large numbers of civilians moved under their protective guns. These forts were located to block the various pathways to and from the mountains and regular armed patrols connected them across the foothills.

To provide the manpower for this system a draft was put upon each county on the frontier, and those chosen by the local Captain of Militia were expected to turn out for the call. To be drafted you must be a juror in good standing, have taken no parole and be fit for service. Jacob fit these qualifications, so on May 10, 1781 he joined the command of Captain Smith at Davidson's Fort (today's Old Fort NC) on the upper Catawba as ordered. This was his third tour of duty. 

It can't be known what Jacob's duties were at Davidson's Fort. As a private he may have participated in patrols that took him once again to the Pigeon River at the site of future Clyde. Jacob must have often talked to others around the dusty stockade who made the regular patrols. That summer another campaign was launched from today's Tennessee that penetrated up the French Broad, meeting the North Carolina patrols near modern Asheville. By this time, the continuing resistance, though substantial, was obviously the work of renegade bands. Many of these led by Tory refugees. Now the militia spent their time with "lightning" raids into the mountains, hoping to capture or kill the Tory leaders and their Indian allies.

Jacob returned home at the end of his enlistment in August 1781, papers of discharge in hand properly signed by a Captain Smith. Jacob had no way to know it, but just a few days after he returned home, on August 19th the veteran Continental Army commanded by George Washington, a 6,500 man army, tiny by modern standards, but the norm for this war, slipped quietly out of their trenches in New York and headed south to surprise Cornwallis, who had taken the British Southern Army to Yorktown in Virginia. Here they met 11,000 French soldiers and large French fleet which had surprised the British Fleet off Cape Charles and sent it sailing back to New York. Cornwallis was trapped, and out numbered.

The British troops marched out of Yorktown October 19th, 1781, at a ceremony of surrender, marching between ranks of blue coated and buckskinned ranks of Americans and white uniformed soldiers of the French. As they marched and stacked their arms the British bands played the song "The World Turned Upside Down".

There would be other engagements as the war wound down, but British resolve had evaporated, as well as British support from the home islands. As part of a treaty intended to end the world wide conflict that had grown between France and Great Britain, the British signed the Treaty of Paris in 1783. With this treaty the British agreed to evacuate the remaining areas of the thirteen colonies before year's end, and all the territories held east of the Mississippi River, with the exception of Florida, would be transferred to the realm of the fledgling United States.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY and FOOTNOTES

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