VERY interesting, Howard. Yes, my information gave from two historians, one
in Middle Tennessee, and both
histories were written more than a hundred years later.
It was rumored that the Cherokees took a small boy captive, but this is the
FIRST EVIDENCE.
You should write this up and send it to the Knoxville
News Sentinal, or perhaps an article in a Tennessee
History Journal.
Thanks so much for this outstanding contribution,
Helen
----- Original Message -----
From: <WATKINS7(a)aol.com>
To: <CAVITT-L(a)rootsweb.com>
Sent: Monday, March 06, 2006 9:00 PM
Subject: [CAVITT] Alexander Cavett's Son's Abduction
In her 2/16/06 posting, Helen stated, apparently quoting from some
published
report, that "There was a story that one small boy, a son of Alexander
Cavitt
was taken captive, but later killed; however, this has never been
confirmed."
I have come across two things that tend to confirm that, indeed, one of
his
sons was captured and taken off with the Indians:
According to an article in the "Knoxville Gazette" on 1/2/1794, "In a
letter
from John McKee written at the foot of the Ocunne Mountain frontier of
South
Carolina, he says one son of Alexander Cavet, whose family was murdered
near
this place, was kept alive by John Watts and is a prisoner of the Creeks".
Moses Cavett served as Executor of the estate of Alexander Cavett, having
petitioned the Court by motion to so do during the November Sessions in
1793
(Knox County Estates Book Vol. 1, Page 11). As a part of that process, a
statement of the account of the estate was filed with the Court during the
October
Term of Court in 1797. In that statement, Moses Cavett charged the estate
$14.00 for having spent fourteen days in December 1794 "endeavouring to
obtain the
prisoner Son of Alexander Caveat, deceased".
This tells me that fifteen months after the massacre, Moses acted on some
kind of information that led him to believe that the Cavett boy that the
Indians
abducted on 9/25/1793 was still alive. I would imagine that Moses earned
his
dollar a day fee when going in among the Cherokee and Creek Indians to
look
for his nephew. That was just a short time after the battle at Nickajack
that
more or less permanently settled the Indian question in that part of
Tennessee.
Nonetheless, I would imagine that that the Indians were still hostile.
Howard Roach
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