According to the latest census, more than 200,000 people live in Williamson County,
Nearly 240 years ago, that number was one: Richard Swanson.
Swanson, who along with General John Robertson founded Nashville, in 1780 set up the first homestead in what would become Williamson County.
The settlers of the wider area (called the Cumberland Settlement and part of the State of North Carolina) faced all kinds of hardship.
From constant, near daily death from Chickasaw attacks, to sweltering heat and rattlesnake bites. But life was also sweet, and though the work was hard it was rewarding and, as time went by, people prospered.
The First Settlement
Swanson found his site and laid a foundation in March, 1780.
But he did not move there until perhaps a decade or two later. Fort Nashborough, which would become Nashville, came first.
When the pioneers first settled here, it was still wilderness.
Tennessee did not become separate from North Carolina until 1796, and Williamson County was not created until 1799.
Swanson, as the country, state and county developed, also went through changes.
He was one of 70 original pioneers who came with General Roberston to settle the area and built Fort Nashborough.
He was 20, moccasin clad and frontier-rough when in 1779 they arrived, virtually without property.
When he died, on September 26, 1843, he owned acres and acres of land, 62 slaves, “9 beds and bedsteads, 2 bureaus, 3 looking glasses, 1 cupboard, 1 book case, 2 chests, one trunk, 1 sugar chest, 4 tables, 14 chairs, 2 pair of fire irons, 1 rifle gun, 1 watch (patent leather) . . .,” a full library of books, livestock, horses, oxen, and on and on.
But, early on, life was quite rough.
From The Life and Times of Edward Swanson, which contains excerpts from his journal and observations from letters and journals of other early occupants of the area:
“‘Generally we had one large room, with puncheon floor, and the roof was of clap-boards, made without nails, but supported by poles sustained by cross-pieces. in the winter we ‘chinked’ the cracks between the logs, and in the summer we knocked out the chinking, which afforded light and ventilation to the cabin. In those days no such things as a glass window was ever seen. the whole of one end of the house composed the fireplace. timber was convenient, and with the oxen we hauled up large logs and put them in the fire-place, filling the entire end of the house.
“”The floor of the cabin, when there was one, was laid with broad split timbers. At night, after a hard day’s work in the field and forest, the men and women would very often enjoy a North Carolina jig upon the floor, to the accompaniment of a banjo or squeaking gourd fiddle.'”
The Tennessee Pioneer was as recognizable and unique in appearance as the New England Puritan. Swanson would have worn moccasins, leggings, hunting shirt, and, of course, a coon-skin cap.
His rifle would have rested in the hollow of his arm. Around his waist would be a leather belt, with shot, powder and a horn hung from it or from his shoulders.
A dog would likely be at his heels.
“As the settlement advances,” The Life and Times reads, “his character is modified a great degree.”
First goes the cap, then the moccasins then the shirt.
“He hunts less and works more,” meaning the ground. “Perhaps he has a Negro slave or two, a couple of horses and a few head of livestock. His family increases, also his slaves and cattle. He loses some of his prejudices against the refinements of life. He even brooks a ruffled shirt . . . nervous tension during the days of Indian warfare begins to mellow somewhat as his form grows more round. He builds a wood frame house in which there are various rooms . . . and plants broad acres of wheat, corn and tobacco.”
Scalping was commonly practiced by the native tribes constnatly at war with the white settlers. Many of the original settlers died in fights, and it seemed almost a daily occurrence early on.
“The operation of scalping was painful but by no means fatal,” a Judge Lawrence wrote, and is reproduced in the Life and Times. “The impression that it was fatal probably arises from the fact that the scalp was usually taken from the head of a slain enemy as a token of his death . . . but often an enemy was scalped alive and released to go back thus mutilated to his people as a direct defiance and as an incitement to retaliation. The portion taken was usually a small circular patch of skin at the roof of the scalp-lock just back of the crown of the head. When opportunity offered the whole top skin of the head with the hair attached was removed . . the operation was performed by making a quick knife stroke around the head of the fallen enemy, followed by a strong tug at the scalp-lock. The teeth also were sometimes used in the pulling process and the victor usually knelt with knee pressed down upon the back of his victim stretched face downward . . There were some fifteen or twenty persons who for years survived the rude and bloody treatment.”
When not fighting for their lives, the settlers and Swanson in the early days made traps and hunted.
“‘There was a relief from low spirits in making and baiting wolf-traps, and in building turkey-pens when the game had grown wary, although flocks of a hundred turkeys would sometimes be seen within a few yards of the cabins. The women could not be excelled in preparing the wild game and it is said there were not cooks to be named in the same day with them when the cooking of buffalo tongue, bear meat and venison is mentioned. And the good housewife in those days rightfully gloried in the baking of the hoe-cake, ash-cake and Johnny-cake. Then, after frost, when opossums and persimmons were ripe, and any one mentioned good eating, the universal exclamation was, “Oh, ho; don’t talk!”‘”
The favorite sport of the men was the bear hunt, which was most difficult and dangerous, but they and the dogs were very partial to it.
As time went on, however, Tennessee became a state. Then Williamson became a county. Treaties were signed with the Chickasaw and other tribes. Farmers, with the help of slave labor, prospered and the county grew.
And it would have continued to grow and prosper without interruption.
The Civil War, of course, changed everything. After it, much like when Swanson first came to the fertile wilderness, the area and its inhabitants once again began again.
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