By the 1840s, at least two toll gates had been established on the Turnpike. The first was located 6 miles or so from Nashville on top of the first of several ridges known as Sullivan's Ridge. A stage coach stop had been built near the toll gate at the top of the ridge shortly after the Turnpike became a main stage road. This stage coach stop was primarily used as a place where the teams of exhausted horses could rest and recover for a bit, after just having pulled the heavy stage coaches full of passengers and their luggage up the long, steep grade.
Samuel Adkisson, a wealthy land and slave owner who lived on a large farm in the early to mid 1800's in the area where Dog Creek Cemetery is located, was put in charge of handling the operations of the second toll gate on Charlotte Pike about 20 miles west of Nashville. It was located near his home on Dog Creek, which was located near the area where modern day Dog Creek Cemetery is today.
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| Samuel Adkisson"s Tollgate |
Adkisson was best known for having been the stone cutter and engineer who had played a roll in assisting iron master Montgomery Bell excavate the tunnel at Narrows of the Harpeth in 1818. The tunnel was completed by 1819 or 1820. Adkisson probably also worked for Bell in the partial excavation of a second tunnel several years later at the Narrows, located a short distance down river from the first tunnel. For unknown reasons, the second tunnel was purposefully left unfinished. Samuel Adkisson, along with his wife and their children are buried in Dog Creek Cemetery, not far from where his toll gate was located on Charlotte Pike.
With the advent and rapid construction of railroads by the 1850s, traffic along turnpike roads in Middle Tennessee sharply declined, including the amount of traffic on the Charlotte Pike. The decline was mainly the result of the construction of The Nashville & Northwestern Railroad, which offered travelers a faster, easier, and more comfortable mode of transportation, when compared to traveling by stagecoach. The railroad had been completed from Nashville to Kingston Springs by the beginning of the Civil War, and later to Dickson in 1863. The trip between Dickson and Nashville took only 3 hours or so by train, while it was still around a 6 hour journey by stagecoach on the turnpike.
From the late 1860's up until the turn of the century, travelers along the road could stop for a rest or an overnight stay at Nichol's Inn, located near Sullivan's Ridge. It was owned and operated by Lydia Nichols, whose husband was killed while fighting for the Confederacy during the Civil War. The large orchard that surrounded the Inn was famous for its apples and pears. The structure still stands to this day on Old Charlotte pike, one mile from the first climb up Sullivan's Ridge.
Charlotte Pike was sold in the 1880's, and it's use as a stage coach road eventually came to an end by the 1890's.
The photo above shows a portion of the old roadbed of the Charlotte Pike, a few hundred yards west of Sams Creek Road.
Most of the Turnpike was still traversable up until the sometime around the 1930's, but after the construction of the new Memphis - Bristol Highway (Highway 70) was completed in 1926, some sections of the old Charlotte Road were bypassed by the highway and cut off or closed to traffic, including the section between where Dog Creek Road dead ends today to where it would have crossed Sam's Creek Road.
After passing through Shacklett headed west, the route of the new highway generally followed the old route of the Charlotte Turnpike between Shacklett and White Bluff. Some sections of the old road can still be seen, especially on each side of the long straight stretch of the Highway just before entering White Bluff.
The Charlotte Road & The Mound Bottom / Pack Sites
The wilderness through which the road was cut passed directly through lands that had previously been inhabited by various Native American peoples, the first of which having arrived here some 10,000 - 12,000 years ago, and possibly even 13,000 to 14,000 years ago. The area remained continuously inhabited by various Native American societies and cultures for many thousands of years, up until it was suddenly abandoned and completely evacuated by the last of the Native Americans to occupy the land, happening sometime around the late 14th to mid 15th century.
The last group of Native Americans who occupied the area were people belonging to The Middle Cumberland Mississippian culture, also known as The Mound Builders. These were the people who had built the major cities and great Mounds at Mound Bottom and the neighboring Pack Site, through which the Charlotte Road passed directly between around the halfway point between Nashville and Charlotte, in modern day Shacklett.
They had consistently occupied the area beginning around 950 AD up until around 1450 AD. For reasons still unknown, beginning sometime around 1400 AD, these people suddenly and rapidly abandoned their lands and densely populated sites in Middle Tennessee, including Mound Bottom and surrounding sites, within a time span of only a few decades.
The leading theories as to why this mass evacuation occurred in such a short amount of time, include large scale & devastating warfare or other conflicts between neighboring tribes over the control of territory in the Middle Tennessee area, widespread disease and famine, the land no longer being of use or capable of adequately growing crops, the depletion of natural resources, including a dramatic drop in the populations of native wild game, including deer and buffalo, that the Natives were dependent on for survival, and lastly, possibly even for religious reasons.
Middle Tennessee remained permanently unoccupied by Native Americans for at least 200 - 300 years. The territory that would one day become Middle Tennessee was used only as hunting grounds by small roaming parties of Indians from various tribes. These were the Indians the first white explorers to pass through the area encountered in the early - mid 1700's. When asked, the Indians the whites first made contact with didn't know anything about the great mounds in the area or who the people were who had built them hundreds of years earlier. The mounds in this country, including Mound Bottom, and the people who had built them, were as much of a mystery to these Indians as they were to the first white settlers.
The Charlotte Road Mentioned in Haywood's 1823 History Book -
In 1823, the book "The Natural & Aboriginal History of Tennessee" was published, authored by John "Judge" Haywood, who was "an American jurist and historian known as the Father of Tennessee History. His book was an attempt to prove that the native tribes of Tennessee were descendants of ancient Hebrews, a popular idea among European Americans in the early 19th century." (Wikipedia)
In his book, Haywood mentions the Charlotte Road and Dog Creek multiple times in the chapter in which he discusses his findings after personally exploring both the Pack and Mound Bottom sites. In particular, he gives a rather detailed physical description of the Mound Bottom site and the surrounding area.
He begins the section covering Mound Bottom by writing "On the Big Harpeth river, in a bend of the river, below the road which crosses near the mouth of Dog creek, from Nashville to Charlotte, is a square mound, 47 by 47 at the base, twenty-five feet high, and two others in a row with it, of inferior size, from 5 to 10 feet high...The top of this mound was ascended to from the west, where the height is not more than 5 or 6 feet. The platform is 60 feet over. Two large gateways are in the eastern wall. From the most southwardly of them, a road leads to the river and across it in a northwardly direction, near the mouth of Dog creek." (page 129)
He goes on to say that several other ancient roads and paths that were used by the mound builders to travel between their cities were still traceable, including another description of the road that ran from the Mound Bottom complex to the mouth of Dog Creek, where the Charlotte Road crossed the Harpeth. Haywood noted that this road was traceable for miles eastward following a course alongside Dog Creek in the direction of Nashville.
He goes on to say that he could make out the path of another road "leading to the mouth of Dog creek, and traceable for several miles beyond it....Higher up the river, and within a mile of the above-described enclosures, and above the road leading by the mouth of Dog creek to Charlotte, is another bend of the river, so formed as to leave a bend and bottom on the north or opposite side of the river..." (page 130)
Excerpt from Haywood's book, in which he details the discovery (likely made by the first white men to pass through the area, the men and their helpers in charge of surveying tracts of land for The State of North Carolina in the 1780's & 1790's) of the remains of a dog, who had been buried near to the grave of his Native American master, likely several hundreds of years ago.
This leads me to believe in the likely possibility that Robertson, when choosing the path of his Charlotte Road in this area, some 20 + years prior to the publishing of Haywood's book, took advantage of the still traceable ancient path that had been used by the Mound Builders hundreds of years earlier, as it would have been easier and saved a great deal of work to construct his road along this already existing path rather than cutting out a new one.
Haywood also wrote in the same chapter of his book, that along the old road that was traceable and led up Dog Creek for miles eastward in the direction of Nashville, an ancient Native American grave had been discovered, and that near to this grave, the grave of a dog had also been discovered. He writes, "On the side of the road leading from Nashville to Charlotte, one mile east of Big Harpeth, near the lower part of Mr. Lake's plantation, was a grave, with rocks set up at the feet and head, and containing the bones of a dog. The bones in another grave near it, were human". For a dog to be buried along side his human master in this fashion, it must have been highly revered and much cared for in order to deserve such an honorable burial.
The History of Dog Creek & Its Link to The Charlotte Road -
As long ago as the mid 1800's, the first story that would eventually become the leading theory as to how Dog Creek got its name, began to spread by word of mouth among some lifelong Dog Creek residents. As the story goes, the creek got its name because of a run in between a black bear and a dog, which resulted in the bear killing the dog. If this story has any truth to it, the dog more than likely belonged to one of the first land surveyors who was passing through the area, as the fight is said to have taken place sometime in the 1780's, before there were any permanent settlers in the Dog Creek area. The location along the creek where the supposed fight took place has never been established.
At the time, the creek had yet to be named, but it soon became known as the creek where the dog was killed by a bear. Whether or not this is the true story as to how Dog Creek got it's name, the person who named it was probably one of the first people to permanently settle along the creek, in the first couple of years of the 1790's.
Several years ago, I uncovered the best and most reliable piece of evidence I have yet to find that best supports this story. It is the oldest document to mention the creek, and the oldest document I have found that uses the title "Dog Creek" to label it: a land grant dated February 23, 1793, issued by the State of North Carolina to two men—Alexander Green and none other than James Robertson himself. Both Green and Robertson were assignees of a man named Thomas Valentine. (See the photo section below for a photo of this land grant.)
In addition to this, in Sarah Foster Kelley's 1987 book, "West Nashville, it's People and Environs", in the chapter in which Kelley discusses the history and genealogy of the families to settle along the Charlotte Turnpike, from West Nashville all the way to Shacklett in Southern Cheatham County, the account of the run in between a bear and a dog is also given as the reason the creek was named Dog Creek. In the section in which Kelley tells of the history of Shacklett, she says "A few miles northwest of Kingston Springs on the present Highway Seventy, North, is the crossing of the Big Harpeth River. A road which leads north connects the Dog Creek Community, also known as Shacklett, named for Doctor Shacklett, and the Narrows of Harpeth settlement. It has been said that a bear killed a dog on a branch which was later called Dog Creek." (page 142-43)
Going back to Haywood's account of the discovery of the gravesite of the Native American and his canine companion - If not for the many accounts of the story of the unfortunate dog who lost his life somewhere along the creek in a battle against a black bear (a species of animal that was still a common sight here and that still inhabited the woods of Middle Tennessee up until the early - mid 1800's) one might be inclined to believe the creek was so named because of the discovery of the gravesite beside the creek that contained the remains of the ancient Native American and his dog.
Stagecoach Days and Beyond -
Stagecoaches had been carrying passengers over the Charlotte Road since the 1820's, however it wasn't until 1838 that The Charlotte Turnpike Company was chartered, and the road became the main stagecoach line and official United States Mail Route connecting Nashville to areas in West Tennessee, all the way to Memphis.
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Newspaper notice of the new mail route that had opened up between Nashville and Charlotte, from the June 14, 1806 issue of The Impartial Review & Cumberland Repository
1839 Newspaper Notice detailing the route of the US Mail
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Because of the rough terrain through which the Turnpike passed, as well as the poor condition of the road itself, the teams of horses that pulled the heavy stagecoaches would quickly become fatigued and overheated, having only enough energy to pull the stages for short distances at a time before they needed to cool down and rest. The distance that a fully loaded stage could traverse between required rest stops was sometimes no more than 10 - 15 miles. Because of the relatively slow speeds at which the stages progressed along the Turnpike, it was not uncommon for a stage to take over an hour to make it from one stop to the next.
The first of these rest stations after leaving Nashville heading west, was located at the base of the first of the steep ridges that the road passed over, known as Sullivan's Ridge. In her book, "West Nashville, it's People and Environs" Sarah Foster Kelley writes, "One stagecoach stop was located at the base of Sullivan's Ridge from 1821 until after 1858 which was called Elijah Robertson's Tavern and Blacksmith Shop....Horses were exchanged at the old waystation before fresh ones sped on their way across country. The heated, tired horses were placed in the stables nearby to rest and to cool down in an attempt to prevent the animals from taking pneumonia..." (page 41)
Later on in the book, Kelley further explains that "Elijah Robertson took operation of the stagecoach stop about 1821 when his brother moved westward. He built a stage stand and blacksmith shop across the road from his home in what was known as Stage Hollow. The Robertson home served as a tavern where the passengers rested while waiting on fresh horses. It was customary when the coach was approaching, the stage driver would sound a bugle signaling negro slave, Harry Robertson, to make ready. Reports state that when the coach was going over the ridge on its way to Charlotte, most of the passengers under forty years of age walked over the steep hill to lighten the load for the horses. Some of the older women did not want to tell their age, so they walked too." (page 134)
Montgomery Bell & The Charlotte Road -
A more detailed explanation will come later in this narrative of the history of the Charlotte Road, but her I would like to point out that Mr. Bell also very likely played a role in the history and evolution of the Charlotte Turnpike's progress. A well-constructed, reliable and convenient thoroughfare was most definitely a requirement in order for Bell's iron forge at the Narrows of the Harpeth to operate as efficiently and as lucratively as it did. A dependable, nearby main road was critical for the transportation of the massive quantity of materials, goods, and manpower going to and coming from the Narrows. I believe that Bell's Patterson forge at the Narrows would not have been as successful or as big of an accomplishment as it turned out to be if it weren't for the Nashville - Charlotte Road that conveniently passed just a mile or so to the south of its location on the Harpeth.
Montgomery Bell's second link to the narrative of the Charlotte Road - Samuel Adkisson
Intriguingly, there is yet another interesting link between Montgomery Bell and the narrative of the Charlotte Turnpike. Samuel Adkisson was the engineer Bell had selected, at the unbelievably young age of 15-16, to construct the main tunnel at the Narrows in 1818-1820, as well as a partial tunnel a few years later that was never completed. Ironically, and intriguingly, Adkisson was actually born the year that the county was established in which the tunnel he would eventually build was located, Dickson County.
Once the services of this skilled young self-proclaimed "mechanic" (and later "turnpike builder") were no longer needed by Mr. Bell at the Narrows of the Harpeth, Adkisson purchased land not very far away from that site. In the 1820's he settled along Dog Creek on a several acres of land located on the south side of the Charlotte Road, located across from where the Dog Creek Cemetery would eventually be located in the 1850's. (In his last will and testament, early Dog Creek settler Mastin Ussery, a highly respected and prominent figure in the community, donated the tract of land upon which the cemetery was to be located.)
As you will soon learn, as talented and as brilliant as he was at his trade, Samuel Adkisson's personality and character was equally as ambitious, outgoing, grandiose, boisterous, and over the top, traits which you will see he most certainly made no effort to hide. He was obviously a brilliant, resourceful and intelligent man for sure when it came to using his hands in constructing tunnels, iron forges, bridges, turnpikes, and many other various inventions, but as you will see, his character flaws were very much on public display, as evidenced by the dozens of editorials, speeches and other long winded ramblings and writings covering a wide variety of topics, particularly his own view of himself and his position in the community, that he wrote and had published in the Nashville newspapers later on in his life. He was very easily offended, and even paranoid regarding the opinions he believed others held about him and his inventions. One thing can be said for sure; he was very satisfied and pleased with himself.
Having undertaken such great feats of engineering and other related achievements so successfully at such a young age gave him more self-confidence and a sense of self-worth that very few people possess. I would not doubt that he didn't stray far from the Narrows of the Harpeth because of how proud he was of his achievement there. Later in his life he would say that his accomplishment at the Narrows was his most prized achievement. As you will soon learn, Adkisson's decision to settle in the Dog Creek neighborhood would ultimately lead to the major role he would play in the next major phase in the history of the Charlotte Road.
Letter written by Mr. Adkisson that appeared in the March 16, 1861 edition of the Daily Nashville Patriot, page 3
Part 2 Coming Soon
The following videos show a small section of the old roadbed as it looked in the spring of 2016, just to the west of Sam's Creek Road. I shot these videos myself. As you can see, the roadbed of the old Turnpike is still clearly visible, even though it is overgrown and covered in 70 + years' worth of plant and tree growth. I believe it would likely have been sometime in the 1940's when the last vehicles would have been able to traverse this section of the road - the section located between Sams Creek Road on the eastern end, and the end of Dog Creek Road about a mile and a half to two miles to the west.
Below - I shot the video below on a previous hike along the old road's path during wintertime. This is a little closer to where the road begins descending the ridge, where the tree growth is thicker.
Sources :
1. "West Nashville, Its People and Environs" by Sarah Foster Kelly, 1988
2. The Economic & Social Beginnings of Tennessee" by Albert C Holt, page 303
3. The Arkansas Gazette, February 2, 1830
4. The Daily Republican Banner (Nashville) February 6, 1830
5. Early North Carolina & Tennessee Land Records, ancestry.com
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