Remembering Nellie Martin, A Cherokee Woman from Deep Creek (Part 1 of 2)

This blog entry is a 2-part article published simultaneously, but to fully appreciate and understand the one you must read the other (and vice versa). My research buddy, Don Casada, and I teamed up to write about one of our favorite projects thus far - the placement of a cenotaph for Nellie Martin, a Cherokee woman who lived and died in the Deep Creek/Indian Creek area. We have spent countless hours in the research and writing of these pieces, revising many times, but the resulting articles are ones which we hope will honor Nellie's legacy and the legacy of other Cherokee who inhabited the area but are "known only to God". I wrote this article, which is focused primarily on what is known about Nellie and her family. 

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Back in 2011, when Don Casada and I first started our historical research on home sites in the Swain County portion of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, we made a couple of trips to the park's archives, which at the time were located in a basement of the park headquarters at Sugarlands. Annette Hartigan, the archivist at the time (now retired) was an enthusiastic supporter of our research and was always well prepared for our visits with items she thought we might find of interest. 

Figure WM1: The two cabins at the Bumgarner place, approximately 1.7 miles from the Turnaround. According to park records, the smaller cabin was built by Indians. It is likely very similar to Nellie's cabin at the Turnaround. (Source: Open Parks Network)

On one such trip, she pulled out several field notebooks kept by Charles Souder Grossman (Figure WM2), an architect who, during the 1930s and 1940s, worked with historian Hiram Wilburn to document the homes and artifacts left behind by former residents of lands that became the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We found many exceptionally interesting facts amongst his notes, but one entry in particular stood out, for it detailed a conversation Grossman had with Will Jenkins, who lived in a home across the last bridge on Deep Creek at the current intersection of the Deep Creek Trail and the Loop Trail. 

Figure WM2: Charles Souder Grossman.
(Source: Open Parks Network)

I have included a picture of the first page of the relevant notes below (Figure WM3), but they are not particularly easy to read and I have provided a verbatim transcription below, courtesy of Don.

 “Litha Baumgarner Place – Originaly called Junie Wank Place (Indian).  Litha still living on Lands Creek with nephew.  Litha now about 80 yrs old. (Note: this is incorrect – the Junie Wank place was well-documented in deeds to have been located on what we know as Juney Whank Branch.)

Lived there with her father Ephraim Baumgarner.  New house built about 38 years ago.  Pounding mill Litha’s son built pounding mill.  40 years ago stood at Will Jenkins place. 

Also an Indian Cabin stood at Turn Around (Nellie Martin Place) on Deep Creek Cabin built of round log. Chimney lined with stone & mud outside with small poles at bottom with smaller poles & split poles at the top of chimney.  Cabin about 12’ x 14’.  As a rule Indian cabins were smaller than the White cabins.  Had 1 window in lower side opposite the creek (west).  Door in upper side (east).  Chimney in north end of building.  Stood just below two big apple trees which are still standing.  Floor of rough lumber.  Got it from a little saw mill on Indian Creek.  Nellie died and was buried near the cabin.  She had her crib keys in her pocket and was buried with them.  The crib door was never opened but a new door was cut in the other end.  Crib stood below house of split chest logs about 8’ x 5’.

Will Jenkins place built by George Jenkins his Daddy about 30 years ago.  Originally the Corntassle Place (Indian.

Went to Nellie Martin Place with Mr. Jenkins & was shown site of Indian Cabin & crib also Nellie Martins grave.

Across the bridge from the Jenkins Place and on the ridge known locally as graveyard ridge Mr. Jenkins showed me 7 or 8 Indian graves.”

Figure WM3: May 14, 1937 notes on Nellie Martin captured by Charles Grossman. This is one of three pages from which the above transcription is taken. (Source: GSMNP archives)

 Nellie is largely an enigma, with what we know about her being bits and pieces gleaned from Cherokee Rolls and US Census records. She was born somewhere between 1842 – 1845 and was the daughter of Oo nu naga ar mar u (Cherokee last name Chu-chu, English last name Martin) and his wife Sorgiu nie glug hi (English name Nancy Martin), both of whom were born in the remote Turtletown area of Polk County, Tennessee. Nellie’s place of birth is not known for certain, but per their Guion-Miller applications (see the sources for a link to a great  overview of the Cherokee enrollment records mentioned in this article), her brother Suate was born in 1846 on Indian Creek (Figure WM4), as was his brother George (born in 1858). Therefore, even if she was not born there, she most certainly grew up on Indian Creek. (Side note: I was absolutely elated to find out that the Martins had lived on Indian Creek as the names of its Native American settlers have proved elusive. Their documented residence there also supports the long-rumored origin of the name of the nearby Martins Gap, through which runs the trail of the same name that connects the Deep Creek and Indian Creek trails.)

Figure WM4: First page of Suate Martin's claim for Eastern Cherokee nation enrollment (part of the Guion-Miller Roll), dated February 3, 1908. It is important to note that the Cherokee spelling of the Martin family's names varied considerably by the Roll being taken. (Source: Fold3.com, Eastern Cherokee Applications of the U.S. Court of Claims, 1906-1909, Record #15711)

Nellie appears to have been one of at least seven children (Figure WM12), several of whom died as teens or young adults. Nellie does appear to have had some schooling and learned to read and write at some point, perhaps having received some schooling from her parents (the Indian Creek School was not established until the early 1870s and would very likely not have educated Indian children). At some point she married, as the Hester Roll of 1884 records her as being a widow (Figure WM5); the name of her husband is unknown as no marriage record was able to be located. We also do not know if she had children. The 1880 census (Figure WM6) records a boy, Jonas Martin, in the household who may have been her son. However, he appears to have died before the Hester Roll was taken as he does not appear in conjunction with her record or that of either of her surviving brothers.

Figure WM5: 1884 Hester Roll - entry for Nellie (solitary line on top) and her brother George and his wife (bottom). (Source: National Archives, Image M1773-09-013)

Figure WM6: 1880 Census showing the George Martin household. (Source: Ancestry.com)

On May 23, 1878, Nellie acquired, courtesy of Thaddeus Dillard Bryson, a 100-acre tract adjoining the Jenkins land; this land contains what we now know as the Turnaround. This transaction was made on the same day on which he acquired the Bryson Place, at which she (and almost certainly other members of the family) had been living. These transactions are better detailed in Don’s article. The fact that the land was deeded to her suggests that her husband may have been deceased by this time. The reason for T.D. Bryson’s kind gesture is unknown, however, the 1880 census (Figure WM6), taken two years later, paints a sad picture of the family:

• The family was headed by the unmarried George, age 20
• Nellie was reported to be an “idiot” and “insane”; perhaps suffering from a mental illness or a neurological disorder affecting her brain (for those interested, here is an interesting article on the categorization of such individuals in this particular census)
• Her elderly mother Nancy is also listed as being an “idiot”. In light of Nancy’s advanced age, senile dementia is a not implausible reason for having been assigned this classification.
• Jonas Martin is a 6 year old child in a household in which the women may have been unable to care for him.

The land granted to Nellie was much further downstream of the Bryson Place and closer to assistance should the family have needed it. T.D. Bryson was known to have been a generous community benefactor and may well have chosen to provide for what he saw as a family in significant distress. 

Grossman’s records show that after receiving this gift, the Martins built (at minimum) a small cabin and corn crib and also planted apple trees that were still standing in 1937, when Grossman talked with Will Jenkins. They likely farmed the land in the Turnaround (Figure WM7), some of the very little relatively flat and arable land in the area.

Figure WM7: The Deep Creek Turnaround as it looked in 1937. This picture was likely taken from very close to the Hunnicutt home, which Don and I believe to have been the prior site of the Martins' home. (Source: Open Parks Network)

By the time the Hester Roll was taken in 1884, Nancy (and likely Jonas) had passed away; Nellie joined them in death soon thereafter. She was buried near her cabin, likely on the ridge that terminates just before one reaches the Turnaround (known in later deeds as Indian Grave Ridge – see the discussion on this in Don’s article). On August 31, 1885, Suate and George, her brothers and heirs, sold her land for $200 to William P. Shuler, and moved away from Deep Creek and Indian Creek, leaving only their surname on a remote gap to record their former lives there.

 It was Don’s and my strong feeling that as Nellie’s burial was well-documented, we should somehow mark her grave. We have done so, with the Park Service’s permission, for other individuals whose gravesite locations were passed down by family members over the years, and felt that the evidence in this case for a stone was very strong. Armed with the notes from Grossman and deeds proving that Nellie had owned property in the area, we approached Heath Bailey who was then the Park’s archaeologist to see if the Park Service would agree to allow us to place a stone bearing a cenotaph for Nellie if we (Don, Frank March [a fellow park researcher], and I) purchased it. Approval was granted on June 19, 2018, and on October 23 of the same year, the stone was placed by Don and Frank in the middle of the Turnaround. Though almost certainly not the location of her actual grave (see Don’s piece for a detailed discussion of this), it is a fitting location for it, so that people can observe it and ponder the lady whom it memorializes.

Figure WM8: The likely location of Nellie's burial on Indian Grave Ridge just above the Turnaround, where Marion and Columbus Hunnicutt are known to be buried. Susan Casada is standing at their graves and I am standing where the Hunnicutt home was known to be (some of the foundation stones are still there) and where we believe the Martin cabin to have been located. A detailed map of the Turnaround area is shown in Figure DC 13 in Don's piece. (Photo credit: Don Casada)

I would encourage interested readers to visit Nellie’s cenotaph (Figure WM9). The Turnaround is located approximately 2.1 miles from the gate at the main Deep Creek trailhead, by following the main Deep Creek Trail. The stone is located in the middle, approximately two-thirds of the way to the far end of the Turnaround in the middle and is visible from the trail (more easily visible in winter).

Figure WM9: Nellie Martin's cenotaph. The "Chis-e-li" spelling of her Cherokee name was pulled from the final deed transferring ownership of the Martin place at the Turnaround to Pate Shuler. 
(Photo by the author)

Over our lifetimes, Don and I have been at the Turnaround hundreds of times – never knowing, until 2011, the fascinating history that lay just fifty feet away from us. Of all the historical work I have done, the work associated with memorializing Nellie Martin ranks exceptionally high on my list. While the white settlers of the Deep Creek section of the park are relatively well-documented, quite the opposite is true for the Native Americans who lived in the area prior to that time. Evidence of their existence there has come only in the form of a few found arrowheads and pipes, a couple of graves on Indian Creek that are believed to have Cherokee-language inscriptions on them (Figure WM10), references to home places such as the June Whank and Corn Tassel places, maps of reserves taken out in conjunction with the 1819 Cherokee cession treaty, and interviews with descendants of the original white settlers who had told their grandchildren that Indians were living on the creek at the time they moved there. The research we have conducted to give personhood to an individual who has, heretofore, resided only in a few census roll lines, represents an important step in establishing a far more complete human history of Deep Creek.

Figure WM10: Gravestone with what are believed to be Cherokee language engravings; Parris Cemetery on Indian Creek. (Photo credit: Don Casada)

Postscript: In his notes, Grossman remarks that he was taken to see seven or eight Indian graves across the bridge from the Jenkins Place. The misnamed “Wiggins 2” graveyard (see Figure DC8 in Don’s piece) continues to be maintained by the Park Service and today only five stones remain (two of which appear to be footstones) (Figure WM11). The graves are oriented between thirty and fifty degrees off an East-West orientation, which further supports the oral tradition that these are Indian graves. The identities of the individuals buried there are not known. Corn Tassel was known to have lived at what later became the Jenkins Place so these graves may belong to members of his family. However, given Nellie and her family’s close proximity to this cemetery at some point (at least some of the family having moved over the mountain from Indian Creek), one wonders if any of these graves might belong to members of the Martin family (Figure WM12). We will almost certainly never know. (Note: If you wish to visit this cemetery, the trail takes off to the left up a mountain just before you reach the last bridge on the Deep Creek Trail. It is an arduous climb of about one-tenth a mile.)

Figure WM11: The Indian Cemetery on Deep Creek near the Will Jenkins homeplace (above the last bridge on Deep Creek). (Photo by the author)

Figure WM12: Second page of Suate Martin's claim for Eastern Cherokee nation enrollment (part of the Guion-Miller Roll) showing his siblings. Ironically, Nellie does not appear to be listed. (Source: Fold3.com, Eastern Cherokee Applications of the U.S. Court of Claims, 1906-1909, Record #15711)

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Sources:
Ancestry.com
Fold3.com
Great Smoky Mountains National Park Archives
Individual Contributors: Don Casada, Annette Hartigan, Mike Aday, Frank March, Heath Bailey, Susan Casada, Jim Casada
National Archives and Records Administration (Mullay Roll [1848] Siler Roll [1851], Chapman Roll [1852], Swetland Roll [1869], Hester Roll [1884]. An excellent description of what was collected by the various rolls can be found at this link: Eastern Cherokee Census Rolls, 1835-1884 (archives.gov)
Open Parks Network.org
Swain County Register of Deeds