220 The Winning of the West 



of course, was started in the region. 37 The back- 

 woods Presbyterians managed their church affairs 

 much as they did their civil government: each con- 

 gregation appointed a committee to choose ground, 

 to build a meeting-house, to collect the minister's 

 salary, and to pay all charges, by taxing the mem- 

 bers proportionately for the same, the committee 

 being required to turn in a full account, and receive 

 instructions, at a general session or meeting held 

 twice every year. 38 



Thus the Watauga folk were the first Americans 

 who, as a separate body, moved into the wilderness 

 to hew out dwellings for themselves and their chil- 

 dren, trusting only to their own shrewd heads, stout 

 hearts, and strong arms, unhelped and unhampered 

 by the power nominally their sovereign. 39 They 

 built up a commonwealth which had many suc- 

 cessors; they showed that the frontiersmen could 

 do their work unassisted; for they not only proved 

 that they were made of stuff stern enough to hold 

 its own against outside pressure of any sort, but 

 they also made it evident that having won the land 

 they were competent to govern both it and them- 

 selves. They were the first to do what the whole 

 nation has since done. It has often been said that 

 we owe all our success to our surroundings; that 



37 Salem Church was founded (Allison, 8) in 1777, by Sam- 

 uel Doak, a Princeton graduate, and a man of sound learning, 

 who also at the same time started Washington College, the 

 first real institution of learning south of the Alleghanies. 



38 "Annals of Augusta," 21. 



39 See Appendix. 



