lt')"i MVTIIS OK THK (HElioKKK [ktii. vsx. 19 



foi' th(> Coni't'dtTucy aloiiy the inoiintiiiii rcjj'ioii soutliwurd from Ctiiii- 

 bcrlund gup. 



After the close of the eontliet he returned to his home at Stekoii and 

 again took charge. unofEcialh', of the affairs of the Cherokee, whom 

 he attended during the smalli)ox epidemic of 1866 and assisted through 

 the unsettled conditions of the reconstruction period. His own 

 resources had l)een swept away l»v the war. and all his hopes had gone 

 down with the lost cause. This, added to the effects of thi-ee years of 

 hardship and anxiety in the field when already almost past the age 

 limit, soon after brought about a physical and mental collapse, from 

 which he never afterward rallied except at intervals, when for a short 

 time the old spirit would flash out in all its brightness. He died in 

 1893 at the advanced age of nearly ninety, retaining to the last the 

 courteous manner of a gentleman by nature and training, with an 

 exact memory and the clear-cut statement of a lawj-er and man of 

 affairs. To his work in the state senate the people of western North 

 Carolina owe more than to that of any other man, while among the 

 older Cherokee the name of Wil-l^sdi' is still revered as that of a 

 father and a great chief.' 



Yonaguska, properly Ya'nu-giin'ski. the adopted father of Thomas, 

 is the most prominent chief in the historj' of the East Cherokee, 

 although, singularly enough, his name does not occur in connection 

 with any of the early wars or treaties. This is due partly to the fact 

 that he was a peace chief and counselor rathei' than a war leader, and 

 in part to the fact that the isolated position of the mountain Cherokee 

 kept them aloof in a great measure from the tribal councils of those 

 living to the west and south. In person he was strikingly handsome, 

 being six feet three inches in height and strongly built, with a faint 

 tinge of red, due to a slight strain of white blood on his father's side, 

 relieving the brown of his cheek. In power of oratory he is said to 

 have surpassed any other chief of his day. When the Cherokee lands 

 on Tuckasegee were sold bj^ the treaty of 1819, Yonaguska continued 

 to reside on a re.servation of 640 acres in a bend of the river a short dis- 

 tance above the present Bryson City, on the site of the ancient 

 Kituhwa. He afterward moved over to Oconaluftee, and finally, after 

 the Removal, gathered his people aliout him and settled with them on 

 Soco creek on lands purchased for them by Thomas. 



•The facts concerning Colonel Thomas's career are derived chiefly from the author's conversations 

 with Thomas himself, supplemented by information from his former assistant, Capt. James W. 

 Terrell, and others who knew him, together with an admirable sketch in the North Carolina Univer- 

 sity JIagazine for May 1899. by Mrs. A. C. Avery, his daughter. He is also frequently noticed, in con- 

 nection with East Cherokee matters, in the annual reports of the Commissioner of Indian -Affairs; in 

 the North Carolina Confederate Roster; in Lanman's Letters from the Alleghany Mountains; and in 

 Zciglerand Grosscup's Heart of the Alleghanies, etc. Some manuscript contributions to the library 

 of the Georgia Historical Society in Savannah— now unfortunately mislaid— show his interest in 

 Cherokee linguistics. 



