siooNKYj WILLIAM WEATHERFORD MISSIONARIES 217 



as they tricil to escajif. He left tliree wives, uiie of wliom was a Cherokee. Authori- 

 ties: Drake, Indians, ed. 1880; Letters from Jlclntosh's son and widows, 1825, in 

 American State Papers: Indian Affairs, ii, pp. 7H4 and 76H. 



(36) WiLLi.vM Weatheufori) ( p. 89 ) : This leader of tlie liostiles in the Creek 

 war was the son of a white father and a halfbreed woman of Tuskejiee town whose 

 father had been a Scotchman. Weatherford was born in the Creek Nation abont 

 17S0 and died on Little river, in Monroe county. .Uabama. in 1S2H. He came first 

 into prominence by leadinfj the attack npoii Fort Minis, August 80, 1818, wliich 

 resulted in the destruction of the fort and the massacre of over five hundred inmates. 

 It is maintained, with apparent truth, that he did his best to prevent the excesses 

 which followed the victory, and left the scene rather than witness the atrocities 

 when he found that he could not restrain his followers. The fact that .Tackson 

 allowed him to go home unmolested after the final surrender is evidence that he 

 believed Weatherford guiltless. At the battle of the Holy Ground, in the following 

 December, he was defeated and narrowly escaped capture by the troops under (rcn- 

 eral Claiborne. When the last hope of the Creeks had been destroyed and their 

 power of resistance broken by the bloody battle of the Horseshoe ber-d, March 27, 

 1814, Weatherford voluntarily walked into (ieneral .Jackson's headquarti'rs and sur- 

 rendered, creating such an impression by his straightforward and fearless manner 

 that the general, after a friendly interview, allowed him to go back alone to gather 

 up his people prelijninarj' to arranging terms of peace. After the treaty he retired 

 to a iilantation in ^lonroe county, where he lived in comfort and was greatly respected 

 by his white neighbors until his death. As an illustration of his courage it is told how 

 he once, single-handed, arrested two murderers immediately after the crime, when the 

 local justice and a large crowd of bystanders were afraid to approach them. Jackson 

 declared him to be as high toned and fearless as any man he had ever met. In person 

 he was tall, straight, and well proportioned, with features indicating intelligetice, 

 bravery, and enterprise. Authorities: Pickett, Alabama, ed. 1896; Drake, Indians, 

 ed. 1880; Woodward, Reminiscences, 1859. 



(37) Reverend D.wid Br.\inerd (p. 104): The pioneer American missionary 

 from whom the noted Cherokee mission took its name was born at Hadilam, Con- 

 necticut, April 20, 1718, and died at Northampton, Massachusetts, October 9, 1747. 

 He entered Yale college in 1739, but was expelled on account of his religious opinions. 

 In 1742 he was licensed as a preacher and the next year Ijegan work as missionary to 

 the Mahican Indians of the village of Kamiameek, twenty miles from Stockbridge, 

 Massachusetts. He persuaded them to remove to Stockbridge, where he i>ut them 

 in charge of a resident minister, after which he took up work with good result among 

 the Delaware and other trilies on the Delaware and Susquehanna rivers. In 1747 

 his health failed and he was forced to retire to Northampton, where he died a 

 few months later. He wrote a journal and an account of his missionary laliors at 

 Kaunameek. His later mission work was taken up and continued by his brother. 

 Authority: Appleton's Cyclopjpdia of Amei'ican Biograijhy, 1S94. 



(88) Reverend S.^muei. AfsTix Worcester (p. 105): This noted missionary and 

 philologist, the son of a Congregational minister who was als(3 a printer, was 

 born at Worcester, Massachusetts, January 19, 1798, and died at Park Hill, in the 

 Cherokee Nation west, April 20, 1859. Having removed to Vermont with his father 

 while still a child, he graduated with the honors of his class at the state university 

 at Burlington in 1819, and after finishing a course at the theological seminary at 

 Andover was ordained to the ministry in 1825. A week later, with his newly wedded 

 bride, he left Boston to begin mission work among the Cherokee, ami arrived in 

 October at the mission of the American board, at Brainerd, Tennessee, where he 

 remained until the end of 1827. He then, with his wife, removed to New Kchota, in 

 Georgia, the capital of the Cherokee Nation, where he was the principal worker in the 

 establishment of the Cherokee. Phoenix, the first new'spaper jirinted in the Cherokee 



