Early Reminiscences - Hickman County, TN

Maj. Bolling Gordon was in town a few days ago, looking hale and hearty for a man of his age; being seventy-eight years old. The Major was a representative in the State Legislature in 1829, 1831, and 1833, from Hickman and Dickson Counties. In 1834 he was in the Constitutional Convention for Hickman, Wayne, Lawrence, and Hardin Counties; in 1835 he was elected to the State Senate from the same counties; he was also sent to the Senate in 1843 or 1847. In 1836 he was Presidential elector for Hickman, Maury, Wayne and Lawrence Counties, when Van Buren and H. L. White ran; he was elector for Harrison and Van Buren in 1840, and was in the Constitutional Convention in 1869-70. We learned that John Gordon, the father of Major Gordon, moved to Gordon's Ferry, on Duck river, when it was the first white settlement in Hickman: no other settlements between that point and Hillsboro.

We also learned that in 1805-6 Thos. H. Benton, who afterwards served 30 years in the U. S. Senate, kept a supply store for the Major's father at Gordon's Ferry. The ferry was then kept by Colbert and Gordon. At that point the old Natchez Trace road crossed Duck River. The road was opened in 1801, by U. S. forces under Capt. Robert Butler and Lieut. E. P. Gaines, the latter of whom was subsequently a Major-General in the U. S. Army, and was the husband of Mrs. Myra Clarke Gaines, so celebrated in the United States Courts in her litigation with the cities of New Orleans and Baltimore. Major Gordon was an intimate friend of Gen. Gaines.

We learned, as another reminiscence from the Major, that Mark Robertson was killed by the Indians, at a spring in this county, on the road from this place to Columbia, nine miles east of here, near what is now called Bluff Point, and the branch at that place takes its name from that circumstance. The old Natchez Trace passed along by this spring; coming up Trace Creek in Lawrence County, down Swan Creek, and across Blue Buck somewhere near the residence of Jo M. Bond, and then over to this spring, (where Robertson was killed), then over to Lick Creek, near Mrs. Beall's residence. thence to Nashville by way of Johnson's Lick, on Richland Creek, near Charles Bosley's, then on to the French Lick, now Nashville. We also learned from the Major that the Natchez Trace was originally cut out, or made, by the buffaloes in their travels in the country, before its settlement, going to and returning by the different lick before mentioned.

Lick Creek derived its name from the Black Sulphur spring, a lick near the residence of Mrs. Beale, as the place is now known. The Major is in possession of many other reminiscences which we would be pleased to record in the PIONEER, as they are very valuable and interesting. No man living is more familiar with and retains a more correct account of the early history of our State and county, than Major Gordon; an intimate friend of Gen'l Sam Houston, in his day, he knows all about his early history, marriage, etc., that has lately been going the rounds of the papers over the whole country. We were proud to see the Major enjoying such vigorous health and vivacity of spirits. We hope to see him again upon our streets, and talk to him further upon the days of "auld lang syne."

(The Hickman Pioneer, Friday, June 7, 1878)