English Family Story from World Family Tree

Following from WFT Vol 39, Tree 199:  The following story was published in a Grainger Co., TN Bicentennial booklet, this account of Grainger County's beginning has become a legend. The story tells of the first time the William English family was captured by the Cherokee Indians, which occurred again in 1787: 

"The story goes that a family by the name of English (Ingles) were the first white people to settle in what is now Grainger County. The exact location of that settlement is unknown, but is believed to have been in the vicinity of Bean's Station. The incidents of their brief residence in this location has been told for two centuries. 

 The English family settled in the country where it was nothing more than a wild frontier (about 1760) and the Cherokee Indians roamed the forest. There was said to be no other white people in the vicinity. One day, shortly after they arrived, while the men were out hunting wild game in the deep forest, suddenly a small band of Indians approached the tiny settlement. Fear clutched the hearts of the women & children who were left behind as the savage Indians strode into the clearing. To be scalped by an Indian, or to be killed by some other brutal force of hand of the savage was a horrible death, but, no doubt, one that was foremost in the minds of the early settlers. The women & children were carried off into the forest by the Indians while the men continued their search for food, unaware of their families being captured by the Indians. 

The English family had with them a Negro slave woman who was nurse to their baby daughter. This resourceful old black woman tore bits from her apron and dropped them along the path on which she was being force along with the other members of the family. This she knew this would furnish clues to the white men when they returned to the cabin to find the family missing. The Indians soon recognized her action in leaving the clues, so they immediately stopped her. Then she began to break twigs from the trees & undergrowth along the trail. The men returned home and found the women & children missing and set out on the trail marked by fits of the old negro slave's apron & eventually found the entire family. A pang of sorrow hung over the little settlement for the baby girl of Mrs. English had been killed by the redskins who, tired of carrying her, had slain the little one by bashing her head against a tree along the trail. The horror of this incident witnessed by the slave caused her to become mentally deranged and it is said that she had to be kept chained in a log cabin for the remainder of her life. The sight of a baby girl caused her to become violent to the point that she was uncontrollable."