Man v. Nature: Colonial American Settlers and Wild Animals

by Denise Weimer

While researching for my most recent historical, a romance set on the Georgia/Cherokee/Creek frontier in 1813, I couldn’t do my story justice without portraying just how intensely early settlers struggled against wild animals. In Georgia, those were mainly bears, wolves, and panthers. No doubt this will surprise some current residents, who know that wolves and panthers have long-since disappeared from our state. But through the early 1800s, no foe was more persistent or dangerous.

In fact, The Early History of Jackson County, one of my main sources, described this battle in detail. January of 1795 turned intensely cold. “The ground had been covered with alternate layers of frozen rain and snow for six weeks with no prospect of an early change. Animals and birds became ravenously hungry. Panthers and wolves, troublesome at any time, were more dangerous than ever before. Hundreds of them were shot in the yards around the cabins during the day, and at night they were kept at a respectful distance by roaring fires in the chimneys and by burning pine knots outsides the houses. Sometimes even these precautions did not effect their purpose.”

The account goes on to describe a pack of wolves that responded to a settler’s dressing of a deer by rushing between those fires and besieging the house. The family shot most through portholes created for that purpose, but two attacked the door. The leader forced its head through the shutter, and the other wolf attacked it. As the animals turned on each other and a neighbor climbed a tree to bring firepower to aid the family, the attack finally abated.

A genealogy of Turner County, Georgia, south of Atlanta, confirmed that black bears were frequent visitors, while ammunition was scarce. So scarce the powder was sometimes mixed with coarse sand, as the settlers believed it would perform just as well and maybe travel farther.

According to William Bartram, 1739-1823, panthers in the Southern states were often called “tygers” and were much larger than a dog, yellowish-brown or clay-color with a long tail. Canebrakes along creeks could become panther strongholds in the winter. The Early History of Jackson County gives the account of a young man maimed and lamed in a panther attack, turned down for service in the War of 1812, who went on to fight bravely at the Battle of New Orleans.

Life of Col. David Crockett, Philadelphia, 1859

An 1835 settler’s account from Brushy Creek, Missouri, inspired a scene in my novel. In the true story, a mother whose husband was away protected her crying newborn from a panther’s attack on her cabin. The wily beast climbed onto the roof and was only dissuaded from entering via the chimney by some venison smoking there.

These true tales highlight how desperately early settlers in any state fought to maintain their basic safety. Aren’t we glad a goodly portion of our resources and focus don’t go toward merely staying alive? 

Print: 1859, Western Hunting Old Arkansas  

Represented by Hartline Literary Agency, Denise Weimer holds a journalism degree with a minor in history from Asbury University. She’s a managing editor for the historical imprints of Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas and the author of a dozen published novels and a number of novellas. A wife and mother of two daughters, she always pauses for coffee, chocolate, and old houses!

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Trail Signs and Paths

By Susan F. Craft

Because I have NO sense of direction and can get lost in my driveway, I am in awe of the trappers and hunters I read about during colonial American times. Just how did they make their way to where they wanted to go?

A term, “By Guess and By God,” came to mean inspired guesswork, an early form of navigation that relied upon experience, intuition, and faith.  Relying on faith would be me.

When I was researching Brigadier General Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox, a patriot militia leader, I discovered that as a young man, he went to sea. As a sailor, he learned to use a compass and a sextant and the stars to navigate. Those skills served him so well when moving from one battle to the next, his men often remarked at how precise his movements were in the murky swamps of South Carolina.

I always heard that moss grows on the north side of trees and does so because of the angle of the sun. Have you been to the woods lately? I see trees with moss growing completely around them. Lost again.

Trail Signs

            Many Indians, hunters, and travelers used axe blazes on tree trunks as trail signs.  There is a major highway in South Carolina that has the name Two Notch Road, because it was an old buffalo trail that Indians used where they carved two notches in the trees.  (And yes, there were buffalo in South Carolina. They migrated from the salt licks in Tennessee to the coast.)

           Some marked both sides of trees so that the trail could be run both ways. Trees marked on one side indicated a blind trail, used a lot by prospectors who didn’t want anyone following them. Indians usually nicked off small specks of bark with their knives while trappers and settlers may have used hatchets or broad axes. In the universal language of the woods, these marks meant “This is your trail.”

Another trail sign was to reach into an overhanging limb and bend a branch into an “L” shape meaning, “This is the trail.”   The twig broken off clean and laid on the ground across the line of march means, "Break from your straight course and go in the line of the butt end." When a special warning is meant, the butt is pointed toward the one following the trail and raised in a forked twig. If the butt of the twig were raised and pointing to the left, it would mean "Look out, camp, or ourselves, or the enemy, or the game we have killed is out that way." With some, the elevation of the butt is made to show the distance of the object; if low, the object is near. If raised very high, the object is a long way off.

But what did one do when finding themselves in a treeless areas such as grasslands or expanses of spartina, desert areas, or rocky regions? They used rocks, pebbles, sticks, and patches (tussocks) of grass.

 

Smoke Signals

To make smoke signals, a clear hot fire was made, then covered with green stuff or rotten wood so that it sent up a solid column of black smoke. By spreading and lifting a blanket over this smudge, the column could be cut up into pieces long or short.

Simple smoke codes:

One steady smoke -- “Here is the camp.”

Two steady smokes -- I am lost, come and help me.”

Three smokes in a row -- “Good news.”

Four smokes in a row -- “All are summoned to council.”

Signal by Shots

Buffalo hunters used a signal that is still used by the mountain guides.

Two shots in rapid succession, an interval of five seconds by the watch, then one shot; this means, "Where are you?"

The answer given at once and exactly the same means, "Here I am; what do you want?"

The reply to this may be one shot, which means, "All right; I only wanted to know where you were."

But if the reply repeats the first it means, "I am in serious trouble; come as fast as you can."

Cherokee Path in South Carolina

Before 1700, this famous Indian trail was followed by traders from Charleston, SC. There were two routes, one by way of the Cooper, Santee, and Congaree Rivers past present day Columbia. The other led to present day Augusta on the Savannah River, and headed north to meet the first route near Ninety Six, SC. 

In South Carolina, the path went by Forts Dorchester (Dorchester County), Pallachucolas (Jasper and Hampton counties), Moore (Aiken County), Ninety Six (Greenwood County), Rutledge (Oconee County), Prince George (Pickens county), and the Congarees (Lexington County).  French, German, and Scotch-Irish settlers travelled the eastern branch of the path. South Carolinians in 1756 hauled materials along the path over the mountains into Tennessee where they built Fort Loudoun on the Tellico River. Perhaps the largest archeological dig in the United States took place at Fort Prince George in 1967 revealing more information about life along the Cherokee Path.

Two British expeditions against the Cherokee followed this route in 1760 and 1761. Revolutionary heroes - Sumter, Marion, and Pickens - learned guerrilla fighting along the Cherokee Path.

The Great Trading Path

           Thousands of years ago, American Indians along the east coast established a system of paths and trails for hunting, trading and making war on other tribes. Most followed the migration paths of animals and along routes and fords across streams and rivers.

The Great Trading Path, or the Occaneechi Path, was one of many Indian trails in use when the English first explored the Carolinas backcountry during the late seventeenth century.

By the early to mid 1700s, the Trading Path provided European-American explorers and colonists a well-traveled route for settlement and trade. They traveled by foot, horseback, and wagon from Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia and from South Carolina and Georgia.  The Trading Path became known as the Great Wagon Road because of this increased traffic. Following portions of the original path, the Great Wagon Road crossed Virginia into North Carolina. The route was not just one path, but many. One branch of the path led to Charlotte and another through the Waxhaws and on through Charleston, SC, and eventually to Augusta, Ga.