"Once all the Cherokee children were gathered [at Wahoo Falls] they were to make a journey to Reverend Gideon Blackburns Presbertearian Indian School at Sequatchie Valley outside of Chattanooga Tennessee in order to save the children of the Cherokee Nation remaining in Kentucky and northern Tennessee on the Cumberland Plateau."

part 3: The Rev. Gideon Blackburn created two missions, that i know of, in southeast Tennessee: - one in 1804 at Charleston TN, upriver of Chattanooga 44 miles by freeway north-northeast. - another in 1806 on the other side of the river at Sale Creek TN, upriver from Chattanooga 28 miles. Neither is considered "Chattanooga" in the least, and both are separated from the Sequatchie Valley by the rather large extension of the Cumberland Plateau known as Signal Mountain. From what i can easily find on the web, Rev. Gideon Blackburn never created a mission in or 'near' (10 miles) Chattanooga (which is at the northeast base of Lookout Mountain), nor did he ever reside or found a mission in the Sequatchie Valley. The Sequatchie Valley is 25 miles downriver and due west of Chattanooga and Lookout Mountain - not "very near" each other, and while easy to travel on interstate highway these days, the distance was a difficult and dangerous passage back in the early 1800s. it's obvious from the following texts that the people writing about these Chattanooga and Sequatchie Valley areas know nothing about the geography of the area. I've been up and down the Sequatchie Valley frequently -- just drove down it yesterday from Crossville -- and haven't seen or heard of any trace of a Blackburn mission, not in Pikeville, Dunlap or Jasper, or anywhere in between. By 1810 both of Blackburn's missions and schools were closed, and in 1811 Blackburn was up in Franklin and Nashville - in the middle of Middle Tennessee. This Blackburn-of-the-Sequatchie-Mission looks like he's a character who's been created to be twisted to fit into somebody else's historical fiction. If someone knows of a Blackburn mission in the Sequatchie Valley, i'd sure appreciate learning about it. The Charleston and Sale Creek missions are well documented - Why is there no documentation of a Blackburn mission in the Sequatchie Valley? Until somebody comes up with proof of a Blackburn mission in the Sequatchie Valley, i figure that this part of the "Ywahoo Falls Massacree" story is pure fiction, which casts grave doubt on the veracity of the rest of the story. ;> tom kunesh (tpkunesh(at)chattanooga.net) 26 june 2006 Chattanooga

from Chattanooga to Yahoo Falls - an easy-looking 120 miles by map,
but difficult as hell from Jasper at the mouth of the Sequatchie Valley
to Yahoo Falls in 1810. remember that the Plateau is known for
its lack of steady water supply, hence only hunting parties
before euro-american settlement.

one story, one source, repeated over and over again, with no questions asked about other sources, ... Trox Native History - The Great Children Massacre of Ywahoo Falls This area of Sequatchie Valley was very near to Lookout Mountain at ... Reverend Blackburn is caught with a boatload of whiskey and becomes an alcoholic. ... Direct Descendent of Cornblossom (daughter of Doublehead) the Mighty Cumberland Plateau Thunderbolt Cherokee and the southern Ky Cumberland River Shawnee This is the true story of my family .... Dan Troxell Direct Descendant of those who had fallen and those who survived 1810 Massacre (This true factual event can also be found in both Federal and State agencies) ... (These true factual events spiritual and historical can also be found in both Federal and State agencies, submitted, archived, accepted, and specially presented to them by Dan Troxell in order to preserve the remembrance of a family, its heritage, and a culture.) "The Great Cherokee Children Massacre at Ywahoo Falls" had been established at Sequatchie Valley in Tennessee by the Reverend. Gideon Blackburn, a Presbyterian minister from Philadelphia,. Pennsylvania. ... Yahoo! 360° - Bear Warrior's Blog - "The Great Cherokee Children The Great Cherokee Children Massacre at Ywahoo Falls " ... Blackburns ' Presbyterian Indian School at Sequatchie Valley outside of Chattanooga Tennessee in ... Chief Red Bird at Ywahoo Falls This area of Sequatchie Valley was very near to Lookout Mountain at ... After the massacre at Yahoo Falls, Reverend Blackburn's "Indian schools" in ... RIGHTING OLD WRONGS My Two Beads Worth And what about the 110 women and children who were murdered at Ywahoo Falls in ... to Reverend Gideon Blackburn's Presbyterian Indian School at Sequatchie ... "BIG JAKE" & CORNBLOSSOM This area of Sequatchie Valley was very near to "Lookout Mountain" in ... After the massacre of Ywahoo Falls, Reverend Blackburn's illness and grief over ... The Great Cherokee Children Massacre at Ywahoo Falls Reverend Gideon Blackburns' Presbyterian Indian School at Sequatchie Valley ... After the massacre at Ywahoo Falls, Reverend Blackburn's "Indian schools" in ... Much Loved "> A place to rhyme your worries away. . . . Poetry On ... ... at Reverend Gideon Blackburn's Presbyterian Indian School in Sequatchie ... Cumberland Moonbow Falls (Ywahoo Falls) is one of the very few places in ... Poetry World - The Children of Moonbow Falls ... at Reverend Gideon Blackburn's Presbyterian Indian School in Sequatchie ... Cumberland Moonbow Falls (Ywahoo Falls) is one of the very few places in the ... The 1810 Massacre of 110 Cherokee Women and children at Yahoo ... The story of the massacre of 110 Chickamaugan women at Ywahoo Falls, Wayne County ... Blackburns' Presbyterian Indian School at Sequatchie Valley outside of ... Yahoo Falls by Ken Tankersley It extended from the Sequatchie Valley, near present-day Chattanooga, Tennessee, ... Chief Red Bird at 1810 Massacre of Ywahoo Falls, by Dan Troxell ... A Terrible Thing Happened in 1810 It was decided that the Chicamaugan children in the Cumberland Area would be taken to Reverend Blackburn's Indian school, just across the border in Tennessee. Ywahoo Falls, now called Yahoo Falls, Kentucky, was the gathering place. The children, a few women taking care of them, and a handful of warriors to guard the group waited there for the last stragglers to arrive, before pressing south to the Blackburn school. There were 110 children and women hiding in the cave behind the falls. The braves stationed themselves on both sides of the river. Trox Native History - She Who Carries the Sun for her people ... The sacred holy fires at Ywahoo Falls, Cumberland Falls, and Eagle Falls burned ... THE MASSACRE OF MY PEOPLE IN KENTUCKY "The Great Cherokee Children Massacre at Ywahoo Falls" Once all the Cherokee children were gathered, they were to make a journey to Reverend Gideon Blackburns' Presbyterian Indian School at Sequatchie Valley outside of Chattanooga Tennessee in order to save the children of the Cherokee Nation remaining in Kentucky and northern Tennessee on the Cumberland Plateau. This area of Sequatchie Valley was very near to Lookout Mountain at Chattanooga, the once long held Chickamauga National capital of the Thunderbolts. Near Lookout Mountain, just on the other side in northeast Alabama, was the rendezvous point for the Chickamaugan Cherokees and their allies the Creek Nation. For by this time, many Creek and Chickamaugan Thunderbolt Cherokee were defending the rest of the Indian Nations there as well. The arrangements to save the Cherokee children through Gideon Blackburns' white protection Christian Indian Schools, had been made earlier by Cornblossoms father War Chief Doublehead, who had also several years earlier been assassinated by non-traditionalist of the southern Cherokee Nation of the Carolinas and far eastern Tennessee.

on GIDEON BLACKBURN 1772-1838 Blackburn's school, on the Hiwassee River near present-day Charleston, opened in the spring of 1804; a second school, the Blackburn Mission, opened in 1805. Intended to instill Christian religious precepts and "civilized" standards of behavior, the curriculum emphasized lessons in dress and comportment as well as instruction in reading, math, music, and the catechism. Neither school used interpreters and thus had only limited appeal for non-English-speaking Cherokees. In 1804 and 1805 most of the one hundred or more students were bicultural Cherokee boys seeking to improve their English and gain knowledge of the "three Rs" before entering careers as traders or shopkeepers. ... In the spring of 1809 the Creeks implicated Blackburn, his brother Samuel, and the Cherokee chiefs John McIntosh and The Ridge in a scheme to illegally ship whiskey through Creek territory to Mobile. The resulting scandal severely damaged Blackburn's reputation and contributed to a brief period of anti-mission sentiment among the Cherokees. In 1810 the minister closed both schools and moved his family to Middle Tennessee. In the spring of 1811 the Blackburns settled in Franklin, where he became the principal of Harpeth Academy. He continued his work as an itinerant preacher, helping to found five new congregations (including First Church of Nashville) and the Presbytery of West Tennessee and serving as the clerk and moderator of the Tennessee Synod. He also raised a company of volunteers for service under General Andrew Jackson during the Creek War and became a mentor and confidante of Jackson's wife Rachel. The Tennessee Encylopedia of History and Culture TextŠ1998 by the Tennessee Historical Society, Nashville, Tennesseee --- Chronicles of Oklahoma Volume 12, No. 1 March, 1934 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS TO THE OVERHILL CHEROKEES. BY SAM'L C. WILLIAMS ... In 1804 Rev. Gideon Blackburn, pastor of the Presbyterian church at Maryville, Tennessee, felt the call to teach and Christianize the nearby Cherokees. He opened schools among them and it is said that in the five years of his labors he taught from four to five hundred Indian youths to read the English Bible. It is due to this remarkable man that the mission at Brainerd was planted by the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions. ... ... The success of Blackburn's continued efforts led to the founding of the mission at Brainerd in 1817. --- Cherokee Anti-Mission Sentiment, 1824-1828 William G. McLoughlin Ethnohistory, Vol. 21, No. 4 (Autumn, 1974), pp. 361-370 doi:10.2307/481149 ... the Presbyterian schools of the Reverend Gideon Blackburn (1803-1810), --- In 1799 Cherokee leaders, such as Little Turkey, began to praise the benefits of white education. In 1801 a school was established by a Moravian missionary to educate Cherokee children in reading, writing, and arithmetic. This school was the first to teach Western education in the Cherokee Nation. The founder of the school was the ideologically driven Reverend Blackburn, the leading proponent of the movement to educate the Cherokee on the American side of the question. In 1803 Blackburn presented a wide-reaching education program to the October Council of the Cherokee. A Solitary Tree and a Tornado: The Hows and Whys of Cherokee Assimilation and Removal (1796-1838) by Vincent Lyman --- The Mr. Blackburn mentioned in this letter was the Reverend Geldeon Blackburn from Maryville, (TN.) He was a Presbyterian minister who became a missionary to the Cherokees. It was through his influence that these first schools for the Indians were established. INDIAN SCHOOLS IN McMINN COUNTY --- Indian Missions of the Southern States In 1804 Rev. Gideon Blackburn, for the Presbyterians, established a Cherokee mission school in E. Tennessee, which did good work for several years until compelled to suspend for lack of funds. --- THE FIRST AMERICANS In 1804 the Reverend Gideon Blackburn opened a Presbyterian school for the Cherokee near the village of Sale Creek. In 1817 a school known as the Brainerd Mission, near the present site of Chattanooga, was established by the Reverend Cyrus Kingsbury, a Congregational missionary. --- Chronology of Hamilton County 1540 - 1838 1806, August 1,: Dr. Gideon Blackburn established at Sale Creek the first mission school for the Indians in the Hamilton County country. In the same year he had a similar school in Hiawassee. He taught spinning, weaving and domestic arts as well as religion. --- THE MISSIONARIES, HEAVEN SENT OR GOVERNMENT SENT? Reverend Gideon Blackburn is credited as being the author of the "first wholly successful work by Presbyterians among Indians in the south." Since 1794 when Blackburn first began preaching in East Tennessee, he had thought about improving the "savage and wretched state" of the Indians of that region. In 1799 he suggested that a mission be sponsored by the Presbytery of Union (Tennessee), but he was unable to take action on his plan until 1803, when as a commissioner to the Presbyterian General Assembly Blackburn persuaded the Assembly to grant two hundred dollars to educate Cherokee children. Supervisory responsibility for the Indian schooling was given to the newly organized (1802) Presbyterian Board of Missions. (1) Gideon Blackburn began at once to consummate his plans for civilizing the Cherokees. He approached his task with a practical philosophy, believing that previous attempts had been "abortive" owing to "exalted" instructions given the Cherokees. To his mind, the problem was one of appealing to "ignorance, obstinacy and strong prejudices. " If "rightfully managed," be thought, the Cherokees could become American citizens and valuable members of the Union. His plan was to concentrate on the children, since he had little hope of adult conversions. After obtaining approval of the United States government, Blackburn was successful in October, l803, in persuading a council of "2000 assembled Indians," to accept his mission school. Native sanction must have come quickly, since there was such strong interest among the Cherokees in securing education for their children. (1) By the spring of 1804, Blackburn's first school was in operation at a location on the Hiawassee, chosen principally because it was 'in a part of the nation most unlikely to be civilized." Two Moravians who visited the school several months later wrote approvingly: "Between twenty and thirty Cherokee children are now receiving instruction and are also provided with food and clothes." The conduct of schoolmaster Jonathan Black (he was the courageous man who, in an unsuccessful attempt to save Chief Doublehead's life, hid him from his assassins in his attic) received their commendation, as well as the good behavior of the heathen children in the school. A typical day's activities, according to the visitors, included rising, praying, and washing; scriptures, praise, and public prayer; lessons until breakfast; one hour of recreations; three hours of lessons, then lunch; two hours of recreations; spelling lessons before supper; and hymn singing, prayer, and bed. (1) In 1806 Blackburn established a second school at Richard Fields' place near the mouth of Sale Creek on the Tennessee River. Robert Denham was the first teacher at the new school, which enrolled thirty pupils on opening day. Blackburn supplemented the meager church appropriations for his two schools by soliciting donations on speaking tours. These and other exertions articles of religious belief, Other mission workers arriving later joined this devout little body, and it became the nucleus of what it was hoped would become a thriving white-red-black Christian organization. (1) THE MYSTERY OF PARSON BLACKBURN'S WHISKEY However there was another side to parson Blackburn. The years of 1809-1810 were a time of waning providence of Gideon's school. The school on South Sale Creek closed in the summer of 1810. Why did they close when they were far more successful than the Moravian missions? Of note is that the remnant children of Chief Doublehead's band [Doublehead was murdered August 9, 1807] were on their way to Gideon's school in the Sequatchie Valley [?] when [August 10, 1810] they were set upon by Hiram Gregory and his rogues and massacred at Yahoo Falls, near Stearns Kentucky. This act symbolically ended the reign, and their resistance to US government rule, of the Chickamaugan people, where they began. This was the same year Gideon's last school and about the same time. One can only be suspicious of Parson Blackburn's coincidental role of owning the school where they were going and the source of intelligence Hiram had to have to know where they were hiding. It was long suspected that Parson Blackburn used others to front his illegal whiskey trade. He is known to have run a distillery in Maryville Tennessee, where he lived and also where the trip began to sell liquor illegally to the Indians that led to his exposure as a liquor peddler. Posey noted in his work 'The Presbyterian Church' that "Gideon Blackburn was at one time a large-scale dealer in liquor." This was confirmed in April of 1809 when the Creeks seized two boats filled with whiskey on the border of their territory. The boats had stopped at Turkey town, home of the Cherokee Chief Pathkiller (installed as principal chief by council in 1808 mostly due to the suggestion of the Vann)where they had temporarily stored their goods. Samuel Blackburn, Gideon's brother, was among the men engaged in this enterprise. Gideon himself was present in Turkey town during this incident. US Government complicity was confirmed in a long letter written by Governor Willie Blount who succeeded Sevier as secretary of war in 1811. Blount sought recompense from the Creeks and exonerated the traders. Not only that, but he insisted the Creeks be punished for interfering with this "honorable and laudable enterprise." (3)