Natchez Trace -- Our Neighbor to the West

 

Edition 1. Issue 8.                                 July 2022

 It was 1809. Nashville (Nashborough until 1784) was almost thirty years old. Bryant Whitfield needed some hard cash. The corn crop on his land around Newsome Station was good. The family had plenty to eat, plenty to feed the stock, and had ground all the corn meal the family would need. The question was what to do with the rest of the corn.  It would not keep. Everyone around had a good crop, so there was no market for the surplus. The best option was to make whiskey. It was storable, transportable, and marketable. So, Bryant started making his Tennessee whiskey at his still on his property. How to turn the whiskey into hard cash when all his neighbors had plenty of corn, meant that Bryant had to find a market for his whiskey.  New Orleans was the best market of any size easiest to reach, with “easy” being a relative term. So, Bryant and a couple of neighbors determined to build a flatboat, loaded their kegs of whiskey and launched out of Nashville on the Cumberland River. The river current would take them to the Ohio River (the current actually took them north to the Ohio), then the Ohio would take them to the Mississippi, and then the Mississippi River current would take them to New Orleans. When Bryant and his crew stopped at Natchez, they learned through conversations with other boatmen and travelers that Natchez was probably their best market. They could get their cash now. They could avoid unknown troubles along the river and the port of New Orleans. Most importantly they could get home from Natchez. Bryant and his crew knew they would never be able to go back like they came. Going against the current all that way was too difficult. So, Bryant and the crew sold their whiskey and their flatboat in Natchez and started walking home to Nashville on the Natchez Trace.    The Natchez Trace started in Natchez (before Mississippi was a state) and terminated in Nashville. It was roughly 500 miles long and if you pushed hard, you could travel the length of it in fifteen days.  The Trace was built in 1802 by the new federal government by army troops following older Indian trails and even older animal trails primarily made by bison that would migrate to Nashville which was a well visited (by animals) salt lick.

The original Natchez Trace was an important highway for the early settlers in this region. In 1938 the National Park Service started the Natchez Trace Parkway to commemorate the original Natchez Trace and finally finished the last segment that ends on Highway 100 in Pasquo, Tennessee in 1996. While the Parkway does not follow the exact original route, it does follow the general route through Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi for 445 miles. As a resident of Stephens Valley, you are only a hop, skip, and a jump from a ride and walk through some old Tennessee history, folktales, and mysteries.

The original Trace crossed lands claimed by the Choctaw and the Chickasaw tribes, and unlike the Parkway, it contained prehistoric Indian sites. Travelers would find some accommodations along the route referred to as “stands”. In fact, one of the original Trace mysteries involved Merriweather Lewis of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Folks still argue over whether Lewis was murdered or if he committed suicide when he was found dead one morning in 1809 at Grinder’s Stand in what is Lewis County today. You can see the national monument that marks the site and a reproduction of the inn at the Merriweather Lewis National Monument about 75 miles down the Natchez Trace Parkway from Nashville.

Other famous travelers of the original Trace were Aaron Burr, Andrew Jackson, and Mike Fink. General Jackson earned his nickname Old Hickory walking up the Trace with his Tennesseans in 1811 and he triumphantly walked up the Trace again after whipping the British and saving the country in 1815. The original Trace had its share of outlaws, cut-throats and land pirates, too. Some of the famous or infamous were the Harpe brothers - Micajah and Wiley, and Sam Mason.

The original Trace was instrumental in binding together what was then known as the Old Southwest. With the growth of settlements near the route like Columbia and river ports to the west like Memphis the number of travelers dropped off from the 1820s on until steamboats reduced the Trace to local traffic in the 1830s.

As stated above the Natchez Trace Parkway contains parts of the original Trace and you can stop your car and walk the original Trace where President Jackson, Merriweather Lewis and others travelled through what is now Davidson, Williamson, Hickman, Maury (that is pronounced Murray for you newcomers and Pasquo is pronounced Passco), Lewis and Wayne Counties. The Parkway has one of the most beautiful bridges in the country and that bridge crosses Highway 96 just a few miles from Highway 100. To see the real beauty of the award-winning bridge you need to approach it on Highway 96 going toward Franklin. However, you can get on the Natchez Trace Parkway at Highway 100 and ride across the bridge then get off at the Highway 96 exit and go under the bridge on Highway 96.  You might want to hurry as the bridge is undergoing some changes. I said earlier the original Trace had some mysteries and one may have involved suicide. This beautiful bridge has earned the nickname of “suicide bridge”. It seems that about forty people have chosen to make their last fling or their last trip right over the bridge. It is a long drop, but I hope the changes to try to stop jumpers do not ruin the aesthetics. 

For some reason the state decided to name a state park it built during the depression, the Natchez Trace State Park.  I think this was done to confuse people from somewhere else. The State Park is nowhere near the original Trace and has no connection to it other than both are in Tennessee. The State Park is in west Tennessee in Henderson, Carrol, and Benton Counties.  I have relatives in West Tennessee so I will not say anything bad about them misnaming a park to confuse yankees. You might also find yourself on a street in Nashville named the Natchez Trace too?

John Whitfield - Author