Places: Bledsoe's Station, Castalian Springs, Tennessee

One of the main reasons Natives opposed White settlement on their land was the destruction of hunting range.  Both sides knew prime land when the saw it and while settlers wanted to put the land under cultivation as soon as possible, the Natives knew they had to protect an area where game was known to be plentiful.  Such was the dilemma of the land on which Isaac Bledsoe (1735-1793) built his fortified home in the 1780's.

Bledsoe was a longhunter, a colleague of Daniel Boone.  Like Boone, he saw the potential for development in the Cumberland River Valley and decided to capitalize on the growing number of settlers in the region.  Unfortunately, the land he claimed as his own belonged to someone else, the Chickamauga Cherokee, who weren't going to let it go without a fight.  Bledsoe chose a sight between two creeks that would come to bear is family name.  His brothers were also early pioneers to the area.  Bledsoe Lick Creek was especially important, as it was near a salt lick, where animals would come to get water and lick the rocks seeking mineral intake.  Native hunters had known about this area for centuries and there are mounds in the area, suggesting how long they had used this hunting range.  Because of the site's proximity to the Cumberland River, Bledsoe's home became a popular stopping off point for settlers traveling into the area.  They could tap his knowledge of the surrounding conditions, get water, allow any livestock or burden animals to graze, and trade.  Soon, Isaac Bledsoe was prosperous enough to fortify the area around his home, making it a potential gathering point in the event of an attack. 

He would not have long to wait, on October 1, 1792, a combine war party of Chickamauga Cherokee and Shawnee including Cheeseekau (Chiksika), the older brother of Tecumseh, swept down on Bledsoe's Station during the day, when most of the men would be outside tending the fields and watching over grazing animals.  A sharp skirmish ensued, during which Cheeseekau was mortally wounded and Isaac Bledsoe received a gunshot wound in the thigh.  The men were able to regroup in the stockade and drive off the attackers with loss to both sides, but the Natives were not about to give up.  Another fortification nearby, Ziegler's Fort was overrun and Morgan's Station was burned to the ground.  Several Bledsoe relatives lost their lives, including two of Isaac's nephews would be killed in an ambush near what is now Hendersonville.  Bledsoe himself would be killed in 1793, caught while outside the fort tending to his fields.  Not until the Treaty of Tellico Blockhouse in 1974 would hostilities end, for the time being.

Bledsoe's Fort itself has long since fallen down and the timber either burned or repurposed over the years.  Archaeological digs have uncovered the outline of the Fort, which is now a state park.  Several other buildings from the area also occupy the site, giving an idea f what frontier life in those times would have been like.  An artist's rendering of Bledsoe's Station, based on the archaeological evidence, is below.