Son of The Old Beloved Path

From Old Echota, Overhill City of Refuge, to Bobby Johns Bearheart

Peace Chief of the Perdido Bay Tribe, Southeastern Lower Muscogee Creeks

A Three-century Lineage Study

Ancient Itsati, later, Echota, or Chota, once located along the Tellico River in East Tennessee is commonly known now as an Overhill Cherokee Town, but its history is far richer than this alone can tell. Chota, as well as other ancient Muscogean or Yuchi towns in Tennessee, was resettled by refugee Algonquin People and adopted whites from Virginia with a lineage reaching as far back as Jamestown and Chief Powhatan. Chota was a white town, a place of refuge for anyone who came in peace. And thus, the people of Chota and the Overhill Cherokee were a blending of many Nations. We begin with Chief Old Corn Tassel Carpenter, a direct descendant of these refugees from Virginia.

Old Corn Tassel Carpenter     Peace Chief of the Overhill Cherokee   (Bobby Johns’ Sixth Great Grandfather)

"Many proposals have been made to us to adopt your laws, your religion, your manners and your customs. We would be better pleased with beholding the good effects of these doctrines in your own practices, than with hearing you talk about them."  ~ Old Tassel

• Born 1708 Chota, TN
• Died 1788 Murdered at Chota, TN
• Son of Moytoy III, Savannah Tom Carpenter -1680, Killed 1710 & Nancy Rainmaker -1683-1746.
• Stepson of his uncle White Owl Raven b.1678, Wolf Clan,
• 5/16^th Chalakatha-Shawano-Chalaka-Powhatan-Cherokee-Metis
• 1761 -1783 Principal Chief & Counselor under Oconastota
• 1783 -1788 Leading counselor under Kittagisha - First Beloved Man of the Overhill. A strong advocate of peace, he strove to keep the people of the Overhill region out of the Chickamauga wars.
• 1775 Treaty of Sycamore Shoals

• 1785 Treaty of Hopewell – South Carolina
• 1786 Talks with Governor Edward Telfair of Georgia asking that he stop John Sevier and his “bad men” from raiding Cherokee towns.
• 1787 Treaty of Philadelphia - visited Philadelphia & met Benjamin Franklin
• 1788 Murdered by John Kirk & John Sevier’s troops while under a flag of truce along with his second wife, younger sister of Chigilili Maw, his wife’s father, Old Abram, his sons, Double Tassel and Young Corn Tassel, and Capt. Will Emory.  (See Massacre ot Chota)

MASSACRE AT CHOTA

By Larry Petrisky, Emory Family Researcher

Words, to the Cherokee, meant something. To Revolutionary War vets from the north, who were promised land in Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Alabama, the 1785 treaty meant nothing. They moved in large numbers up to and over the treaty borders.  There was trouble between the Cherokee and the settlers. Among those who moved onto tribal territory was the Kirk family.  They were killed in 1788 [by a gang of Cherokee youth led by the son of Capt. Will Emory]. Settlers wanted all Cherokee killed or removed.  Another round of war – one which the Cherokee would lose – was about to break out. 

A regiment of militia came to advise Old Abraham – surprising him in his lodge [at Chilhowee] – that an emergency peace talk had to be arranged. Abraham agreed and sent runners to bring Old Tassel. Gathered under a flag of truce at the town of Chota were Old Abraham, Old Corn Tassel, Fool Warrior, Long Fellow, and a son of Tassel.  The militia surrounded and bound the headmen, telling them they were taking them to the Great Tellico Blockhouse until Colonel John Sevier and Colonel Joseph Martin could be summoned.  The headmen had no love for Sevier but they knew Martin to be a fair man, even though they fought him in battle, he was a friend in peace. [86]

But when the men were bound and held at gunpoint John Kirk, the grown son of the massacred Kirks, stepped forward with a Cherokee tomahawk. He laid into one or two of the Cherokee (the story says all) but was soon joined by eager troops who brutalized the bodies as they beat and stabbed them to death. These men were under the command of Sevier, who was not there, and ultimately under the command of Colonel Joseph Martin.  Sevier made no effort to bring justice to the perpetrators of this outrage, and Martin resigned as Indian Agent, unable to sanction this brutality. [87]   

This is the standard version of the story, but there are two things that deserve to be included: (1) the Kirk family represented dozens of families that violated the treaty by settling on Cherokee land and the treaty allowed the Cherokee to “punish” them which, in those days, could only mean attack and destroy.  George Washington had asked Congress for action on these illegal settlers [89]; (2) the Cherokee young man who precipitated the attack was known as “Slim Tom”, another translation for “Long Tom”, a son of Will Emory. [90] In other words, if the son of Will Emory took the blood of the Kirk family, it would be understandable to the Cherokee that the son of the Kirks took the blood of the father of Slim Tom (Long Will) and his “family” (Old Abraham, Old Tassel, Old Tassel’s wife and sons). The right of blood revenge was satisfied, there was no retaliation for the murders of the headmen at Chota.

Another account states that when learning of Old Tassel’s murder, his brother, Doublehead went on the rampage, attacking white settlers throughout the Cumberland Mountains of Tennessee. This six year warpath from 1788 to 1794 is well chronicled.

A True Copy, RANDOLPH ADAMS, http://docsouth.unc.edu/csr/index.html/document/csr22-0355

  Elizabeth Eu-chi-oote Tassel Carpenter    (Bobby Johns’ Fifth Great Grandmother)

• Born 1744 Great Tellico, TN
• Died 1765 in Childbirth
• Daughter of Old Corn Tassel Carpenter 1708 – 1788 and Chigilili Maw Carpenter 1715 -?
• 5/8^th +Chalakatha-Kishpoko-Shawano-Chalaka-Chickahominy-Cherokee-Metis,
• Married about 1760 to Arthur Archibald Coody Sr.

 Arthur Archibald Coody Sr.    (Bobby Johns’ Fifth Great Grandfather)

• Born: 1735 St. Mary’s, Maryland
• Died: 1782 Horns Creek, Edgefield, SC
• Adopted white-born
• Married about 1760 Eu-chi-oote Elizabeth Tassel Carpenter 1744-1763
• Children: Arthur Archibald Coody Jr. 1760-1809, Nancy Coody  b.1761, Joseph Coody b.1764
• 1760 – 1764 Served with the 42nd Foot Rangers, 2nd Regiment, Georgia Militia under the command of General James Edward Oglethorpe. He fought in the French and Indian War.

 Arthur Archibald “Archie” Coody Jr.    (Bobby Johns’ Fourth Great Grandfather)

• Born 1760 Chickamauga, TN
• Died 1809 Lookout Mountain, TN
• 5/16^th Chalakatha-Shawano-Chalaka-Powhatan-Cherokee-Metis
• Son of Arthur Archibald Coody Sr. and Elizabeth Euchioote Tassel Carpenter
• Married:  1780 to Milcah “Milky” Riley 1/4^th Pekowi-Metis 1751-1817, daughter of Samuel Riley (about 1720-1792) and Eleanor “Nelly” Wallace 1724-1758 Prince George’s, Maryland.
• Children: Arthur Archibald Coody Jr. and Milcah Riley had twelve children, among them, Archibald Benjamin Coody 1782-1865
• Archie was literate; he wrote many letters to the governor of TN regarding hostile Indian movements.
• A Chickamauga scout & interpreter with the U.S. Army in the Revolution
• Council Coyatee 1792, Buchanan Station 1792
• Owned & operated an inn on the Obed River in TN
• Prevented a Cherokee attack on the John Donaldson flotilla headed for Nashville in the spring of 1780.
• 1785 He served as interpreter at the Treaty of Hopewell (With Old Corn Tassel)
• 1792 Captured Captain Samuel Handley who was in a loosing battle with the Cherokee and escorted him back to the white settlements. Handley was later released.
• 1792 Rescued his sister, Nancy Coody, from prison in Pensacola where she had been held for ten (10) years. She had been captured and sent there in 1782 by Captain Samuel Handley.
• 1794 Interpreter at the treaty made at Philadelphia.
• 1805 All of his children were baptized as Christian in the Cherokee Nation

Nancy Coody   (Sister of Archibald Coody Jr & Bobby Johns’ Fourth Great Aunt)

Born 1761 Married ~1780 to British Sergeant, Patrick Clements.  About 1782 the couple was living in a village on the Coosa River in the Cherokee Nation. Colonel John Sevier with some 250 troops, on a seek-and-destroy campaign burning Cherokee towns, discovered them. Patrick Clements was killed as he ran from his house. Nancy was captured by Captain Samuel Hadley and sent to Pensacola, FL where she was held for ten (10) years until her brother found her and secured her release. 

      Archibald Benjamin Coody    (Bobby Johns’ Third Great Grandfather)

• Born 1782 Lookout Mountain, TN
• 5/16^th Chalakatha-Shawano-Chalaka-Powhatan-Cherokee-Metis
• Married 1823 to Elizabeth Wallace
• 1834 Received a land grant in Burke Co. GA
• 1860 Moved to Pulaski Co., GA
• Farmer
• Seven children, among them, Edward W. Coody 1836-1862
• Died 1865 Pulaski Co., GA

     Edward W. Coody   (Bobby Johns’ Second Great Grandfather)

• Born 1836 Jefferson Co., GA
• Married 1860 to a woman known only as Sarah ~1840 - 1866
• Edward and Sarah had two daughters – Sarah Ann b. 1861 and Pheriba Ann b. 1862
• 1862 April 28, Enlisted in the Confederate Army, Camp Golgotha near Griffin GA.
• 1862 Sept 9, Killed in action, leaving a 22 year-old widow with two babies.
• 1866 Sarah died in childbirth with a third daughter, leaving all three orphans.

    Pheriba Ann Coody   (Bobby Johns’ Great Grandmother)

• Born March 1862 Pulaski Co., GA
• Orphaned at age 4, Pheriba and her sisters were raised in the home of Samuel and Sarah Connelly Boutwell.
• Married 1878 to Enoch Homer Johns, Sr. 1850-1921
• Enoch and Pheriba had nine children. Among them, Elias Edward “Eddie” Johns b.1884

   Elias Edward “Eddie” Johns    (Bobby Johns’ Grandfather)

• Born 15 July 1884 Dodge Co., GA
• Farmer – Turpentine Industry
• Married ~1906 to Mattie Martha Davis
• Eddie and Mattie had 8 children, the second being, Earnest F Johns b.1909
• Died Telfair Co., GA

   Earnest F. Johns   (Bobby Johns’ Father)

• Born 1909 Dodge, Co., GA
• Died 1957
• Worked Turpentine Industry in south Georgia
• Married 1928 to Janie Lee Evans Creek Indian Heritage
• Earnest and Janie had four children, among them, Bobby Thomas b. 1936

 Bobby Thomas Johns    Creek, Shawnee, Cherokee, Metis

• Born 24 Mar 1936 Gum Swamp on the Ocmulgee River, Dodge Co. GA
• Mentored in Creek culture and arts by his maternal Creek Indian uncle, Alton Evans
• Resolved early in life to honor his Southeastern Indian heritage
• 1955-1959 US Navy
• Began doing school programs on Creek heritage in his children’s schools
• Continued the traditional Indian arts and crafts skills taught as a child
• Moved to Pensacola FL 1979, became involved in local Indian concerns
• Founder and Chief of Perdido Bay Tribe in 1990
• Member of the Florida Governor’s Creek Indian Council
• Active in numerous civic and cultural organizations throughout his adult life

Perdido Bay Tribe of Southeastern Lower Muscogee Creek Indians, an organization of like-minded and committed descendants of Southeastern Indian heritage. The goal of PBT is to honor and apply the rich values passed down to us by our ancestors, to foster unity and cooperation among Native peoples, and to promote peace, understanding and acceptance by working to educate all people within the larger community.

Many are the human lessons to be found in this and every lineage study

The circles of life and the interconnectedness of the human family are never ending

 With special thanks to Don Greene, Spirit Wolf, Shawnee Genealogist, Richard Thornton, Mountain Lion, Southeastern Native American history researcher & writer, and David Hackett Woktela, Yuchi Ethnohistorian, for their kind assistance with this project.

Edna Dixon and Sherry Bloodsworth, Evans-Johns Family Researchers

 E P Dixon,  PBT Historian 8-2011